by Laura Ruby
Gurl thought of the riddle that popped into her head sometimes: If a tree falls in a forest, and no one’s around, does it make a sound? “You’re not going to…uh…solve my cat, are you?” Gurl fretted aloud. “Nothing’s going to happen to her, right?”
“No,” said The Professor. “She’ll remain a Riddle for ever. Just as you like her.”
Relieved, Gurl exhaled. She idly fingered the plants that
sprouted from the floor all around her and leaned down to smell a rose. All she ever wanted was to be normal and yet she had so much more. With Noodle officially hers, she was The Richest Girl in the Universe. It didn’t seem fair for one person to have so much, and she was suddenly fearful that it wasn’t real, that she was dreaming it all, and that it could be taken away in a blink. That she would wake up to Mrs Terwiliger’s psycho-clown face, forced to sit on the sidelines while the whole world flew away. Before she knew what was happening, a tear dropped from her cheek into the heart of the rose.
“Oh,” said Bunny. “Georgie, baby, are you all right?”
It was this unfamiliar name, the word “baby”, that did it. Gurl flinched. “I’m sorry. I don’t know who that is,” she said. An ache at the back of her throat gathered and grew until she didn’t think she could keep breathing another minute. But she kept breathing. “There are things you should know. About who I am. About the things I did.” She began in the beginning, with Hope House. Her name. Mrs Terwiliger. The alley, with Noodle. She told them about Harvey’s and stealing the scarves. About Bug and The Professor. The Punks. The hotel and the food they ordered, but couldn’t, and didn’t, pay for. Sweetcheeks and his lair. The Black Box. The attempt to steal the pen.
Making up for years of watching, years of silence, she talked and talked and talked and talked. The tears streamed down her face now, but she didn’t seem to feel them and she didn’t wipe them away. When Gurl was done telling her tale, she looked from Sol to Bunny, wondering what they would do. Did she disgust them? Did they wish she would just disappear?
Gurl didn’t know her own father and didn’t know what a wise man he was. Solomon knelt in front of Gurl and gathered her tightly in his arms, drawing her head to his shoulder, but he didn’t tell her it was OK because he understood that it wasn’t. What was OK about a baby kidnapped from her parents? What was OK about a girl alone in the world with only a cat to call a friend? What was OK about having to steal to save the thing you loved most? What was OK about being away from your own family for so long that you can’t trust them to forgive you?
Bunny knelt too and put her arms around her husband and her daughter. And the silent but accepting embrace of her parents told Gurl that though things might not be OK, one day they would be.
The reunited family crouched in Sol’s strange indoor garden until Gurl’s tears dried and she began wiping her face self-consciously.
“This is a lot for you to take in,” Solomon said, releasing her just far enough that he could look at her. “A lot for all of us. I have a suggestion. Why don’t you and Bug take a break? Go out and get some fresh air?”
“Really?” said Gurl.
Solomon squeezed her shoulders. “Really. Bunny and I will be here waiting for you.”
Gurl swallowed hard. “What do you think?” she asked Bug. “Do you want to get some air?”
“I think that’s the best idea I’ve heard all day,” Bug told her.
“OK,” she said, standing. “We’ll be back soon.”
“I know you will.”
Gurl and Bug walked to the door until The Professor stopped them. “Don’t forget your cat.”
Gurl grinned. “Right. Come on, Noodle!”
Noodle mewled, jumped off The Professor’s lap, and leaped into Gurl’s waiting arms. “See you all later,” she said.
Solomon and Bunny stood together. “See you.”
After the children had run from the room, The Professor said, “Is that really safe to send them off like that?”
“Don’t worry,” Solomon told him. “I’ve got about one hundred guards outside. And security cameras. And satellites. Nothing will happen to her. Not again.”
“They’ll go flying, you know,” said The Professor.
Solomon laughed. “Probably. Wouldn’t you?”
“Me?” said The Professor. “Certainly not. I told you on the phone that men weren’t meant to fly.”
“True. But then again, a lot of things weren’t meant to happen and they did anyway. Look at The Sewer Rats. I’m sure they weren’t meant to worship cats either.”
