Free Keeping it Real by Annie Dalton

he’d been waiting for me to figure this out.
    “That’s our worry,” he said quietly.
    I swallowed. “No, that would never - that can’t be right.”
    “It isn’t right , angel girl. But if we don’t find a way to stop it, these kids will find themselves wandering out of their school into…” his voice tailed off.
    “Brice, you’re freaking me out! Into what?”
    His expression was unreadable. “Another school, angel girl. Just not school as you know it.”
    I thought I might be sick. I went to this hellhole remember ! It felt like my thoughtless remark had boomeranged back like a hex. Park Hall Community High School was now officially twinned with a high school from Hell.
     

Chapter Ten
    B y the time I finally crawled under the covers, I was too upset to do more than doze. I’d crash asleep, then almost instantly shoot bolt upright, my heart racing. No bad dreams, no scary flashes of girl fights or hell schools - just unbelievable horror, mixed with a weird haunting guilt. Like I’d done something so bad it could never be put right.
    After a while I heard Jools tiptoeing around in the dark.
    I raised myself groggily. “More fights?”
    “Off to do the dawn vibes,” she whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
    I sat up. “No, I’d like to come if that’s OK.”
    I hadn’t a clue what ‘dawn vibes’ were, but I had the feeling they’d do me good. I jumped into some jeans and Jools lent me a warm top, plus her roommate’s parka, so dawn vibes obviously happened out of doors.
    Outside, it was totally pitch black.
    “Are you sure this is dawn?” I asked doubtfully.
    Jools quickly checked her watch. “No, but it will be in exactly ten minutes!” She grabbed my hand. “Hold on tight!”
    “But where are we—?”
    The Universe went unexpectedly rippley. When it finally firmed up again we were on snowy parkland high above north London.
    City lights sparkled below us like scattered jewellery. From here you could see the night was starting to fade. My eyes could just make out vague shapes of tower blocks.
    I’d never been on Hampstead Heath this early. It seemed just like I remembered from family outings -except for the angels.
    There were hundreds and thousands of them, and more were beaming down every minute.
    Like any normal crowd of Londoners, the earth angels came from different age groups, and every walk of life. Some chatted quietly to their friends, others just waited peacefully for the dawn vibes to begin.
    It was like a beautiful, but v. surreal, painting: Angels on Hampstead Heath.
    “Does this happen every day?” I breathed.
    “And at sunset,” Jools said. “Dawn and dusk are the optimum times to send vibes to the planet.”
    I made a mental note to insert the word ‘optimum’ into my vocabulary first chance I got.
    “So is Hampstead Heath the local energy hot spot?”
    I was half joking, but Jools said seriously, “It’s one of the hot spots, yeah. London has about seven. This is my favourite though.”
    The idea of seven well-known London landmarks filling up with angels twice a day sent me reeling.
    When you take a time trip to ancient Rome or whatever, you expect the odd cosmic surprise. But this was my time, and I felt like I was having to run to catch up!
    “So why do you do dawn vibes again?” I asked.
    A young EA in torn trainers joined in our conversation. “I can’t speak for the other EAs,” she smiled, “but when you work with street kids twenty-four-seven like I do, you sometimes forget you’re in the bizz. Some days I’m the only earth angel at King’s Cross. The vibes remind me that
    I’m not alone - that I’m connected to every earth angel in this city—”
    She suddenly dropped her voice.
    “We’re starting!” she whispered.
    I didn’t need anyone to tell me the vibes had begun.
    As the first streaks of dawn appeared in the sky, there was this incredible hush, then I heard faint but unbearably lovely musical chords which seemed to come from out of