Wings

by Jason Lethcoe

  “Fighting again?” The instructor pushed his heavy glasses up on his nose. “Physical confrontation is strictly forbidden at the Foundry.” He glanced down at the destroyed bookshelf. “Not only that, but you’ve also destroyed valuable school property.”

  “It was Edward’s fault, Mr. Ignatius,” Grudge said, feigning innocence. “I was just checking out a repair manual. He started pushing me for no reason, looking for a fight.”

  Mr. Ignatius shot Edward an appraising glance. “Is this true, Macleod?”

  “N-n-nuh-no,” Edward said coldly. Knowing that his stutter would only embarrass him further, he decided not to elaborate.

  After a long moment, Mr. Ignatius said, “I don’t know what happened here, but I’m sending you bothto see Dr. Warburton immediately. He’ll have to sort it out.”

  Edward blanched. The principal!

  As the two boys were marched down the empty hall that led to the principal’s office, Edward’s itch began to burn again. Thinking back to the incident in the library, he suppressed a shudder. If Grudge hadn’t gotten out of the way at the last second, the falling shelves could have killed him! It was exactly what Edward had fantasized about, but he didn’t really want Grudge to die. He had just wanted Grudge to leave him alone.

  Feeling a twinge of guilt, Edward Macleod sat down on one of the hard wooden chairs in Dr. Warburton’s office and waited. The itch crawled uncomfortably along his spine, and out of habit he reached under his sweater and tried to scratch it. Distractedly, he thought back to how the itch had burned when he’d wanted the bookshelf to fall on Grudge. It was almost as if the itch had been something alive, something eager to respond to Edward’s need for vengeance.

  The more he thought about it, the more anxious he felt. What was wrong with him? If he ever tried to explain his itch to anyone, they would think he was crazy. How could it be possible? Yet he knew with increasing certainty that the two things were linked. The bookshelf had fallen in response to his thoughts. He nervously bit at his fingernails, knowing one thing for sure.

  It was certainly no ordinary itch.

  Chapter Two

  SPINES

  Nobody noticed the small, unusually shaped figure that slunk along the edge of the Foundry’s moldy brick walls.

  The gnarled creature was good at hiding, having done it for a very, very long time. He was short as a stump, and the prickly quills that passed for his hair stuck out in all directions from beneath an old stovepipe hat. But in spite of his strange, almost animal appearance, the creature’s beady eyes glittered with deep intelligence. They were eyes that had seen too many things over the years.

  His tiny feet made no noise as he crossed the sparse courtyard and arrived at his destination: the overgrown shrubs beneath the window of Dr. Warburton’s office. This wasn’t the first time that the mysterious Mr. Spines had been to the Foundry. He’d visited many times before to study his favorite subject.

  Mr. Spines’s leathery tongue darted across his broken, yellow teeth as he struggled to peer into the dirty window. The windowsill was high, and he could barely see into the office. Cursing quietly under his breath, he spotted a rusted spigot and, after placing his foot upon it, raised himself a little higher.

  That’s better, he thought.

  Soon he spotted Edward, who was gnawing worriedly at his dirty fingernails. The thuggish boy that had given Edward so many problems since the day he had arrived at the Foundry sat next to him.

  What has Edward done to get in trouble this time? Spines narrowed his eyes with concern. Edward glanced up in the direction of the window. Quick as a flash, Spines ducked away. He couldn’t afford to be seen by the boy. Not yet.

  After a moment he peeked back up and watched as Edward squirmed uncomfortably, rubbing his shoulders against the back of his chair.

  Mr. Spines’s eyes lit with understanding. “Ahh!” he whispered quietly.It’s the itch!

  The door banged open and the scowling form of Dr. Warburton entered the office. Spines pricked up his ears as the irritated principal addressed the boys.

  “This is the third time this week that I’ve had reports of conflict between you two. We just can’t have this kind of thing here at the Foundry.” Warburton puffed out his walrus mustache. “Your lack of manners and flagrant disregard for the rules has left me no other choice. I’m bringing in an outsider, a specialist, who I’ve been assured will teach you both how to behave. His name is Mr. Scruggs and he’ll be arriving here any minute now.”

