by Laura Ruby
“Nice scarf!” said Roma.
Hewitt blinked, her eyes unreadable. “The main reading room on the top floor is nearly two city blocks in length. We’ll be visiting that last. If you’ll follow me, I’ll be taking you through the various galleries. Try to stay close.” She whipped round and started to walk away.
“Why are you walking?” Roma said contemptuously. “Are you a leadfoot? Can’t you fly?”
Hewitt half turned, her lips twisted in amusement. “Yes. If that awkward bounce you and everyone else does could actually be called flying. I prefer to move with a little more grace.”
London England murmured, “Um, I think she’s making fun of you.”
Roma tried again. “And why are you wearing that scarf? Don’t you have any hair?”
This time, Hewitt didn’t bother to turn. “Why are you wearing that wig? Don’t you have any hair?”
The girls gasped, staring at Roma’s signature red hair. “It’s not a wig,” Roma shouted. “It’s not!”
Ms Letturatura tapped Roma on the shoulder. “What did I say, Roma? Polite. Respectful. Quiet.”
Roma: “But she—”
“Shhh!” said Hewitt. “This is a library!”
Roma clamped her mouth shut, self-consciously smoothing her hair and muttering to herself. Georgie had never seen anyone put Roma in her place, and thought Hewitt was quite possibly the most fascinating person that she’d ever met. She wondered what kind of poetry she’d written, and whether she wanted to be friends. Especially that last part. If she made another friend, maybe she wouldn’t be so upset about Bug. Maybe she could forget about him. Maybe Hewitt would have a way to scare off Punks and Georgie could be friend-full and Punk-free for ever. Maybe she could have a real life just like a normal person.
“Um, hi,” Georgie ventured as the class was touring a gallery of maps. “I was wondering, um…”
“If that silly twit’s hair is real or a wig,” Hewitt said.
“No,” Georgie said. “Well, yes. I mean, I guess I’m curious about that. But I wanted to ask about your poetry.”
“Really.”
“Yes.”
One eyebrow lifted slightly. “Do you read much poetry?”
“No, but—”
Hewitt sighed a this-conversation-is-more-boring-than-death sigh.
“But I’m interested in trying,” Georgie continued doggedly. She had patience, she had fortitude, she would make this girl like her. “I’d love to see one of your books.”
“Nobody reads real poetry,” Hewitt said. “Nobody appreciates art any more. They just want greeting cards.”
Georgie had no idea what Hewitt was talking about. “Yeah.”
Hewitt gave Georgie a long look. Her face didn’t soften, exactly, but it did seem less cold. “If you’re really interested in my work, forget about my books. Go to my website. Hewittelder.com. My e-mail address is there too. Write me and tell me what you think.”
“OK! I will. Thanks.”
Hewitt nodded. Then she clapped her hands and motioned the class to follow her to the next gallery. For the first time in a month, Georgie felt like she had a little something to smile about.
Take that, Roma Radisson.
Chapter 7
The It Club
The two bouncers manning the door were the size and shape of refrigerators, if refrigerators came with tattoos, nose rings and extremely bad attitudes.
“Young man,” said Mr Fuss to the refrigerator closest to him, “I think you need to let me by.”
“Us,” said the Punk skulking behind Mr Fuss. “You need to let us by.”
Mr Fuss frowned at the Punk, who was now calling himself Mandelbrot, of all things.
“Did you two miss the velvet rope?” the fridge said. “Did you miss the line behind you?”
Mr Fuss turned and looked at the line of people waiting to get into the nightclub. “Goodness,” he said. “How horrifying. Who is teaching them all to dress?”
One of the fridges scowled harder. “Look, dude, we’ve checked the list and you’re not on it. Neither is your friend there. That means you’ll have to move to the back of the line and wait like everyone else.”
Mr Fuss smiled politely. “I don’t wait like everyone else. I don’t wait like anyone else. As a matter of fact, I simply don’t wait, full stop.” He reached up and pressed the tip of his finger to the nearest fridge’s forehead. If it hadn’t been so dark, perhaps someone would have noticed that the tip of that finger seemed to sink into the bouncer’s head up to the first knuckle.
