the other side of planet earth, and still think you were flying straight!"

"Weird to the max!"

"There's no such thing as a straight line either."

"Not even if you draw it on a sheet of paper with a ruler?"

"No, because if you look at it close up, all you'll see is a jumble of atoms, all scattered and messed up in heaps, like a rubbish dump."

"But what if you drop a ball?" said Rhys, "It would drop straight down wouldn't it?"

"That's how it would look," I agreed, "But when you realize that the world is spinning at over a thousand kilometers an hour at the equator, and also shooting through space, and turning on the edge of a galaxy, the ball is falling in a curve. Same if you chuck the ball straight up and then catch it!"

The rain was finding more and more holes in the canopy of leaves above our heads. We were the only ones left outside the school buildings. The playground was empty. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets and shivered.

"I'm getting soaked!" I said.

"Me too!" said Rhys.

We ran to the nearest door and ducked in out of the cold. The most important reality we knew about right then was that we were getting wet and cold and needed shelter. We'd get back to the silly questions some other time.