"Well, anyway," she says, getting to the point at last. "Tracey says she lives in a trailer home with her creepy drug-dealer father. You should probably be careful. One day she'll probably bring a gun to school and kill everyone she knows."

I laugh.

"I'm just telling you for your own safety." She actually seems concerned. "I know you always look for the best in people. But you saw what she did to me, right? That girl is dangerous. Seriously."

She puts a hand on my shoulder. "I'm sorry Michael's such a jerk," she says. "I swear, I'm this close to ditching him. . . ."

The warmth of her skin goes across my shirt and spreads through my body.

"Take care of yourself," she says.

That night, I try to dream about Amanda Anderson. But all I can think of is that stupid hat.

And then it's the weekend and I don't have to think about Steam Girl or Amanda Anderson or Michael Carmichael or anything. I stay in my bedroom playing online games, with loud music on the headphones. Once or twice, Mom comes in to try to get me outside or doing ch.o.r.es. But mostly I can just be alone.

I can't get my head round anything. Steam Girl - the one in the notebook - is perfect: beautiful, smart, generous, and brave. Her long legs and heaving b.r.e.a.s.t.s haunt me in a way even Amanda Anderson never has. But the other one - the real girl who tells the stories and draws the pictures - well, her legs are short and kind of plump. Her skin is pasty and pale, with freckles and spots. She's like a parody of Steam Girl, a fat, nerdy girl playing dress-up.

But here's the thing: I just can't stop thinking about her. When she smiles, I feel lighter than air. When she's sad, I want to take her hand and tell her that everything will be OK. I don't, but I want to. I love seeing her neck go pink; in fact, I love everything about her neck. I keep imagining what it would be like to put my fingers on that soft white skin and feel the tiny muscles flutter as she speaks. Sometimes she closes her eyes as she talks about Steam Girl's father and the Martian Rose, and then her lips go soft and everything about her seems to glow.

She makes life special. And I find myself, by Sat.u.r.day night, wanting to see her more than I've ever wanted anything before. I pull on some shoes and a hoodie and go out into the darkening streets. There's no way of knowing where she is, of course. I have no idea where she lives or what she does on a Sat.u.r.day. For all I know she could be flying over the Martian desert in an airship or fighting robots somewhere in the jungles of Venus. So I just walk, randomly, through the empty suburban streets as the sky goes from red to purple to black, like the bruise around her eye. And the electric lights come on, flickering over cracked pavements and filling windows with gold. Now and then a car rattles past, or some kid on a bike. But mostly I'm alone.

It's after midnight when I get home. Dad lets me in without saying a word, makes me a hot chocolate, and goes to bed. It takes me hours to fall asleep.

On Monday morning, I'm at school early, waiting by the gate. But when the second bell rings, I give up and go to cla.s.s.

At lunchtime, I go down to the incinerator and sit on the wall and try to eat my lunch. The concrete's cold, and the smell of smoke is stale and heavy in the air. My stomach is churning. After ten minutes, I pick up my bag and turn to go.

She's walking toward me, hands in the pockets of her heavy old jacket. I open my mouth to say something, but nothing comes to mind.

"Hey," she says.

"I was looking for you," I say, and then stop, wondering why the h.e.l.l I said that. She frowns, so I just keep talking, not knowing what will come out. "On Sat.u.r.day night. I walked everywhere hoping you might - I mean, I didn't know where to find you."

She's giving me that look, like when I put my sweatshirt on the ground.

"So," I say. "Pretty stupid, huh?"

She smiles. "It was a bit stupid," she says. "But it was also . . . gallant."

"I don't know what that means," I say.

She laughs. "OK, maybe just stupid." She hooks her arm round mine and pulls me over to the dying trees and the rusting fence.

I give her my juice to drink and she gives me an apple. Neither of us mentions Steam Girl.

But the next day she starts talking as soon as we meet up.

"I need to tell you what happened next," she says. "When Steam Girl got back to Mars. It's not easy to talk about, but it's important that you know. That you understand."

I look up, surprised. This isn't like her usual stories. Her face looks so serious that I'm almost afraid.

"OK," I say, sitting down. She stays standing, staring at the ground like the first time I saw her.

"Back on Mars," she begins. And then she stops to clear her throat.

