The Boy Who Flew

by Fleur Hitchcock

  A little way down the hill the road curves away to the river. I trot on down, within sight of the shop but giving myself some distance. All the time, I gulp more air than I need. I stretch my legs, swing my arms, ready for the race. The door of the shop clangs, and he swears behind me.

  “Boy!” he shouts.

  I run flat out.

  Chapter 29

  I run as fast as my legs can move, racing down the last piece of the hill and round to the left, the river on my right, and for a little while the gap widens. I’m swinging round past a timber warehouse when a cart unloading wood blocks the road, and I waste time working out which way to dodge. When I turn back, he’s gaining on me. He’s jangling and swearing and thumping and sweating, and obviously out of breath, but he’s fast, with longer legs and more fury.

  Veering left into the warren of the main town, I skip through the market stands and the handcarts. I know this piece like the inside of my own head. I know that the pavement past the fishmonger’s will be slippy, and that the piles of cabbage leaves are deeper than they look. If I can get him to lose time on those, then I’ll be far enough ahead and can hide somewhere.

  I jump over the fishmonger cobbles and listen for the roar of fury as he skids, but it doesn’t come because he doesn’t run that way. Instead he races across in front of me heading me back towards the warehouses and the empty parts of town.

  I need to breathe.

  I need to stop.

  “Thief!” he shouts. “Stop the beggar!” And the people I pass turn to grab at my clothes.

  My legs are pounding the pavement, screaming at me to stop, but I manage to pick up speed and charge back up through the abbey courtyard, whirling the red-faced people fresh out of the baths, tripping on the sedan chairmen and blundering on to the alley ways at the bottom of town.

  “Hey, Athan!” someone shouts, but I run on, trying to lose Blade in the mess of tiny houses and workshops near Southgate.

  “How’d you make it work, little scumbag? How’s that machine made?” Suddenly close, the Colonel’s shout booms down the narrow lanes. I halt by the downpipe from the roof of a large warehouse, buried in a tiny alley of washing lines and barrels. My legs are exhausted but my arms are strong, and I haul myself up like I’ve done so many times before, until my fingers reach into the leaf-filled gutter and I can heave myself on to the tiles. It’s a long way up, and I stop to catch my breath. I listen; something’s clanging down there.

  Oh God, he’s climbing the gutter.

  But I’ve still got an advantage up here. Surely he can’t be used to running over the rooftops. I skitter over the tiles, away from him. “You’ve cut your own throat now, lad.” He scrambles on to the edge of the roof behind me. We’re maybe fifty yards apart, and it’s only a small jump up to the next building, a taller squarer warehouse with a flat roof.

  I take a moment to breathe, put my hands on my knees to get the air to my lungs but I don’t take my eyes off him. He does the same.

  His face is purple, sweating.

  “I can get you, lad. Easy.”

  I’m not going to waste my breath speaking.

  “I can make you rich, boy. Why won’t you let me?”

  I still keep quiet. I’m watching his hand creeping slowly down his side to the pistol, which is sticking out of the top of his boot.

  “You can shoot me,” I pant. “But then you’ll never be able to build it.”

  “They looked at the plans, lad, but they were all rubbish.” His eyes meet mine. “But you knew that, didn’t you?” He’s drawing the pistol out of his boot and, without looking, he loads it with lead and charges, like a man who’s been trained to fight in the dark.

  “They’re not – but I don’t think you’re going to believe me.” I take a step back until I’m teetering on the edge of the roof. Between my ankles I can see the gap and then the next roof.

  “You’ve been clever and foolish all in one, lad. Clever t’get thy sister back, but silly – very silly – to think

  I wouldn’t come after you.” He moves a pace towards me. “And stupid to think you’re t’only one ’as played on the rooftops. You won’t get away, you know.”

  He smiles and reaches one hand towards me, the other steadying the gun so that it points at my head.

  So I jump. It’s backwards and I twist in the air and, by luck, land on the roof above, my legs already running. Without looking back I leap straight from the flat roof to a shorter building, loosely tiled and trembling under my feet, so I have to run along the ridge in case the whole thing collapses.

