The Boy Who Could Fly

by Laura Ruby

  “Hamster!”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” Bug said.

  “Feed me!” Pinkwater spiralled up into the air in the direction of the sloth and then back down.

  “Do you mean that the hamster is hungry?”

  “Hungry!” replied the bird.

  “And that I should feed it?”

  “Feed me!”

  “What should I—” he began, and then he remembered the M&M’S in his pocket.

  Chapter 11

  Hero

  Before he could think better of it, Bug was running towards the Empire State Building. Behind him, he could hear the cops shouting at him, “Stop! Wait! What do you think you’re doing?”

  What do you think I think I’m doing? Bug thought as he reached the building and launched himself off the pavement. I’m the Sweet Man. I’m rescuing the damsel of distress. I’m saving the day. I’m—

  —a total idiot. He was only a few floors up, and already he could feel the drag of the air on his skin, the suck of gravity on his body, trying to pull him down. He groaned and thrust his arms straight up, palms crossed, fingers straight. Come on, come on. You’ve been higher than this. Get moving. Five floors. Ten. Twelve. Eighteen. Twenty. Twenty-three. Above him, he could see the giant hamster’s big, shaggy, algae-covered butt, could see Roma clutched in a fat paw like a doll, but they were still floors away. The pull on Bug’s body was strong now, more than strong, it was fierce, it was a thousand hands snatching at him, weighing him down. He could feel himself slowing through the thickening air. He wondered where Pinkwater was, if Pinkwater had followed. He couldn’t worry about the bird now; Pinkwater could take care of himself.

  Just a little more. A. Little. More. Twenty-five floors. Twenty-six. Twenty-seven. It was hard to breathe. His rib cage ached. Every muscle strained. He felt like he was going to snap, to explode, to burst like an over-inflated balloon. He was an over-inflated balloon; how big had his head got that he thought he could do this? Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine. He was nearly on the beast now, right up next to him. Roma, who had been silent with shock, turned her head and saw Bug. She started bucking and screaming, trying to pull at the paw that held her, but the giant sloth took little notice and kept climbing, slowly and methodically as it had before. His arm quivering with the effort, Bug reached into his pocket for the M&M’S and drew them out. The sloth stopped climbing, sniffing the air.

  “Yeah, that’s chocolate. Bet you never smelled anything like this,” Bug panted. He dangled the sweets by the sloth’s nose, and then dipped a little in the air. The sloth paused and then followed, descending a few metres.

  “What are you doing?” Roma shrieked. “Are you nuts?”

  “No, these are plain,” Bug said. Bug descended again, and again the beast followed. Bug’s whole being was racked with pain, Roma was screaming something about how stupid he was – he was the stupidest boy to walk the face of the earth, why didn’t he just save her already. But Bug did his best to ignore it, to keep dangling the sweets, murmuring to the sloth, luring him down. Up close, the sloth was, he had to admit it, kind of cute, in a weird giant hamster sort of way.

  Bug dangled the sweets, descended a few more metres. Dangled, descended. He had never moved so slowly in his life before, never understood the meaning of “a snail’s pace”, until he found himself twenty-five floors up with a giant methodical hamster and a screaming heiress and aching bones and a heart about to pop.

  And then the slow and methodical sloth decided to play against type and do something shocking. Surprise! It opened its paw and let Roma drop.

  Roma shrieked and fell. Bug managed, just in time, to catch her by the wrist. She was dead weight; heavier than Georgie, and Georgie was a leadfoot. Bug had never felt anything like it. And she wasn’t any calmer for Bug than she had been for the sloth; she bucked and kicked just as hard. If she kept this up, he’d drop her too. And there was no way Roma could fly well enough to stop herself from crashing straight to the ground.

  “Stop kicking!” he yelled. “I’m saving you!”

  “Well then, save me already!” she shrieked. “Get me down.”

  Good idea.

  He was about to gather her up in his arms and take a dive for the earth, when he saw the helicopters in the distance, heard the thrum of the wings slicing the air. These weren’t news copters, they were army green and outfitted with guns. As soon as he flew away from the beast, the copters would move in. And who knew what would happen then?