“Yes, that is strange,” said Bunny. “Why do they like cats so much?”
The Professor sighed. “It’s a long story.”
“Why don’t you tell it?” said Solomon. “We’ve got the time.”
So The Professor told them the story that had been Sweetcheeks Grabowski’s bane and then his favourite, the story of a robbery. How a lone little man was out walking downtown. How Billy Goat Barbie had head-butted the little man and taken off with the man’s monkey. How The Sewer Rats of Satan had stolen a good umbrella and a wool coat with a few small Riddles tucked inside, how those Riddles stayed to live with the rats in the sewers and how the rats had worshipped cats ever since. How Mose The Giant had seen the footprints in the snow and discovered The Wall. How Dandy Bill had made off with a notebook and a queer silver pen. The book had lots of notes, The Professor told them, but the pen was the dangerous thing. “It never worked that well, you know.”
Solomon laughed, “I’d say it worked too well. As the story’s been told in my family, all Dandy Bill had to do was scribble on a scrap piece of paper: ‘I’ll be rich when pigs fly!’ The next thing he knew, people were flapping around like birds outside his window and he’d made a fortune in pork bellies.”
“Let me get this straight: are you saying that the pen is what made people fly?” said Bunny. “That Dandy Bill wrote down a joke and the joke came true?”
“That’s what The Professor told me when he called a few weeks ago. I didn’t believe it either.”
“That’s ridiculous,” said Bunny. “How can a pen make us do that?”
“Anything you write down with that pen comes true, but only in the way the pen wants it to,” The Professor said. “Dandy Bill wrote something about pigs flying, the pen most likely thinks people are pigs, so there you are.”
“But it doesn’t make any sense,” Bunny said. “Not everyone can fly. Most people are terrible actually.”
“That,” said The Professor, “is a part of the joke. Or the point. The pen has a mind of its own and interprets words the way it likes. I never intended it to be so powerful. I made it to impress a girl.” He blushed a little. “I told Dandy Bill that the pen was mightier than the sword, but he didn’t listen. People never listen.”
“You told him?” Bunny said incredulously. “The little man that was robbed all those years ago was you? It was your monkey and your coat? It was your pen?”
“Yes. Boaz—the monkey—was a helpful little fellow and I was sorry to lose him. I’m plagued by extra thoughts and Boaz would hang on to them for me. Now it takes me for ever to remember everything. And I’m quite sure I don’t.”
“But you said that the robbery was in 1845! That was more than 150 years ago!”
“People from Okinawa have been known to live well over the century mark,” said The Professor. “I don’t see what’s so incredible about it.”
“Are you from Okinawa?” Bunny asked.
“No,” The Professor said. “Why do you ask?”
Bunny sat back in her chair and stared at The Professor. “Who are you? Really?”
The Professor squirmed under her gaze. “Just an old man who has invented a lot of wonky stuff. That’s all.”
“I wonder what would have happened if my great-great-great-great-grandfather had listened to you,” Solomon said, waving at the portrait of Dandy Bill. “But clearly my ancestor wasn’t very principled. I believe I’m the descendant of a madman.
”
“Aren’t we all?” said The Professor.
“And I guess I’m not so principled myself. I tried to use it, you know,” said Solomon. “To find Georgie.”
“Really?” The Professor. “How did that work out?”
“All sorts of odd things popped up.”
“I see that,” said The Professor, flicking a sprig of basil that sprouted from the arm of his chair.
Bunny was lost in thought. “Professor, in your story you mentioned The Wall. You said the giant saw his footsteps in the snow behind you.”
“Her footsteps.”
“Her footsteps,” repeated Bunny softly. “But why was she following you?”
“Well, she had come to my apartment and asked for help,” said The Professor. He looked down at the ground, not wanting to meet Bunny’s eyes. “She didn’t want to be a Wall. She didn’t want to be invisible. To my shame, I told her I couldn’t help her, then went out for a walk. Maybe she was hoping to change my mind.” He sighed. “I was younger then and selfish. Only interested in my inventions.”
“I can’t even imagine what would have happened had Sweetcheeks Grabowski gotten hold of that pen you invented,” said Solomon. “What do you think he would have written?”