Back on Mars, the palace was in turmoil. Soon after the Martian Rose had left, the Royal Oracle had apparently consulted the omens and revealed that their mission was doomed. The whole party would perish on Venus, she'd announced, to widespread dismay. Most of the courtiers wanted to wait and see if they would return, but Prince Zenn.o.bal moved quickly, declaring his father deceased and arranging his own coronation after a brief period of mourning.

So when the Martian Rose reappeared, many in the palace rejoiced, but Zenn.o.bal was furious. He claimed it was a Venusian trick and ordered all on board arrested and thrown into the dungeons. Most of the guards refused, but Zenn.o.bal merely smiled and pulled a strange device from his robes.

"Very well," he said. "If you cannot be trusted, you shall be replaced." And he flicked a switch on the small black box.

From somewhere in the palace, an army of sleek gray robots poured into the corridors and halls, firing their short black guns into the air. The palace guards dropped their spears and fell to the floor, terrified. Within minutes, all resistance had ended and Zenn.o.bal's robots were in complete control.

"So it was Zenn.o.bal?" I say. "Knew it all along."

"Wait and see," she says, frowning.

As soon as they emerged from the Martian Rose, Steam Girl and her friends were surrounded by robots. The king and his daughter were led away under guard, while Steam Girl and her father were locked in a dungeon deep beneath the palace. For several days, that's where they remained. Robotic guards came and went, stale food and water were pushed under the door. And then, late one night, Steam Girl woke to the sound of rattling keys and the glare of a lantern. A hooded figure stood at the door, silently motioning for them to follow. The mysterious figure led them through winding tunnels and up narrow stairways, until finally they entered a small cluttered room filled with books and scrolls and alchemical beakers and tubes.

"The Royal Oracle," said Steam Girl as their rescuer stepped into the light.

The oracle put down the lantern and threw back her hood, revealing long blond hair and strangely familiar features.

To Steam Girl's great astonishment, her father gave an almighty shout and rushed forward to embrace the stranger. The oracle responded with a long, pa.s.sionate kiss, until Steam Girl regained her wits and cried, "What on earth is going on?"

Her father turned and smiled, his eyes filled with tears. "My dear girl, this angel in red is none other than Dr. Serafina Starfire - your mother!"

"Wait - what?" I say. "Steam Girl's mother? But . . . didn't she die or something? What the h.e.l.l is she doing on Mars?"

"Please don't interrupt," she says slowly and quietly. "This isn't easy. . . ."

"Sorry," I say. And I mean it. She looks like she's going to cry.

The Royal Oracle - Steam Girl's mother - took a long look at her long-lost daughter and smiled. "I'm so very proud," she said. "How beautiful you've grown - courageous and clever, too!"

"She really is just like you," her father said. "You should see the gadgets she comes up with. . . ."

And so the three of them sat down and talked. Her mother explained how she'd been sucked through a freak transdimensional wormhole to Mars fifteen years before, while trying to perfect the Martian Rose's experimental engines. At first the Martians didn't know what to make of this strange lost creature. But her knowledge of science and astronomy soon gave her a reputation for magical powers of prophecy and divination, and so the king named her the Royal Oracle - and there she was.

Steam Girl's father quickly outlined their own adventures since his wife's disappearance, and then talk turned to their present predicament. "The prince and his robots will be looking for you by now," Steam Girl's mother said. "If you stay here, you'll soon be found."

"Then we must take the fight to them!" her father said with a wild look in his eyes. "Rescue the king and his daughter, rouse the palace guards to rebellion, and overthrow that treasonous whelp and his tin-pot army of rattling contraptions once and for all!"

Steam Girl noticed a flicker of something dark in her mother's face at the mention of Princess Lusanna. But it quickly pa.s.sed. "Oh, my brave, sweet husband. I have no doubt you will do all that and more. But first we must prepare. We are three against many, and they are very well armed. Luckily I have a secret weapon of my own. . . ." And she stood and walked to a lushly embroidered tapestry covering one wall. She pulled the heavy cloth aside to reveal a simple wooden door.

"I have not been idle all these years since leaving Earth," she said. "I continued my research on transdimensional s.p.a.ce, in the hope that I could create a new wormhole and find my way back to Earth." And then she opened the door. A weird yellow glow began to seep into the room.