  He knew. He’d seen King Kong. The monkey doesn’t make it.

  Bug, his arm on fire, his ribs like bands of barbed wire around his chest, looked at the sloth. The sloth looked back at him with sad, pleading eyes set like shiny buttons in his shaggy, reddish fur, sniffing the air with its pinkish nose. What had Pinkwater said? Hungry. It was just hungry, that’s all. He couldn’t let anything happen to it. Especially when it hadn’t done anything except kidnap Roma, sniff her head and take her for a little climb up the Empire State Building. And really was that so bad?

  He tightened his grip on Roma’s wrist and held out the bag of M&M’S. “Come on, guy. Come on, Kong.”

  “What are you doing?” Roma yelled. “Did you actually name that stupid, stinky animal?”

  “Shut up!” said Bug. “Do you want to make it mad?”

  “Do you want to make me mad?” Roma spat, but then shut up.

  Slowly, slowly, slowly, Bug, Roma and beast descended. Bug dangled the M&M’S, the hamster sniffed, they dropped another few metres. Dangle, sniff, drop. Dangle, sniff, drop. Twenty floors. Eighteen. Fifteen. Twelve. Bug could see people inside the building pasted against the windows, watching their descent. He ignored them as he ignored Roma’s occasional protests. Ten. Eight. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

  Finally, he was able to reach down with his burning arm and set Roma gently on her feet. Then he landed himself, falling to one knee, nearly keeling over with pain and exhaustion. But he wasn’t quite done, and there was no time for keeling. He put the M&M’S bag to his mouth and ripped it open with his teeth as he waited for the sloth to finish its climb.

  And then it did. Bug and sloth stood face to face, each staring at the other. Bug said, “Hey there, Kong. Have an M&M.” He tossed a few sweets into the sloth’s open mouth. The sloth chewed. And chewed. And chewed. And chewed. And chewed some more. Bug had never seen such thorough chewing. It went on for seconds, then minutes, then centuries. Bug was sure he’d lived and died a dozen times before the sloth, finally, swallowed. Then it sat back on its haunches, its huge paws dangling in the air, and like a great, big, shaggy, algae-covered puppy, barked for more.

  Behind Bug, a great burst of applause. The cops clapped. The paparazzi snapped. The crowd said, “Awwwww!”

  “Way to go,” one of the cops said. The police officers dug around in their pockets and came up with their own bags of snacks and sweets and gum. They vied for a chance to feed the sloth. “Kong!” they said. “Over here, Kong! I’ve got biscuits! I’ve got toffee! I’ve got Kangeroo Kola!”

  The crowd chanted, “Kong, Kong, KONG!”

  Roma yanked Bug to his feet. “My hero,” she announced. She grabbed his face and kissed him. All around, cameras flashed. Bug lamely flapped his arms, but Roma had him in a death grip, and there was nothing he could do except stand there imagining the front page of the tabloids: HEIRESS & HERO, SITTING IN A TREE, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

  A familiar voice – a familiar chirp – rose above the din. “Leaving!”

  Bug peeled away from Roma, blinking at the lights from the cameras. “Pinkwater?”

  The tiny blue bird was circling off to his left. “Leaving!”

  “Are you leaving?”

  The bird continued to spiral, further away now. “Leaving!”

  “Pinkwater, where are you going?”

  “Leaving!” said Pinkwater, in what Bug could swear was a vaguely exasperated tone.

  Bug shook Roma off and limped after the bird.

>   “Come back!” yelled Roma. “Did I say you could go? Did I say we were finished? Bug!”

  Bug was gaining on Pinkwater when he slammed into something, someone, he couldn’t see. He fell to the ground. He was surprised to find the pavement so comfortable. Maybe he’d sleep for a while…

  “Bug!” he heard someone whisper. “Bug, are you OK?”

  He felt hands shaking his shoulders but saw nothing. “Georgie?” he said.

  “Shhh!”

  “OK,” he said, and put his head back down on the ground.

  “Wake up!”

  “I’m awake.”

  “Is there somewhere we could go?” the voice whispered. “You need to lie down.”

  “I am lying down.”

