The door banged and I spun round in anticipation, pulse leaping, but it was only Nelson.

‘Hey, Sky. Yves and Zed aren’t in school.’ Elasto-man bounded in and got his instrument out of its case.

I felt a huge wave of disappointment which I told myself to put down to being denied the chance to play, not because I was missing out on seeing the object of my secret obsession.

‘Do you want to try out a few things together anyway?’

I ran my fingers over the keys.

Nelson’s mouth twitched. ‘What kind of things you have in mind, sweet thing?’

‘Um … I’m sure there are a few songs here we could take for a test drive.’ I got up and leafed through the stack of music on the table.

He laughed. ‘Aw, shucks: you’re brushing me off!’

‘Am I? I am?’ I could feel my blush getting to the top of the embarrassing scale. ‘How about this?’ I shoved a random piece of music towards him.

He looked down. ‘Show tunes? I mean, Oklahoma has some good ones but—’

‘Oh.’ I snatched it back, getting more flustered by the knowledge that I was amusing him.

‘Take it easy, Sky. Better idea: why not let me pick?’

Relieved, I abandoned the scores and retreated to my piano stool where I felt more in control of things.

‘I make you nervous?’ Nelson asked seriously, shooting me a curious look. ‘You shouldn’t mind me

—I was just fooling around.’

I tugged my long plait over my shoulder and wrapped it around my fist. It had to be kept plaited or it got out of control. ‘Not you.’

‘Just guys?’

I thumped my head lightly on the piano lid. ‘Am I that obvious?’

Nelson shook his head. ‘No. I’m such a sensitive soul for recognizing it.’ He grinned.

‘I’ve got a few issues.’ I wrinkled my nose in disgust at myself. My problems were many, al rooted in my deep sense of insecurity according to the child psychologist I’d been going to since I was six. Wel , gee, as if I couldn’t have worked that one out for myself, seeing that I was abandoned and al .

‘I’m a bit out of my comfort zone.’

‘But I’ve got your back, remember.’ Nelson pul ed out his choice and showed it to me for my approval.

‘You can breathe easy round me. I ain’t got no nefarious designs towards you.’

‘What’s nefarious?’

‘I don’t know, but my grandma accuses me of having them when she thinks I done something bad and it sounds good.’

I laughed, relaxing a little. ‘That’s right—I can rat you out to her if you step out of line.’

He gave a mock shudder. ‘Even you can’t be so cruel, Brit Chick. Now, are we going to sit shooting the breeze al day or play some music?’ Nelson grabbed his sax and tested the tuning.

‘Music.’ I propped the score open on the stand and jumped right in.

I had no plans for the wee

kend.

Doesn’t that sound pathetic? Tina and Zoe had Saturday jobs in the local stores and Nelson was out of town to see his dad so there was no one to hang out with. Simon had mentioned something about hunting for second-hand pianos but that idea got shot down by the manager of the Arts Centre asking my parents to come in and sort out their studio space. I knew better than to get in the way. It would be like standing between two chocoholics and their candy supply. That left me circling Planet Wrickenridge, a lone comet in my own orbit.

‘Come and find us for lunch,’ Sal y said, handing me a twenty dol ar note. ‘Go and see what’s what in town.’

That didn’t take long. Wrickenridge was American-quaint; even Starbucks masqueraded as a Swiss-style chalet. There was a smal selection of upmarket shops, some only open during the skiing season, a couple of hotels with posh looking restaurants waiting for winter, a diner, a community centre, and a gym. I stood outside that for a while wondering if it was worth a closer look but in the end felt too shy to try it. Same went for the adjoining spa and nail parlour. I wondered if N e a t Nails was where Tina got hers done. I’d pretty much bitten mine to the quick.

Wandering further on, I headed up Main Street towards the park, enjoying the municipal flowerbeds spil ing over with bright autumn blooms. Passing the duck pond that doubled as an ice rink in winter, I walked until garden planting faded into an arboretum of mountain trees and shrubs. A few people strol ing in the sunshine greeted me as we passed, but I was mostly left to myself. I wished I had a dog to make my presence less conspicuous. Perhaps I should suggest it to Sal y and Simon. A rescue pup that needed a home because someone had abandoned it—I’d like that. Problem was we were only certain on staying a year—not long enough to be fair on a pet.

I fol owed a track up, hoping to reach a viewpoint I’d seen marked on the map at the park entrance with the intriguing label of ‘ghost town’. My leg muscles were burning by the time the path led me out on to a rocky outcrop that had a great vista of Wrickenridge and the rest of the val ey. The label hadn’t lied: the ledge was home to a street of abandoned wooden buildings; it reminded me of a movie set when filming had finished. I read a plaque hammered into the ground.

Gold Rush township, built 1873 when the first nugget

was discovered in the Eyrie River.

Abandoned 1877. Seven miners died when theEagle shaft collapsed in Spring 1876.

Only four years and the miners had thrown up a whole little community of lodging houses, saloons, stores, and stables. Most of the dark wood buildings had lost their roofs, but some were stil thatched in tin which creaked ominously in the breeze. Rusting chains dangled over the edge of the escarpment, swaying over the golden wild flowers that clung to the ledges, mocking the lost dreams of the pioneers. It would make a great backdrop to a real y spooky story—‘Revenge of the Miners’, or something. I could hear the spine-chil ing themes already, incorporating the lonely clank of the chain and the hol ow notes of the wind blowing through the abandoned buildings.

But it was a sad place. I didn’t like to think of the miners buried somewhere in the mountainside, crushed under tons of rock. After poking around in the buildings, I sat down, crossed my legs on a bench, wishing I’d thought to buy a Coke and a chocolate bar before climbing al the way up here.

Colorado was just so big—everything on a scale unfamiliar to a British person. Mist drifted off the mountain slopes, cutting the sunlit summits off from the dark green base like an eraser rubbing out a picture. I fol owed the progress of a yel ow van winding its way along the main road, heading east.

Cloud shadows moved across the fields, rippling over barns and roofs, dimming a pond then moving it on to leave it a bright eye gazing up at the heavens again. The sky arched over the peaks, a soft blue on this hazy morning. I tried to imagine the people living up here, faces turned to the rock rather than the sky, watching for the glint of gold. Had any of them stayed on and moved down to Wrickenridge? Did I go to school with descendants of people who arrived in the madness of the Gold Rush?

A twig snapped behind me. Heart thumping, head ful of ghosts, I twisted round to see Zed Benedict hovering at the point where the track left the trees.

He looked tired, shadows under his eyes that hadn’t been there last week. His hair was mussed, as if he’d been running his fingers through it repeatedly.

‘Perfect, just what I need,’ he said with cutting sarcasm, backing away.

Words not calculated to make a girl feel good about herself.

I got up. ‘I’m going.’

‘Forget it. I’l come back later.’

‘I was just heading home in any case.’

He stood his ground and just looked at me. I had the strangest sensation that he was drawing something out of me, as if there was a thread between us and he was winding it in.