Stargirl of the Edge

Ch 20 - Do Not Disturb

And so Thursday came and at around 5.40pm, she casually told Liz she was taking Jessie for a walk on the Edge. The two walked across to the Jeep and jumped in. Ten minutes later Olivia parked the jeep in the lay-by, they got out, walked past the sign that said ‘To The Edge’ and along the footpath.

At five minutes to six both were at the meeting place. She felt apprehensive, and wondered if the magic would still work. It was like waiting for a video conference call to begin. It helped to do something to distract her attention, so she played on her phone, as before, doodling an image using the drawing app. Jessie was lying on the ground by her side, when suddenly she sat up, barked a couple of times and then made the high pitched sound at the back of her throat. She looked around, and then up towards the tree.
There was that feeling of electricity again and Olivia became aware of a presence in front of her. It was a familiar presence, dressed in a flowing white gown. She looked up to see Esther’s smiling face.
 
“Esther,” said Olivia, “I’m doing really, really well now! It’s working, It’s really working! I’m getting top grades now! I think I am going to do really well in my exams! And It’s all thanks to you!  Thank you so much!”
Esther smiled and blinked her eyes in joy, radiating goodness.
“I am very happy!” she replied, “I think that when you look at the thoughts in the bubble, it really helps you very much!”
“I have been keeping the pendant with me all the time!”
As she said these words she looked away.
 “Yes, the stone,” said Esther, nodding and gazing into her eyes.
“Yes, that’s right, malachite!” said Olivia.
“And Olivia, you understand how the stone will help you?”
“Yes, I think I do.”
“It is like a lens, a glass to help you to read. It helps to channel the…”
She looked up for a moment, not knowing the right word to pick. And then she found the word:
"Qi"
Olivia repeated it.
"Qi"
“Yes, it is the power that is inside you, inside your mind and your body.”
Olivia smiled.
“Yes, It’s amazing,” she said, “I can feel it inside my head. I never felt like that before! I feel my brain, It’s as if It’s… I don’t know how to explain it:  athletic! Like a runner, or a swimmer.”
They paused in silence for a few moments. It was the knowing silence between good friends. Jessie sat contentedly with her mouth open and tongue showing, a sunny expression on her face. She could sense Olivia’s feelings of happiness
“Oh, Esther, I got you the apple! Look!” She reached into her bag and held it up in front of her “An apple for the teacher! That’s what we say! It’s a present, for helping me!”
Esther looked with great curiosity at the large, hard green apple. It looked more like a vegetable than a fruit. Olivia handed it to her. She held it for a few seconds, then let it go. Just like an object in space, it floated in the air, turning slowly like a planet. She turned it around and made it spin like a children’s toy, then took hold of again, and let it fall to the ground.
“That’s it,” said Olivia,  “That’s it! You’ve just done it!”
“What have I done?” said Esther, puzzled
“That’s Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity. He was sitting under the tree, and then the apple fell down and he understood gravity.”
“What is his name?”
“Isaac Newton!”
She tried to say the sound of his name but found it difficult. “Isaac Newton? Is he a friend of yours?”
“What?! Of course not! He was an inventor, a scientist! Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of Isaac Newton?”
Esther thought for a moment and shook her head.
“You mean to tell me you’ve travelled into the distant past and into the far future looking for knowledge and you’ve never heard of Isaac Newton?” exclaimed Olivia, “He’s been very famous for over 300 years! He lived in the 1600s!”
“Oh, very, very sorry, I think we made a detour around the 1600s!”
They both laughed
“Please, Olivia tell me about the apple!”
Olivia started to explain Newton’s theory of gravitation, using the apple and the feather. She thought it would be better to demonstrate it, but she didn’t have a feather. She started to look on the ground but Esther held up a feather to her.
“Oh, thank you,” said Olivia. It was a very light, fluffy feather, actually it was ideal for the experiment.
“What sort of feather is this?” asked Olivia. She was surprised at the answer
“It is a dog feather!” Esther replied.
“What? A dog feather? A dog? Woof, woof?”
Jessie looked up, as if she thought they were talking about her. Esther burst out laughing.
