The Boy Who Could Fly

by Laura Ruby

  Still, thought Hewitt, it was odd that at least one of the lions wasn’t guarding the stairwell up to the Arents Collection room. Hewitt wasn’t easily made uneasy, but she could feel a tingle in her skin that she didn’t quite like.

  Something else she didn’t like: the clunk-and-scritch sound of stone paws scraping the rough cement floor. Immediately, she swung the flashlight to her right.

  “Hello, Hewitt,” the man said, over-annunciating the “h” in each word. He appeared like some sort of spectre out of the gloom, riding towards her on the back of Patience, who wasn’t looking all that patient. Not a bright idea, but then he wasn’t quite as bright as he thought he was.

  Crazy. Scary. Unpredictable. But not bright.

  “Hello, Mandelbrot,” said Hewitt, trying to keep her voice steady. “What brings you to the library?”

  Chapter 21

  The Book of the Undead

  Wham!

  Wham!

  Wham!

  The noise shattered Bug’s sleep, startling him so much that he fell out of bed.

  “Ow,” Bug said, rubbing the elbow he landed on.

  Pinkwater darted about in a flurry of flapping wings. “Red alert!” the bird chirped. “Red alert!”

  The noise came again. Someone pounding on the door.

  “Just a minute,” Bug said, hauling himself off the floor. His head was fuzzy from too little sleep and too many crazy dreams. He’d dreamed that Roma had followed him all the way home, calling him stupid and pelting him with M&M’S. He’d dreamed Sol and Bunny Bloomington were grilling him about his “intentions” towards Georgie. He dreamed that the newspapers were packed with stories about what a “bad boy” he was and how very much he was doomed to become a criminal like his father. And then he dreamed that Georgie’s vamps came to visit, but these were tiny, all trembling like dark moths against the windowpane. They wanted in, the moths. They had something for him, an invitation to a party. A party he didn’t want to miss.

  More pounding.

  “All right, all right,” Bug said. “I’m coming!” He shuffled to the door, not caring about his plaid flannel trousers and King Kong T-shirt. He figured that if someone wanted to see him so badly, they could see him in his jams with his weird hair sticking up. Served them right.

  Just as he was opening the door, he had the terrible thought that the paparazzi would be behind it, but it wasn’t the paparazzi. It was the old woman with the blue hat. The book club lady. Mrs Vorona.

  He was about to open his mouth to tell her as sweetly and politely and in as gentlemanly a manner as he could that he didn’t have the time to join a goofy book club run by a bunch of old biddies, but it seemed that Mrs Vorona had other ideas. She reached into Bug’s apartment, grabbed him by the T-shirt, and hauled him through the door.

  “Hey!” said Bug, as the woman towed him down the hallway towards the lift.

  Pinkwater fluttered after them. “Hey!” he chirped.

  “Let me lock my door at least!” Bug said.

  Mrs Vorona clucked her tongue. “Are you worried someone will steal your suit of armour or the pile of dirty laundry on the floor?” She stabbed at the Down button.

  “Ma’am—” Bug began.

  “Hush,” said the woman. He heard the steel in her voice and hushed, not sure what he should do next. The lift doors opened and Mrs Vorona shoved him inside. She said nothing as she punched the button for the second floor. Even Pinkwater seemed to sense that it would be wise to keep his comments to himself. The three of them were silent as the lift dropped floor after floor until button Number 2 lit up. Bug was unceremoniously yanked from the lift and hauled to the apartment two doors from the lift. Mrs Vorona clanked a knocker shaped like the head of a bird.

  The door opened a crack and one rheumy brown eye was visible below the chain. “What’s the password?” a creaky voice said.

  “Oh, I don’t remember,” said Mrs Vorona. “It was something about breakfast. Marmalade? Jam? Toast?”

  “That’s not it,” said the voice. “I can’t let you in unless you know the password.”

  “Oh, stop with that nonsense, Imogen, and let us in!” snapped Mrs Vorona.

