Katie studied relentlessly for her second term exams and she passed them all at the first session, even topping the class in two subjects, Health And Safety On Board and Emergency Landing. Tariq missed one as his mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and he visited her for an extended week-end.

The following week, as Katie helped him revise in the school library, they heard shouts coming from outside.

“What the hell is going on?” Katie asked.

“You got me.”

“What does it say on the banner?”

“I can’t read from here, it’s too far.”

“Yes, the sun is in my face, I can’t see a thing.”

“That’s so intense, let’s go see.”

“Should we?”

“Yes, but let’s be safe. Let’s pop out through the fire exit so they don’t see where we’re coming from.”

“Good idea,” Katie said.

Katie and Tariq slid out of the building through the back door, jumped the fence into the adjacent car park, zigzagged through the vehicles and turned left onto the main road. A bunch of protesters blocked a car from entering the school gate. One of them broke away from the group and approached them, handing out a flyer to Katie.

“Are you concerned about the future?”

“Yes,” Katie said.

“Then help us close down this school.”

“Why do you want to close it down?”

“We don’t need more pilots, they’re destroying the earth, destroying us all.”

“What about people who need to take planes to go and see their family?” Tariq asked.

“There are alternatives.”

Behind them, a scuffled started and the three of them spun around. Mrs Marylace had appeared inside the gate and gave a statement to the few local news reporters who had gathered among the protesters. A man in a dark suit took notes next to her.

A few minutes later, two police vans arrived and dispersed the demonstrators, who left in peace. By noon, all abandoned flyers and banners had been picked up off the ground and thrown away by the cleaners.

***

In the afternoon, Katie read the flyer the man had given her. It quoted staggering numbers about the effects of air travel on the environment and insulted pilots and all staff involved in the industry. Katie threw it in the bin.

She boarded the train back to London with Tariq.

“That was scary today, I hope it won’t happen again,” Tariq said.

“Yes, that was offensive.”

“How dare they tell us what to do?” Tariq raised his voice and the man opposite them coughed. “We got lucky that guy had no idea we were from the school, I so could have kicked him.”

Katie laughed. “If he wasn’t much bigger than you.”

“Well, yes. But that doesn’t give him the right to tell us we are murderers.”

“I know. Their flyer is so bad. I mean, surely, it’s against the law to incite violence like that?”

“You’d hope so.”

They discussed Tariq’s mother condition and Katie tried to comfort him. At Waterloo station, they wished each other a good week-end and Katie grabbed a copy of Metro for the journey to Whitechapel. She scanned the paper for interesting articles and focused on a piece about new research for bionic arms. For a few seconds, she imagined how she would feel if she lost a limb, then she turned the page. “Green protesters target the future pilots”. There it was, with a picture of Mrs Marylace. She read the three paragraphs. The journalist portrayed the protesters in a mixed light. On the subject of the damage caused by air travel, he agreed with them, but he criticised them for the heavy manner in which they had targeted Airdrive School and the students.

***

Matt retrieved the ladder from the garden shed and carried it upstairs. He stood on the first step, pushed the hatch up and sideways then climbed into the loft. He couldn’t fully stand without knocking his head into the rafters.

“There’s no light in here, Mum.”

“There should be. On the right hand side, there’s a switch.”

Matt touched a few objects next to him.

“I can’t find- Oh what the hell is that?”

He moved backward and bumped into a pile of books, which tumbled down, and he swore.

“What? What’s up darling?”

“I think there’s a dead rat, Mum.”

“A dead rat? We need to get rid of it.”

“Well, yes, I know. Maybe it’s a dead pigeon. Can you go fetch me a few black plastic bags, a pair of gloves, two old spatulas you can spare and the hand wipes from the bathroom?”

He sat on one of the boxes, fixing the heap of small bones and flesh. Definitively a rat. Not a mouse. Not a pigeon. But a rat. Yes, a rat. He could now distinguish a few more shapes in the room. A box protruded from the wall, right behind the dead animal. The light switch. He inched his way forward and leant towards it but his fingers flapped in the air a couple of inches away from the switch. He looked down at the floor. The rat was most definitively dead and there was a clear path next to it. He lifted his left leg up and above the rat and landed in the empty space. He switched on the light. The clear path turned out to be covered with blood.

