Saturn Rising

Mr Harcourt had a magnifying glass on a string round his neck, which Asha thought was rather showing off for a man who looked at planets.

'Eyepieces on the left,' he said, waving a hand like a lollipop man. 'Star charts on the right. Biscuits are for members, but nobody checks.'

The scout hut on Cliff Road smelled of damp canvas and instant coffee and, faintly, of the sea, which was grey and lumpy beyond the windows and throwing itself at the bottom of the cliff. A painted sign over the door said HOLLINS BAY ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY, ANNUAL SALE, ALL WELCOME. Somebody had added CLEAR SKIES in chalk. It was raining.

Asha had her ledger in her coat pocket, the pale green paying-in book gone soft at the corners from a year of being carried about. On the last used line, in pencil, it said:

Sat 13 Sept: Kerry £262.40

She had checked it four times on the walk up the hill.

The trestle tables were covered in tartan picnic rugs, and on the rugs lay eyepieces. Dozens. Little black tubes like lipsticks, some fat, some thin, each with a number on a sticky label: 25mm, 10mm, 6mm. A boy younger than Kit was holding one up to his eye and looking at the ceiling with great seriousness.

Dad was flipping through a box of star maps. Mrs Oddie had found the biscuits.

Asha walked the length of the hut once without stopping, the way Mrs Oddie had taught her to walk round a jumble sale. Look first. Want later.

At the far end, propped on a folded tablecloth, stood a fat white tube on a squat wooden base. No brass. No curly legs. It looked like a drainpipe that had been to a good school.

Tied round its middle was a brown luggage tag, and on the tag, in blue biro, someone had written:

114mm reflector. Lovely optics. Saturn a treat. £150. Ask for Harold.

'That,' said Mr Harcourt, appearing at her elbow, 'is mine.'

'Harold,' said Asha, reading the tag again.

'Harold Harcourt. My mother had a sense of humour.' He lifted the dust cap off the end of the tube and let her look in. At the bottom was a round mirror, clean as a puddle on a still day. 'Bigger mirror, more light. More light, more Saturn. Simple as that.'

Asha did not touch it. She went and found Dad among the star maps, and Dad came and looked, and asked Harold three questions about the mount that Asha didn't understand. Then Dad looked at her. He did not say anything. That was the point.

'Yes,' said Asha.

The envelope had been in Dad's inside pocket since Friday, when Kerry had counted the notes out across the counter and said, 'Big day, then.' Asha handed over three fifties. Harold held each one up to the strip light as if it might be a comet.

Then she sat on a plastic scout chair by the radiator, took out the anchor pen and opened the paying-in book on her knee.

Sat 13 Sept: Kerry £262.40
Telescope (Harold) −£150.00
Junior ISA (Mum and Dad, Monday) −£100.00
Left to spend £12.40

She did it in her head first. Two hundred and sixty-two pounds forty, take away a hundred and fifty, was a hundred and twelve pounds forty. Take away a hundred. Twelve pounds forty.

She did it again on the back of her hand, the old way, in biro.

Then she did it a third time, adding upwards to be sure: twelve pounds forty and a hundred, and a hundred and fifty. Two hundred and sixty-two pounds forty. It came out the same every time. Sums usually did, if you let them.

Mrs Oddie sat down beside her with a custard cream in each hand and peered over the lifeguard.

'Is it right?'

'Three times.'

'Good,' said Mrs Oddie. 'Barnaby only ever needed twice, but he's had more practice.'

On the line underneath, where for a whole year there had been a number still to go, Asha wrote £0.00, and looked at it for a long time.

It rained all Saturday night and all of Sunday. The telescope stood in the corner of Asha's bedroom with its dust cap on, like a guest who had turned up too early for the party.

On Monday evening Mum spread the forms across the kitchen table, between the fruit bowl and a pile of Kit's seagull drawings. She had printed them at work. Dad had the laptop open. The kitchen smelled of dal and warm radiator.

'Junior ISA,' said Mum, tapping the top sheet. 'We open it for you. It's yours. But nobody can take the money out until you're eighteen.'

'Not even me?'

'Especially not you.'

Asha chewed the end of her plait. Eighteen was six years away. She thought of the Kittiwake lying tipped in the mud, and then floating. Far money could wait.

'And whatever it grows,' said Dad, 'nobody takes a slice in tax. It all stays yours.'

Asha pictured Bernie's lopsided sponge, all ten slices still on the plate.

Dad turned the laptop round. 'Global index fund. A tiny piece of thousands of companies, all over the world.'

'The Whole Sweet Shop Fund,' said Asha. 'Only bigger.'

She found the line about fees and read it twice. It was very small. A pinprick, probably. She would ask Mrs Oddie on Saturday to be sure.

Mum signed where it said PARENT in careful capitals, then let Asha fill in her own name and date of birth in the boxes underneath. Asha pressed so hard with the anchor pen that her name came through on the next sheet.

Mon 15 Sept: Junior ISA £100.00

The door creaked. Kit stood there in his seagull pyjamas, holding a glass of milk he was supposed to have finished an hour ago.

'Can I have one?' he said. 'With a seagull on it?'

'They don't come with pictures,' said Mum.

Kit considered this. 'Then how do you know which one's yours?'

'It's money for when you're eighteen,' said Asha.

He counted on his fingers, lost his place, and started again. 'Nine years,' he said. 'Herring gulls can live to thirty.'

'Start with a jar,' said Dad.

Kit put down the milk and went to find the masking tape.

The sky cleared on Wednesday. By half past eight the clouds had slid off towards the Point, and the back garden smelled of wet grass and somebody's barbecue three houses down.

Dad carried the telescope out and set it on the patio slabs. Asha had practised all week on the chimney pots of Harbour Lane, so she knew which knob did what. Mostly.

At twenty to nine the back gate clicked. Mrs Oddie came through it pushing her tartan shopping trolley, and sitting in the trolley, wrapped in a cardigan with leather elbow patches, was the orange tree in its cracked blue pot. Dividend walked behind with his tail up.

'He follows the tree now,' said Mrs Oddie. 'Traitor.'

'Why did you bring it?'

'It's never seen Saturn.'

Mum said it was too cold out for an orange tree, so it went on the kitchen windowsill, inside the glass, where it could look. Dividend sat on the step beneath it. Kit came out in his seagull pyjamas and a coat, holding his new SAVE jar under one arm. It had a seagull on it in green felt-tip. It held two pound coins.

Saturn was low over the rooftops. A steady, buttery dot that didn't twinkle. Asha lined up the finder, nudged the tube, nudged it back, and put her eye to the eyepiece.

It was tiny. Smaller than she had imagined, all those Saturdays. A pale gold bead, very far away. And round it, tilted like a hat brim, a ring. A real one, with black sky showing through the gap.

She forgot to breathe for a bit.

'Well?' said Mrs Oddie.

'It's got its ring on.'

Kit looked next. 'It's really small.'

'It's nearly a billion miles away,' said Asha.

Kit looked again, much longer. 'Then it's really big.'

Mrs Oddie bent to the eyepiece last, holding the lifeguard out of the way. She was quiet for so long that Asha wondered if she'd fallen asleep.

'Barnaby,' she said softly, to nobody, 'you'd have liked that.'

Asha turned round to grin at the kitchen. The light was on behind the glass, and the orange tree stood in it, every leaf lit up. Among the leaves, where the white flower had been in May, hung something round and hard and green. No bigger than a marble.

Dividend was already looking at it.