“The Hand only knows,” said The Professor, ignoring Bunny’s perplexed frown.
“So,” said Bunny. “Where is the pen now?”
“Safe,” The Professor said and patted the pockets of his housedress. “As safe as anything can be.”
“She’ll be safe now, won’t she?” said Bunny. “Georgie?”
Solomon pointed out of the vine-choked window. “Why don’t you come see for yourself?”
Bunny and The Professor joined Solomon at the picture window, brushing aside the greenery to get a better view. Outside, over the treetops of Central Park, two silhouettes, hands clasped, danced freely in the chill evening air. They looped and twirled before the watchful eye of the moon and before the eyes of the city that loved them.
THE CHAPTER AFTER THE LAST
Ha!
AT 2 AM (WAY PAST his bedtime), The Professor trudged down the city streets, a kitten under each arm and a dozen more following close behind.
“Come,” he said to the cats. “We don’t know what kinds of crazies are out this late. Gangsters. Vampires. Cat-eating maniacs. Who knows?”
He walked faster, hearing the bones in his knees cracking like twigs. This was no way for an old man to travel. He should have taken a bus. Or a subway. He shouldn’t have refused the car that the Bloomingtons had offered.
“Some genius,” he muttered to himself. A couple floating by stared at his housedress and at the cats loping behind. “What are you looking at?” he said irritably. “I hate people. Always staring. Haven’t they ever seen an old man before?”
A chill breeze rushed through the thin fabric of his housedress and he shivered. I wonder, he thought to himself. He stopped walking and put the kittens on the ground. He bent his old legs into a crouch, nearly falling over in the process. Using his arms as levers, he jumped. He floated up into the air for several yards, hovered there a minute or two and then came gently back to earth. He didn’t notice the silver pen fall from his pocket into the gutter.
“Well, what do you know?” he said to himself. “And I wasn’t even bitten by a vampire.” The Professor scooped up the two kittens. “Come!” he shouted to the rest of the cats. “Time to go home.”
High in a tree branch, a black crow blinked its sharp eyes as it waited for The Professor and his feline army to march down the street, around the corner and out of sight.
When the coast was clear, the crow alighted from the tree, flew down to the ground and hopped into the gutter. Like all crows, it had a penchant for shiny things and the silver pen glinted like nothing it had ever seen before. This, thought the crow, was a most spectacular find.
“Ha! Ha! Ha!” the crow laughed. It plucked up the silver pen and launched itself into the night.
Acknowledgements
This book wouldn’t exist without the help of the sleepover girls: Jessica, Katie, Sam and Carly, who first gave me the idea of this vast and sparkling city. The incredible Ellen Levine, whose savvy seems to be some sort of superpower. My amazing editor, Clarissa Hutton—always tactful, always insightful, always delightful. Gillie Russell and Matthew Morgan at HarperCollins UK, who brought the book overseas and helped to add the final bit of polish. Anne Ursu, Gretchen Moran Laskas and Audrey Glassman Vernick, who pored over every page and corralled all those gangsters, rats, punks, monkeys and kittens. Linda Rasmussen, Annika Noren and Tracey George for the thousand-hour phone marathons that I crave. Reader Katy McGeehee, who whipped through the manuscript in a single night and noticed things that escaped all of us cranky old people. Those Readervillians, Pubsters and Foofs who lent kind ears, good advice and snacks when necessary. And finally, thanks always to Steve—with you I can fly.
Copyright
First published in Hardback in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books as The Wall and The Wing 2006
This edition published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books 2007
HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB
The HarperCollins Children’s Books website address is
www.harpercollinschildrensbooks.co.uk
FIRST EDITION
Copyright © Laura Ruby 2006
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2009 ISBN: 978-0-007-34994-4
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.
25 Ryde Road (PO Box 321)
Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
2 Bloor Street East - 20th Floor
Toronto, ON, M4W 1A8, Canada
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca
New Zealand
HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited
P.O. Box 1
Auckland, New Zealand
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
77-85 Fulham Palace Road
London, W6 8JB, UK
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
10 East 53rd Street
New York, NY 10022
http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com