The Boy Who Could Fly

by Laura Ruby

  Mrs Vorona considered Georgie with those dark eyes of hers. “Things aren’t always what they appear to be, young woman,” she said. “You should remember that. You and your friend both need to remember that.”

  Before Georgie could say, “What do you mean?” or “No kidding!” the old woman took a step back and let the lift doors close like a curtain.

  Chapter 14

  Mandelbrot

  While Georgie was lectured by a cranky old crow in a rumpled suit, the vampires gathered in a stinking loft near the South Street Seaport to watch the Punk paint. Mandelbrot wasn’t exactly painting – he was smearing a half-eaten peanut butter and jam sandwich across a canvas. But then, the vampires weren’t exactly watching, either – they were busy polishing their fangs or ringing their eyes with vast amounts of the eyeliner they were so fond of, trying not to look too interested in anything. For vampires, looking too interested was worse than death (and they were in a position to know). Vampires never wanted to appear as if they were trying too hard. Vampires were nothing if not cool.

  But the Punk did interest them. This is why they were gathered around him in a grungy loft that reeked of seawater and fish. The vampires had never known a Punk to come up from the subway before. Because his pupils were perpetually black and dilated, he wore dark sunglasses so that the thin light of dusk streaming through the dirty windows wouldn’t pain him. On his skinny frame, he sported a pair of black leather trousers and an artfully torn T-shirt on which was written Oi. Worn combat boots completed the outfit. Around the Punk’s neck, a live vampire bat hung like a pendant.

  “Who’s that?” murmured one vampire, gesturing at the bat.

  “Roger,” said another. “Always had low self-esteem, that one.”

  In between smearing canvases with random food items, the Punk snacked, napped or read aloud from a large stack of books that he had stolen from the library. Complicated books with crazy names like Understanding Fractals, The Search for Sierpinski’s Triangle, and Advances in Chaos Theory. He was especially fascinated with a dusty old volume, leather bound, with no identifying marks on the spine, which he studied far more often than the others. As they were turned, the pages of this volume made strange chattering noises like the clacking of teeth, something that might frighten normal people but had no effect on the vampires, who were not frightened of much except for a well-aimed wooden stake.

  In addition to the snacking and the reading, the Punk also enjoyed spinning around in circles to make himself dizzy, muttering to himself in Pig Latin, and smashing things with an old broom handle.

  In short, this canvas-smearing, bat-wearing, book-reading, thing-smashing Punk was a small breath of fresh air in an otherwise underwhelming century, something for which the vampires were momentarily, if not eternally, grateful.

  While the vampires were enjoying this small sliver of interest that had brightened their dark eternity, Mandelbrot himself was occupied with more quotidian matters. Specifically, his takeover of the art world.

  It was true that he came from humble beginnings. Mandelbrot was born at 3:15 in the morning on the R train headed to Queens, just another Sid in a world of Sids and Nancys. His mother took one look at him and said, “Crikey! You’re an ugly bugger!” something that Mandelbrot would not have known at all if his various aunts and uncles hadn’t found it funny enough to repeat on Mandelbrot’s birthday every year.

  Like all Punks, Mandelbrot was taught the way of the Punks. He excelled at sneering and posturing, and could make so much noise with a couple of trash can lids and some well-timed screeching that even other Punks couldn’t take it. He was a decent handbag-snatcher, a passable beggar, a fabulous breaker-and-enterer, and terrific at frightening small children with his haircuts. But the thing that he did best was tagging. He loved spraying his name in paint over the interiors and exteriors of subway cars, on posters, along tunnel walls. He always took his time with it, considering how differently he could paint each letter. And he thought every single tag was a work of art. Maybe a work of genius.

  Until he looked around and saw his own name everywhere.

  Sid, Sid, Sid. Everyone was named Sid, so everyone’s tag was Sid. It didn’t matter that his Sid was better than everyone else’s Sid, it got all jumbled up with the rest of them and cleaned off the cars and the walls just as quickly. And it was even worse when his clan was rounded up and sent to a Punk preserve in England for a time. More Sids than ever there. They had no art, they had no talent. For a time, Sid abandoned his spray cans for an old guitar, writing songs about hypocrisy and disruption and anarchy, songs designed to enrage everyone who heard them, but instead made other Punks jump around and slam into one another happily. (The slamming he could take, the happy he could not.)