  At the end, I swing a glance backwards. The Colonel stands stock-still on the flat roof, the pistol balanced across his arm, the barrel pointing right at me.

  God’s teeth!

  I throw myself flat.

  CRACK! A shot bounces on the roof and skitters down the tiles.

  I crawl forward.

  He reloads.

  CRACK! Another zings past my ear.

  “Ready to give in yet, lad? Call it a day?”

  Below the edge of the roof is a long drop but there’s a stack of barrels leaning up against the wall opposite. I might make it. I might break my ankle; then again, better than being shot.

  CRACK! This time the bullet burns through my coat and nicks my elbow, stinging like a viper. Pain races down to my hand and back. It’s hit my funny bone.

  Not funny at all.

  I swing my legs round and drop on to the ground, my ankle giving way as I fall and plunging me sideways into the wall so that I have to run awkwardly, dodging through an open courtyard, expecting another shot.

  It comes a second later. Blade’s there too, behind me in the courtyard, his pistol smoking; he misses and chips of stone fly past my ear from the wall. I race off. At least this way he has to stop each time he wants to reload. If he wants to keep on trying to shoot me, I might actually get ahead of him.

  If he doesn’t kill me first.

  I pick up a plank and scuttle along the alley with it on my back like a turtle. It might stop a bullet.

  “Lad!” he calls. “Athan!”

  I crouch behind a water tank. My plank now protecting my feet, listening to his voice, which sounds a way off and out of breath.

  “See reason, lad. You’ll not get away. I’ve a gun and you haven’t.”

  I open my mouth to reply, but stop myself just in time, realising that he probably doesn’t know where I am. It’s dim here, dank and dotted with rubbish; he won’t be able to see me. I need to stay silent and hidden.

  It doesn’t take long for my leg to go dead. I have to cram my knuckles in my mouth as the blood makes it back through to my foot. I try standing and upset a sheet of metal leaning against a wall. It crashes to the cobbles, echoing around the walls.

  “S’teeth,” I hear the Colonel muttering close by.

  My legs start running again before I’ve even asked them to, and I reach the riverside and the rotten jetties just as another ball whizzes past my knees. His firing’s wild and I hope it stays that way as the river now cuts me off and there’s almost nowhere left to hide.

  A stack of planks on the side give me an idea. I tip them into the water, pushing them out into the stream. In the gloomy light it does look a little like someone swimming. I duck back towards the wooden posts that stick out from the bank and pick my way over them, water sloshing over my boots.

  I can’t hear him any more, and waste a second turning to look.

  He’s standing staring at the planks, he raises his pistol and lets off a shot.

  CRACK!

  He watches the planks float on down the river, tilting his head from side to side as if checking for signs of life.

  The mossy wood under my feet is soft and slippery but I keep going on towards Tod’s place, not looking back and hoping that Blade will stay and shoot at the wood again, but a moment later:

  CRACK!

  This time it’s the rotting planks beneath me that jump with the bullet.

  “If
you won’t play along, then I’ll have to kill ye!” he shouts.

  There’s no choice but to keep going along the rotten wooden pathway, so I run, my feet slithering and sliding, lurching from side to side as the Colonel’s bullets ring out around my head.

  CRACK!

  CRACK!

  He’s getting faster at loading and firing.

  CRACK!

  Fifty paces to Tod’s place. I can see the roof and what looks like the kite, standing free on the little platform outside. Someone’s up there.

  “Hey!” I yell.

  The figure turns. It’s Mary; she waves.

  “He’s behind me!” I shout.

  As if to prove my point, the Colonel lets fly.

  CRACK!

  “Ye little brat, I’ll ’ave ye. You’ll be nothing better than dog’s meat by the time I’ve done with ye!”

  The side of the wood yard looms up. Two of the planks are loose and I slide through the gap just as another shot lodges in the wood by my ear.

  Dammit, he’s getting better.

