The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield
Page 5
First came the food. Alexander embarked on one of the most disgusting eating binges in history, combining all the items—nuts, milk, cheese, ice cream, bread, pasta, soy, shellfish, eggs, and onions—that had previously been off-limits, and which led him to discover that he didn’t have a single allergy. He ate genetically modified everything, but even that wasn’t enough. Alexander wanted to test other kinds of foods—dangerous foods. The kinds that could kill you right away. Like washing down a roll of Mentos with a can of Coke.
As it wound up, you didn’t die from that—it was an urban legend. But it did give you a really bad stomachache, which, from Alexander’s perspective, was worse.
Alexander also gave up on most basic precautions. Beyond ignoring all car safety and pedestrian rules, he no longer washed his hands before eating, brushed his teeth, or flossed. He went outside without any sunblock on, and even took escalators with untied shoelaces.
Another of Winterbottom’s lists named all the pets that Alexander had asked for but Winterbottom had refused to get. Included were tarantulas, scorpions, piranhas, and the most dangerous house pet in the world: the python.
“I call him . . . Cortez!” Alexander said. “Most people only get the little two- or three-foot pythons, but Cortez is ten feet long and then some. That’s way big enough to kill a dog. Or a goat, I think.”
“Really, Alexander, isn’t a cat enough of a pet to have?” Winterbottom said.
“Aren’t you the one who’s always worried that the rats in the moat are carrying the plague? Well, pythons eat rats.” And with that, Alexander pulled a rat he had spent most of the morning trapping out of a bag, and proudly dropped it into Cortez’s glass terrarium.
The canal rat, the one missing a chunk of its tail, scurried into a corner and stared at the python. The rat’s chest beat up and down.
“Do you see how scared it is? Go for the kill, Cortez! Kill, kill!”
“Alexander, this is appalling.”
Except that it wasn’t. The python cocked its head slightly to look at the rodent, blinked, and then rested its head back down.
“What’s wrong with you, snake?” Alexander said, tapping the glass.
Small victories can be the best kind, thought Winterbottom.
One last major item remained on Winterbottom’s safety precaution list. This one had particularly to do with New York, and Alexander was convinced it too must be an urban legend: that touching the third rail would kill you.
“But it will kill you!”
“Why should I listen to you?” Alexander said to Winterbottom. “You’re the one who put Mentos and Coke on the death list. Besides, it’s common sense. Do you really think they would leave the third rail out there for people to touch if you could die from it? A shock, maybe, but electrocution? That’s crazy!”
“But the third rail is how subway trains get power,” Winterbottom said. “And nobody touches it, because everybody knows not to.”
Haplessly, Winterbottom argued with Alexander all the way down the stairs, over the drawbridge, onto the sidewalk, and down to the corner subway station. On the tracks, a Z train was pulling out of the station, so the platform was empty except for a man who had missed his train and was now shaking his head. He happened to be wearing a top hat.
“When you’re down to your last life and you’re wishing you had this one back,” Winterbottom said as Alexander climbed down to the track bed, “just remember who told you so.”
“Hey, kid! What are you doing down there?” the man who had missed the train yelled. “You demented or something?”
“No,” Alexander said, “I’m just trying to see whether or not the third rail will electrocute me.” Alexander stepped over the first rail, knelt down on the second, and poised himself above the third. “Okay, here goes!” he said, and latched both hands onto the top of it, ready for a mind-blowing jolt.
Nothing happened.
“See, Winterbottom?” Alexander said. “I told you it was just a myth.”
“Thank goodness.”
“Hey, kid,” the man waiting for the train said. “That’s just the protective cover. You gotta grab underneath it if you really wanna check.”
“Oh,” Alexander said. “Thanks!”
The Third Life
of
ALEXANDER BADDENFIELD
This time, it was like a light switch being turned off and then back on. Alexander wasn’t even sure what had happened to him, until he noticed that his clothes were black and smoking and his hair was standing straight on end.
“I guess they weren’t kidding about that one, were they!” Alexander said. “That was mad cool! How can I die next?”
Just then, a light appeared in the tunnel, and it became very clear how Alexander could die next. Before he could think to move, however, Winterbottom was down on the tracks, pushing him back up onto the platform. Winterbottom only managed not getting hit by the train himself because Alexander and the top-hatted man each grabbed one of his arms and hauled him up out of the way.
“Winterbottom, what are you doing? You could have killed yourself trying to save me!” Alexander shook his head. “You need to be more careful.”
The next morning, Alexander considered ways to begin—and potentially end—his new life.
“Haven’t you done enough dying for one week? At this rate, that rodent is going to outlive you,” Winterbottom said, nodding over to the glass home of Cortez. The canal rat had taken to sleeping in the big python’s coils and was happily enjoying several meals a day, while Cortez had yet to do anything but take sips of water and lie about.