  What?Mr. Spines’s leathery tongue swept his dry lips with nervous agitation. It can’t be! Not “Whiplash” Scruggs!

  Spines knew that name all too well. He couldn’t allow Scruggs to get anywhere near Edward. Mr. Spines gulped nervously. Could it be that Scruggs had somehow found out about Edward and what he really was?

  The sounds of barking dogs interrupted his thoughts. A high-pitched voice with a deep Kentucky accent cut through the early evening air, shouting, “Olivier, Mulciber, heel! Heel, I say!”

  There was no mistaking that voice or those dogs’ names.

  It washim.

  With his heart thumping wildly, Spines spotted a shadowy place beneath a nearby juniper. He had to hide, and quick! He looked around frantically for a better hiding spot, but it looked like that was his only option. He held his breath, knowing that he couldn’t make even the slightest sound when he jumped.

  CREEEAK!The rusted spigot moved beneath his foot. He froze, hardly daring to breathe. The barking of the dogs was growing louder and closer.

  Mr. Spines stiffened, his spiny hair standing up in all directions. Quick as a flash, he leaped from the spigot and darted along the Foundry’s mossy wall, running as fast as his short legs could carry him. But it was too late, the dogs had his scent. He could hear their paws pounding into the ground behind him.

  “OLIVIER! MULCIBER! Come back here!”

  The burly form of Whiplash Scruggs arrived at the window where Mr. Spines had just been hiding moments before. He was a bleached mountain of a man, with pale, doughy features that were crammed tightly into a wrinkled white linen suit. Beneath the brim of his wide hat were two too pale-blue eyes carpeted by bushy, caterpillar-like eyebrows.

  Huffing and puffing, the big man scanned the area, carefully examining the freshly trodden soil near the juniper bushes. He stroked his black goatee and focused on a muddy spot near the rusted spigot. Kneeling down next to a small, pointed footprint, his plump face split into a wide smile.

  Aha!

  He stood, brushing the dirt off of the knees of his trousers and stared off in the direction his pets had gone. Their frenzied barking was now reduced in volume but he could still hear them, far beyond the Foundry’s moldy walls.

  “Eat well, my darlings,” he murmured quietly. His dark eyes glittered in the light of the setting sun as he added, “And mind the prickles.”

  Chapter Three

  SCISSORS

  The cellar underneath the Foundry was seldom used except to store broken machinery, furniture, and cleaning supplies. Mold grew on the damp walls and the packed dirt floor was slimy with mud. There was only one small window covered with grime, so the only light that filtered into the gloomy darkness came from the cracks in the floorboards above. Edward brushed at the spider webs that clung to his arm and suppressed a shudder as he looked around. He hated spiders.

  He wrinkled his nose at the musty smell and glanced over at Grudge. The stocky boy was sitting next to a large barrel of rusted machine parts, glowering. Neither of the boys had exchanged a word since they’d been locked in the room three hours earlier.

  Edward reached into his pocket and removed a tattered deck of playing cards. After shaking them loose from the box, he brushed away a smooth, mostly dry area on the dirt floor with the side of his palm. Then, he took a deep breath and began to stack the cards, balancing them on top of each other until a pattern emerged.

  One of Edward’s few talents was his ability to build elaborate card houses. It was so
mething that had always come naturally to him, and he’d been making them since he was a toddler. His mother had been amazed when he built his first one, a sprawling structure that covered the entire kitchen floor. Ever since then, whenever Edward felt anxious or needed to think, he would build a card house.

  Although Grudge was doing his best to ignore Edward, he couldn’t help but glance over at the incredible tower that was rising quickly off of the floor. Each card was precariously balanced on the last. But somehow, in spite of how delicate it looked, the engineering was solid.

  “How do you do that, Sticks?” Grudge asked, unable to hide his curiosity.

  “I don’t know,” Edward confessed. He rested a jack of diamonds on top of two other cards. “I just do.”

  Edward was concentrating so deeply on building the house that he didn’t notice he hadn’t stuttered at all.

  He had just placed the final card on the top of the incredible tower when the cellar door suddenly burst open. In spite of its excellent construction, the gust of wind that followed was too much for Edward’s building. As the cards scattered across the floor, Edward wasted no time grabbing them and shoving them back in the box. Heavy footsteps creaked down the long flight of stairs, and Edward had barely hidden the deck in his pocket when a loud voice sounded from above him.

