My mother has never been the one to give up a fight. Whether it be arguing with the local politician over spending cuts or arguing with the bin man over biodegradable plastic, she never gives in. There's always this fire in her eyes, this sharpness in her gestures, and a smooth voice that can cut through anything like a knife.

These are the things I observe two metres in front of me. Her back is turned away from me but I can see by her stance and the way her arms are moving that she's making a valid point. And, to make things worse, her voice crosses the distance as clear as day.

"What do you mean I can't pass liquids through?" she's saying, a bit too loudly, and with a bit too much aggression.

"The policies—" starts the man dressed in uniform.

"I don't want to hear about your policies!" snaps my mother. "What I want to hear is an answer to my question!"

"The pol—"

"Yes, right. Your policies are that I can't pass liquids through. But look"—she grabs the Evian water bottle off the table and thrusts it in his face—"this is not liquid, is it?"

There's silence. Then, a quick, "No, but—"

"This is ice," exclaims my mother. "And ice is not a liquid! So—"

She slams the red-capped bottle down on the metal counter with a deafening 'thump'.

"—I will pass this through and you will not tell me otherwise. Have I made myself clear?"

The man bites his lip, looking terrified. "Yes, Ma'am."

"Good," she says curtly, and then turns on her heel and marches towards me. Her face is a light pink and a single strand of hair sticks to her cheek. She brushes it off in annoyance.

"Come on, Julian," she says. "Let's go. We don't want to be hanging round staff who don't know about their own policies, do we?"

Before I can answer, she grabs my arm and pulls me away. The only thing I can do is crane my head back round to the poor guy and mouth a quick sorry. He stares at me as we go and I'm not sure if he understood me or not.

Mum doesn't stop yattering the whole way to the gate. I don't think she realises she actually left the water bottle behind; sometimes I think she argues for the fun of it.

She leads us to some seats and even then, she's still ranting on about the security guy, about how policies are unacceptable in this place. I sit through it, knowing fully well that I must let her rant otherwise I might be dragged into it too.

I sit there quietly, contemplating the situation. It was a quick pack, an unexpected Julian, we're going on holiday to Spain and then that was it. She gave me an hour to get my things together and we bundled in the car.

I asked her what it was about. She didn't look up from the road when she told me. The sun was only just rising.

"I got a phone call from Guy. Apparently, they found something big. A real gem."

Mum is an archaeologist. She doesn't actually do any of the diggings, but she works for a team of diggers who do the manual labour. She just takes whatever they find and helps make a profit out of it.

"But why do we have to go over there?" I asked. "Why couldn't he just tell you when they've uncovered it? Then you could just help sell it online."

She turned to me for a second as though she couldn't believe what I was saying. That seemed like her; I could never appear to be right. "Youngsters these days," she said disapprovingly. "You think it's all about online shopping and selling, do you?"—she didn't even pause to let me speak, but then again, I expected that of her—"Well, Julian, sometimes when a discovery is really big, you've got to go over there and see it for yourself. It'll be much easier, and plus, we'll be packing in an extra holiday too."

When she added in that last bit, it didn't sound quite so bad. But I still disliked the way she talked down to me like I was a small child. No wonder Dad was on his own business trip somewhere in Bermuda; it wouldn't surprise me if he'd only gone to avoid Mum's piercing barks.

I look over at my mother now. She looks less flustered after our ice-or-liquid debate and has now moved onto scrabbling around in her handbag(s) for something important. Passports, probably.

"It'll be fantastic, you'll see," she says as she pulls them out. "We'll have a right old diamond to sell."

Before I can tell her that the chances of the diggers having found a diamond are extremely low, the intercom comes on, and a voice rumbles out another set of instructions for boarding passengers.

"That's us," says Mum as soon as it clicks off, and the familiar hubbub of the airport fills my ears again. She pulls her bag up to her shoulder and, with both of our passports gripped in her hand, beckons me to follow her and join the ever-growing queue of people waiting to embark.

We get through without much of a fuss apart from Mum loudly jostling past a young couple, and shouldering into a family of five, thus knocking a tub of ice-cream from the toddler's hands. There's no time to apologise to any of them as my sharp-elbowed mother continues her quest to the front.

The plane is stuffy and smells of cheap leather when we get on. Mum wrinkles her nose in disgust but, thankfully, doesn't say anything. Meekly, I slide into the seat nearest the window and clip on my seat-belt. Mum made it clear many times on the way here that she would only sit in the aisle since that way she doesn't have to squeeze past "sleeping dead bodies" to relieve her bladder.

As I stare out of the window to a drizzly Heathrow airport, I become increasingly aware of the fact that there's no one seated in the middle. Yes, I could move, but that would be a seriously bad idea since if there's no horizon to look at, my stomach can't cope.

Mum adjusts her bag underneath the seat in front of her, and there's a sound of sick bags rustling. That only seems to confirm my thoughts.

A member of the cabin crew walks along the aisle, closing the overhead lockers along the way. That's surely a sign to indicate we'll be on the move shortly.