  The door flew open. The one brown eye was paired with another, both of them belonging to a very old woman in a flowered dress and thick, brown orthopaedic shoes. She grinned and nodded at Bug. “Hello there, dear. I’m Mrs Hingis. Imogen Hingis. Call me Imogen.”

  “Hi,” Bug said, before he was shoved into the apartment. A group of maybe a dozen women perched in chairs around an old-fashioned-looking parlour complete with claw-foot furniture and floral wallpaper.

  “Sit,” said Mrs Vorona, pressing him into a chair.

  “Would you like some hot tea, dear?” said Imogen. “We have chamomile, lemon, Earl Grey—”

  Mrs Vorona gave Imogen a glare that would have stunned a bull elephant. Imogen gave up and sat on the end of a pink velvet settee. The other women around the room glanced at one another nervously.

  “Well,” said Mrs Vorona, looking around at the women, and then at Bug. “We’re glad that you could make it to a meeting of our little club, Mr Grabowski.”

  Unless I wanted to beat up an old lady, thought Bug, it’s not like I had much of a choice.

  “So,” continued Mrs Vorona. “I’ll get right to the point. We need you to do something for us. We want you to infiltrate the vampires and steal a book.”

  “You want me to what?” said Bug.

  “Bad news!” chirped Pinkwater.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know about the vampires, Mr Grabowski. We know that they’ve visited your friend Georgetta Bloomington and we know that they visited you. Last night, as a matter of fact, there were about fifteen of them at your window, all trying to wake you up so that you would let them inside.” Mrs Vorona paused. “You must sleep like a stone.”

  So he hadn’t been dreaming after all. There really were itty-bitty vampires fluttering against the window. But…

  “How did you know there were vampires outside my window?”

  Mrs Vorona ignored him. “And we also know that if your friend doesn’t show up at the party on Saturday night, the vampires will turn her family into bloodsuckers. You too, probably, if they had been able to wake you long enough to threaten you. No matter. They’ll probably bite you anyway.”

  “Thanks for the reassurance,” Bug said.

  “You’re not here so that we can make you feel better,” said Mrs Vorona.

  “No,” he said. “I’m here because you dragged me here.

  And you know what? I don’t feel like hanging around.” He got up and turned to go.

  “I’m not kidding,” said Mrs Vorona. “You’re in danger. Your friend is in danger.”

  Bug spun round. “We’ve been in danger before.”

  Mrs Vorona shook her head. “Not this kind of danger.”

  “And only you guys can help us,” Bug said, his voice deep with sarcasm.

  “If you help us first,” said Mrs Vorona. “Bring us the book we’re looking for and we can make sure that the vampires can’t harm you.”

  Bug sat down again. “Who’s this Mandelbrot guy?”

  “You’re going to get the book?” said Mrs Vorona.

  “I’m thinking about it,” Bug told her. “But first, Mandelbrot. Who is he?”

  “A Punk,” said Imogen. “They live in the subway systems. Usually live in the subway systems. We don’t know why this one decided to come to the surface. But then, if I had a choice I wouldn’t want to live in the subway systems either. Can you imagine the dirt? And the smell of all those fumes? And the noise! Why, I—”

  “Imogen!” Mrs Vorona said.

  “What?” said Imogen. “I was only explaining to the boy. I don’t know why you’re in such a mood today.” Imogen shook her head at Bug. “She’s not normally so cranky.”

  “I’m not cranky!” shouted Mrs Vorona.

  “What’s a Punk doing with a bunch of vampires?” Bug asked.
>
  “We don’t know that, either,” said Imogen.

  “Well, what do you know?” Bug said.

  “You’re a cheeky young man, aren’t you?” Imogen said. “Are you sure you don’t want any tea? It might calm your nerves.”

  “Imogen, please!” Mrs Vorona said again, this time more wearily.

  Imogen reached over and patted Mrs Vorona’s hand. “Stop beating around the bush, dear,” she said, “and tell the boy what he needs to know.” The other women in the group nodded.