  “Well, my rebellious little lambs, have we had time to cogitate over the inexcusable behavior we have exhibited this evening?” the high voice drawled with a Kentucky accent.

  Mr. Scruggs emerged at the bottom of the stairs, resplendent in his white suit and hat. Edward noticed that he carried a battered-looking doctor’s bag. He stroked his ebony goatee and shot Edward and Grudge a calculating stare. When neither of the boys responded to his question, the big man offered them both an indulgent smile.

  “Before we get down to the unfortunate business at hand, I suppose that we should start with introductions.” He spread his arms wide. “My name is Belvedere Horatio Scruggs, but many of my students prefer to call me Whiplash. After we become acquainted, you might find that it is less a name and more a description of my extraordinary talents.”

  The bulky teacher glanced over at Grudge, who sneered back at him. If Grudge was scared, he certainly didn’t show it. Edward couldn’t help but admire Grudge’s attitude. He desperately hoped that Scruggs wouldn’t notice how nervous he was.

  The teacher smirked at Grudge’s display of confidence and said, “Why, you must be Mr. John Grudgel.”

  Edward watched as Scruggs removed a small notebook from the pocket of his gleaming, white waistcoat. “Let me see,” he opened the book and flipped through a couple of pages. “Fighting, disrespect for authority, and what’s this . . . thievery?” Scruggs’s eyes narrowed. “It says here that you’ve been caught stealing money from the Foundry cafeteria three times this year.” He glanced over at Grudge and smiled cruelly. “Oh, I do abhor thievery of all kinds. I find the taking of things that don’t belong to one a reprehensible habit.”

  Scruggs undid the metal clasps on his doctor’s bag and reached inside. Edward gaped as the bulky teacher pulled out the longest pair of silver bladed scissors he had ever seen. Scruggs paused to polish the blades with the edge of his white jacket. Then, after restoring them to a mirrorlike gleam, he grasped the handles and closed the shears with a pronounced snip.

  The effect on Edward was instantaneous. Suddenly, an inexplicable feeling of fear swept over him and the itch on his back prickled uncomfortably. There was something he didn’t like about those scissors, something that he couldn’t put into words.

  He glanced up at Whiplash Scruggs. The teacher seemed to have noticed his discomfort. Edward might have been mistaken, but it looked like an expression of triumph had flashed across his face. Feeling anxious, Edward backed away from the teacher and his terrible-looking scissors.

  Scruggs snapped the carpet bag shut and continued, saying, “Now then, there are many ways to elicit a change in behavior. Personally, I have discovered a wonderful cure for thieving hands.” He casually pointed the tips of the long bladed scissors at Grudge.

  A flicker of fear crossed Grudge’s face. “Stay away from me,” he warned, balling up his fists. “Come any closer and you’ll regret it!”

  Scruggs threw back his head and laughed. He seemed genuinely amused by Grudge’s threat.

  “You are a rare one indeed, Mr. Grudgel. I must say, there aren’t many students who would have the audacity to respond to me in such an insolent manner. However, I’m afraid you misunderstand my intent.” He lowered the hand that held the scissors. “These magnificent shears are not to be wasted on the likes of you. I shall reveal my cure for thievery in due course.”

  Scruggs walked over to Edward and held the scissors in front of his face. He flashed Edward a vicious grin. “No, these particularly fine scissors are for you, Edward Macleod.”

  Then, with a deliberate motion, he grasped the scissors’ handles and snapped them shut with two quick snips.

  Edward gasped.

  He dropped to his knees on the muddy ground as pain flared between his shoulders. It was agony, the worst he’d ever felt, even worse than during the incident at the Foundry library.

  Whiplash Scruggs stood over him, regarding Edward with a look of cold dislike as Edward writhed, trying to reach the pain between his shoulder blades. After a moment Scruggs knelt down next to Edward and spoke in a soft voice that only Edward could hear.

  “The pain will be unbearable for a little bit longer, Edward Macleod. But very soon you’ll understand why that troublesome itch bothers you so.”

