The Fearsome Firebird

by Lauren Oliver

  “Err, maybe next time,” Sam said quickly.

  “How’s Von Stikk?” Thomas asked, deftly changing the subject. “She manage to get you in school yet?”

  The word school provoked an explosion of rage. “It should be illegal!” Chubby burst out, clutching his head as if the very idea of education pained him and leaving a long trail of smudgy shoe polish across his face. “The woman’s prosecuting me.”

  “You mean persecuting,” Pippa said. “Sorry,” she added, when Max shot her a look.

  Chubby frowned. “That’s what I said. Prosecuting.” He looked over his shoulder, as if worried Von Stikk might be hiding somewhere in the crowd, prepared to jump out at him. “No matter where I go, she’s there. It’s like she’s following me. Yesterday I had to hide in a crate of sausages to avoid her. I smelled like pork for the rest of the day. A dog nearly took my hand off.”

  Pippa was tempted to point out that Chubby often smelled a bit like pork, but remained silent.

  “Tough break,” Thomas said, clapping Chubby on the shoulder. Pippa knew, however, that he was relieved that Andrea von Stikk had found a new target. Von Stikk had overseen the Von Stikk’s Home for Extraordinary Children until it was closed because children kept disappearing, presumably because they had run away. Her newest project was the Von Stikk School for Underprivileged Youths, and in the summer, she had briefly attempted a legal campaign to remove Thomas, Pippa, Max, and Sam from Dumfrey’s care and enroll them at her school. “Take it easy, okay, Chub?”

  “I always do,” Chubby said cheerfully. “Wait!” he called out as they started to move on. His face turned serious. “Listen. I, ah, never thanked you guys for, you know, saving my life.” He extended a hand solemnly to Thomas. “And I want you to know if you ever need anything, I’m your guy.”

  “That’s all right, Chubby,” Thomas said with feeling, reaching out to clasp Chubby’s hand. “There’s no need to thank—ahhh!”

  There was a loud buzz. Thomas jumped back with a yelp, shaking his hand as though he’d been burned.

  “What was that?” Thomas said, his freckles darkening as they did when he was angry: like a small, furious constellation.

  Chubby only hooted with laughter. He opened his palm, revealing a small, circular device. “Superdeluxe joy buzzer. I got it from the new joke shop on Fifty-Seventh Street. They got everything—stink bombs and itch powders, dribble glasses and whoopee cushions, loaded dice and fake decks.”

  “Can I see?” Max said, staring at Chubby with renewed interest.

  “Get your own,” he said coolly, slipping the joy buzzer back into a pocket that contained—Pippa blanched—one quarter of an old bologna sandwich. “But really,” he said, once again extending a hand toward Thomas, his face turning serious. “Thank you.”

  Thomas cast an infuriated glance at Chubby’s outstretched palm. “I’ll pass,” he said. “See you next time, Chub.” He continued scowling as they kept on toward the bank, muttering something that sounded very much, to Pippa, like “revenge.”

  Located at the corner of Broadway and Sixty-First Street, the New York Federated Savings Bank looked like an ancient Greek temple. It looked like a temple inside, too, with its soaring ceiling, vaulted windows, and a marble floor so beautifully polished that you felt slightly guilty for walking on it. Gray-faced men sat behind enormous gray desks, sorting gray documents into gray folders, all of them moving so mechanically that Pippa thought at first she was looking at the same man replicated over and over.

  It was obvious that the bank had taken recent precautions against robbery. An armed guard was stationed next to the front doors, and a second guard paced the room, evaluating customers and keeping one hand on a holstered gun.

  A line of people snaked up toward the counters. Pippa, Thomas, Max, and Sam joined the back of the line. Normally, Pippa enjoyed the bank, but she kept thinking of the vision she’d had in Times Square, of Rattigan’s leering face and her own mouth open in a scream. He was out there, somewhere, and the key to her past was locked inside of him . . .

  She was jolted from these thoughts when the man behind her stepped hard on her heel, nearly sending her sprawling onto the floor. She whipped around.

  “That’s the third time you’ve trampled on my . . . ,” she started to say, but the words got tangled in her throat. Cold fear gripped her, as if the floor had just dropped away and she’d plunged into freezing water.

