Stargirl of the Edge

Ch 39 - No News

Summary: In the previous chapter, Olivia was shocked when her mother told her her father had been kidnapped on his way to the airport, just before taking the flight to return home. At first she blamed herself, and then she felt compelled to go onto the Edge and ask for guidance from her mentor Esther. Unfortunately it was not the new moon and so Esther couldn't appear to her. Olivia now returns to the house.

----------------------

When they got back to the house, Liz was pacing up and down the kitchen with the mobile phone in one and and the cordless phone in the other. She had also found the time to cook, and there was plenty of hot food in the oven. She took a plateful of fried rice and placed it on the table. Olivia had worked up a bit of an appetite from the walk. She ate a few mouthfuls before pushing the plate away.
Olivia thought about that word ‘normality’. How could there be normality when her father was missing and there was a possibility they would never again see him alive. And yet life had to go on. She had to do her A level exams. She needed to revise. Her mum just kept pacing up and down by the kitchen table, on the phone to various people. There was no chance of talking to her. She went upstairs to her room and tried to concentrate on her revision, but she found it difficult. Her final lesson with Alan was the next day, Wednesday 7th June. She didn’t sleep well that night.
The next day there was a sombre mood as Alan entered the house. Liz explained what had happened. He expressed his sympathy as best he could. He found it difficult to find the words. He said he felt sure there had been a mistake and her dad would be released soon.
He went with Olivia to the downstairs study. Liz had already put the money in an envelope for him on the table.
“It’s so terrible,” Olivia said, “sometimes I think it’s just a nightmare and I’m just going to wake up from it.” Alan listened. That was one of the things she liked about him. He was quiet and was a good listener. “Oh, and I’m so sorry, Alan, I forgot to get you a birthday card, I’m really sorry.”
“Oh, it doesn’t matter, you’ve got so much on your mind.”
“Alan, have you ever been in a really, really bad situation, where there seems to be no escape?”
“Yes, Olivia I was in a bad situation. It was a very long time ago. There was no way out.”
“Is that the problem you were talking about, when you were let down?”
“Oh, no, that’s recent, nothing to do with that. But Livvy, you’ve got your exams coming up. You need to be prepared.”
“I know, and I’m afraid I won’t be able to do them. Maybe I’ll fail. Maybe I should just not do them this year. Maybe I’ll never do them.”
“Oh, Livvy don’t say that. You mustn’t waste all that study and hard work. Now, do you think that, even with the situation, you still have the knowledge in your head?”
“Yes.”
“So all you have to do is get that knowledge down onto the paper. I know your dad’s very proud of you and he will just want you to get on with your exams, won’t he?”
“Yes.”
“Just try to imagine he is sitting next to you in the exam room. What would he say?”
“I know what he’d say.”
“Well, just listen to him. And when he’s released, you can at least tell him you did your best.”
“Oh, thank you, Alan.”
“Oh, and I had a word with a friend of mine. He’s Head of Science at one of the top local schools. He told me what is most likely to come up in the Chemistry paper on Monday, based on previous papers. So shall we work our way through the list?”
“Yes, certainly!” said Olivia.
At the end of the lesson Olivia felt better. Alan had a reassuring manner, and she would definitely remember his words the following Monday, when she had her first exam. It was Chemistry.
The weekend arrived. It was four days since Dennis had been kidnapped. Despite constant phone calls from Liz to John, the London office of the organisation he had been working for, the Foreign Office and others, there was no news as to the whereabouts of Dennis or who had taken him captive.
Liz called a news organisation that Dennis’s colleague John had referred her to. He reckoned they might have some information, as they had a correspondent working there. She phoned the number and spoke to a secretary, explaining the situation. Liz was horrified to hear the words that came back at her down the line, spoken by a female voice:
“They don’t come back, you know!”
“What?” said Liz and angrily told her what she thought of that comment. It turned out that the organisation could offer no information at all. But in her head, she kept hearing those words, spoken in a high pitched female voice, with a little laugh at the same time. The voice was scornful, as if the person knew better, and was making fun of Liz for believing her husband would be released. 
In her head, Liz kept hearing the voice again and again: ‘They don’t come back, you know!’ ‘They don’t come back, you know!’ ‘They don’t come back, you know!’ She told Olivia about it. She should have kept it to herself but she had to tell someone. And then Olivia started to hear it as well. ‘They don’t come back, you know!’ They would need to do everything they could do to prove that those words were wrong.
Olivia spent a tense weekend with her mum, taking breaks only to take Jessie for a walk, either up on the Edge or down by the river Bollin.  The roses were starting to wither, so Liz bought some fresh ones from Pauline’s shop in the village. They decided that until Dad was released, three red roses would be kept in the vase and replaced when necessary.
