Secret of The Red Planet by Chris Hawley

Author:Chris Hawley
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: scifi, science fiction and fantasy, sciece fiction, science fiction adventure, scifi and fantasy, science fantasy, science fiction action, scifi adventure, scifi action, scifi fantasy, scienc fiction books, scifi fiction, scifi novel, scifi suspense, sciece fiction and fantasy
Publisher: Chris Hawley

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

A PROMISE

I heard my mother calling me from the bottom of the stairs. I was in my bedroom, pacing up and down, wondering what I was to do about Sonia’s father’s threat. It was 6.30 in the afternoon and since coming home from the meeting I had not left my room.

‘Bill!’ my mother called again.

I went to the door and shouted that I had heard her.

‘Bill, there’s a young lady at the door and she says she has to talk to you urgently.’

‘Who is it Mum?’

After a pause she called out, ‘she says her name is Sonia.’

‘Tell her I don’t want to see her.’

Another pause, then, ‘she seems to be upset. I think you should come down and talk to her.’

I was debating what to do when Mum called up again.

‘Bill! Did you hear?’

‘I heard. I’ll come down. Tell her to go into the sitting room and wait for me there.’

What could she want? I was still angry with her for telling her father about me. I decided there was no point in delaying. I would have to go and face her and tell her she was the biggest rat in the whole wide world.

I went downstairs and into the sitting room. She was sitting in the armchair where my Martian visitor had sat the day before. When she saw me she got up and came towards me. I noticed she was not wearing her glasses. She was crying.

‘Bill, I’m so sorry! I didn’t know!’ she said between sobs.

I put up my hands and backed away from her. She stopped in the middle of the room. She held a small handkerchief to her face and dabbed her tears.

‘Bill, don’t be angry with me, it wasn’t my fault.’

‘Whose fault was it then?’ I said, crossly. Sonia, you’re a rat! How could you do this to me?’

This brought on a new fit of sobbing. She looked so desperate, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for her. The girl was in a very bad state.

‘Sit down in the chair, Sonia,’ I said quietly. She obeyed.

I sat in the other chair and we were quiet for a couple of minutes. Then she recovered her composure a little.

‘Bill, please forgive me!’

‘I’m not sure I can ever do that, Sonia, after what you have done.’

‘Then I will have to kill myself!’

‘Sonia, don’t be so melodramatic! Calm down and let’s talk sensibly.

‘Say you’ll forgive me, please! I can’t go on living with the shame!’

Women, I thought. Why do they always have to make you feel sorry for them?

‘Sonia, what did you tell your father?’

She sniffed and then blew her nose noisily.

‘I told him I’d met this nice boy who came to the library to read about the planets, especially Mars and the ice-age and all that. I told him you showed me the photo of your girlfriend. I only said she looked like someone from one of the planets you were reading about. I told him you had offered to take me to Mars with you. He laughed and we joked about it.

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