Blue Moon (Book One in The Blue Crystal Trilogy) by Pat Spence Page A

alarming
regularity and I couldn’t understand what they did or why the
college allowed it.
    “No Blondie,” Tash said
pointedly.
    “No,” I agreed, “I don’t know
what’s going on there. It’s all a bit strange.”
    “Told you I thought there was
something about her that wasn’t quite right, didn’t I?” Tash
laboured the point.
    “Yes you did, but as I haven't
seen anything of her, can we just drop it? Please? It’s getting
humungously boring.”
    “Okay. Consider the subject
dropped.”
    “Did you hear that story on the
radio, this morning?” Seth called over.
    “What about the local woman
who’d aged and died?” I asked.
    “Yeah. Weird or what? How can
that be possible? She was in her early forties but apparently
looked over a hundred when she died.”
    “I reckon she’d lied about her
age,” surmised Tash. “Probably was older than she said, then she
got ill and suddenly started looking her age.”
    “My Granddad reckoned she used
too many anti-ageing products and they backfired,” I said.
    “Ha ha,” laughed Seth. “Let
that be a lesson, Tash, not to overdo it. You’re always using some
cream or other. You’ll wake up one day all wizened and shrunken,
looking like a mummy. That’s what they reckon she looked like.”
    “Oh, totes hilaire, Seth. You
are so not funny. Do you see me laughing?”
    “No, heaven forbid you might
get laughter lines,” he taunted.
    He ducked as Tash threw an
exercise book at him.
    I beamed. It was good to be
back with my friends. I felt as if life had resumed some degree of
normality, and so it had until lunchtime, when events took a very
unexpected turn. We’d had an uneventful morning. English Lit and
Business Studies had gone past in a blur, and I felt slightly
disembodied, the after-effects of the virus still with me. Violet
did not appear and I allowed myself to relax a little.
    At lunchtime, I sat with Tash
in the cafeteria, enjoying a pepperoni pizza and salad, both of us
looking forward to Double Art in the afternoon and chatting about
our Abstract Art project for the summer term.
    “I was thinking about using
light and dark and shadow,” I said.
    “I thought I might do something
with broken glass and newspaper,” said Tash, “you know, experiment
with different textures. Oh no…” She broke off suddenly and focused
on the opposite side of the café. “ It’s the terrible twins.”
    “What d’you mean?” I asked,
turning round and following her gaze.
    There, standing against the
opposite wall, the sunshine framing them in a glow of bright light,
stood Theo and Violet. My stomach lurched and my heart flipped. I
felt the blood rush to my face and was conscious of going bright
red. I turned back rapidly.
    “What’s with you?” asked Tash,
incredulously, staring at me. “You’re as red as a tomato.”
    “Nothing. Nothing,” I muttered,
looking down, desperately trying to calm down and stop
blushing.
    “Yeah, it looks like nothing,”
said Tash sarcastically. “OMG, they’re coming over. Don’t
look.”
    It was too late, I’d already
turned, and, like an idiot, I felt my hand rise up waving at them,
as if someone was pulling my arm like a puppet on a string. Never
had I felt more gauche and awkward, and totally not up to the
situation.
    “Hi, mind if we sit with you?”
asked Violet, her crystal voice friendly and reassuring.
    “No, not at all,” I said, in
total shock.
    “Hi,” said Theo, his beautiful
smile lighting up his face, his eyes blue and dancing.
    “I’m Theo,” he said to Tash,
going to shake her hand, “pleased to meet you.”
    “Likewise,” said Tash, allowing
her hand to be shaken, and gazing into his eyes.
    I felt a stab of jealousy and
watched for any sign of static electricity between them. Was he
flirting with Tash? He couldn’t be. It was me he was interested in.
Tash appeared to be spell bound, overcome with the iridescent
beauty before her.
    “Do you have a name?” asked
Theo.
    “She’s called