Chasing Stars by Helen Douglas Page A

first impression of me.
    He thumped the door with what sounded like the side of his fist.
    ‘Hi,’ I said, opening the door.
    He was tall and thin, dressed in a long sleeveless shirt and loose trousers, a smudge of black eyeliner under his eyes. One arm was completely covered in tattoos, the other completely bare.
    ‘Come in,’ I said.
    ‘Nice dress,’ he said.
    I shrugged. ‘I have no idea how to dress for this century.’
    He had a satchel-shaped bag slung across his body. He took it off and pulled out a short blonde wig.
    ‘It’s my friend’s,’ he said. ‘It’ll help you get out of the hotel without being noticed.’
    He helped me bunch my hair up into a hairnet and then pulled the tight blonde wig over the top. I looked in the mirror. I was transformed. Long green dress and short blonde bob was a million miles away from long red hair and jeans.
    ‘You’ll blend in for a few minutes at least,’ he said. ‘Long enough to get past those vultures at the door. You ready?’
    I nodded, but my stomach tightened. I didn’t want to be anywhere near that crowd of reporters. Peg linked an arm through mine and steered me towards the lift. His skin against mine felt strangely intimate. And yet he made me feel safe at the same time.
    ‘Don’t even look at them when we leave the building,’ he said. ‘Just stay close to me and act like we’re a couple. They’ll be looking for a girl on her own.’
    We walked briskly, arm in arm, through the hotel lobby. As we approached the front entrance, Peg passed me a pair of sunglasses.
    ‘Wear these,’ he said quietly.
    The glasses were large and wrapped around the top half of my face like ski goggles.
    The doorman opened the door for us and we walked through, into the blinding summer sunshine. There was a flicker of interest from the journalists and photographers, but they soon turned away.
    ‘My car is round the back,’ said Peg.
    The car was a small two-seater. He leant towards the retinal scanner built into the dashboard and said, ‘Manual.’
    ‘Where are we going?’ I asked, as he pulled out into the traffic.
    ‘Out of the city. Do you like mountains?’
    ‘I don’t know. But I don’t really care where we go so long as there’re no reporters there.’
    ‘No reporters, I promise. Just a few hikers and – if we’re lucky – the odd bear.’
    ‘I don’t think I care for that kind of luck.’
    He drove quickly, frequently changing lanes to get past slower vehicles. I watched him out of the corner of my eye, curious about this strange boy who was Ryan’s friend. The tattooed arm was the one closest to me, inked in every colour imaginable from his shoulder to his wrist, like a sleeve. There was a golden phoenix rising from the ashes on his wrist, a red dragon curling round his bicep, a mermaid rising from a wave over his shoulder. Every bit of space between the mythical creatures was filled with wild waves and raging flames. His face was all chiselled, sharp angles, and I’d probably have thought he was pretty cute if my heart wasn’t already spoken for.
    We left the downtown area behind, passed giant strip malls and supermarkets the size of aeroplane hangars. The roads were wider and straighter than at home, lined with both tall, leafy trees and massive electronic billboards.
    When we approached the outskirts of the city, Peg slowed to a crawl. ‘That’s my high school,’ he said, pointing at a low white building with tinted windows. ‘It was Orion’s too.’
    I looked out of the window. The school was built from white stone; it sat amid neat green lawns and perfectly shaped maple trees. Lakeborough Space and Time Academy. A flag fluttered from the top of a pole – there were stars and stripes, but in the middle were two thick white circles: one with a red maple leaf and the other with a polar bear.
    ‘It’s not a regular school,’ explained Peg. ‘It’s for Space and Time cadets.’
    ‘So you want to work at the Institute?’
    ‘My dream