"Follow me," she said, and led them through the doorway. As they stepped over the threshold, Steam Girl felt a curious chill and thought she might pa.s.s out. Then her head cleared and she saw they were in a square windowless room, filled with that same strange yellow glow. Six more doors, identical to the one they'd just come through, were s.p.a.ced round the blank stone walls. A wooden staircase led to the floor above.

"Where are we?" Steam Girl asked. A sweet fragrance in the air reminded her of something.

"This is my real laboratory," her mother said with a hint of pride, "hidden hundreds of miles away on the far side of Mars. Each of these doors is like a small tear in the fabric of s.p.a.ce-time itself. By stepping through, we are instantly transported to the other side of the wormhole, no matter how near or far that may be."

"Stars above!" Steam Girl's father laughed. "You have come a long way with your research, my darling! And where do they all lead?"

His wife walked to one of the doors and laid a hand against its smooth dark wood. "This one," she said, smiling, "opens onto Earth."

"To Earth!" Steam Girl's father cried. "Home! Then let's go there at once! We can warn the world of Prince Zenn.o.bal's imminent invasion - and then gather supplies and equipment before returning through your ingenious doorways to free Minnimattock and Lusanna and defeat the usurper's army forthwith!" And with that he strode resolutely to where her mother stood and threw the door open. "To Earth!" he called once more, and then he stepped through the doorway, disappearing with a flash of yellow light.

Steam Girl's mother turned to her and smiled. "Come along, then," she said, motioning toward the door. But Steam Girl hesitated. Something was wrong.

"I think I know where we are," she said, "and it's not on Mars."

Her mother frowned. "I don't know what you mean," she said.

Steam Girl ignored her. "I remember that smell in the air," she said. "Giant blossoms and pools of nectar. . . . We're on Venus, where Father and I first encountered the robot army." Her mother's mouth became a thin sharp line. "Everything makes sense," Steam Girl went on. "You're the one behind it all. Using those wormholes of yours to hop from Earth to Mars to Venus - and who knows where else - gathering technology, weapons, and tools and making your evil plans. . . ."

"That's enough," her mother said.

"And that's not all," Steam Girl said. "You gave Zenn.o.bal the idea of a trip to Venus, didn't you? You hoped we'd stumble across your robot army and that would be the end of us."

"That's not true," her mother hissed. "It was Zenn.o.bal's idea to send you here. I never wanted you dead. . . ."

"But you used our absence from Mars to put your plans in motion - announcing our demise so your puppet could seize the throne." Steam Girl was angry now, angrier than she'd ever been before. "But there's one more thing I want to know. Where have you sent my father?"

Her mother made a kind of growling noise. "You think you're so smart, little girl? But you don't know anything! Everything I've ever done - every brilliant discovery, every unprecedented innovation - that arrogant, vain, mediocre fool claimed credit for them all. Who do you think designed the Martian Rose? Who built the Spirodynamic Multidimensional Concentrated Steam Engine? Certainly not your father, that's for sure. It was me, d.a.m.n it. All of it was me!"

Steam Girl was taken aback. "But that's not true," she said. "Father's always said you were a brilliant scientist. He never claimed he did those things alone. . . . And besides, even if he had, that's no reason to build a huge army and invade Earth!"

"Don't be silly," her mother said. "Ours is a world crippled by ignorance and superst.i.tion, its technological and social development held back by a deluded nostalgia for outdated aesthetic and ethical philosophies. Always looking backward, never forward into the future. Through my transdimensional doors, young girl, I have seen other worlds - other Earths and other realities. Compared to those, our Earth is a quaint little backwater. It's time we woke up and behaved like proper adults. . . ."

"You're even crazier than I thought," Steam Girl said. "Now, answer my question: where is my father?"

"He's on Earth," Steam Girl's mother said, waving at the glowing doorway. "Just as I said."

But Steam Girl knew it was a trap. "You're lying," she said, clenching her fists. "Wherever you've sent him, you'd better bring him back. Now."