  A sigh. “Somewhere that isn’t the pavement.”

  “My trailer is right over there.”

  Georgie helped him to his feet and walked him to his trailer, Pinkwater following close behind. Paparazzi followed too, until a cop told them to find someone else to harass for a while. The cop pointed to Bug’s Hero® brand T-shirt. “It fits, kid,” he said. “Nice going.”

  “Thanks,” Bug said. He opened the door to the trailer, stepped in and shut the door behind him.

  Instantly, Georgie appeared. “You should really lie down. You look terrible.”

  He opened his mouth, about to say something snarky, but found that the words that came to mind weren’t snarky ones, they were the same crazy thoughts he’d had when he’d seen her last, back at his apartment building: Gurl was a girl. She was as tall as he was – well, OK, maybe a little taller – but it was a good tall, a nice tall. Her silver hair hung thick and loose, the bangs sweeping over her grey eyes in the most disconcerting way. He couldn’t believe that he ever thought she looked like a weepy dishwater pasty face. He must have been insane. Bug wanted to say it, say, “Hey! Gurl! You’re a girl!” which was a) lame, b) stupid, and c) the kind of thing you can’t say to ex-friends who think you’re a big loser and just might be taller than you but are still nice enough to help you to your trailer after you’ve saved a spoiled heiress and a chocolate-eating sloth from certain death.

  “What are you staring at?” Georgie said.

  He shook his head. “Nothing. I’m tired.” He flopped down on the couch and closed his eyes. That was a good plan. Because then he wouldn’t see her any more. Something about seeing her made him feel funny and confused. It made him want to yell at her for no reason.

  After a minute, she spoke. “You still have Pinkwater.”

  “Yes. I like him.”

  For a second, he thought she would say something snotty, but she said, “Good. That’s good.”

  Bug opened one eye and peered at her. What was she doing here? Had she come to lecture him about stealing things? To make nasty comments about “falling in the East River”?

  “Look,” he said, “that photo shoot by the South Street Seaport? I really was pulled off the dock. By a giant octopus. I wasn’t making that up. I saw it. It crawled out of the water and ate all the lunch leftovers. It patted me on the head and then slipped back into the water.”

  “It patted you on the head?” said Georgie.

  “You don’t believe me,” he said.

  “I believe you.” She paused a minute. She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “You and Roma seem to be happy. She told me… I saw…” She trailed off, blushing.

  He was going to say: “Don’t believe everything you see” and “I seriously considered giving her back to the hamster.” But he didn’t say those things. He said: “Yeah. Well.”

  “You guys have been going out for a while then.”

  Again, he wanted to say: “Today was the first time I ever met her. She barged into my trailer and demanded that I take her to the Red Room. Or the Green Room. Or the Tea Room. Or some kind of room. I don’t know. Anyway, she’s very bossy. And she yells a lot. Who can take all that yelling?”

  But he didn’t. He said, “So, why did you come?”

  It was Georgie’s turn to shrug. “I thought I’d say hi.”

  “You were invisible. You were leaving.”

  “I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “You’re not bothering me,” he said. “I mean, I’m not doing anything else right now.”

  Georgie’s eyes got wide. “You just rescued Roma Radisson from an enormous rodent.”

  “Well, besides that.”

  They both laughed. It was nice.

  Then he said something that he didn’t expect to say: “Um, can I ask you something?”

  “Sure. What?”

  “Do you think I need to change my hair?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Someone said that it was weird and that I should do something about it.”

  Georgie crossed her arms. “There’s nothing wrong with your hair.”

  “There isn’t?”

  “No.”

  “OK,” he said. His hair was all right. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

  “Bug?”

  “Yeah?”

  She bit her lip. “Thanks for calling me Georgie. You’ve never called me by my real name before.”

  He didn’t know what to say to that, so he said, “You’re welcome. Thanks for believing me about the octopus.”

  “Sure,” she said.

  More silence.

  Georgie cleared her throat. “It’s easy to believe in a lot of weird things when you’ve just seen a giant hamster climb up the Empire State Building.”

  “Yeah.”

  “And when a bronze dog comes to life, bites someone in the sequins and escapes the art museum.”