  Mrs Vorona sighed. “It’s called The Book of the Undead. It contains a series of incantations that can animate the unanimated.”

  “Huh?” said Bug.

  “It can bring things to life,” Imogen explained.

  “Hamster!” chirped Pinkwater.

  “Yes,” said Mrs Vorona. “The museum of natural history had a skeleton of a giant sloth shipped in. And then whoever’s in possession of the book brought it back to life.”

  “But why would someone want to bring a sloth back to life?” Bug said. “It’s not even scary. It eats sweets. What’s the point?”

  Mrs Vorona shrugged. “We don’t know. And we don’t care. All we know is that we have to get that book back. There’s no telling what Mandelbrot will do next.”

  “How do you know Mandelbrot has the book?”

  Mrs Vorona brushed at her wool sleeves as if she were brushing away cat hair or lint, but there was no lint on her clothes that Bug could see. “We’re a book club.”

  “Yeah. And?”

  “That means we’re very, very interested in books, dear,” Imogen said. “There isn’t a book we’re not aware of.”

  “There’s a large storage facility beneath the library, one that houses many, many more books than the library itself,” said Mrs Vorona. She leaned forwards. “Some of those books are dangerous. Some of them—”

  “Can kill,” finished Bug. “I know about the basement of the library. And I’ve heard this stuff before.”

  Mrs Vorona glanced at him curiously, but didn’t ask him to explain. “In any case, I saw something very odd when I was down in the basement. Mandelbrot came to visit. I was hidden some distance away, so I couldn’t quite hear what was going on, but I think he was threatening the library volunteer. The volunteer handed over what looked like a leather book. I got suspicious, so I decided to follow Mandelbrot. And I found him, a whole band of vampires, and the book. I’m sure it was The Book of the Undead. But I couldn’t get it back. I was… um… outnumbered.” She sighed heavily, as if the weight of the world rested on her shoulders. “He calls himself The Chaos King. And that’s what I think he’s interested in: total chaos. Who knows what that madman is planning to unleash on the city? This is our home. We need to get that book back. Besides,” Mrs Vorona continued, “it’s all our fault that the book is so dangerous.”

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  Mrs Vorona didn’t answer. She got up and went to a rolltop desk in the corner. From the top drawer, she withdrew a shining silver pen, a pen that looked like it was from another time, perhaps, or from another world, a pen like no other. “Do you know what this is?”

  Bug swallowed hard. “I think I do.”

  “This belonged to a man you know, a man called The Professor. He dropped it late one night about six months ago, and Imogen picked it up.”

  Imogen grinned. “I like shiny things so much!”

  Mrs Vorona shot Imogen a look. “She didn’t know it was a special pen, though. None of us did.”

  “Until I wrote the note,” said Imogen.

  “What note?” Bug asked.

  “This note.” Imogen Hingis pulled a scrap of paper from her pocket. On it, in rich blue ink, was written: Wake up!

  “I don’t get it,” said Bug. “What does it mean?”

  “I always write myself a schedule for the day and my schedule always begins with the words “Wake up”, as in wake up, make breakfast, get dressed, etc. But I couldn’t find a pen. So, I used the fancy one I’d found. As soon as I wrote the words I knew something was wrong. I felt it. I’d woken something up. I just didn’t know what.”

  “Until we saw the news reports of your run-in with the octopus. And the sloth. And your friend Georgetta Bloomington’s little problem with a certain Giacometti statue. We knew it was The Book of the Undead. Another one of The Professor’s little inventions.”

  “The Professor!” said Bug. “We tried to find him and we couldn’t. He’s missing.”

  “And we fear the worst,” said Mrs Vorona. “So we have to get that book back ourselves. And we need your help.”

  “Why don’t you all go to the party?” Bug asked. “Why don’t you call the police or something?”

  “First of all, the vampires know what, I mean, who I am. And if I call the police to tell them that Mandelbrot has a book that can bring things to life, how hard do you think they’ll laugh at us? No, you must do it. You have to go to the party anyway. You must get that book back.”

