Stargirl of the Edge

Ch 13 - The Sky At Night

This chapter pays tribute to the programme The Sky At Night and its founder Sir Patrick Moore. He died in December 2012 at the age of 89. In 2012 during in his final months, the programme was recorded at his house in Selsey, Sussex and he continued to present it himself, despite failing health. He was assisted by his team of young professors, who continue to present the programme today. 

The second week of February was cold in Cheshire. Nighttime temperatures were below freezing and there was snow on the hills. Liz made her usual visits to friends and fundraising groups as well as running the house, doing the shopping, cooking the food and feeding Jessie. 

On Saturday 11th, Liz and Olivia set off in the jeep to visit a friend in the town of Buxton. The Pennines were covered in a layer of snow that looked like icing sugar on a cake. They drove up into the hills and stopped to admire the wintery scene.  Olivia did some pencil sketches of the landscape and took some reference photos on her iPhone. 

It had been nearly three weeks since her encounter on the Edge, and despite trying her best to stay attentive in class, participate, complete homework, do revision and generally work hard there was no visible improvement. She was still scoring low in assessment tests and was having difficulty in following the work.

Olivia found the situation depressing.  Soon it would be Wednesday 22nd, the day of the New Moon, the day she and Jessie would go up onto the Edge and hopefully make contact again.  

She looked forward to telling Esther about all her problems and frustrations. Yes, she could talk to her mum, and her mum tried hard, but there were some things she couldn’t talk about. She had no close friends at school.  

As for a boyfriend, she was far behind the other girls. She was young for her years, but she felt little desire to grow up; perhaps due to her Chinese-influenced upbringing, or her personality, or both.

It’s not that she hadn’t thought of what it would be like to have a boyfriend, because she had. The problem was that all the boys she ever seemed to come into contact with were immature and superficial, they always tried to put on an act and show off. They didn’t share her interest in art, science and astronomy. All they ever wanted to do was get drunk and misbehave. Maybe one day she would meet someone, but for now, she would concentrate on preparing for her exams. 

There were only three more days before the half term holiday. That would give her a chance to relax a little and try to catch up.  

Alan returned for the lesson with Olivia two weeks later on Monday 13th after his conference in Norway. He was keen to make the most of the time with Olivia and had taken the trouble to check the subject areas students needed to cover. The lesson passed quickly. Liz was all set to have a good long chat with him but he said he needed to excuse himself as he had to be back at home for a conference call at 6.30pm.

“That’s a pity,” said Liz. “He must be very busy.”

“Oh yes, he’s always very busy.”

“So how did you get on in the lesson?”

“Fine, he went through all the subjects I needed to cover,” Olivia explained.  “I told him I was still finding it hard, but he just said I need to take it step by step, and not to feel down. He’s really nice.”

“Has he mentioned anything about a wife or children?”

“No, I think he lives alone.”

“I wonder how old he is? I must ask him when his birthday is. We must get him a card and a present.”

“I think I can find that out,” said Olivia, fetching the laptop computer. “Here, look.”

She did a search under his name and there were plenty of pages in the search results. He was listed on the University website and also on the pages of other universities where he had worked or attended events.