  The man was wearing a long overcoat with the collar turned up and a low-brimmed fedora hat that concealed his eyes. He had his gloved hands in his pockets.

  And in one of them was a gun.

  Slowly, the man raised his eyes to hers. They were dark brown, nearly black, and cold as stone. He drew his lips back into a grin, and she saw that beneath his straggly mustache, his teeth were yellowed and rotting.

  “Pardon me, your highness,” he said mockingly.

  “Forgiven,” Pippa squeaked. She turned around, her heart beating very fast. She nudged Max with an elbow.

  “Stop bumping me,” Max said lazily, without looking up. She was using a gold-tipped penknife to clean her fingernails. Pippa nudged her again, a little harder. Still, Max didn’t look up. “I said keep your elbows to yourself.”

  Thomas had just reached the counter.

  “Hello,” he said to the gray-faced man blinking at him from behind the glass, looking like a somber fish staring out from the murky depths of an ocean. “We’d like to make a deposit.”

  “Thomas,” Pippa hissed.

  “Hold on a second, Pip,” he said, waving her away. “You have the money, Max?”

  “Gave it to Sam,” she said, still concentrating on her fingernails.

  “I gave it to you,” Sam said, turning to Thomas. “I’m sure I gave it to you.”

  “Step aside, please, if you aren’t ready to conduct your business,” the gray-faced man said in a voice that sounded as if it had been piped out of a tin can.

  “You didn’t,” Thomas said to Sam.

  “Did.”

  “Didn’t.”

  “Sirs, I must ask you to step aside so that our other customers . . .”

  “Thomas,” Pippa tried again desperately. The man shifted behind her. She could feel his growing impatience—could see the barrel of the gun, inching upward in his pocket, pointing directly at her lower back.

  “Not now, Pippa.” Thomas glared at Sam. “You don’t think I would remember if—”

  He didn’t get any further. The man shoved Pippa roughly out of the way, at the same time yanking the gun from his pocket. In an instant, he’d seized Thomas by the collar and jammed the revolver to his neck, lifting Thomas clean off his feet and pressing his face to the window that divided him from the bank clerk.

  “Nice and easy now and no trouble,” he said in a low voice. The bank clerk’s face had gone from gray to sheet-white. “Or else this one’s brains get splattered on the counter, understand?” He shook Thomas so hard, Thomas’s teeth clacked together. “A thousand dollars, small bills, in an envelope. Now.”

  As the trembling bank clerk began counting out bills, Pippa felt a desperate desire to scream. But she couldn’t risk it—not when Thomas was in danger. Max started to reach into her pocket but Sam shook his head.

  The man would have to release Thomas, or set down the gun, in order to take the money. And then Pippa would scream. . . .

  The clerk sealed the envelope and slid it beneath the glass, drawing his hand away quickly, as if the man were a poisonous snake who might bite.

  “Nice try,” the robber snarled, and Pippa’s heart sank. “Put it in my pocket.”

  The clerk did as he was told, sliding open the little glass window, reaching forward with trembling hands to stuff the envelope into the robber’s coat pocket. And still the guards hadn’t noticed or moved, though the customers in line were starting to get impatient.

  “P—please,” the clerk stammered, keeping his voice low, nervously licking his lips. “L—let the boy go. You go
t what you wanted.”

  “I’ll think about it, just as long as you don’t make a peep,” the robber snarled, and Pippa’s heart sank. And she knew, in an instant, with that intuition that was more than feeling, but vision, that the man didn’t intend to release Thomas—not until he made it free and clear of the bank.

  Keeping Thomas in a choke hold, the man spun around.

  Pippa didn’t have time to think. He was nearly on top of her. She could see Thomas’s eyes, big as moons, trying to communicate a message. But she didn’t understand. And without thinking, she dropped to the ground, jutted out a leg, and tripped the man as he barreled headlong for the doors.

  The robber went flying, releasing his hold on Thomas. They both tumbled to the ground, hard, and the gun skittered out of the robber’s hand and discharged with a thunderous—

  Bang.

  The bullet ricocheted off the wall and left a fine web of cracks in one of the glass doors as the guard, letting out a cry of surprise, stumbled backward, fumbling for his own gun. Suddenly, everything was chaos. Women were screaming as they pulled their children to the ground. Clerks cowered under their desks.

