Ben looked at his watch. Bel was supposed to meet him at the hotel room after he’d unpacked. She was late.
He read the leaflet he’d been given. It was a list of the venomous spiders and caterpillars and how to recognize them:
The redback will pretend to be dead rather than bite you, but the funnelweb, which is the size of your palm, will kill you within an hour. The funnelweb will grip its victim and bite several times …
Despite the constant warnings about sunstroke and dangerous wildlife, Ben was anxious to get out and see the sights. He hadn’t spent twenty hours on a plane just to be stuck in a refrigerated hotel room behind tinted glass windows. He was tired but there was no way he could go to sleep when there was so much out there to explore. He started to pace around the room impatiently, wondering how long it would be before he got a message from Bel.
At the same time, Kelly Kurtis was also wondering where her parent had got to.
She was walking up the stairs in the Adelaide conference centre, looking for her father and attracting rather a lot of attention. All the people around her were dressed smartly, and wore name tags. Kelly, on the other hand, was wearing an orange baseball cap and pale blue flying overalls, the legs rolled up to her knees like long shorts and the top half unzipped with the arms tied around her waist and a thin vest visible. Her bare arms were slathered in sun-tan oil, which gave off a scent of coconut. Around her neck she had a gold and black scarf. The conference delegates were looking at her as though wondering which planet she’d blown in from — or if she was there to cause trouble.
She pitied them, having to spend all day cooped up in a gloomy conference centre. It was such a lovely day to go flying.
Following the smell of coffee, she took the stairs to the first floor. A cafeteria area with tables and chairs overlooked the main entrance hall below. Then she spotted her dad, sitting at a table at the far end. He was bent over some papers, talking to a woman in a pale-green, slightly crumpled safari suit. A specialist in weather science with the US army, he was wearing dress uniform, charcoal-blue with gold buttons, and a shirt and tie. His dark hair was cut brutally short, military style. Kelly made her way over to them.
Major Brad Kurtis looked up, surprised to see his daughter. ‘Kelly! What are you doing here?’
‘Hi, Dad. Did you take the keys to the Jeep this morning?’
The major patted his breast pockets absentmindedly. The left one made a jangling noise. ‘Oh yes.’ He fished the keys out and handed them over. ‘Sorry.’
Kelly took the keys, but now something else had caught her attention. There was something familiar about the woman sitting next to her father, her delicate fingers counting through a stack of papers like the legs of a spider. She was very petite, with straight red hair and an angular chin.
The woman looked up at that moment. Her eyes were icy blue. They registered that Kelly was staring. Kelly gave a slightly uncertain smile. Small though she was, there was something a bit fierce about the woman.
The major snapped his fingers. ‘Where are my manners?’ He turned to the woman. ‘Bel, this is my daughter Kelly. Kelly, this is Bel. Bel Kelland.’
The red-haired woman put out her hand and shook Kelly’s. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ She had an English accent. That and the name — printed in full on the badge she was wearing — suddenly made a connection in Kelly’s brain.
BEL KELLAND, FRAGILE PLANET. Kelly suddenly knew where she had seen her before.
‘Dr Bel Kelland? You presented the Discovery Channel programme on the flooding of London.’ Kelly slipped the Jeep keys into the button-down pocket on her leg, pulled out a chair and sat down. ‘I really enjoyed that programme; it was powerful stuff. It’s a pleasure to meet you.’
Bel smiled. ‘Glad you appreciated it. I was just in the right place at the right time. Or the wrong place at the right time, depending on how you look at it.’
Kelly folded her arms in front of her on the table and leaned forward. ‘I had some friends who were in New Orleans when it flooded. Can you get Discovery to do a programme about that? I think you’d be great at it.’
‘They’ve already made one,’ said Bel, ‘but they got an American environmentalist to front it. Which is a pity, as there were loads of things I wanted to say about the federal government’s criminal culpability.’ She shrugged. ‘Still, I’m always available for weddings, bar mitzvahs and funerals.’
Kelly was baffled for a moment. Was that last remark a joke? She didn’t always get the English sense of humour. She laughed uneasily.
The major changed the subject. ‘Kelly’s travelling before she goes to Stanford in the fall to study law. She got her pilot’s licence last year.’
Bel’s face became animated. ‘Flying?! I got my licence years ago. I love it. I just don’t get enough time to do it now.’
Kelly was delighted to find she had something in common with Bel. ‘You should come up with me,’ she said. ‘Dad’s hired a microlight while I’m here, and it’s got dual controls. Give me a call and I’ll take you for a spin.’
‘That’s very kind of you. I would really, really love to.’ Bel spread her hand out over the papers on the table. ‘But I’m snowed under here: they want me to chair all the debates and I’ve got to do a live TV broadcast in a few minutes. My son arrived from England this morning and I don’t know how I’m ever going to find time to see him.’
The fierce and feisty Dr Kelland had a son. Kelly had a vision of Bel’s delicate features translated into young male form. She imagined a willowy English poet with intense blue eyes, passionate beliefs and a clever, slightly baffling sense of humour. Fresh off the plane and needing a companion. It sounded very appealing.
‘I’ll take him up in the microlight,’ she offered.
Bel was taken aback. ‘Would you?’
‘Yeah,’ said Kelly. ‘He can have a go at the controls. I’ve taken friends up with me loads of times and let them have a go once we’re in the air. No problem.’
‘That’s really kind of you, Kelly. Thank you very much. He’d love it.’
‘Is he in TV too?’ asked Kelly.
‘Oh no,’ said Bel, ‘he’s a bit young for that. He’s still at school.’
‘In school?’ said Kelly. ‘Where? Oxford?’
‘Not university,’ said Bel. ‘What you call high school.’
The penny dropped. Kelly now remembered that in England, school meant something different from what it meant in the States.
The major started laughing. ‘How old did you say he was, Bel? Fourteen?’ They had obviously swapped stories about their children before Kelly arrived.
Bel shook her head. ‘Thirteen.’
Kelly felt like a cruel joke had been played on her. ‘Thirteen?’ she repeated. Her mind’s eye wiped out the mental image of a lean young man and replaced it with a tousle-haired freckly swot in an ill-fitting blazer.
‘I’m sure he’d love to go up with you, Kels,’ said the major. ‘You’ve got the microlight for a month. A couple of days won’t hurt.’
Kelly tried to hide the disgust on her face. Taking a thirteen-year-old flying was babysitting. But she couldn’t complain too much as her dad was paying for it — and now she’d already made the offer. ‘All right,’ she said.
Bel’s phone rang. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, ‘I have to take this … Dr Kelland here … OK, see you downstairs in five minutes.’ She closed the phone and slipped it into her breast pocket. ‘The ABC Television crew have arrived. I must go.’ She got to her feet and gathered up her papers. ‘Kelly, it’s lovely to meet you, and thanks for agreeing to take Ben up. He’ll really enjoy it. He’s just like me; he should pick it up with no problem.’ She shook Kelly briskly by the hand again. ‘He’s very grown up.’ She made to move away from the table.