Page 6 of See the Stars

‘You need to carry the one.’

Alice blinked at the numbers. Matt was standing behind her in the kitchen, while Eddy raided the fridge. Although her brother had used the money he was earning as an apprentice to leave home as soon as he could afford to, he was frequently back to steal food and deposit laundry.

‘I didn’t know you were in town,’ said Alice, turning to Matt with a smile.

He grinned at her. ‘I’m just visiting. Complete with a first-class engineering degree and military training.’ He looked different, more grown up.

And she hated to admit it, but quite a lot more handsome.

‘Don’t get him started,’ said her brother, his head still in the fridge. ‘Cheese or ham?’

‘Both, please,’ said Matt. ‘I need my strength. I’m going to hit the gym again later.’ He did a little arm flex and Alice felt herself colouring. She quickly looked back at her book. Annoyingly, he was right about the one.

‘Thanks,’ she said, embarrassed at the silly mistake.

‘I always forget to carry the one when I’m tired,’ he said. ‘Even though I have a first-class degree.’

‘Really?’ quipped her brother. ‘First-class? You never said.’

Matt chucked a rubber at him, which her brother ducked to avoid. ‘Maybe take a break with us?’ Matt said to Alice. ‘Refuel your brain?’

‘I’ll make you a sandwich?’ suggested Eddy, a rare offer from her brother.

‘Cheese and pickle, please,’ said Alice.

Matt sat down in the chair next to her and she felt his leg brush her own. ‘Sorry,’ he said, shifting his chair further away.

‘No worries,’ said Alice.

He leaned in and looked at the book. ‘Complicated stuff,’ he said.

‘I’m starting my astrophysics degree at Edinburgh next month,’ said Alice, looking at the muscles flexing in his neck. ‘I want to be ready.’

‘No more overachieving chat, you two,’ said her brother. ‘Eat your sandwiches.’ He pushed two crooked sandwiches in their direction. Matt inhaled his before Alice even had a chance to complain about the lumpy butter and abundance of pickle.

‘Where’s your grandpa?’ asked Matt, using his finger to pick up a final crumb and licking it off.

‘Napping,’ replied Alice.

‘I’d love to see that telescope of his. I’ve done a module on optics.’

‘He’ll be asleep for hours,’ said Eddy. ‘It’s pretty much all he does these days.’

‘But I can show you,’ said Alice, quickly. ‘I’d be happy to.’

‘OK,’ said Matt. ‘Thanks.’

Alice put down her sandwich. ‘Come on. Let’s go now.’ She looked at Eddy. ‘Want to come?’ she asked, reluctantly.

‘I’ve found some of mum’s leftover roast chicken,’ said Eddy, triumphantly pulling a Tupperware from the fridge. ‘I may be some time.’

‘We won’t be able to see much,’ said Alice, looking up disapprovingly at the cloudy sky as they walked to the shed.

‘That’s OK,’ said Matt. ‘It’s the telescope I want to look at really. I haven’t seen it in ages.’

‘It’s very cool,’ said Alice, then blushed. It didn’t meet the definition of cool that most people would have. But then Matt had always been a little different. She fumbled with the keys in the lock, then dropped them altogether, as though her fingers were sabotaging her.

Matt bent down and picked them up, then easily slipped them into the padlock. He pushed the door open, standing chivalrously to one side so that Alice could enter first. ‘Thanks,’ she said, the word feeling awkward in her mouth.

She fussed around, pulling the cover from the telescope. ‘Tea?’ she offered. ‘We might even have some biscuits somewhere.’

‘It’s a beauty,’ said Matt, his eyes transfixed by the machine in front of him. ‘I’d forgotten what a classic piece of equipment it is. Is that part original?’

Alice switched the kettle on. ‘No, we added a prism unit between the eyepiece and the tube. It means that the . . . ’

‘ . . . quality of the image will be dramatically sharper,’ said Matt.

‘Yes. And look. I’m building my own eyepiece from some old binoculars. I’ll use it when I want more large open-star clusters visible in the field.’

‘Smart.’

‘Thanks,’ said Alice. They fell into a comfortable silence, while Matt gently inspected the lenses. Alice stood behind him, trying to think of something to say.

‘It’s old tech,’ he said, putting down the lens he was holding. ‘And of course, the best telescopes have autoguiding systems these days.’ He turned to look at her. ‘But it’s still pretty impressive. I bet you can even see Jupiter’s spot with this thing now you’ve modified it.’

‘Just about,’ said Alice. She took a breath. ‘You could come back,’ she suggested. ‘On a clear night. We could look at the planets.’ She wasn’t sure why the offer suddenly felt so bold. ‘Together.’

‘It’s not really the planets I’m interested in,’ said Matt.

He looked at her and Alice looked away, down to the telescope, then back into his eyes.