  Scruggs’s fat fingers absently caressed the handle of the silver scissors. “And after a quick snip or two, you’ll be coming with me to visit someone who has been waiting to meet you for a very long time.”

  Edward had no idea what Scruggs was talking about. The pain on his back was so great, he felt like screaming. But he fought against the impulse to yell. He didn’t want to give in, to let the teacher know how much pain he was in. He gritted his teeth and choked back the tears that clouded his vision.

  Whiplash Scruggs turned back to the spot where Grudge was sitting. Grudge was staring wide-eyed at Edward, confused.

  “And now for that cure I promised, Mr. Grudgel,” Whiplash Scruggs said. Walking back over to his bag, he reached inside and removed a coil of rough leather rope. Then, with a practiced flip of his wrist, the rope uncoiled and the end hit the dirt with a dull thud. It was a whip.

  “You can’t use that. It’s against the rules. W-Warburton would never allow it!” Grudge shouted.

  Scruggs chuckled, enjoying how terrified the boy sounded. His hand tightened on the handle of the weapon that was his namesake. He gave an experimental snap of his wrist, and the whip traced an sin the dirt floor. Feeling satisfied, he glanced up at Grudge and said, “Sometimes the old-fashioned cures work the best, Mr. Grudgel.”

  A crack of thunder boomed outside. It was followed by the sound of heavy rain spattering in the courtyard. Whiplash Scruggs smiled inwardly. The thunderstorm would muffle the screams that were sure to come. He removed his hat and rested it on top of a wooden barrel before adding, “And I haven’t found a better cure for thieving hands.” He smiled at Grudge. “Now then, hold them out palms upward, if you please.”

  Chapter Four

  RESCUE

  Mr. Spines rushed inside the weather-beaten townhouse and slammed the door shut behind him. Outside, the frustrated barks of Whiplash Scruggs’s hounds echoed down the deserted, rain-soaked alleyway. His breath came in ragged gasps as he slumped against a rickety cabinet. He was relieved that the sudden thunderstorm had hidden his scent from Scruggs’s vicious dogs.

  “What happened to you, Melchior?” a small voice asked. A white ermine with blue eyes emerged from a shadowy area near the fireplace. She glanced at Mr. Spines’s dripping clothes and hat and said, “You’re soaked!”

  “Whiplash Scruggs is at the Foundry! I barely got away from his dogs.” Spines gasped. He walked q
uickly over to the blazing hearth, removed his coat, and hung it on a peg near the fireplace.

  Sariel’s fur bristled. “Whiplash Scruggs! Does he know about Edward?”

  “Appears that way,” Spines replied, examining his torn coattails. The dogs’ teeth had narrowly missed him.

  “How’s he feeling?” Sariel asked anxiously.

  “Well, theitchis getting worse. It won’t be long now.” Spines paused and glanced around the room. “Where’s Artemis?”

  “At the bakery,” the ermine replied with a shrug.

  “What? I told you both to stay put!” Spines exclaimed. As he spoke, the spines that were visible just below his hat bristled in irritation.

  “I know, but you know how he is. He said he was starving and he couldn’t wait for you to get back. I tried to stop him.”

  Mr. Spines shook his head and waddled over to a shabby chair by the hearth. It had taken years of careful planning and hiding to get them to this point. Why couldn’t everybody just stick to the plan? Despite being five thousand years old, Sariel and Artemis still behaved like children.

  Spines drummed his fingers on the arm of the chair. They would all have to leave very soon. The itch on Edward’s back would only grow stronger over the next few hours.

  A bump at the rain-spattered window startled him out of his thoughts. Then lightning flashed, revealing a very ugly, winged creature hovering just outside.

  Mr. Spines rushed over and threw open the window. With a flutter of green wings, the creature, a flying toad, landed on the floor. He carried a small white bag in his mouth.

  “Mm, ’fanks,” the creature said in a muffled voice. Then after dropping the bag, he looked up at Mr. Spines with sheepish grin.

  “Artemis! What did I tell you about being seen in public?” Spines shouted.

  Artemis folded his wings and replied in a whiny voice, “I was careful! Nobody saw me.” He glanced down at the soaked bag. “Besides, it was worth it! Look what I got out of the trash behind the bakery.”