“You found the light darling, that’s great.”

“Yes. Can you pass me the wipes first? Put them on the ladder, as high as you can.”

“Sure.”

He unlaced his trainers, retraced his steps in his socks, sat on one edge of the loft opening, held onto the opposite one with his left hand, bent forward and picked up the wipes with his right hand, which hadn’t touched the rat. After thoroughly cleaning his left hand, the edge and the two books he had touched with it, he asked his mother to pass him the other items. He cleared the heap of bones and flesh in a few minutes, taking great care not to touch anything else with the two spatulas. Once he finished, he threw the spatulas inside the rubbish bag, which he put inside two other bags and passed down to his mother to dispose of. He also requested an old kitchen tea towel and bleach, which he used to clean the blood off the floor and his shoes.

After inspecting the rest of the loft for traces of blood and other animals, dead or alive, he identified those boxes with contained books, videos and toys and carried them down to the living room, where Jim had collected charity bags.

“Thanks Matt for getting up there. My feet aren’t steady anymore, I was afraid of doing it myself,” Jim said.

“Be glad you didn’t. There was a dead rat.”

“Yes, your mother said. Sorry about that.”

“It’s not your fault. After all, it was probably better for me to deal with it, I know how to be safe with that kind of thing.”

“Yes. Thanks again.”

Linda brought a tray with cups of tea and Jaffa cakes.

“Jaffa cakes, yeah!” Matt helped himself to one cake.

“Have more darling, you deserve it. I don’t know how we would have done it without you.”

“No problem, you can ask me anytime.” Matt slid back on the sofa, a warm cup in his hands and crumbs on his lap.

“But you came all the way here just for that.”

“That’s cool Mum. Besides, Charlene was on a night shift so she’s sleeping now. I needed to get out of the flat, it’s not big enough for one of us to sleep when the other is up.”

“It sounds awfully small.”

“It’s a studio flat mum.”

“I know, I know, it’s only temporary. But it would be nice if you could find a bigger place where to live together.” Linda scratched the side of her nose.

“It’s expensive and at the moment, all our pennies are going towards the wedding.”

“I understand.”

“Speaking of which, I was wondering what your contribution was going to be.”

“Well, you know we’re providing all the food for the London reception.”

“Oh yes, and I thank you very much. I just wanted to know how many bottles of champagne you were going to buy?” Matt picked another cake and dunked it in his tea. “Delicious, it’s been ages since I’ve had one of these, I love them.”

Linda didn’t move.

“We… I… We hadn’t really thought about it,” Jim said.

“Will you think about it and let me know then?” Matt smiled

***

Katie looked forward to Easter break. With all her exams out of the way, she had a clean two weeks break with no studying required. On her first day off, she called a few friends and Fiona suggested they booked a short holiday.

“We could go to the south of France and stay at Aurélie’s. We can fly there for one hundred pounds I reckon.”

Katie kicked off her slippers, laid front down on her bed and propped herself up on her elbows. “I’m not sure. I don’t want to go away for too long, I want to enjoy London you know. Go shopping, meet up with my friends.”

“Let’s go for a week-end only then. Friday night to Sunday night.”

“Isn’t it a bit of a waste to go so far for such a short period?”

“What? Moneywise? No, a weekend is fine. You deserve to go, you‘ve not been there for such a long time and you love it.”

“I didn’t quite love it last time, if you remember.” Katie lifted her legs in the air and knocked her feet together.

“I know. But you used to go there every summer, you cannot let a stupid thief spoil your holidays.”

“You’re right.”

“Ask Aurélie if we can stay at hers. I can do the next two week-ends, so whichever one she prefers.”

Katie yawned twice and rolled around on her bed. The sun, filtered by the tree outside, shone on her wardrobe and the shadowed leaves danced on the light wood. She switched on her radio on her bedside table and closed her eyes as Beautiful filled her head. At the end of the song, she opened her eyes, turned off the music, zipped up her hoodie and stood up. After checking with Gareth for permission, she settled in front of his computer, a fresh orange juice on the coaster near the printer, and emailed Aurélie.

