Chapter 13

We touch down at Lady Penelope's mansion, scattering leaves from the trees as Thunderbird 1 settles on her landing gear. Scott cuts the engines and her powerful roar dwindles to an exhausted sigh. He is down from the pilot's seat before I've even finished unbuckling my safety belt. He opens the locker and hands me my bag. I sling it over my shoulder.

"Thank you, Scott. You're a gentleman."

"I'm doing my best, but it's killing me," he smiles ruefully.

Lady Penelope greets us warmly. She kisses me on both cheeks and gives me a ladylike hug so as not to crease my blouse. Little does she know that Scott has already done a good job of that!

"How lovely to see you, Tin-Tin," she breathes. "We really must see you more often. These boys mustn't keep you all to themselves."

She lifts her head and kisses Scott. I watch as she presses her lips to his dimple. "Scott, darling. You're a knight in shining armour, Or rather, fetching blue armour."

"A Boy Scout always comes prepared," he grins. I wish he wouldn't flirt with her!

She leads us into her enormous mansion. In the huge dining room there is a small assortment of cakes and sandwiches.

"Please, do make yourselves at home. I shall just pop upstairs and powder my nose." She disappears from the room, leaving only the scent of her perfume behind.

Scott picks up a chocolate cupcake and bites it in half. "Damn, this is good," he mumbles. He holds it out towards me. I lean forward and take a small nibble. "I knew I could get you eating out of my hand," he chuckles.

I swat him on the arm. "You are far too confident for your own good, Scott Tracy."

He finishes the cake, picks up another.

"You can't be hungry." I watch, amazed.

"Maybe I've got an eating disorder."

"More like a can't stop eating disorder."

He does that thing with his eyebrow that makes me go weak. "You're getting mighty fresh, young lady." He dips his finger in cream and dabs it on my nose. I wipe it off and pick up a cake. When Lady Penelope reappears I am trying to smear butter icing on his face.

"Oh dear," she says. "I can't leave you two alone for five minutes!"

We notice two large suitcases and several hatboxes piled in the hallway behind her. Scott's face falls.

"Since Parker is already on his way to Australia," Lady Penelope continues, "I'm afraid you shall have to help me carry them out."

Scott goes over and lifts one of the suitcases. It looks heavy. "What have you got in here?" he exclaims.

"Just a few changes of clothes. Oh, and some shoes. Perhaps one or two items of jewellery. Nothing you can't handle, dear boy." She squeezes his bicep playfully. He shakes his head, exasperated.

It takes a while to ferry all of Lady Penelope's belongings out to Thunderbird 1. To think that Gordon gave me such grief over one tiny little bag! Scott struggles to find somewhere to put everything. There are just a few tiny lockers big enough for the hatboxes. He squashes them in. He lashes the suitcases together with a canvas strap and clips them to the base of the pilot's seat. Lady Penelope goes back to the house to lock up. Scott turns to me with an expression of amusement and despair.

"I love her, but she's hard work," he says.

"You love her?" I hope my pout looks pretty. "In what way?"

He hooks his index fingers through the belt loops of my jeans and pulls me towards him. He takes hold of me by the hips. He gives me a lingering kiss, but he doesn't answer my question.

"You'd better strap yourself in," he says suggestively. I gasp out loud and start giggling. We only move apart when we hear Lady Penelope's dainty footsteps outside. I climb into my seat while Scott gallantly helps her into the cockpit.

"Thank you, dear boy. Which way to First Class?"

"You're not on the Orient Express now, lady. Get in."

She shivers theatrically. "Oh, how masterful." She settles into the seat beside me.

Scott closes the hatch and pulls himself up onto his lofty perch. He reaches up and begins flicking switches. Thunderbird 1 awakes from her slumber and growls, trembling like a lioness disturbed. He activates her under jets. With a roar of protest the great silver beast lifts into the air.

"I say," Lady Penelope breathes. "Isn't this exciting."

It only takes moments to get airborne. With her wings outstretched Thunderbird 1 climbs steadily up and up, gaining height and speed in seconds. Scott makes minute adjustments to her controls. Her left wingtip dips gently and she turns smoothly, responding like a kitten to his every command. He is in total control of everything she does. Is it possible to be jealous of a man-made machine?

He retracts Thunderbird 1's wings as she reaches maximum speed, completes her turn and levels off.

"Well," says Lady Penelope huskily, "I do think Scott ought to be making more of an effort to make this journey entertaining. It isn't as though we can look out of the window, is it?"

I nod my agreement. "Yes, Lady Penelope, and where are all the complimentary drinks and snacks?"

"He has probably eaten them all."

"If you two are going to start ganging up on me, I'll put you both outside," Scott warns ominously.