  Against his family’s wishes, Sid left the warm, safe subway tunnels, venturing to the surface to visit museums. Picasso! Pollack! He looked at their paintings and thought, “I could do that.” He yearned to have art on the walls of the finest museums, have everyone admire him for his talent, his artistry, his unique take on life. And his take on life was that the only order in this world was disorder, the only natural arrangement chaos. His paintings reflected things the way they truly were. Mr Fuss had noticed. All that he needed now was for the world to notice.

  Mandelbrot dropped the peanut butter and jam sandwich to the floor and stepped back to study the brown and purple smears he’d left. Frowning, he turned and kicked over one of the many grocery bags strewn about the loft. He picked up a bottle of ketchup and shook it before squirting bright red blobs on to the picture. Then he opened a jar of relish, scooped out a fingerful of the green stuff and threw it at the painting where it landed with a splat!

  He nodded, satisfied. “Chaotic,” he said to no one in particular, “don’t you think?”

  The vampires shrugged, doing their best to seem indifferent. It didn’t matter, as the Punk was indifferent to their indifference.

  “Very… er… messy, Sid,” Phinneas ventured.

  “I told you, my name is Mandelbrot.”

  One vampire nudged another, whispering: “Suppose I should mention that ‘mandelbrot’ is also the name of an almond-flavoured biscuit?”

  “Shut up and let the man have his illusions,” replied the other vampire. “He’s our entertainment. Our little clown.”

  “I’m an artist,” the Punk, Mandelbrot, was saying. “That’s what Mr Fuss told me. He said my work was outsider art. And I’m the ultimate outsider. I’m an artist of chaos. No, the king of chaos. The Chaos King. And kings don’t answer to anyone!”

  As if to illustrate this point, Mandelbrot grabbed a broom handle and took some practice swings in the air. He pointed at a large crow that had been cleaning its feathers on the windowsill. “A gathering of crows is called a ‘murder’,” he said, to himself as much as to anyone. “A murder of crows. Urder-may rows-cray. Hey, that gives me an idea.” He ran to the window and took a shot at the crow, who flew out of range just in time. Mandelbrot chased it around the room, swinging it as if it were a piñata.

  “I wish he wouldn’t do that,” one of the vampires said mildly. “Crows are good people.”

  “Some are,” sniffed another. “Others are such show-offs. Look at me! I can turn into a crow! I mean, so what? I can turn into a bat. Do you see me doing it all the time? Of course not.”

  Fortunately for the crow, Mandelbrot’s aim was off (especially after he spun around in a circle to make himself dizzy). Giggling madly, he waved the broom handle around until he happened to knock the crow out of the air. The bird fell to the floor, stunned.

  “Oops,” Mandelbrot said. “Dead birdy.”

  “Ead-day irdy-bay,” said one of the vampires.

  Mandelbrot wandered over to the peanut butter-and-ketchup-smeared canvas. He considered his work for a moment, then did a happy dance of glee, or accomplishment, or perhaps insanity.

  The vampires began to wonder if maybe things had gone from moderately interesting to silly (and if there’
s anything that vampires detest, it’s silliness). But Mandelbrot stopped dancing almost as soon as he started. He eyed the vampires with a sly smile. “I almost forgot! I have something for you.” He rummaged in a paper bag and dipped a hand inside it. “What do you think of this? I personally watched them being boiled.” He held out a poppy-seed bagel.

  The vampires gasped despite themselves. It was impossible that this pathetic Punk knew about the seeds, how much vampires loved seeds. People knew nothing about vampires. Nothing important. All they ever wanted to talk about were the old rumours: the whole sleeping-in-coffins thing, the bad tuxedoes, the terrible accents: I vant to suck your blud. No one cared what the vampires really craved, what they really needed. It wasn’t a coincidence that the vampire puppet on Sesame Street liked numbers. It wasn’t a coincidence that Count Dracula was called “The Count”. But this man couldn’t know that. Nobody knew. Not any more.

  “So you brought us some breakfast,” said the eye-rolling vampire, her voice full of doubt. “How nice. Probably day-old bagels.”

  “Oh no, these are fresh. I convinced the baker to start his work just a wee bit early, before the sun came up,” said Mandelbrot. “Just for you.”