Five minutes later, she received a reply, asking her to log into MSN Messenger so they could chat. Katie had never used this web service before but she followed the steps Aurélie had given her and after two minutes, she was typing as fast as she could to keep up with Aurélie.

“So Fiona thought we could go visit you. A week-end.”

“Fiona thought? Not you?”

“We both did but I think a week-end is a bit short.”

“Too short?”

“No point in flying so far for such a short time. It’s a waste.” Katie sneezed and rushed to the bathroom to wash her hands, using her arm to press down the door handle.

“You can use Eurostar and the TGV if you think it’s not a good thing to fly.”

“Not a good thing to fly?”

“You think it’s a waste of petrol to fly for only a week-end, I understand?”

“No, no. I think it’s a waste of money.”

“Oh.”

“Did you think I thought it was a waste of petrol? I’m a pilot! Or trying to be…”

“It’s not because you are a pilot that you should think everybody must fly all the time. You could care about the environment.”

“I do care. I recycle.”

“Yes, recycling is good. But car and air travel is a big issue.”

“I don’t have a car.”

“That’s good. I just thought you were concerned about the impact of flying, that’s all.”

“I might be. Do you know anything about this?” Katie reached for her glass but withdrew her hand as Aurélie had already replied.

“I’ve read a good book.”

“What is it?”

“Heat by George Monbiot. Easy to read, makes you think. You’re going to read it?”

“I might, I’m not sure.”

“Why not?”

“We had problems at the school. Eco protesters. They target us because they think we are evil.”

“What happened? Were they nasty?”

“It was scary more than anything. I hate them.”

“So why are you interested in book?”

“I hate them but I am scared they are right. I want to know.”

“I see. Good book, try it.”

They agreed to keep in touch about the holiday via email. Katie updated Aurélie on her course and on her flatmates’ lives and Aurélie talked about her new job and her plan to learn Japanese.

***

The next day, at one o’clock, Aurélie and her staff changed out of their cleaning uniforms. They deposited their gloves and aprons in their lockers and headed towards the canteen. Aurélie chose the chicken chasseur dish and a chocolate dessert. As she carried her tray away from the counter, someone dropped theirs behind Aurélie and the hot coffee splashed on her legs. Aurélie trembled and her plate clattered against the cup. She set the tray down on the nearest table and massaged moisturising cream into the red splotches on her skin. Luc, who worked as a waiter at the same hotel, brought her a cooling ice bag and stayed with her while she ate.

“Katie and Fiona might come to visit!”

“Are they? I thought you hadn’t heard from Katie for a long time.”

“Yes, she’s been busy but we’re still friends. She wouldn’t come otherwise.” Aurélie rubbed the cold plastic up and down her leg.

“It might be a cheap way for a holiday with her new girlfriend.”

“Girlfriend? No, Fiona is her best friend.”

“But she’s lesbian too, right? How long can two lesbians stay friends without becoming girlfriends?”

“Forever. I’ve got plenty of male friends.”

“But you might be with one of them if you weren’t with me.”

Luc crossed his arms and Aurélie looked up. “No. Anyway, they’re coming either this week-end or next week-end.”

“That’s short notice.”

“Katie didn’t know if she’d be free during her Easter break until she got the results from all her exams, she couldn’t plan this.”

“She could have at least mentioned it to you that this might happen.”

“She could have but she hasn’t. Bottom line is they’re coming so I was wondering where they could sleep.” Aurélie picked up her spoon and dug it into the cake.

“Give them your flat and you can stay with me.”

“But I’m not going to see them much if I do this. I was thinking of buying a sofa bed, I’ve always said I wanted one.” The chocolate melted on her tongue and a crumb stuck to the corner of her mouth. She wiped it off with a napkin.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re not going to spend three hundred euros just because Katie is coming, it doesn’t make sense.”

“But I’ve talked about it before.”

“And if you remember correctly, you said it wasn’t worth it.”

“True.”

“They can stay at yours, you come and stay with me, it’s only ten minutes walk from one place to another so you’ll see them. That will be easier for everybody.”

“You’re right.”

They checked the time and decided to take a stroll around the block. Past the hotel, under an arch, Aurélie kissed Luc and he fumbled with her bra.

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Chapters 33 & 34 will be published tomorrow.

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