The Boy Who Could Fly

by Laura Ruby

  Georgie said, “But—”

  “Listen to me. Your parents love you. They did everything they could to find you. And you’re finally where you belong – with them. Why not enjoy that?”

  “But—” said Bug.

  “And you finally got away from that terrible man, Sweetcheeks. And you found out that in a world full of people who yearn to fly, you’re one of the few who can do it exceptionally well. Why not enjoy that?”

  Bug and Georgie glanced at each other, unsure of what to think.

  “Go to your party,” said Mr Fuss. “Have a good time.”

  Georgie had a funny feeling about Mr Fuss. But then, she couldn’t deny what he was saying. All of the weird things that had happened could be just coincidences. The city was a weird place, and a lot of weird things happened in it. Didn’t have to mean that all these weird things were about her. Actually, that was an arrogant way to think. Like something Roma would think. And the last thing in the world Georgie wanted to be was like Roma.

  “Well,” said Georgie, “if you really don’t think we should worry. Maybe we won’t.”

  At this, Noodle growled, but nobody paid much attention.

  “That’s the spirit!” said Mr Fuss, standing. “I’ve enjoyed our little chat immensely, but I’m afraid I do have to get back to packing now.”

  “OK,” said Bug, “but—”

  “Bye-bye,” Mr Fuss said cheerily and practically shoved them at the door. But before they could leave, Mr Fuss put a hand on Bug’s shoulder. “Oh! One more question.”

  “Yeah?” Bug said.

  “The Professor wanted me to make sure that a certain item was in safe hands while he was on vacation, but I can’t seem to find it.”

  “What item?” asked Georgie.

  “A pen?” said Mr Fuss. “He said it was around here somewhere.”

  Georgie felt the flush rising in her cheeks. “We don’t know where the pen is.”

  “No?” said Mr Fuss. He turned to Bug. “I suppose you don’t either?”

  Bug shook his head. “Nope.”

  “Too bad,” said Mr Fuss, looking from Bug to Georgie with the queerest expression on his face, a hungry expression. “Well, thank you both anyway. And have fun at your party.” He slammed the door in their faces.

  While the men in blue jumpsuits continued packing, Mr Fuss nibbled at a PowerPump! energy bar. It tasted like pulverised wood chips with a couple of mouldy peanuts thrown in, but Mr Fuss ate it anyway. He needed to keep up his strength. He was an important man with an important job. And right now his job was to get all this material back to the lab for analysis.

  As he ate, Mr Fuss considered the children. Things were getting out of control, and this annoyed him. And Mr Fuss was afraid he hadn’t been subtle, and this annoyed him even more. He prided himself on his subtlety. But the children hadn’t trusted him, so of course they weren’t about to give him any clues. How he had wished he could have simply throttled the information out of them right then and there. But Mr Fuss could not harm the children, he could not touch a hair on their chinny-chin-chins. His employer would never allow such a thing. It was bad enough that he’d asked about the pen. No, Mr Fuss would have to let his freelancers, Mandelbrot and the vampires, do the dirty work. What an interesting party that art opening would be. As long as the vamps kept their end of the bargain. As long as Mandelbrot entertained them enough.

  Oh, the uncertainty of it all! Mr Fuss hated it. Hated that this city, which should be neat and orderly as a row of windows on a skyscraper, was polluted with magic pens and mad Professors and punky Punks. It galled him that to combat chaos, he had to employ chaos.

  It was not natural.

  “Hey, boss,” said of the blue-suited men.

  Mr Fuss crumpled his energy bar wrapper irritably. “What is it?”

  “What do you want me to do with this?” The man held out an old rusty coffee can.

  “I don’t know. Make coffee?”

  “Don’t think there’s coffee in here, boss.”

  “Fine,” said Mr Fuss. “What’s in it?”

  The man rattled the can. “Sounds like metal.”

  “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you open it and take a look?”

  “Oh. Right.” The blue-suited man opened the can like he was pulling the pin out of a grenade. A mechanical bumblebee darted out.

  “Stupid!” it buzzed in its tinny voice. “The Queen says, stupid!”