They were a deep shade of blue. She opened her mouth to tell him that they reminded her of Neptune, the methane absorbing the red light of the sun and reflecting only the blue light.

Then she thought better of it.

‘Really?’ she said instead, thankful to her brain for providing a filter before the ridiculous words had left her mouth. Methane?!

‘Yes,’ said Matt. ‘There’s no need.’ He picked up the lens again and held it up to the light. ‘I’ve looked through telescopes that are much more powerful. It’s the mechanics I’m interested in. And I can’t think of a way to make it better without replacing the whole thing.’

‘Oh,’ said Alice, trying not to sound disappointed. ‘OK.’

‘Good luck at uni,’ he said, giving her hair a ruffle. ‘I don’t have a little sister of my own. So you need to do me proud.’

‘Right,’ said Alice. She fiddled with the telescope cover, feeling like an idiot.

‘See you around,’ said Matt.

‘Yes,’ she replied, watching him as he left. ‘Around.’

Alice sat in her room in the halls of residence.

She’d unpacked her belongings (which seemed to occupy far fewer boxes than her neighbours’), but the tiny room still didn’t feel like hers.

She could see Arthur’s Seat through the window, the dormant volcano dominating the skyline in this part of Edinburgh.

It was almost time to leave for her first lecture, but she found herself hesitating.

She could hear the others in her corridor laughing outside the kitchen as they burned toast and stole each other’s cheese slices and made tea.

Feeling shy still, Alice wanted to wait until they left to head out.

She’d talk to them tomorrow, she decided.

Today, she just had to make it to her lecture.

She looked up, to where she’d put up her moon light. The Sea of Tranquillity looked back, reassuring her. She could do this. She’d told her mother she’d be fine. And she would be. One step at a time.

Finally the noise started to fade as the laughter grew distant in the corridor. Alice looked at her watch. She’d have to hurry. No way was she going to be late for her first lecture.

First lecture.

She smiled.

She’d done it.

She was at university.

The lecture hall was already crowded. Alice had hoped to sneak in unnoticed at the back, but the entrance to the amphitheatre-style layout was at the front, and she was greeted by a sea of faces, tiered like a wedding cake.

Almost all were male, something she’d been warned about when she chose physics as her degree.

She’d just stared at the careers adviser, wondering why anyone would allow something like that to affect their choices these days.

There were a few girls dotted around, all in twos and deep in conversation.

Then she saw one girl on her own. She couldn’t miss her; she had a thick mop of curly purple hair sticking out from a green woolly hat. She was so pale her face almost seemed to glow, and Alice was reminded of a picture she’d seen of the moon shining through the Northern Lights.

‘Hey! Alice, isn’t it?’

She found her eyes looking for the source of the voice, which had a pleasant Scottish accent. He couldn’t mean her, could he?

‘Over here. Come join us.’ A smiling young man in a green sweatshirt was waving at her. He was sitting right in the middle of a full row, in front of the girl on her own. She’d have to barge past loads of people to reach him, and even then, she couldn’t see where she’d sit.

‘There’s no room,’ she said, as politely as she could. ‘I’ll just . . . ’

‘Move your bag, Harry,’ he said to the boy next to him. ‘Come on, there’s a space here.’

Alice took a breath and shuffled past everyone’s knees as unobtrusively as she could, apologising as she went, tripping over bags and stepping on coats. ‘I’m Callum,’ the boy announced. ‘I’ve seen you in my corridor in halls. Nice to meet you.’

‘You too,’ said Alice, grateful that she’d been absorbed into the hubbub of student chatter.

‘It’s Foxy Boxley today,’ Callum told her.

‘What?’

‘Professor Boxley,’ he explained, his voice loud to be heard over the sea of voices. ‘A second-year told me they recruited him to get the ratio up for girls in physics.’

‘That isn’t true,’ came a voice from behind them.

Alice and Callum both turned around to see the girl in the hat.

She had a vast number of silver earrings all the way around her ears and another ring adorning her nose.

She was wearing a rainbow jumper that looked as though it had been knitted by an amateur and lots of tight chunky bracelets around her wrist, which she fiddled with while she talked.

‘They recruited him for his research into the nearest star to our solar system with known planetary orbits.’

‘Gliese 581,’ said Alice, before she could help herself.

‘Yes,’ said the girl, looking surprised. ‘I’m Zelda,’ she told them.

‘I’m Callum and this is Alice,’ said Callum. ‘We’re in the same corridor.’

‘You’re in the same lecture theatre,’ said Zelda. ‘We all are. This is not a corridor.’

Callum laughed. ‘You’ve got me there,’ he said.

‘What was that?’ asked Zelda. ‘It’s so noisy in here.’

‘Maybe take off your hat if you can’t hear,’ suggested Callum.