  Bug sat up. “What? Bites someone where?”

  “And when you’ve been visited by a Punk.”

  “Who was?”

  “Oh, and a vampire. Who offered you and your parents eternal life. And a poppy-seed bagel.”

  Bug groaned and put his hands over his face. “I don’t want to hear about any of this, do I?”

  “Probably not,” Georgie said. “But let me tell you anyway.”

  Chapter 12

  Maybe It’s the Fangs

  Georgie opened her mouth to speak when someone pounded on the trailer door.

  “Bug! Are you in there? We’ve got news crews! Cameras! It’s going to be the story of the century!”

  Bug looked at Georgie. “Juju,” he whispered. “I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to see anyone.”

  “No one will see you,” Georgie whispered back. She grabbed Bug’s hand and made them both disappear. The door flew open and Juju peeked his bald turtle head inside. “Bug?” He stepped into the trailer and poked around. “Bug? Are you in here? Everyone wants to interview you.”

  Georgie and Bug held their breath. Georgie looked down and noticed that not everything had disappeared. Her left trainer was plainly visible. She could hardly keep herself from clucking her tongue in annoyance. At least, she thought, it looked like an empty trainer just sitting there on the floor. But what if something else was visible? What if, say, her ears were showing? Or her teeth?

  She watched Juju carefully, but he didn’t appear to notice the red trainer on the floor. He frowned at Pinkwater, who was perched on top of the mini-fridge. “Hey there, bird. Where’s your friend?”

  “Lonely,” chirped Pinkwater. “Lonely, lonely, lonely.”

  Juju flipped open his mobile phone and barked into it. “Kid’s not here. We’re going to his apartment. Stall the five o’clock news shows and start calling the news magazines for tomorrow night. Don’t worry, I’m gonna find him. I said, I’ll find him.” Juju kicked open the trailer door and hopped outside.

  Georgie tried to let go of Bug’s hand, but Bug held on tight. “Let’s just get out of here, OK?” he whispered. Pinkwater flew over and landed on Bug’s head, promptly disappearing himself.

  The three of them slipped from the trailer, unnoticed by the swirling crowds and news cameras and snappily dressed reporters from every conceivable news cha
nnel – all supposedly reporting on the same thing:

  “Witnesses say that the monster had climbed nearly a third of the way up the Empire State Building when he was lured down by a quick-thinking Bug Grabowski…”

  “The monster was forty-four floors and climbing when Bug Grabowski flew in and rescued Roma Radisson from certain death…”

  “sixty floors up in the air, sylvester ‘bug’ grabowski used his expert martial arts training to disable what we now know is a giant sloth, thought to be extinct…”

  “The sloth appears to enjoy chocolate, peanut butter, butterscotch, pizza, donuts, licorice whips, milkshakes, Cheerios, hoagies…”

  “In a bizarre but happy twist on the old King Kong story, today a giant sloth climbed to the very top of the Empire State Building and was saved by none other than Bug Grabowski, the son of the jailed gangster Sweetcheeks Grabowski, and current flame of socialite and heiress Roma Radisson…”

  “We are speaking with Roma Radisson right now, the heiress who was rescued by her long-time boyfriend, Bug Grabowski. Can you tell us what happened, Roma?”

  “Bug saved my life. That’s so fab™!”

  At this last, Georgie tripped over her own feet and nearly sent the two of them sprawling to the ground. “Sorry,” she whispered. Bug didn’t respond. Roma was a jerk and a fake, but at least she wasn’t falling all over herself all the time. No wonder he wanted to go out with Roma.

  “I have an idea,” Bug whispered. “A place they’ll never look for us.” He pulled on her hand, leading her. She’d held his hand before, but it had never felt so weird and uncomfortable. Her palm was sweaty, and her arm felt way too long for her body, like the arm of an orangutan. She was sure Bug was straining just to reach her hand, which was too embarrassing to think about.

  So she didn’t. She had become an expert on not thinking about things, anyway. She focused on her steps, on putting one invisible foot in front of the other, on not tripping and not falling. She was so busy not thinking about things that she didn’t realise that they were walking straight back to the Empire State Building.