  Mandelbrot upended the bag and dumped the bagels all over the floor, every one of them covered with thousands of beautiful seeds, just ripe for the counting.

  The counting!

  For the first time in centuries, the vampires felt understood.

  They fell on the bagels, grabbing them, counting the seeds to themselves. One, two, three, four, five – Oh, what joy! What ecstasy! – six, seven, eight, nine, ten – There’s nothing better than a good bagel! – eleven, twelve, thirteen…

  While the vampires blissfully counted poppy seeds and the Punk grinned in triumph, the stunned crow slowly roused herself from her stupor. She got to her feet and flapped her wings, testing. Her sharp eyes darted around the room, finally settling on the stack of books in the corner, the dusty leather-bound volume on top. The crow’s cry – “Ha! Ha! Ha!” – didn’t sound the least bit amused. She lifted off the ground and hovered in the air for a moment, laughing her sad, knowing laugh, before she threw herself out of the window and disappeared.

  Chapter 15

  Running Amuck

  On Sunday, Bug woke up with Pinkwater sitting on his nose bonking him in the forehead, and with his phone ringing, Juju Fink on the line.

  “Bug, baby! The whole world’s looking for you,” Juju said.

  “Tell the world I’m sleeping,” said Bug. “Tell them I moved to Russia. Tell them I died.”

  “I’ve lined up the Sunday news magazines and the late-night talk shows,” Juju said, as if Bug had never spoken. “I’ve got interviews with Jack Sawyer, Diane Rodan – she wants both you and Roma there, so I’m talking with Roma’s people – Katie Kepley, Peter Smollinger – he’ll try to make you look stupid, so you’ll have to watch out for him – Richard Pritchard, and—”

  “I don’t want to go on any shows right now, Juju,” Bug interrupted. “Maybe later. Next week or something.”

  “Bug, this is your career we’re talking about.”

  “Yeah,” said Bug, and hung up.

  But Juju was right: the whole world was looking for Bug. No sooner had Bug left his building than he was accosted by several dozen reporters, all wanting interviews about the sloth and about Roma Radisson. A crowd of girls had gathered behind a police barricade, nearly all of them wearing T-shirts that said KING KONG with a picture of the giant sloth or I’M A HERO FOR HERO®! with a picture of Bug hovering against an Empire State Building backdrop, or TRUE LOVE FOR EVER AND EVER AND EVER with a picture of Roma kissing Bug. At the sight of Bug, the girls started screaming and the reporters jabbing microphones in his face. He turned and flew back into the building. He had to call for a limo and arrange for a dozen or so bodyguards to push through the crowd and usher him into the car.

  When he arrived at the Bloomingtons’ building, Deitrich the doorman didn’t seem surprised to see him. Deitrich opened the door to the limo, immediately opened an enormous umbrella to obscure Bug’s face from anyone who might be watching the building, and greeted Bug with his customary gravity.

  “Good morning, young sir.”

  “Good morning,” Bug said. He looked up gratefully at the umbrella. “Thanks.”

  Deitrich said, “You haven’t been giving your budgie any caffeinated beverages, have you?”

  “What?” Bug peered under the rim of the umbrella and saw Pinkwater circling maniacally overhead. “No, he’s always like that.”

  “Ah,” said Deitrich.

  Luckily for Bug, he’d left home too quickly to be followed and no one had thought to have people waiting at the Bloomingtons’ building. The Bloomingtons were the only souls who saw him. And the Bloomingtons were delighted to see him. More than delighted. Far too delighted.

  “Bug!” said Mrs Bloomington, grabbing Bug and kissing him on each cheek. “You look so grown up! A young man now!”

  “Bug!” said Mr Bloomington, grabbing Bug’s hand and pumping it up and down. “Working out with the weights, I see.”

  “Mrrrow!” growled Noodle, who wound herself enthusiastically around Bug’s shins.

  “Hi,” said Georgie, waving rather lamely from a few metres away.

  “Cat!” Pinkwater chirped, and landed on Noodle’s head.

  Georgie was sure she was about to watch Noodle make a snack out of Pinkwater, but the cat merely ran a paw over her ear and shoved the bird off her head. Pinkwater was back in an instant. Noodle did it again, and again the bird came back. After the third shove, Noodle adopted a rather resigned expression. “Cat!” chirped Pinkwater. “Purr.”

