Free Calling the Shots by Annie Dalton

something else. One minute we’d be driving along in a blizzard, the next we’d be basking in hot sunlight. In one place we ran into the tail end of one of those mid-western twisters (that’s like a cyclone). To everyone’s horror, it started raining frogs!
    Rose and Honesty shrieked and threw the icky things out as fast as they landed. But I totally refused to let a local frog storm distract me from my mission.
    Once I was quite sure that frogs had stopped falling out of the sky, I settled down beside Honesty, and told her the story of my own short, sweet but incredibly cool life on Earth. Oh, and I set her straight about that cloud-filled waiting room, in case she was worrying. “Heaven won’t be the same for your papa as it is for me, obviously,” I explained. “For one thing, I was only thirteen when I died. But if he has half the fun that me and Lola have, I promise he’ll be having a ball!”
    I also apologised to Honesty for dissing her the way I did, when she turned out to be just a regular person instead of some precocious child star.
    “You’re really special, Honesty,” I told her. “And you have your own special path to follow. But your dad’s death really shocked you and the PODS took advantage. I am your guardian angel and I’m going to help you through this, OK?”
    One afternoon the Bloomfields picked up a Mexican woman with a baby.The woman had obviously been walking for hours, and was completely exhausted. Rose immediately put down her book and took the baby, so his mother could take a nap in the back of the truck. The baby started grizzling and she hushed him in her arms, and started to sing a Twenties ballad about true love and apple blossom, only she made it sound like a lullaby. She had a surprisingly tuneful voice.
    I was completely charmed. It was the first time I’d seen this softer side of Rose. Honesty was watching her too. She had a new alert expression in her eyes, suddenly, almost as if she was making mental notes. Since they’d left Georgia, Honesty’s family had been living a hand-to-mouth existence. But I happened to know that Grace wasn’t completely penniless. She still had a valuable diamond ring that her husband had given her. She kept it wrapped inside a blue silk scarf in a secret pocket inside what Americans call a purse, and I call a handbag. Once I saw Grace take it out when her children were asleep, and touch it to her cheek. I didn’t blame her for not wanting to part with it. The ring was the only thing she had left of her husband.
    Sometimes Lenny managed to earn a few dollars, helping out at farms or country homesteads along the way. But they often went to sleep hungry, and most nights they had to sleep under the stars.
    These days, the Bloomfield kids were scarcely recognisable as the same people who had left Philadelphia. They looked browner and wirier and somehow tougher, even little Clem. Their smart Philadelphia clothes were starting to get faded and raggedy around the edges.
    It wasn’t easy to keep clean on the road either, and any time the Bloomfields came to a public washroom, they dived inside and made the most of the free soap and hot water. I could only look on with envy. That’s one big drawback to being a celestial agent. We can’t use earthly facilities. Our molecules are too subtle or something. For the same reason, we can’t tuck into the local cuisine; we have to make do with a kind of angelic trail mix which luckily is quite sustaining.
    Despite the tough conditions, Honesty’s mother always somehow kept herself looking good. Grace Bloomfield struck me as one of those natural celebrities. She wasn’t snooty or superior, yet she had this real dignified air about her. Our fellow travellers immediately noticed this and treated her with respect.
    And we met all kinds on the road, I can tell you. 1920s America was positively heaving with colourful characters with weird Twenties-type occupations. As you might have guessed, quite a few of