“That tickles,” the bouncer said.
“Yes, I bet it does,” replied Mr Fuss. He removed the finger and wiped it off on his handkerchief.
“I think he’s on the list,” said the bouncer, rubbing the spot where Mr Fuss’s finger had been.
“What?” said the other bouncer. “I thought you said you checked it.”
“I must have missed it,” he said. He unhooked the red velvet rope and gestured Mr Fuss through. Mr Fuss was irritated to note that the bouncers also let Mandelbrot through.
“Thank you, young man.”
As Mr Fuss entered the club, he heard one fridge say to the other, “Are you sure he’s on the list?”
“Did you know that in certain areas of the tropics, it rains frogs?”
“What?
Mr Fuss smiled and kept walking, Mandelbrot right behind him.
“Oi, that was cool,” Mandelbrot said. “What did you do to the bloke’s head?”
“You don’t want to know,” Mr Fuss said.
The club was dark and cave-like, the only light coming from small red lava lamps pulsing in the gloom. All around the club, women in glittery dresses sipped candy-coloured drinks or made half-hearted attempts to dance while the men watched. Though the music was pumping at a volume that Mr Fuss found distinctly unnecessary, all of the clubbers looked bored. Particularly bored was the band of pale-skinned types that lurked around the edges of the room. As a rule, they seem to prefer clothes in black velvet and capes. On other people, these clothes might look a bit ridiculous, but the pale-skinned types wore them like they were second skins. Mr Fuss amused himself with the notion of telling the clubbers that they were hanging out with a bunch of vampires. But of course, he had no intention of telling anyone in the after-hours club about the vampires in their midst. After what the Punk had told him about his visit to the little girl, the fact that she was a Wall, Mr Fuss knew he needed more freelancers. Special kinds of freelancers. He had a proposition for the vampires. And a bit of a bribe.
Mr Fuss approached a thin man with blond hair and eyes that would probably have been described as “soulful” if vampires actually had souls. The man wore black velvet trousers and a shiny black shirt open at his white, white throat.
“You’re still here,” said Mr Fuss, shouting to be heard over the thumping music.
The man turned his soulful-soulless eyes on Mr Fuss. “What?”
Mr Fuss frowned and suddenly, the music instantly muted as if someone had pressed a button. No one else at the club seemed to notice.
“I have something for you,” Mr Fuss said. “For all of you.”
“For all of who?”
“Let’s not play games, shall we?” replied Mr Fuss. “I know who you are, Phinneas. I know what you are.”
The pale man shrugged, bored. Vampires were perpetually bored. (If you had “lived” for five hundred years and had heard the miniskirt hailed as the “newest thing in fashion” ten times in five decades, well, you’d be bored too.)
The other vampires at the club noticed Mr Fuss and gathered around him. “What do you have for us?” one of them asked.
“Something dead?” said another.
“Something better,” Mr Fuss told them. “Take a look.” He pointed to the centre of the dance floor, where Mandelbrot had created his own mosh-pit and was stomping all over the rest of the club kids with his big combat boots. Every few seconds, he’d let out a giant “whoop-wh
oop!” Or an “Oi! Oi! Oi!” He yelled, “You have no future!” and “You want to be anarchy!” He laughed like a loon when he knocked over a group of party girls like a bunch of bowling pins.
One vampire said, “Well, he’s not boring.”
“I could watch him for a while,” said another. “A little while.”
“Can we have him?” still another said. “He can dance for us.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Mr Fuss. “Punks are often more trouble then they’re worth.” After the debacle at the Bloomingtons’, Mr Fuss had confiscated the Keys to the City and considered drowning Mandelbrot in one of the It Club toilets. Then again, if the vampires wanted to do a little trade…
Phinneas the vampire blinked. “What do you want in exchange for him?”
“I think I’d like a seltzer with lime,” said Mr Fuss. “And I have a job that I need you to do.”