  Georgie’s mum insisted that Bug join them for lunch and Georgie’s dad proceeded to pepper Bug with questions about the episode with King Kong (as the city had dubbed the sloth), Bug’s training schedule for various flying races, his opinions on local politics, and his investment portfolio.

  “Dad,” Georgie said. “He’s only fourteen.”

  “You’re never too young to invest wisely,” replied Sol, gesturing with a pickle. “I started investing when I was nine years old.”

  “I—” Bug said.

  “I heard something about a sea monster at a photo shoot,” said Bunny Bloomington. “And what is this business with Roma Radisson that the reporters keep going on about?” She sipped delicately at her seltzer water.

  “Mum!” said Georgie.

  “The TV said that you two have been an item for a while,” Bunny went on, as Georgie sank lower and lower in her chair.

  “Well, I—” said Bug.

  “Are you sure she’s the right girl for you?”

  “I—” said Bug.

  “You’re a bit young to go steady.”

  “I—” Bug said.

  “Though I remember when I met your father, Georgie. I was twenty-one. He was so handsome. I couldn’t resist him.”

  That’s it, Georgie thought. She had to get Bug out of there before the Bloomingtons ran completely amuck. First they would get out the wedding video, and then the honeymoon pictures, and then the fourteen thousand photographs of Georgie, bald and toothless, drooling on a blanket. “OK,” Georgie said, leaping up. “We’re going now.”

  “Off so soon?” Bunny said. “Bug isn’t even done with his sandwich.”

  “I—” said Bug.

  “He’s not hungry,” Georgie said, yanking Bug out of his chair. Bug saw the expression on her face and put his sandwich down. “And we want to catch the early show,” Georgie added.

  “What show is that?” Georgie’s mum wanted to know.

  Georgie was prepared for this. “The two o’clock showing of the old King Kong. It’s playing at the Rialto.” She opened her knapsack and Noodle hopped in. The cat turned around in the bag so that her face stuck out the top. Pinkwater perched himself on the top of her head, ignoring Noodle’s meows of annoyance. (It seemed that Pinkwater was impervious to signs of annoyanc
e.)

  “I thought you didn’t care much for black-and-white films,” Bunny Bloomington said to Georgie.

  “Bug likes them,” Georgie told her.

  Bunny looked at Bug, who said, “I—”

  “Bye!” said Georgie. She kissed her mum and then her dad.

  “Remember,” said Bunny Bloomington. “The film and straight home, all right?”

  “Yes,” said Georgie. “Straight home.”

  “And no outings,” she added as Georgie and Bug walked out the door. Only her clasped hands revealed her worry.

  “No outings,” agreed Georgie, crossing her fingers in the pocket of her new jeans.

  Once the door to the Bloomington’s penthouse closed, Georgie motioned for Bug to follow her to the stairs. Georgie took deep breaths, trying very hard not to be angry with her parents, who she was sure meant well, even if they were on the verge of embarrassing her to death.

  “What did your mum mean, no outings?” whispered Bug once they were in the stairwell.

  “No invisibility. She’s afraid someone will see us going in or out of sight. She doesn’t want anything bad to happen to me.”

  “Like what my father did to you,” said Bug.

  Georgie had never apologised for what she’d said back at his apartment and she blushed at the reminder. “Like what Sweetcheeks did to me,” Georgie said. “He’s about as much your father as Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless was a home.”

  Bug stared at her for so long that Georgie thought she might melt from anxiety. But then he said, “If we can’t be invisible,” he said, “we’re going to have a heck of a time getting to The Professor’s without the planet wondering what we’re doing. You wouldn’t believe the crowds waiting for me outside my building this morning. And if they see you with me…” He trailed off, blushing.

  Georgie bit her lip. The last thing she wanted to do was disobey her parents; she loved them. But then she didn’t want to scare them, either, and telling them about the vampires would most certainly scare them, terrify them even, and she couldn’t do that. She also couldn’t find out what was behind the vampires’ invitation, or who Mandelbrot was, or if the sloth, octopus and statue incidents were related if she didn’t ask The Professor. And they couldn’t get to The Professor unless they were invisible, so…