  “I’ll mince ye, string y’up by your guts, like the

  old man – an’ you’ll squeal, lad, like a stuck pig. He did.” His voice is getting closer, louder. “I can keep y’alive, kicking and screaming with y’r bits ’anging out, or feed you y’r own little fingers like that auctioneer. And y’r precious little sister, she can weep by your grave. If I don’t mince her too. And I’ll marry your other sister.”

  I push through the gap into the coffin yard where Mr Ballon the undertaker’s doing something horrible with a jug and a bucket of offal on a brazier.

  He looks startled at the noise, especially when he hears the Colonel’s voice ringing through from outside. Really close this time. “Then we’ll be related – thee and me,” shouts the Colonel. “Shame y’won’t be there to see us wed!”

  “If you can’t help, get out the way!” I shout to Mr Ballon. He steps aside and I charge past, catching the brazier with my jacket. It falls and rolls across the floor, live coals scattering into the sawdust, but I don’t stop. Mr Ballon shouts behind me and I race up the ladder to get across the workshop to Tod’s loft. Behind me clamour breaks out. The Colonel must have made his way in. I didn’t think Mr Ballon would stop him, but he might hold him up.

  The ladder takes too long to climb, my legs are slow, but another shot from the Colonel keeps me moving, this time grasping for a weapon, anything at all. I arm myself with a broom handle, it’s useless against the gun but it makes me feel stronger.

  The hatch into Tod’s loft feels smaller than ever and when I burst out the other side the space is unrecognisable. Three walls remain but the fourth has gone. Even though the roof’s still partly there, it’s freezing and wet, but Mary stands caught in the wind, wild and wet and angry. Raw-faced, she’s pouring liquid into the brass engine. The kite’s all stretched out and it looks poised, ready.

  “Athan,” she says, turning towards me. “I’ve done it – it’s all ready to go – I’ve finished what you started.” Her hands are black and chunks of her hem are missing, as if she’s torn them off for rags.

  “Mary?” I say.

  “When I heard he was dead – I came down. I finished it, I’ve linked it all up.”

  “How?”

  She smiles a sad smile. “I saw the plans. I knew how it went together. I couldn’t bear…”

  She grabs the hem of her dress and uses it to blow her nose. “So I don’t want to waste it. It’s got to fly, it’s got to escape, take it away – give it to the right people. You’ve got to go with it, for me, for Beatty, for Mr Chen, for Tod.”

  “Where shall I take it?” I say.

  “West or go south. Africa.” Her eyes are bright, almost mad.

  “You devious little worm! When I catch up with you you’ll wish you’d never been born.” The Colonel shouts from under our feet and lets off the pistol so that a chunk of floor board leaps into the air.

  “Hurry up, Athan,” says Mary.

  CRACK!

  “No,” I say. “We’ll go together. We’ll get out of this building, out of this town, safe, and then we’ll win the prize. You and me. For Tod. For Mr Chen.”

  A woman’s voice joins the clamour below us.

  “Me and you?” says Mary, wiping her oily hands on her skirt.

  “Yes. Come on! This thing’ll never fly if we’re dead.”

  Like someone in a dream, Mary stoops and wedges herself under the kite, her skirt billowing over the side. “Just pull that back,” she mutters, pointing to the rear of the kite, which is entangled with a length of stretchy stuff.

  A catapult.

  Tod made a catapult.

  “It’s time, Mary. Let’s get out of here.” A waft of woodsmoke drifts up to me. I feel calm, my breathing slow and measured as if I know what I’m doing, as if I’ve always known, and as if I know why.

  “Use your legs to push backwards. I’ll hold on to the back until we’re ready,” I say.

  The woman’s voice gets louder. It isn’t Ma or Polly – or the sharp-faced woman. “Call the boy a deceiver? That’s fat, coming from you! You’d play cards with Lucifer himself and win.”

  More shouting comes from below, and with it more smoke. The voices are muddled.

  I pull back on the catapult. There are thumps and crashes and the whole building shakes.

  Bang!

  But this time it isn’t a bullet. Instead, the little engine with the fan bursts into life and sparks fly until it settles into a sound like the hum of a million bees. We shoot forward across the tiny runway of the loft, and my feet leave the ground and the edge of the roof comes up faster than I can understand.