Saturday turned to Sunday and on Sunday night, the night before the first exam, Liz came into her room with something dangling from her arm. It was green and shiny and familiar.
“Livvy, take it with you, if you think it will help.”
Olivia looked at it for a few moments, reached out for it and held it tight.
“Thanks, Mum,” she said.
The day had arrived, Monday 11th of June. Liz drove her the short distance to the school. She got out, gave her mum a kiss and made her way into school and into the exam room.
Miss Lee and a couple of other teachers were in charge of the exam. Olivia sat down at a desk on the front row. She took out her pencils, erasers, sharpeners and pens. She also placed the pendant in front of her, where she could see it.
Miss Lee and the assistants started to distribute the papers, but suddenly, Olivia felt her head going into a spin. Suddenly all the panic that she had suppressed over the past few days was about to take her over. She began to think of her father in captivity and what might be happening to him at that very moment. For the first time, she began to doubt her abilities, her confidence.
She looked up at the clock, realising she would have to spend the next three hours here. What if she couldn’t remember anything? What if she wrote all the wrong answers? What if Alan’s friend had been wrong, and the wrong questions came up, the ones she hadn’t revised for?
And then she remembered what Alan had said. Remember your dad, and remember something he told her. She picked up the pendant, squeezed it, closed her eyes and remembered the words her father had said to her “Gēnsuí nǐ de míngxīng,” in English: “Follow your star,” in other words ‘Continue on the path to your goal and don’t let anything or anyone put you off’. 
As she heard her father’s voice in her head, she felt a wave of energy rise within her. Her mind became focused, her mental powers were ready, and as the bell sounded to mark the start of the examination, she turned over the paper, glanced over all the questions, and said, under her breath: “Yesssss!”
She dived into the first question, and then the next and then the next. With each glance at the clock, the hands seemed to have jumped, the time was passing so quickly.  The questions were complex and demanding, but her knowledge was sound, she was familiar with everything and could confidently answer most, if not all of the content of the paper.  By the time she reached the final question, she felt good, and there was plenty of time to review her answers and check for errors, there were one or two.
Miss Lee had walked past a couple of times and glanced down at the paper smiling sweetly at Olivia.  At 12.30 she told everyone to put their pens down. Olivia checked the number, the signature and everything else and was satisfied she had done the best she could. She carefully placed the pendant, her pens and the other things in her pencil case and stood up.
She glanced over at Rosie and the other classmates. Rosie smiled but some of the others had less than happy expressions.
Olivia went back out to the car park, where Liz was waiting. They drove off and Olivia told her about the exam paper in positive words. Liz said was still no news regarding her dad but frantic enquiries continued.
The second Chemistry paper would be the next, on Wednesday, with Maths on Thursday.
And when they arrived home, Liz had an announcement to make. She was going to start a campaign. She didn’t know quite how she was going to do it, but she couldn’t do nothing and allow this to happen, without gathering the support of friends and contacts.
Olivia thought this was an excellent idea. After all, her mum had so many friends and they had friends, too.  And even if Dad was released in a few days, it wouldn’t matter. At least they would have shown their support. 
Olivia got back to her schoolbooks and left Liz to her planning. She used a black book to store her addresses and phone numbers. She pulled it out of the drawer and began to leaf through the pages. There were scraps of paper stuck in, folded over, with some business cards. She began to write names and phone numbers on a sheet of paper.
The trip to school was repeated on Wednesday for Chemistry and Thursday for Maths. Again the time went quickly, and Olivia reckoned she was doing well. At one point in the Chemistry paper, Miss Lee stopped, looked at something Olivia had written, smiled at her, raised her eyebrows and moved on. Olivia looked again and realised she had made an error, and corrected it. She wondered if raising your eyebrows at a candidate was allowed, but no one noticed.
By the weekend the first exams were done and her exam tension was starting to ease. Unfortunately the new situation was causing her a different kind of tension but there was nothing to do apart from deal with it.
Liz had drawn up her list and had been making calls to countless friends and contacts. Now, at the weekend, they all started to arrive, and slowly but surely the nature of Liz’s campaign plan started to become clear.

--------------------

Comment: The campaign to release Dennis is inspired by a number of campaigns I've witnessed, including that of Jill Morrell, girlfriend of John McCarthy, and the English nanny from Cheshire, Louise Woodward. My late sister Philomena, inspiration for the character of Liz, was involved with an environmental campaign in Cheshire, protesting against the second runway at Manchester Airport. In Stargirl of the Edge, fiction and reality are merged, adapted and rearranged.