  Mr Fuss caught the bee smartly in his hand. “Stupid,” he echoed as he threw it to the floor and crushed it under his albino alligator-skin boot.

  Chapter 17

  Hitting the Books

  Bug and Georgie were both so baffled by their visit to Mr Fuss that they forgot about invisibility. They walked down the street, silent, until Bug said, “I don’t like it.”

  “What?” said Georgie.

  “Any of it. That guy said he was friends with The Professor. The Professor doesn’t have any friends. The Professor doesn’t even like people. And if that guy was such good friends with The Professor, and The Professor had asked him to pack up his stuff, why didn’t he know where the pen was? And what was that stuff about the vampires not being dangerous?”

  “Maybe they aren’t.”

  “That’s not how you made them sound,” Bug said. “And if they were harmless, why did Noodle freak out so much? She seemed to think they were dangerous.”

  “Meow,” said Noodle, seemingly in agreement.

  “Teeth,” chirped Pinkwater.

  “So,” said Bug, “do you think they’re club-hopping jokers? Or did you believe them when they said they would bite you and turn you into one of the undead?”

  Georgie sighed, thinking of sad vamp with the cool trousers. “I believed them. I think I still believe them.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  Georgie straightened the straps of the backpack. “I think that we have to do things the hard way.”

  “What’s the hard way?” Bug asked.

  “I think we should go to the library.”

  “What’s at the library?”

  “Books,” said Georgie. “And computers and documents. We can start doing some research.”

  “But research on what? We don’t know anything.”

  “We can start with Mandelbrot. And then we can look up Giacometti, vampires and giant sloths and octopuses… octopi… whatever. Anyway. I’m sure we’ll find something that connects them all.”

  “But what if it’s the pen?” said Bug.

  “I think The Professor still has it. And I don’t think that The Professor would use the pen himself. He knows it’s too dangerous. And I don’t think he’s friends with Mr Fuss; I think he left to get away from Mr Fuss. But since we can’t ask him what’s going on, we’ll have to figure it out ourselves.”

  “OK,” Bug said dubiously. “I guess we can try. I don’t know what else to do.”

  They turned the corner and headed for the subway that would take them to the library. At first, people flew, skipped, and bounced all around Bug and Georgie without really seeing them, too busy to focus on any one person. But after walking just a few minutes, Georgie noticed the sideways glances, the stares, mostly directed at Bug, but some looking at her too, some looking at both of them. Georgie grabbed Bug’s hand.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Shhh!” she hissed. “People are looking at us.”

  Bug’s buggy eyes took in the crowds passing by. “I can’t go anywhere any more,” he said. “It’s horrible.”

  “Yeah, well, we’ll worry about your celebrity problems later. We have to get out of the street.”

  The two of them ducked into a china shop. The shop was small and crowded with shelf after shelf of delicate bone china. In the centre of the shop, a large bull with a gold ring through its nostrils scanned the vast array of teacups and saucers, snorting thoughtfully. The shopkeeper, a bony woman in a cardigan and cat’s eye glasses, turned to stare at

  Georgie and Bug
.

  “There’s a bull in my china shop,” she whispered.

  “Um, yeah,” said Georgie. “Good luck with that.”

  Georgie turned round and yanked Bug out of the shop. Down the block, a tour group was filing into a souvenir shop tucked between two delis. She pulled Bug over to the group and, once they were inside the store, let go of his hand. As they were too busy poring over postcards of the Statue of Liberty and flipping through T-shirts with King Kong (the sloth version), no one noticed the two extra tourists milling inside the shop.

  Georgie bought two baseball caps and a pair of oversized sunglasses. Outside the store, they put on their disguises. Bug, of course, got the sunglasses.

  “Why don’t you turn us invisible?” Bug whispered.

  “We can’t take books out or use the computers in the library that way. But we need a disguise. Put the glasses on.”

  “This is stupid,” said Bug. But he put them on.

  “Not bad,” said Georgie. “With your eyes hidden, no one will be able to tell it’s you.”

  Pinkwater popped out from the backpack. “Eyeballs!” he chirped.