Chapter 8
Good Dog
Georgie sat back in her chair, her forehead creased in puzzlement. She read the poem out loud for the twenty-second time:
My soul
is a freckle
On the sun
My eyes are glass marbles
Shattered on stone
My bones are snapped
Branches on a dying tree
I wait
For a bus
That never comes.
Stupid.
“I don’t get it,” Georgie said. She looked at Noodle. “Do you get it?”
In response, Noodle mewled at the screen.
“Maybe it’s too deep for us or something,” Georgie said. Noodle batted the mouse, trying to click over to another website. “No, Noodle, I’m still reading.”
Noodle sniffed audibly, jumped down from Georgie’s lap, and loped out of the room.
“You don’t appreciate real art,” Georgie called after her. “You just want greeting cards!” But then, she had to admit that greeting cards were a lot easier to understand than any of the poems posted on Hewitt’s website, all of them about broken bones and busses that never come and stupid people who are so stupid they don’t know they’re stupid. She’d been poring over them for days now. Still, she liked Hewitt. Even if she was the grumpiest teenager in the universe, Hewitt had shut Roma up, and that was hard to do. And though Georgie didn’t admit this to herself, Hewitt seemed to be everything Georgie wanted to be, and that alone was reason to get to know her. Georgie clicked on Hewitt’s e-mail address and wrote this message:
Dear Hewitt:
This is Georgetta Bloomington. I was with a group that toured the public library two weeks ago, the one with Roma Radisson? You told me that if I was interested in your poetry, I should check out your website, which I did. Your poems are really cool. My favourite is the one about the moon looking like a bloodshot eye winking at you. Anyway, I have to go because there’s a school trip to the Museum of Modern Art today and I don’t want to miss it (even though Roma Radisson will be there – yuck). I hope you chaperone today. But if not, I’m at the library a lot. I hope I’ll see you again sometime.
Sincerely,
Georgie Bloomington
She left the computer and started to gather her books for school. There was a photograph taped to her computer, and she stopped to look at it. Her father had taken it on New Year’s Eve. It showed Bug and Georgie sitting together on the Bloomingtons’ couch, both of them laughing. She remembered that night so clearly. She had only been with the Bloomingtons a little over a month and was still awed by the turn her life had taken. And Bug had had to absorb a lot of changes as well – his father jailed, Bug himself a star athlete. It was such a relief to get together and feel normal again. Like kids. They’d toasted the New Year with sparkling grape juice and stayed up with her new parents till midnight to watch the ball drop in Times Square. It was one of the best times of her life.
And now everything was different.
She said goodbye to her parents, assuring them that yes, she’d be careful, yes, she’d call if she was going to be late, no, she wouldn’t talk to strangers, yes, she loved them too, and yes, she’d have a good day. Try, anyway. Ever since Hewitt had embarrassed her at the public library, Roma had been in a bad mood. And when Roma was in a bad mood, she liked to take it out on Georgie. Georgie wished that it were Roma that was being menaced by Punks, but then, as her parents always told her, the world wasn’t a fair place. Georgie was thankful that there wasn’t much more time before the school year would be over and she would be free of Roma Radisson for ever. Roma had already declared her intention to quit school and become a world-famous actor. Her first film, she said, was about a very rich heiress with a heart of gold and a really great boyfriend. She was penning the script herself. Also directing and producing. She was sure it would be a hit at Cannes. On the red carpet, she planned to wear a gown made entirely of hundred-dollar notes.
“Well, either it will be made of hundred-dollar notes or thousand-dollar notes. I haven’t decided yet,” Roma said on the way to the museum.
“You could make the dress out of credit cards,” offered London.
“Tacky,” said Roma.
“Yeah,” Bethany said. “What are you thinking?”
“Stop thinking,” said Roma.
What Georgie was thinking: the sequins that Roma had sewn all over her uniform skirt made her look like some sort of insane majorette. All she needed was a baton and one of those huge fuzzy hats with the chin strap and they could have their own Prince School parade.