  My legs hang loose in the air and the kite swings down through the drizzle towards the river. Mary pushes the bar and the kite twists upwards, somehow grabbing at the air and climbing. We turn – how,

  I don’t know – and brush the side of the building. The kite judders and sways then rises again to skim over the tiles of the house next door.

  My stomach has stayed on the roof; my body is miles above. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before and it’s wonderful.

  For a second the kite stops, hovering, still as a hawk above the wood yard.

  I watch the flames catch in the yard below and Tod’s uncle lugging out coffins. Some of them filled.

  Beside me Mary’s laughing, her hair floating madly around her face and shoulders, her skirt dotted with roses of blood – hers or mine, I don’t know.

  A shot rings out, louder than the bees.

  The Colonel is there on the roof, his pistol smoking. He points his gun at us. Another puff of smoke and something whizzes through the air, popping against the silk above my head. Underneath the Colonel’s boots the fire is roaring through the building. From up here in the sky he looks like some mad devil standing over the flames of hell. The back wall of the loft’s almost gone; there’s almost nothing left.

  Another wild shot whistles though the cloth. I need more height, or more distance, but I can’t control it. Winds catch us and throw the kite towards the building again, laughing and coughing we rise up on the heat, higher and higher.

  Glancing down, I see the Colonel’s smile. He lifts the pistol again and this time we’re so close a child could hit us. He aims; he’s got all the time in the world. Smoke’s pouring from what’s left of the walls of the loft but he doesn’t move, just stretches his mouth into a wide grin.

  I close my eyes, I’m in the sky but…

  “Aaaaargh!” From the smoke, a woman in green appears. She teeters on the tiny unburned space. It’s Columbine, madder than ever, her dress hanging from her shoulders, blackened and burned. Her crazy red hair singed and thin, her eyes blazing.

  She catches his arm as he fires, tilting the gun so that the bullet passes through the silk above Mary’s head. I look down and Columbine shouts up to me, but her words are lost in the crackle of the flames.

  Breathless, covered in the hot thick woodsmoke, we clim
b higher and higher, carried up by the intense heat while below they struggle, their bodies almost consumed by the blaze, flames bursting through the wood beneath their feet.

  He swings his pistol to fire on her and she grabs him, her arms gripped so close around his jacket that he can’t move; and then with a strength I didn’t know she had, she takes him through the wall of the loft and into the fire below.

  I see them fall together. The fire crawls up her dress and the orange flowers of flame bloom around her, lighting up her hair in a golden coronet.

  And though his arms hold hers, clutching her in a strange embrace, his chill blue eyes turn towards me and lock on to mine until he vanishes.

  We buried Tod. All of us, together. Mary and Polly made him a shroud sewn from the finest muslin and stitched with blue forget-me-nots.

  Beatty sat on the coffin cart and held the flowers.

  Ma led the mourners.

  Grandma muttered incantations.

  They would have buried Columbine too, but they couldn’t find her body in the fire.

  So we wrapped green ribbons around lilies and laid them with Tod in the cemetery in Widcombe.

  We came home and ate seedcake and lemon posset and I went up to my room and cried.

  Before the wake was over Mr Katz left town.

  In a hurry.

  He left his violin and Mary brought it round as a gift for Uncle.

  So it was the end of February before Mary and I found how to win the prize. Polly read all the newspapers and wrote a letter for us, inviting the Duke of Roseberry to witness our flight.

  On a fresh spring day, when the snowdrops were peeking out, we took the kite to the top of Landsdown. Tod’s da and uncle carried it for us on the hearse, with two black horses pulling.

  Ma handed out cheese and apples.

  Two men in fine coats arrived and measured a furlong on the ground. They carried binoculars and had servants.

  “Two attempts,” they said. “You have two attempts.”

  They yawned and looked bored as we made our preparations. They obviously didn’t think we were going to win.

  It made Mary very serious. Very determined. She kept on checking everything: the stitches, the struts, the angle of the fan.