  Bug touched Georgie’s hair, which she had threaded through the back of the cap in a ponytail. “You should probably tuck this into the cap or something.” He seemed to realise what he was doing and pulled back his hand as if burned. “I mean, it’s not a regular colour. Most people don’t have silver hair.”

  “Except old ladies,” Georgie said.

  “I like it,” Bug blurted. And then coughed.

  “Pretty!” chirped Pinkwater. From deep inside the backpack, Noodle meowed.

  Georgie fumbled with her cap, doing the best she could to stuff all her hair into it. He likes it, Georgie thought. What does that mean? She thought about her orangutan arms, her huge, clumsy feet. Nothing. It means nothing. He’s going out with Roma. The Dunkleosteus. The Velociraptor. The vampire. That’s who he likes.

  When she was finished tucking, she said, “How’s this?”

  He barely looked at her. “Good.”

  See? He can’t even look. He was just being nice.

  “Let’s go,” said Bug. “But if anyone starts to bug me…”

  “You’re already bugged.”

  “Ha-ha. If anyone starts to bother me, we’re outta there.”

  “Deal,” Georgie said. She glanced behind her. “Noodle?”

  One of Noodle’s green eyes peered out of the top of the backpack. “You guys need to stay down, OK? We’ll try not to take too long.”

  Noodle meowed in response and pulled her head back into the backpack, settling down for a nap. Bug and Georgie took the subway uptown to the research library. The lions were still and silent as usual, and Georgie wondered if the lion suits were as hot and stuffy as they looked.

  Inside the library, it was quiet but for the echo of shoes against the floor, the soft shush of pages turning. Bug stared at the vaulted ceilings, the giant candelabras that held rows of lights.

  “Have you ever been here before?” Georgie asked Bug.

  “No,” said Bug. “Pretty cool. Kinda creepy, though.”

  “Creepy?”

  “Well, it’s so quiet. It’s like a tomb or something.”

  “Like you’ve been to so many tombs,” Georgie said.

  “Can I help you?” Georgie and Bug turned. Georgie grinned when she saw Hewitt Elder standing in front of them, her head bound in a blue scarf. Hewitt smiled back, but her grin fell when she saw Bug.

  “Hi!” Georgie said, too loudly.

  “Shhh!” said Hewitt.

  “Sorry.” Georgie lowered her voice. “It’s me, Georgie Bloomington. We met—”

  “Yes,” Hewitt Elder, staring at Bug. “I remember you. You were with that girl. What’s her name? Athens. Paris. Naples.”

  “Roma,” Georgie corrected.

  “Whatever,” said Hewitt.

  “I wasn’t with her. I mean, she goes to my school and everything, but we’re not friends.”

  “Congratulations,” Hewitt said, with just a little more warmth.

  “Did you get my e-mail? I really did like your poems,” Georgie added.

  Hewitt raised a doubtful eyebrow.

  “Really.”

  Hewitt nodded, a gesture of acknowledgment.

  “And Bug did too, didn’t you?” she elbowed Bug in the ribs.

  “Oh!” Bug said. “Yeah. Sure.”

  Now Hewitt frowned. “You’re Bug Grabowski.”

  “Yes,” Bug said. “But we don’t want anyone to know it’s me. I’ve been having some problems being recognised.”

  “Poor baby,” Hewitt said. “That must be terrible.”

  “It is. I—”

  Hewitt cut him off. “Nice sunglasses. Are you two looking for something in particular?”

  “We’re looking for a bunch of stuff,” Georgie said. “But we should probably do one topic at a time.”

  “Good idea,” Hewitt said dryly.

  “OK,” Georgie said. “How about Mandelbrot?”

  “Mandelbrot?” said Hewitt. “You’re researching biscuits?”

  “What?” said Georgie.

  “A mandelbrot is a type of biscuit,” Hewitt explained not very patiently.

  “This is the name of a person,” Georgie said.

  “Well, this person was named after a biscuit,” Hewitt said. “But I’ll look it up for you. Wait here.” Hewitt stalked away, her back erect as a queen’s.

  “She’s friendly,” said Bug.

  “She is, isn’t she?” Georgie said.

  “No.”

  “Well, I like her. I think she’s the kind of person who will warm up once you get to know them.”