The flight attendant moves back down the plane, only to bump right into someone. I catch something pink flying and a murmured 'sorry' before the footsteps continue and a figure comes into view.

It's a girl. Waist-length dark hair hangs around her like a curtain, contrasting to a strip of shockingly bright pink that falls into her hazel, more-greenish eyes. She has a small nose that snubs a bit at the end in a childish way.

But that's not all. She's dressed in a black shirt under a red pinafore, and lacy dark tights lead to black Converse shoes that are tied all the way up to her ankles.

She stands in front of us, Kohl-rimmed eyes gazing at my mother with a sense of sullenness. I look her over once again because I've never seen such a dress code before. There's something about it that intimidates me.

"Yes?" Mum asks with a tilt of her head.

The girl smacks her thin, red lips and gives Mum an ironical smile. "I asked if you could move. I'm supposed to be seated in the middle." Her voice is low and has a velvety richness to it.

Mum then blinks, as though she knows the game, and returns her own version of a tight-lipped smile. "Certainly."

There's a small fuss as Mum slides out of her seat to let the girl in. I silently pray that there'll be nothing more since people are already beginning to turn heads. She probably was the last passenger on.

The girl places herself next to me, her eyes running over my too-small shirt and filthy jeans, something of which makes me want to curl up in a ball and disappear. Why couldn't I have worn something a bit cleaner? Why did Mum have to give me such little notice to pack?

As she sits down, I catch a whiff of a strong, powerful scent that almost knocks me out of my chair. Whatever spray she uses, she sure does put a reasonable amount on.

I stay silent in my seat for a while, neck craned at an awkward angle, body scooted as far away from her as possible. There's something about her that gives me the impression that she wants quite a lot of personal space, and along with averting the gaze of those sharp, beautiful eyes, I don't want to get caught on the wrong end of the stick.

The crew pace around the aircraft, scrutinising people's laps for signs of a seatbelt. Then the emergency procedures are demonstrated (and a persistent reminder to not inflate your lifejacket inside the aircraft) and when that's all done, the plane finally starts to move. It turns round a sharp bend, and I watch the terminal slowly creep past us. Then it begins to pick up its pace until the landscape seems to be flying.

Beside me, something brushes my arm. I glance over to find the girl's hands clenching both armrests. Her knuckles are white.

"I hate flying," she growls.

And then that's it. The roar is loud. And we're lifted into the air.

The plane wobbles slightly as though it's unsure, but then straightens and soon the roar quietens down until it's just audible but still a constant buzz in the back of my mind. Outside, we're surrounded by a sea of white, occasionally speckled with grey, but no blue in sight.

The flight to Madrid is two hours. From there, we'll get a cab and drive to the place where Guy and the team are.

As I stare out of the small window to the left of me and survey the great expanse of clouds, my eyes start to droop. One quick glance at my watch tells me that it's eight in the morning. I nestle back into my seat, feeling the hard leather digging into my neck and listening to the faint drone of the plane. It'd been an early start, a bustling to get ready. I'm knackered and the journey hasn't even begun.

And so, at thirty-five-thousand feet in the air, I fall asleep.

* * *

I wake up when the captain's voice blasts through the speakers, but I don't catch it in time. My head feels like it's been stuffed with cotton wool. Groggily, I brush the dried rheum from my eyes, and then there's a huge THUMP!

And, as quickly as that, we're at the Madrid airport.

I turn my head toward the centre seat. The girl is still there; her leg is crossed over the other and she holds a pencil gingerly to her white, straightened teeth. Quickly, so as not to disturb her, I glance at the notepad resting on her knees.

What I see is something that makes my breath hitch in my throat.

A stone the size of a fist sits on a pedestal. It's roughly cut in the shape of a diamond, but glints in what I would imagine being sunlight. The pedestal is carefully drawn with the most intricate detail: minute stones that fill every nook and cranny of the wood. I find myself becoming so mesmerised in the lines, the shape, and the delicate sweeping motion of her arm. I become so engrossed that I don't notice people are leaving their seats.

The notebook snaps shut. I jerk back, snapping my eyes back to the girl. Her lips are in a tight line, eyebrows furrowed, pupils narrowed, a holler on her face.

"You like what you see?" she hisses.

Feeling my heart thumping in my throat, I nod quickly.

"Well, I don't like what I see."

And then she's slipping out of her seat and stomping down the aisle before I can register her sentence.

It comes to me when Mum grabs my arm, hollering at my disappearance and then going off on a tangent about how I must always keep close to her.

Well, I don't like what I see. What was the girl seeing?

Me. She doesn't like me.

Just then, the lump in my throat enlarges.

Mum yanks both of us through passport control and into the baggage reclaim, never once letting go of my arm, as though I'll escape at any moment.

But I don't see the green-eyed girl anywhere. Not when we sit in the back of the stifling cab. Not when we drive through the busy, bustling city. Not when the landscape changes. Not when the driver stops on the dust path and asks for his fare.

I don't see her. And yet I'm left with a feeling of disappointment in the pit of my stomach.