Not Really Galileo Read online

and orange. My mood changed to anticipation.

  “Remember,” said Matthew, “this house isn’t haunted.”

  “I know. It was just some mad man who cut people up.”

  “And put them together. And he’s been dead years.”

  “How do you know he’s not a ghost?”

  Matthew couldn’t answer that one. “Hurry up,” he replied. “The eclipse won’t wait for us.”

  We reached the far side of the house. Our oil barrels had been moved. We stacked them up again and climbed onto the roof.

  I got to my feet and wiped my hands down. Then I noticed the French windows which led off the upstairs landing. “You didn’t mention that!” Their boards had been partially pulled off creating a gaping, black hole into the empty house.

  “It wasn’t like that the other day.” Matthew turned his torch on.

  “Don’t!” I picked up bits of wood and gingerly propped them over the hole. Then I turned my back to it.

  The moon was massive. It glowed a tawny colour like a mottled, dull, deathly sun. I suddenly realised why I was there on the roof this night. Something portentous and ancient was going to happen. Something older than Halloween, the oldest witch, or goblin, or even the oldest ghost. And it would be something unbelievably silent.

  Matthew was making some finicky adjustments to the tripod, tutting at its cheapness. I heard the beep of his watch.

  “It should be starting in a minute and this still isn’t right.” He fiddled with the eye-piece. “There. WOW! That’s amazing! You can see everything. Look! Look!” He didn’t move out of the way. “There’s the Copernicus crater. And the Mare Imbrium! But the Sea of Tranquillity is out of sight. It’s too big to fit in.”

  I realised for all his big talk he hadn’t actually seen the moon through a telescope before. He was no better than I.

  “Let me see. It’s my telescope.” I nudged him out of the way. It took me a couple of seconds to adjust to the eye-piece. Suddenly my right eye was filled with orange light.

  “What’cha think?” badgered Matthew. “Hurry up! It’s amazing, isn’t it?”

  It was awful. All I could see were craters and they looked exactly like every other rocky crater I’d ever seen: whether they’d been drawn in a comic, or were the set for a ‘Muppet Show’ sketch: like all of ‘Space 1999’ was craters. It looked phoney. Where was the wholeness of it all? Why did I want to look close up at lots of little bits? I told Matthew it was really, really amazing and let him have the telescope back. He couldn’t get it quick enough – the eclipse had begun. What I saw through the lens had nothing to do with the real moon. I stared as a little bit of its edge vanished. This was the first time Nature had ever demanded my attention and I obeyed willingly. I was witness to something sacrosanct.

  Matthew rambled on. “You can see the shadow actually creeping across the craters.”

  He looked at his watch and made notes.

  “It’s halfway across the first phase.”

  When the shadow had obscured the view though the telescope Matthew left it and joined me.

  “Do you know what the most amazing thing is?” But I’d half stopped listening to him. “Is that there are millions and billions of people who will never ever see this, or anything like it.” He waved a hand across the horizon of black houses with their lit squares of multi-coloured curtains.

  “What’s causing it?” I whispered. Matthew didn’t answer and we watched the rest of the moon quietly disappear. It finally went.

  I breathed. “Wow! What now?”

  “That’s only the first phase.” He took out his pad and scribbled down the time. “The shadow will pass over.”

  That good news didn’t seem as laden with omens as watching the moon disappear. I felt it was time to go home. From behind I heard the planks of wood fall over. Matthew was fiddling with eye piece and seemed to have every intention of staying.

  I gave a farewell look at the eclipse. It had been amazing.

  A strangled gasp came from Matthew and I shot him a glance. His face was a vision of horror. His finger pointed to the French windows.

  “Eyes!” he choked.

  I spun round and saw the hole into the house. Immediately Matthew’s terror infected me. “Where?” I whispered. He was clinging to me.

  “There!”

  Something in the room beyond moved and we jumped back. Only instinct saved us from going over the edge. I felt my foot knock the tripod.

  “Run!”

  But our descent route meant moving closer to the windows. Yet we had to get down. Glancing around I saw the telescope had made it down already. Damn! By which time Matthew was off the roof. I ran after him. How we co-ordinated the climb down at that speed I don’t know. We ran round the house and grabbed the telescope and our bikes off the ground. Then we didn’t stop until we’d reached the safety of the streets.

  “Oh God!”

  “Oh Jesus!”

  “Oh Mary!”

  “Oh Lord!”

  “I think it’s okay,” Matthew panted. He might have been referring to the telescope. But it wasn’t okay. There was a white crack across the lens. I groaned.

  “Just put it back in the box. Say nothing.”

  “Would you stop being so stupid! I want to go home.”

  We cycled back and went our own ways. When I reached home I carefully turned the handle on the back door. Here was my second fright of the night: my mother was waiting up for me.

  “And where have you been?”

  I confessed: I was exhausted. I told her everything. She took the telescope.

  “I’ll fix it. I swear,” I pleaded.

  “I’ll get it fixed. But you’ll pay for it. You’re going to be working hard from now until Christmas.” She pinched her brow. “And I just wanted peace in the house. I’ll phone Matthew’s mother in the morning.”

  I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

  A couple of days later Matthew came round on his bike. I met him at the front door.

  “My mum says I can’t play with you,” I told him.

  “That’s a bummer. Why did you blab everything?”

  “How else could I explain it? What did your parents say after my mum called?”

  “They were mad.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Until I told them it was all wrong.”

  “What?”

  “I told them I couldn’t have seen the eclipse as it wasn’t at that time. Or even visible from the roof.”

  “And they believed you?”

  “What do they know? Mum could only say, ‘As long as you’re back safe.’ They reckoned it must have been you telling lies to your mum.”

  “I have to pay off a new telescope. It was beyond repair.”

  “They’re dead expensive too. I’m getting one for Christmas.”

  “You’re what?!”

  “Yeah! Isn’t that amazing? Dad thought it was a great idea.”

  “You have to go.” I edged back inside. “In case mum sees you.”

  “I shouldn’t be here anyway. I’m not allowed to play with you either.”

  He shrugged and cycled off.

  THE END

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