  Bug shrugged. “OK.”

  After a few minutes, Hewitt came back. “Not just a biscuit after all,” she said. “Turns out it’s also the name of a rather famous mathematician. Did some work on chaos theory.”

  “What’s chaos theory?” Bug asked.

  Hewitt handed him a book and smiled tightly. “Why don’t you read up on it?”

  Bug took the book as if it might bite him. “OK.”

  “The reading room’s on the top floor,” Hewitt said. “Go up and find some seats. I’ll hunt around for something else while you’re working. Give me another topic?”

  “Sloths,” Bug said.

  Hewitt scowled. “Not that again. Everyone wants to know about sloths.” She stormed away.

  “You’re right,” said Bug. “She’s much nicer when you get to know her.”

  “Shut up,” Georgie said.

  They took the steps to the top floor reading room. The room was enormous, long as a city block at least, and brightly lit by rows of chandeliers and by the sun streaming through the large windows. Murals of blue skies and fluffy clouds covered the ceiling. Bug and Georgie found some seats near the door so that Hewitt wouldn’t have to look too hard for them when she came back. (Georgie didn’t want to make Hewitt more irritable than she already was.) They opened the book Hewitt had given them and started reading.

  About twenty minutes later, Hewitt returned with some more books. “How’s the reading?” she whispered.

  Georgie looked up, bleary-eyed. “Hard,” she said. “Not sure I understand this chaos theory stuff. This book seems to be saying that everything is random but sometimes isn’t. Or it’s random in expected ways, which means that’s not random. Right?” She shook her head.

  If Hewitt understood chaos theory, she chose not to explain it. “Here is some material on sloths,” she said, saying the word “sloths” as if it were a curse. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” said Bug. “Vampires. And octopi. Specifically giant octopi.” He turned to Georgie. “And what’s that guy’s name? The guy who made the statues at the museum?”

  “Giacometti.”

  “You want some information on vampires, giant octopi and Giacometti,” said Hewitt. “This must be some little book report the two of you are working on.”

  Georgie felt st
upid. “I’m sorry to keep bothering you. You don’t have to look for the books for us. I’m sure we could find them ourselves.”

  “Don’t be silly; I’m happy to do it,” Hewitt said to Georgie, though she gave Bug another dirty look.

  “Yep, that’s a nice, nice girl,” Bug said.

  “Shhh!” said a woman at the next table.

  Bug tried to untangle the chaos and Georgie tackled the giant sloths. Soon, Hewitt came back with even more books on vampires and cephalopods and Giacometti. “I prefer poetry myself,” she said. “Good luck with whatever it is you’re doing.”

  Georgie and Bug set aside chaos and sloths and read up on cephalopods and Giacometti instead. They found out some fascinating things: giant squid can have eyes thirty centimetres in diameter, the largest octopus ever caught was seven metres from tip to tip and Bug said his octopus was much larger, vampire legends have been found in every culture going back hundreds of years, the mathematician Mandelbrot originally studied cotton prices, giant sloths thrived in the ice ages, and Giacometti’s first drawing was of Snow White in a tiny coffin surrounded by the seven dwarfs. But nothing they found explained what was happening in the city, or explained why it seemed to be happening around them.

  “OK,” said Bug. “What do we have: a giant sloth, a giant octopus, a walking statue, vampires. And what do they have in common? Nothing. Except that none of them are supposed to be alive.”

  Georgie grabbed Bug’s arm. “None of them are supposed to be alive. What if someone is bringing them to life?”

  “How?”

  Georgie’s shoulders sagged in defeat. “Except for the pen, I have no idea.”

  “Hey! Georgie! Over here!” a voice hissed. She turned. Lights flashed, blinding her. She put a hand up to shield her eyes.

  “Bug! Over here!” More lights. “Is Georgie Bloomington your new girlfriend? How does it feel to be dating The Richest Girl in the Universe? What’s Roma think?”

  Two photographers stood by the table taking picture after picture, not caring that they were disturbing Bug, Georgie and everyone else in the reading room.

  Hewitt Elder strode briskly over to them. “Stop that! You can’t harass patrons here. You need to leave immediately.”