“No! Not a dog, a dog!” said Esther, and she made a ‘quack, quack’ sound and moved her arms in and out.
“Oh! A duck! I thought you said dog!”
“Oh, very sorry!”
“It’s a duck feather. Duck! Say it, Esther, duck! Duck!”
“Dog! Dog, dog. Dog!” said Esther.  No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t pronounce the word correctly.
“Oh, never mind! Look, Newton took the apple and the feather and dropped them. He saw that the apple falls quickly and the feather falls slowly but that’s because of the air resistance.”
Esther nodded, wondering in what direction the experiment was going to go now.
“Esther, can you make a vacuum?”
“Vacuum?”
“When there is no air.”
“Oh, I understand now... Zhen kong.”
“Yes,” said Olivia, repeating the word in Chinese.
 “A vacuum. Let me see…”
Esther waved her arms.  Slowly a bubble appeared and became larger. It grew to the size of a beach ball, and bigger until it was as tall as her. It was sitting on the ground, the twigs pushing up into its thin, transparent elastic skin. Olivia was afraid it would burst, but it didn’t.
“Now I will make the vacuum.”
There was the sound of air being sucked. The bubble held its shape and remained intact. 
Olivia stood up, reached over and dropped the apple and the feather into the bubble at the top. It was as if they were looking into a snow globe.
The apple and the feather floated weightless at the top of the bubble.
“And then,” Olivia continued, when they fall in a vacuum,” they both looked into the bubble, “they hit the ground at the same time,” and as she said these words, the apple and the feather suddenly fell and hit the floor of the bubble simultaneously.
Esther nodded as if she were taking in some new and difficult concept. Olivia had the curious feeling that she knew about Newton’s apple already, but was pretending not to know.
“That’s very good Olivia, very good! I think I learn a lot from you! You are a very good teacher”
Olivia smiled.
“Can you show me again please?” Esther asked.
Olivia moved the apple and the feather back to the top, and caused them to fall once more. Esther nodded and smiled.
“Olivia, how is your family?”
“Oh, my mum is fine, but my dad is away again.”
“Where is he?”
“He’s working in China.”
“It is easy for him to go there?”
“Yes, he flies on a plane.”
“What is he doing there?”
“Oh, he’s working on a project, I don’t know, infrastructure, he said.”
Esther nodded. There was silence. And then she spoke.
“Livvy, there is something I really miss from home. I would love to hear a wind chime again. We had one on the junk but we lost it. I would so much love to hear a wind chime again.”
“It’s okay, I’ll get you one. I think there’s one in a drawer at home.”
“OK, thank you. Now would you like to view some more thoughts in the bubble?”
“Yes, please! Are these the thoughts of Zhu Gwang Ming?”
“Yes, they are.”
“Oh, I’d so much like to meet him. He must be a great teacher. Can’t you ask him to come out and meet me as well?”
“Oh, no,” said Esther, shaking her head, “he is far too busy to come out. He is always working, writing, studying, and he loves reading books so much, and writing.”
Jessie continued to sit quietly next to Olivia, occasionally looking up at her and at Esther, and then in all directions to check there was no one around.
The bubble floated up, leaving the apple and the feather on the ground, and soon the images appeared, one after another, very fast as before. Many of the images were the same as the ones she had seen previously. Then they had seemed confusing. But now she was able to make sense of them, and it was amazing how each thought, each image had branches, connections, that linked it to other images, forming a vast network. Now Olivia was starting to become aware of it, the connections in her mind were starting to become synonymous with the connections in the universe. It was as if her mind was becoming a kind if mini-universe.
Esther watched like a thoughtful and caring mentor, happy with her student. And then she interrupted Olivia
“Oh, sorry Livvy, I forgot! Please, can you do me another favour?”
Livvy came out of her reverie. The images continued to flash, reflecting in her eyes as she looked up at Esther.
“Yes, of course!”
“You have reminded me. I would so much like to read a book. All our books were lost overboard. Would you please find me a book to read? Is there a library near your home? Where they have a Chinese book?”
“Yes, there are Chinese books in the library, at the Chinese centre, and at other libraries. In the city, where most of the Chinese people live.”