  “Why me?”

  “Because you’re already invited to the party,” Mrs Vorona said. “You’re a Wing. The best the city has ever seen. And because you’re the son of Sweetcheeks Grabowski and—”

  “So?” said Bug. “So what? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Well,” Mrs Vorona said, “we just thought you might know a way to get things that other people don’t want you to have, that’s all. We’re not implying anything.”

  “Sure you are,” said Bug. “You think I’m some sort of gangster because my father is.”

  “Dear,” Imogen said kindly, “we just need to get that book back. And maybe you need to get that book back as well. It won’t stop the reporters from saying all sorts of terrible things about you, but it might stop you from suspecting that they could be right.”

  “And what about us? Me and Georgie?” said Bug. “While we’re keeping the city safe, how will you make sure we’re safe?”

  “With the book, we can render the vampires harmless.”

  “How?”

  “By bringing them to life again, silly,” said Imogen. “They won’t be vampires any more. They’ll be just like you and me. Only paler, of course.”

  He might not be able to get the book back himself, but he was sure he could get it back with Georgie’s help. That is, if Georgie wasn’t grounded for the rest of her life. A life that wouldn’t be very long if Georgie didn’t show up at Mandelbrot’s party.

  Bug thought of something else. “What did that library volunteer look like?”

  “Her name is Hewitt Elder. You might have heard of her, she’s—”

  “I know who she is,” Bug said. “I wonder how Mandelbrot knows her.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t, dear,” Imogen said. “Maybe she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Maybe,” said Bug.

  “So,” said Mrs Vorona. “You’ll do it? You’ll get the book?”

  “Yes,” Bug said. “I think so.”

  “Good,” Mrs Vorona said, the relief visible on her face. “Very good.”

  Bug stood to leave. Imogen hobbled with him to the door. “We’re very glad that you could come by. And that you agreed to help us.”

  “Well, if I don’t help you, there’s a chance that the vampires might come after me.”

  “There is that,” Imogen replied. She opened the door to let him out. “Oh, and dear?”

  Bug turned. “Yeah?”

  “You might want to do something with your hair. It’s a little weird.”

  Chapter 22

  Like You, Like You

  Georgie pushed Agnes’s fat-laden food around her plate, trying to think of something to say and the right way to say it.

  Mum, Roma Radisson’s boyfriend is just a little too old for her.

  Hundreds of years too old.

  OK, Dad. I didn’t want to say anything, but Roma Radisson’s hanging out with Dracula.

  “Did you say something, Georgie?” Bunny Bloomington
said.

  “Uh, no,” said Georgie. “Nothing.”

  Her parents glanced at each other meaningfully. Since Georgie had come home late from the library and found the penthouse full of cops, her parents had been glancing at each other meaningfully. Except, being a person who had only had parents for six months, Georgie had no idea what the glances actually meant. Maybe other kids who had spent their whole lives living with the same people understood what those people were doing when they glanced at one another over Polish sausage and scalloped potatoes with sour cream. But Georgie didn’t know. And she was afraid to ask, afraid that if she tried to explain everything now – the visiting vampires, the giant sloth, the world beneath the public library, all of it – she would sound crazy. Or desperate. Or desperately crazy.

  So she said nothing. She pushed her potatoes around her plate until her parents took pity on her and told her to help Agnes with the washing up.

  In the kitchen, she and Agnes filled the dishwasher and scrubbed the pots and the pans. Finally Georgie said, “Why haven’t you told my parents anything?”

  “Because you should tell parents,” Agnes said.

  “I can’t,” said Georgie. “They’ll try to save me.”

  “Maybe you should let them?”

  Georgie dried a large pot. “You are my Personal Assistant, aren’t you? That’s why you haven’t told my parents. That’s why you hint at things but you never tell me the whole story.”

  “You think I know whole story?”

  “I think you know everything,” said Georgie.

  “Nobody knows everything,” Agnes told her. “We each do our part in world and that’s all. Just one part. And you need to be more careful doing yours.”