  By then both Thomas and the robber were back on their feet. Their eyes fell on the gun at the same time. Thomas dove for it first.

  At that moment, one of the guards came charging across the floor, roaring for the robber to put his hands up. Pippa watched, horrified, as time seemed to slow down, to grow soupy and almost still: Thomas was in the air, reaching out a hand, sailing, sailing—directly into the path of the oncoming guard.

  “Watch out!” Pippa screamed. But it was too late.

  The guard knocked the fallen gun with the toe of his boot, spinning it back toward the robber. A fraction of a second later, Thomas hit the ground, colliding with the guard’s shins, and the two of them fell into a hopeless tangle of limbs.

  The robber bent over to snatch up his gun, his long fingers outstretched, only inches from the weapon—

  Thwack.

  The thief let out a high-pitched scream as a knife—Pippa recognized it as one of Max’s favorites, with a fine, needlelike blade and a bone handle—nicked him perfectly between his outstretched fingers. He drew back, cradling his injured hand, leaving a trail of blood across the front of his coat. He must have decided the gun wasn’t worth the trouble, because in the next instant he was barreling toward the doors again, easily knocking aside the lone trembling guard who stood between him and the exit, shaking too hard to draw his weapon.

  “Quick!” someone screamed. “He’s getting away!”

  “Sam!” Pippa called desperately.

  Luckily, Sam understood. He lunged for the nearest desk—an enormous, hulking thing made of heavy oak—and hefted it in the air, revealing a small knot of people clustered beneath it, whimpering, like mice crammed into a hole. With a grunt, Sam heaved it toward the doors . . .

  . . . just as the robber slipped through them onto the street.

  Crash.

  The desk tumbled through the thin glass and spun across the stone steps. Pedestrians leaped out of the way, screaming. An alarm began to wail, so loud that Pippa had to cover her ears. Several curious faces appeared beyond the shattered doorway, peering at the inside of the bank from behind the remaining jagged teeth of glass, so that Pippa had the sudden impression of being an animal in a zoo exhibit.

  Outside, the robber had already disappeared into the crowd.

  “I should have known,” was the first thing Assistant Chief Inspector Hardaway said when he spotted Thomas.

  Max groaned. Sam cast a longing look at the door, as if he were thinking of making a run for it. Only Pippa managed to respond.

  “Hello, Mr. Hardaway,” she said.

  “Assistant Chief Inspector Hardaway,” he snarled. Pippa didn’t blink. Thomas was sure the insult was deliberate. He felt an unexpected surge of affection for her. Pippa might act like an overcooked noodle sometimes, but when push came to shove, there was nothing soft about her.

  “All right.” Hardaway spun around in a circle, hitching up his belt, addressing the room at large. “Does someone want to tell me what the h—”

  “Sir.” Hardaway’s underling, Lieutenant Webb, coughed the word, indicating with a jerk of his chin all the little children just emerging from behind overturned tables and countertops, and Hardaway swallowed back the curse, barely.

  “Does someone want to tell me,” he said through gritted teeth, “what in the name of my aunt Tillie happened here?”

  “We were robbed, sir.” An ashen-faced man sprouted from behind his desk, like a particularly fast-growing and colorless flower. He smoothed and resmoothed his tie with hands as plump as dumplings. Thomas immediately identified him as the bank manager.

  “Poor Mr. Abner was at the counter—” He gestured toward the ashen-faced clerk who had delivered the money into the robber’s hand.

  Now that the danger was over, however, Mr. Abner seemed considerably recovered—cheerful, almost, as if invigorated by the whole affair and by his role in it. “That’s right, Inspector,” he said with great solemnity, puffing up his chest. “He came pushing to the front of the line and grabbed hold of that boy”—he indicated Thomas—“and that’s when I saw the gun.” One of the witnesses let out a low moan, as if even the memory was too much. “He told me to put the money in an envelope. I was hoping he would have to put down the gun, or release the boy, to take the money, but he was clever. He made me tuck it into his pocket.”

  “What did he look like?” Hardaway said, and Lieutenant Webb removed a pad of paper and pen from his back pocket. Beneath the brim of his fedora, Lieutenant Webb’s eyes were as hard and dark as two very old raisins.