Her mother sighed and clapped her hands. From the floor above there came sounds of movement: the heavy clank of robotic feet. "I had hoped it wouldn't come to this," Steam Girl's mother said. "I really don't want to hurt you; after all, you are so clearly my daughter." Steam Girl tried to think quickly, but her mind was still reeling from everything that had happened. She looked around, desperately trying to remember which of the identical wooden doors led back to Mars. Perhaps if she made it back to the palace, she could free the king and persuade the guards to help. But before she could do anything, her mother moved with surprising speed and power, grabbing her shoulders and pushing her firmly through the glowing open doorway. Steam Girl stumbled, arms flailing, reaching for something - anything - to keep her from falling. . . .

And then she hit a wall of ice-cold light, and her mind went blank.

In the silence that follows, I realize I'm shivering. After a while, I can't bear it anymore.

"So Steam Girl followed her father through the wormhole," I say. "And ended up . . . where?"

She says nothing, just lowers her eyes.

"Are you OK?" I ask. She doesn't look it.

She looks away. "Do you like this place?" she says.

"Uh . . . you mean the school?"

"The school, the town, the whole b.l.o.o.d.y world. . . . All of it."

I shrug. "Well, it's OK, I guess," I say, and then I shake my head. "Actually, it kind of sucks. At least what I've seen of it. I'm sure there are plenty of great places out there, but . . ."

There's another long silence.

"Anyway," she says, making it sound like a closing door.

Mrs. Hendricks is talking about our short-story a.s.signment. She writes a quotation up on the board, from some writer I've never heard of. She makes us copy it down in our books: Some writers write to escape reality. Others write to understand it. But the best writers write in order to take possession of reality, and so transform it.

I copy it down and think about what it means. I get the first part about escaping reality - that makes perfect sense. And I suppose it makes sense to try to understand the world, too. But the last part makes me uneasy. Taking possession of reality sounds like something Steam Girl's mother would say. I don't know. Maybe I'm just not smart enough to get it.

But then Mrs. Hendricks tells us to spend the rest of the period working on our stories, and for the first time in days I start writing again. I write a whole new chapter in the next half hour, where Rocket Boy leaves the princess with the heaving b.r.e.a.s.t.s and flies off to explore one of Saturn's moons. He finds an abandoned art gallery beside a frozen lake, with paintings hung on every wall. There's one picture he can't stop looking at: a strange portrait of an oddly dressed girl - a little chubby and kind of weird, but somehow very beautiful. Faded blue dress, scruffy leather jacket, long lace-up boots, and black-rimmed gla.s.ses. And, of course, flying helmet and goggles.

She shone like a bright strange star shining in those empty lifeless halls, I write. Cheesy, I know, but that's how I feel.

Anyway, in my story, the moment Rocket Boy reaches out and touches the painting of Steam Girl, she comes to life and appears beside him, freed from the magical picture. She thanks Rocket Boy with a kiss (I manage to avoid the whole "heaving b.r.e.a.s.t.s" thing this time), and she explains how she was tricked into posing for a portrait by an evil artist-magician, who trapped her in the frame and kidnapped her father. Then they climb on board the Silver Arrow and fly off to rescue Professor Swift - but that will have to wait for chapter three.

When the bell rings, I put away my story and walk to her desk, where she's curled over her notebook, working furiously.

"The next installment?" I say. But she barely glances up. She closes the book and goes to put it in her bag.

"Oops!" As he goes past, Michael Carmichael gives me a shove from behind so I fall against her, and we both tumble to the floor.

Laughter ripples through the room, and I feel my face turn red. But she just calmly climbs to her feet and turns to face Michael.

"You know the problem with you, Michael Carmichael?" she says. "You're reality incarnate."

The whole cla.s.s goes quiet. Michael makes a face. "What does that even mean?"

"If you imagine a dog," she goes on, "it's always loyal and fluffy and cute. But in real life, dogs bite your hand and pee on the carpet and have s.e.x with the sofa."

That gets more laughs. But she keeps going. "That's what you are, Michael Carmichael. You're dog pee on the carpet."

In the silence that follows, Michael's mouth moves but no sound comes out.

While Mrs. Hendricks chews them both out I pick up the notebook where it's fallen on the floor. It's open to the last page, which is filled with a single detailed drawing.

"What's this?" I say, once we're out in the hallway.

She glances at the page I'm holding up.

"It's Steam Girl's last gadget," she says, not meeting my eyes.

"It's a gun," I say slowly. My throat feels dry.