Free Andie's Moon by Linda Newbery

towards the eyepiece. As before, the moon’s surface leaped towards her, startling in its detail. It wasn’t just a decoration in the sky, a flat silver disc like a floating sixpence, or smooth like a Christmas-tree bauble. It was real, huge, there – the telescope brought its surface features sharply into view, mountain ridges, craters, peaks, valleys, cracks. Some parts looked as dimpled as orange peel, some were craggy with cliffs or smooth as lakes. Andie had just seen in the book that all the mountains and craters and plains had names; there were detailed maps. Some astronomers, it seemed, knew the moon better than Andie knew the back garden at home.
    “I feel dizzy.” She stepped back from the telescope at last. “Moon-dazzled.”
    “That’s the best kind of dazzled,” Ravi said, taking over. “Next to sky-dazed, or star-giddy.”
    Andie looked up. It was true – the stars did make her giddy, as her eyes reached farther into their depths, and more and more of them seemed to rain at her, pouring through the immensity. She stretched out her hands and saw stars shining between her spread fingers: worlds and worlds contained in a handspan. I’m starbathing, she thought. Better than sunbathing – that only makes you hot and red. Starbathing fills you with time and space and wonder.
    She tried to do it in paint – to show the blackness of space, pricked by points of light as far as the eye could see, and the mystery of for ever . But paint just wouldn’t do it. It was only a spotty mess. Every time she thought she was getting better at painting – every time she did something she felt proud of – her next attempt would show her how much she just couldn’t do. Her eyes saw, and her mind saw, but in between them and the paper were her clumsy hands.
    Sometimes she felt like giving up. But only sometimes.

Chapter Eleven

    East of the Sun, West of the Moon
    Prune’s birthday was coming soon. As Prune had such definite ideas about what she liked and didn’t like, Andie thought it would be safest to let her choose her own present. This meant a shopping trip, to look for something Andie could afford – a record, perhaps, or a rope of beads or some bangles. Andie braced herself for a morning of watching Prune drool over things she couldn’t have, and off they went to the King’s Road.
    The present was found and bought with surprising ease – a Simon and Garfunkel album, which cost more than Andie had had in mind, but was very definitely what Prune wanted. But, of course, Prune hadn’t finished yet.
    “I want to look in East of the Sun, West of the Moon.” She grabbed Andie’s arm; not waiting for an answer, she pulled and shoved her through stationary traffic to the shop entrance on the other side of the road.
    A lanky young man, with straggly hair and a beard that made Andie think of paintings of Jesus, stood by the open frontage, smoking and gazing out into the street. His thoughts seemed to be elsewhere; he gave the girls a vague nod as they passed. Prune marched straight in; Andie followed, feeling like someone entering a different, intriguing world, like Narnia. East of the Sun, West of the Moon wasn’t just one shop, but a sort of indoor market, made up of separate stalls, some with their own entrance doors or bead curtains. Inside was shadowy and enticing, smelling headily of joss sticks and patchouli and cotton, lit with tiny lamps strung around the ceiling and from the partitions. Andie saw rugs in earthy colours, kaftans, belts and beads, mirrored cushions, Indian bowls; sitar music lured her farther in. A few customers were browsing, but no sales staff were in evidence.
    “Marilyn’s jewellery’s in here,” Andie reminded Prune. “You know, Kris’s mum.”
    Jewellery of various kinds was mounted on a stand at the very back of the arcade. Andie and Prune gazed at rings, necklaces, beads, bangles, chokers and earrings, displayed against a backdrop of midnight-blue velvet. Marilyn’s pieces,