Ms Letturatura herded the group to the E train. She was one of those teachers who thought that taking the subway was a gritty urban adventure that the girls of the Prince School would relate to their grandkids one day, something that had to be experienced at least once. She seemed to feel the same way about the hot dogs served at nearly every street corner and had once taken an entire English class for lunch at one. “Stay together, girls.”
“I don’t want to take the subway,” London said as they barrelled towards midtown. “I’m afraid of the Punks.”
Roma scoffed. “Don’t be such a wimp. There are no such things as Punks.”
Oh yes there are, thought Georgie.
“Oh yes there are!” said London. “My grandma saw one once. He was tagging a subway car. She said his eyes were the creepiest things. Like black holes or something.”
“Your grandma thinks the FBI is following her,” said Roma. “And the CIA. And the president.”
“Well, they could be!” said London. “Ouch!” She turned and glared at Georgie, who had lost her footing and bumped into her.
“Sorry,” Georgie muttered.
“You’re always bumping into people and you’re always saying you’re sorry!” said London. Georgie could have mouthed it along with her, but didn’t. She was too busy looking for Hewitt Elder in the crowd of girls, but didn’t see her anywhere.
Ms Letturatura ushered the girls off the subway at Rockefeller Centre and the remaining blocks to the museum on Fifty-third Street. Georgie wished they hadn’t taken the subway. Not just because of the Punks, but because she loved to walk through the city, loved to look up at the buildings scraping the sky, all of them different: some giant, smooth walls of glass, others as ornate as any wedding cake. She loved the smell of hot dogs and pretzels, the blaring horns of the taxicabs, the whoosh of the people flying – or trying to fly – by.
“Ladies, again, I want your best behaviour as we move through the galleries,” Ms Letturatura announced before they went into the museum. “And I want to see you girls paying attention and taking notes. You’ll be writing an essay on what you saw here today.”
There was much groaning and complaining from the girls of the Prince School, most of whom thought writing essays was something that you paid someone else to do for you.
“What we’re going to do is split up into small groups and explore. I want you to select two pieces of art and study them. In your essay, you will be comparing and contrasting those pieces of art. How are they
the same? How are they different?”
The girls stopped groaning when they heard that they would be allowed to wander around the museum without a tour guide. Even though it was a boring museum filled with boring paintings and boring sculptures and boring people, it was still better than sitting in class listening to lectures about maths or science or literature or history. “Who needs to know what happened twenty years ago?” Roma said. “I wasn’t even born yet!”
Georgie didn’t tell anyone, but she already knew which paintings she would be writing about; she even knew where to find them. As soon as Ms Letturatura told them to meet back in the main lobby at noon and then let them loose, Georgie went to look for Van Gogh’s Starry Night. She knew about Van Gogh, of course. Her parents had told her. During his lifetime, he’d only sold one painting. He also went totally bonkers and cut off his own ear (which sounded incredibly painful as well as strange). But here he’d painted this beautiful starry night. Maybe it was a crazy sort of painting, all brush strokes and swirls, but Georgie liked all the blue and gold, liked the enormous glow of the oversized stars and the big great blob of the moon. (Could you use the word “blob” in an essay? Georgie wasn’t sure.)
After looking at the painting for a while, she went to find the other piece she’d had in mind, Matisse’s Icarus, plate VIII. This was also blue with bright splashes of gold, but to Georgie, this was the sadder piece. Not because of the artist, who was brilliant and successful and really famous (and wasn’t prone to chopping off any body parts), but because of Icarus, the guy in the artwork. In Greek mythology, Icarus was wearing this set of wings that his dad made him, but he was having so much fun flying that he flew too close to the sun god Helios. The wax holding his wings together melted, and he fell into the sea. Matisse had cut pieces of paper and arranged them to make a dark figure falling through a blue and starry sky. The thing that killed Georgie was the little red spot about where Icarus’s heart would be. Icarus was falling, and his little heart was red. Did he know? Was he scared? Or was he happy to the very end? It reminded her of Bug, the first time he flew. He’d looked so full of joy, so thrilled to be alive, that his heart could have been visible from the outside had someone been looking for it.