Counting Stars by David Almond Page A

pulsates with life. Nothing can hurt you so long as your thoughts are pure.
    Dad was with me in the living room as I read this. He smiled at the three eyes and the snowy mountains on the cover. He told me as he so often did about Burma, the wet heat and stench of the jungle, the awful fear of the Japanese.
    “I saw the Himalayas once,” he said. “Went with a mate on leave. Traveled north for days. Came one night to a station in the middle of nowhere. We sat on the platform, waiting. Lots of Indians beside us with blankets pulled over their heads. Over the line there was a fire burning and they were playing flutes and a girl was dancing. I kept thinking of your mother, of Felling, getting home again. Kept nodding off, dreaming of being here, certain I was here, then jerking awake again. The sun came up and straightaway it was blazing hot and glaring and the fields were shimmering and the line was shining bright. There they were, the Himalayas, out past everything. Icy white and still and beautiful. They just drew your eyes to them and held them. Then the train came and chaos started and we were heading back again.”
    He smoked and coughed and smiled again.
    “Always said I’d go back there. Tibet, maybe. Nepal . . . Maybe you will, though.”
    I went on reading.
    If you imagine it strongly enough you can do it.
    “Aye. You know there’s more than this. Maybe you will.”
    I couldn’t do it. Too much disturbance. Not enough purity. Not enough imagination. Night after night I tried. Often I felt the minute rise and fall. I was on the point of breaking free. I imagined looking down upon Felling, lights arranged in rows along the streets, dark patches of parks and gardens, the river’s gleam, all of Tyneside glittering in the night. I imagined traveling to Tibet itself, to the snowy peaks, the eagles, the palaces, the fluttering prayer flags. I imagined the shining cord stretching back to the bony body on the bed. But each night I lay surrounded only by the known and the familiar: the small house, the darkness, Dad’s snoring, one of my sisters murmuring in her sleep.
    And on Good Friday Theresa disturbed my imaginings: her dark hair and eyes, her sweetness and her breath, and my anticipation of tomorrow.
    Mick and I stood beneath the trees. We breathed smoke through the mist toward the lights.
    “Tell me about the Fathers,” I said.
    “Why’s it always that you want to know?”
    “Were there things you can’t talk about?”
    “Things?”
    “Secrets. Things they taught you. Things they showed you.”
    “We did Latin all the time. They told us about Africa and malaria. They went on and on about Hell. They showed us how to lie in bed in an attitude of prayer. We had to contemplate our end and rise above the flesh.”
    “And did you?”
    “All we talked about was girls. All we imagined was girls.”
    He had the wildness in his eyes that had come back from the Fathers with him.
    “They asked about our dreams. They searched our lockers, read our letters. They were evil, man.”
    The girls didn’t come. We scanned the houses, looked for the Sacred Heart medallions in the doorlights that showed where Catholics were. We cursed and blasphemed. Then there was a door ajar, a crack of light inside the frame, music playing. We stepped through the gate.
    Mick gripped my arm.
    “You have the pretty one,” he said. “I saw the way she looked at you. I’ll have the other. Right?”
    I peered through the doorlight, past the medallion’s silhouette. From inside came the singing of Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
    “Must be them,” he said. He rapped on the door.
    Hurrying feet and laughter, then Maria, peering out.
    “What you doing?” she asked.
    “You said you’d come.”
    “How d’you know we wouldn’t?”
    “We waited.”
    “And we’re not worth waiting for?”
    “Let’s come in.”
    Theresa came, stood in the hall.
    “They want to come in,” laughed Maria.
    She sniggered, then let us through. I saw