“Oh please! I would so much like to read a book. And there is a book I like very much. It is my favourite book. Do you think you could get it for me please?”
“What is the book? Have you got the name? Who is the author? The, you know, the number?”
“The author, I am not sure. But the name, the name is…”
She thought carefully for a moment and then spoke the words in Chinese.
Olivia wanted to write it down. She could reach into her bag but it would take too long. So she used the art app on her iPhone and began to write the characters.
“Esther, can you say it again? I didn’t quite catch the name.”
“Here, look.”
Esther put the images on hold for a second and with her mind, wrote the name in Chinese characters on an old yellow piece of parchment inside the bubble. The characters were unfamiliar to Olivia. She looked and copied them onto the iPhone as carefully as she could, using her thumb to draw the strokes.
But then Jessie suddenly jumped up and started to bark very loudly.
Off to the right, Olivia heard the growling of a dog and the sound of someone walking through the woods, cracking the twigs under foot. Barking loudly, a large, angry dog crawled under the fallen tree trunk. It was a vicious looking dog and was baring its teeth. It had short, dark fur, a solid body, thick legs and a square face.  Jessie turned and barked at her as loud as she could, baring her teeth. The vicious dog pushed against Olivia with its side, butting her hand with its cold, wet nose. She could feel the warmth of the animal’s body through the short fur on its tummy.  It looked up at Esther and started to bark aggressively. The two dogs made a chorus of barks that echoed around the woodland. Jessie stood her ground and did her best to defend Olivia.
And then Olivia heard a voice, a male voice she had heard before.
“Bob! Bob!” a young man called out, “You stupid dog! What are you doing? shush! Be quiet!”
Olivia looked round and saw a familiar face.
“Livvy!” he said, surprised, “I didn’t expect to see you here!”
It was Ben.
“Get that dog away from us!” she cried.
“Bob! Come here! Shut up!”
Ben walked forward and pulled the vicious dog back under the tree trunk and quickly attached the lead onto its collar. The dog continued to bark loudly and pull on the lead.
Olivia looked back up at Esther and saw to her dismay that she was waving and the bubble was growing faint and about to collapse. In a moment, Esther and the bubble were both gone
“What are you doing?” he said.
“Leave me alone!” Olivia shouted hysterically “Go away, you’ve ruined everything! Why did you disturb me?”
“Disturb you? What do you mean?”
“JUST GO AWAY!” Olivia shouted at the top of her voice.
Jessie echoed her sentiments in loud barks.
He looked down again and could see she had the iPhone on her lap. He assumed she must have been having a conversation with someone using the speaker. 
He stepped back.
“Sorry,” he said in a cynical tone of voice, a voice that suggested that actually he wasn’t very sorry.
“Now go away and leave us alone!” said Livvy.
He took one final look at her, pulled the dog away and walked back through the woods without looking back. The dog barked a few more times and then, finally, it shut up. “Esther! Esther! Come back!” she shouted frantically in the direction of the tree in front of her.
“Esther, you can come out again now!  Oh please, Esther.”
Jessie had calmed down and was sitting up but making no sound, no whining or friendly barks.
The frustration was unbearable. Olivia’s emotions spilled over into tears, which soon streamed down her face. “Esther! Oh please, it’s okay, you can come out now! I didn’t manage to write down the name of that book...”
But she knew her words were in vain. Sunset had already passed. The light was fading. It was time to leave the woods and go home.
And then she looked up and saw a squirrel quickly running up the side of the tree. It stopped for a moment, holding its head steady, its beady eyes staring down at her for a few seconds. She had the bizarre idea that perhaps Esther could see her, through the eyes of the squirrel, and imagined the view; a misty, distorted, out of focus, image. She stood up, and waved at the squirrel. It scampered up the tree, along a branch and out of sight.
She bent down, picked up the apple and the feather and put them in her bag.
“Come on, Jessie,” she said in a dejected tone of voice. The dog stood up and led the way back to the footpath.
She stopped for a moment to check her iPhone and make sure she had saved the partially completed Chinese characters. She had, Then she closed the app, put her phone in her pocket, continued through the bushes and on towards the footpath, where she caught up with Jessie. They walked back to the jeep, got in and quickly returned home.