"So charismatic," Lady Penelope purrs.

When we touch down in Australia, there is an International Rescue agent waiting in a taxi. To look at him, you wouldn't suspect that he worked for us- he is paunchy and red-faced and appears very unfit. But appearances can be deceptive! He helps Lady Penelope into the cab and chuckles at the sight of Scott who is hauling her heavy suitcases across the tarmac.

"The good Lady's got you working hard, I see!" he laughs.

"Don't go yet, there's more."

Scott goes back and retrieves the now slightly crumpled hatboxes. He wedges them into the remaining trunk space next to the suitcases. When the trunk is full, he slams it shut.

"Thank you so much, Scott. I don't know what I would have done without you," Lady Penelope smiles through the open window. She holds out her slim and beautifully manicured hand for Scott to take. "Do have a safe journey home, and do look after darling Tin-Tin." She waves daintily to me, like the Queen. "Goodbye Tin-Tin, thank you for coming along to see me. We shall have to arrange a proper get-together soon."

Scott and I wait together on the tarmac until the taxi is gone.

"She's quite something, isn't she," he says appreciatively.

We turn and start walking back to Thunderbird 1. She waits patiently for us, her smooth silver body gleaming in the sunlight. I start to feel like a silly little girl walking beside him, as though I'm fifteen again. Scott is tall and strong and handsome, broad shouldered, lean hipped and long legged. What would a man like him want with a naive, inexperienced young thing like me? Why would he choose me over Lady Penelope? She is blonde and confident, adventurous and effortlessly cool. She dresses in haute couture and her legs go on forever. She is his intellectual equal. She is as bright and as sharp as he is. Maybe I'm just a plaything after all, someone there to amuse him when he gets bored.

But he's not like that. Not the Scott I know. Trust me, he said. So I have to trust him.

He helps me into the cockpit. I put my bag in the locker and buckle myself in. He closes the hatch and climbs up to his seat. We lift off for the third and final leg of our journey. Thunderbird 1 soars gracefully skyward, oblivious to the human condition. She obeys Scott's every command- she will never know feelings of rejection, because he will never leave her. I am envious.

"Hey, beautiful. You've gone very quiet down there."

I look up to see him smiling at me. "I was just thinking," I confess.

"Oh? About what?"

"Nothing much," I shrug.

"Want to come sit with me? No monkey business."

I climb up gratefully, settle down on his lap facing forward. He folds his arms across my stomach and nestles his chin on my shoulder. "I know what you're doing," he says. "You're comparing yourself to her."

"What? No! I'm...well, maybe. A little."

He laughs, not unkindly. "What do you think she's got that you haven't?"

"She's beautiful."

"So are you."

"She's smart and sophisticated."

"So are you, Tin-Tin."

"She's blonde."

"That's just an accident of birth."

"She wears the most gorgeous, expensive clothes."

"Clothes just get in the way."

I start to giggle. "She has about seven hundred pairs of shoes."

"Your feet are lovely just as they are."

I sigh. "Am I being silly, Scott?"

He nods. "Very."

"I suppose there is something else." I nestle closer. His arms take up the slack. "Alan. He must already suspect. What's he going to say when he finds out for sure?"

Scott falls silent. I refuse to believe that he's lost for words. Eventually he speaks. "He's going to think I'm a lousy brother, moving in on his girl."

"Even though I'm not his girl anymore."

"You know," Scott says with a sigh, "I've spent the last few days purposely trying not to think of Alan. That doesn't show me in a very good light, I know, but I can't deny it anymore. It's not just about when you came to my room. I've realised, Tin-Tin, it's about other times, too. I've been thinking. It's about when you're in the pool, swimming like a dolphin with the sun on your back. It's when you put your hair in pigtails to play tennis. It's watching crabs chase you screaming up the beach. It's that time you tried to make strawberry pavlova and the recipe went wrong, and you spent the rest of the night sulking in your room. It's the way you laugh at all those stupid sitcoms and bawl your eyes out at chick-flicks. It's you, Tin-Tin. It's about you. It was about you all along, and I never even knew it."

"Scott," I whisper. "I had no idea."

Poor Scott. I was so busy worrying about my feelings for him that I hardly gave a thought to what he was feeling for me. Some part of me deep down was sure that this would prove to be a fling- that we would have some fun and then he'd break my heart, that he'd walk away from me like all the rest. I had put him on a pedestal, but all along he was just the same as me, one human being in search of another.

I turn around and kiss him, resting my hand on the back of his neck. I am starting to learn what he likes. Our mouths become synchronised, fitting together like two halves of a puzzle. There is no rush, no race to be won. There is just warm, liquid passion.

And this moment that stretches forever.