  Now Mr. Abner appeared uncomfortable. “I—I didn’t get a good look at him.”

  “You didn’t get a good look at him?” Hardaway repeated. “He was standing less than six inches from you!”

  “He was wearing a hat, pulled very low, and a high-collared coat,” Mr. Abner said, removing a handkerchief from his pocket and swiping agitatedly at his nose. “He looked a bit like your lieutenant, actually . . .”

  Lieutenant Webb let out a low growl.

  “In the manner of dress, I mean,” Mr. Abner said quickly. “That’s all. Like I said, I didn’t get a good look. He had a gun . . .”

  “I see.” Hardaway’s frown deepened to a scowl. “So he scared the wits straight out of you. Anyone else?” He looked around the room at the assembled crowd. When no one spoke, he let out a little huff of impatience. “Give me something. Was he tall? Short? Dark? Fair?”

  “Tall,” a short woman said, shivering. “Very tall.”

  “Not so tall,” a tall man said, disagreeing. “Quite average, really.”

  “He was wearing a hat, but I could see his hair was dark,” said someone else, just as an older woman holding a squirming poodle said, “He was quite fair. Blond, practically white.”

  “He was ugly,” Max said.

  “He had a betting slip in his pocket,” Pippa said, “and a book of matches.”

  “He had a mustache,” Sam added. “An ugly one.”

  “Wonderful.” Had Hardaway been a dog, Thomas was sure he would have bared his teeth. “So we’re searching for a man who may or may not be tall, has either light or dark hair, sports a mustache, likes to gamble, and occasionally requires a match.” He wrenched off his hat as though tempted to throw it—instead, he settled for mashing it back onto his head. “That narrows it down to half the population of New York.”

  “We tried to stop him,” Sam said, somewhat defensively.

  “I can see that,” Hardaway said, shooting a glance at the shattered door and the splintered desk beyond it, around which a crowd was still buzzing like ants over the remains of a picnic. “How much did he make off with?”

  Mr. Abner hung his head. The manager spoke up. “A thousand dollars, sir.”

  “Not exactly.” Thomas spoke up for the first time. He dug a hand into the inside of his jacket
and revealed a slightly crumpled envelope.

  Pippa gasped. “You didn’t.”

  “’Course I did,” Thomas said proudly. “You didn’t think I’d let that lunatic half strangle me for no reason, did you?”

  Thomas wasn’t built like other people. His bones were flexible. They could bend. As a result, he could squeeze himself into a shape hardly larger than a child’s suitcase. He could escape a pair of handcuffs or a thick cable of chains. And he could certainly escape a headlock. As soon as the robber had seized him, however, he knew he would have the chance to recover whatever money the clerk handed over to him.

  “But—how?” Pippa said as Thomas gave the envelope to a still-scowling Hardaway, who looked as if he would have actually preferred the money to be gone.

  “Max taught me,” Thomas said, shrugging. Max grinned and gave him a thumbs-up. Pippa folded her lips together and for once had nothing to say about Max’s old habit of picking people’s pockets.

  Hardaway opened the envelope and peered inside. When he looked up, his dark eyes were glittering dangerously. “Is this some kind of a joke?” he said softly. “There’s less than four dollars here.”

  “See? I told you I gave you Mr. Dumfrey’s money,” Sam grumbled.

  “Wrong envelope,” Thomas said, digging in his other pocket and producing the correct one.

  The bank manager looked as if he was about to swoon from joy. “Miraculous!” he exclaimed. “Amazing! Wonderful!”

  “Lucky,” Hardaway growled, before dismissing them.

  If Thomas was hoping for a peaceful afternoon, he was to be disappointed. Even before they reached 344 West Forty-Third Street, he could hear a commotion from inside. A small group of their neighbors had assembled just outside of the museum, doing a terrible job of trying to appear casual while craning their necks to see inside. The noise had drawn out even the reclusive Eli Sadowski, who lived next door and ventured outside only rarely, and then typically only for a few minutes, to procure another stack of newspapers to add to his vast collection or to visit a doctor for medications to combat everything from dust sensitivity to a fear of cucumbers.