“Well, it doesn’t have to be something that will kill me,” Alexander said. “At least, not for sure. But it has to be dangerous. And fun.”
“Well,” Winterbottom said, thinking. “Maybe you should go running very fast . . . in your bare feet . . . until you are all out of breath! Now wouldn’t that be fun?”
“What would you know about fun, Winterbottom?”
Alexander looked out the window and saw three kids on skateboards. One of them stopped and stomped his foot down on the back of his board, flipping it into his hand. He tucked it under his arm, waved good-bye to his friends, and went into the subway.
“On the other hand, Winterbottom, maybe something sporty is exactly what I need.”
Cooped up in his castle all those years for his own protection, Alexander had never done a single outdoor activity. To discourage the idea, Winterbottom would attach to the refrigerator every awful sports injury, hiking accident, and getting-lost-at-sea story he could find. He wouldn’t even allow the boy to learn to swim, for fear he would drown practicing.
Of Alexander’s attempts at skateboarding, the less said the better. He quickly perfected the stomp, flip, and tuck move, and then decided he was ready for the half-pipe. He and Winterbottom went to the skatepark on Pier 62, and Alexander’s attempts on the ramps might well have snuffed out his third life, but instead just led to scrapes, bruises, and a possible concussion. It ended with the boy hurling his brand-new skateboard into the river.
Next, Alexander decided to try biking, which went no better until Winterbottom convinced the boy to get training wheels. Alexander began to have fun, and even be a little proud of himself, until a seven-year-old girl on a pink bike passed him like he was standing still. “Ha ha, big baby!” she said, turning around and laughing. “Nice training wheels, dude!” The bike soon followed the skateboard into the Hudson. And then so did Alexander.
Walking down to the marina, Alexander bought a kayak. Water seemed softer than concrete, and paddling looked easier than biking. Alexander figured he’d do a quick loop around Manhattan, and maybe make a detour to see the Statue of Liberty. He got into his new boat.
“Here’s your life jacket,” the guy who sold him the kayak said, holding up a bright orange vest.
“Save i
t for the road crews,” Alexander said, pushing away from the dock with his oar.
Winterbottom had by now realized that the time for more drastic measures had arrived. While Alexander was purchasing his kayak, Winterbottom had rented a motorboat to follow the boy. With Sam the driver steering, Winterbottom opened the app on his phone that showed Alexander’s exact location, thanks to a tracking chip he’d implanted in the boy years before.
Alexander quickly realized that this whole kayaking thing was a lot less fun than it looked. For one thing, it took a lot of work to paddle oneself forward. What was worse, just when Alexander had finally worked up some speed, his boat got hit by the wake of a garbage scow, nearly knocking him over. Spitting out a mouthful of grayish-brown harbor water, he found himself pushed back to practically where he had started.
“Have you had enough yet?” Winterbottom yelled through a bullhorn.
“No, this is great! So much fun!” Alexander shouted, even though it was getting less fun by the minute. His arms were now burning and so was his face—maybe sunblock wasn’t such a bad idea. What was worse, he couldn’t figure out how to steer the thing. It seemed to be going in the opposite direction of where he wanted to go, which was away from a water taxi that was closing in on him. The faster and harder Alexander paddled, the more his lungs began to burn, and then a pain stabbed him in the ribs. He was unsure whether he was having a heart attack or whether this was just what exercise felt like. Either way, he didn’t like it.
Alexander narrowly missed the nose of the water taxi, but went tumbling all the same, caught in its rippling wake. Thrown from the kayak, Alexander went plummeting into the sea, sucking down salt water that stung the back of his throat, went up his nose, and set fire to every nick and scrape on his elbows and knees, not to mention his sunburned face. He struggled for a while, and then he struggled no more.
The Fourth Life
of
ALEXANDER BADDENFIELD
Cut off by the water taxi, Winterbottom lost sight of Alexander for a moment. After the boxy yellow boat passed, all he could see was the overturned kayak. Winterbottom congratulated himself on his tracking chip as he located the boy on his phone’s screen and directed Sam to where Alexander was.
“There he is!” Sam the driver yelled, and Winterbottom—a certified lifeguard—dove into the water and dragged the boy into the boat.
“How long does it take for him to come back to life?” Sam asked as he turned the boat around and sped for the docks.
“I’m not sure he’s dead. I think he just passed out,” Winterbottom said, and started delivering CPR to Alexander.
Oops. Better make that . . .
The Third Life
of
ALEXANDER BADDENFIELD,
CONT’D
Alexander woke up coughing and spitting out water.
“Drowning is a horrible way to die,” Alexander said, still gagging as Sam pulled the boat into the marina. “No more water sports.”
“Thank goodness,” Winterbottom said, and helped a woozy Alexander up onto the wet dock while Sam tied the boat to a cleat. “Now, Alexander, perhaps you will learn to enjoy and not waste all that has been given to you. As my father always said, it is the careful man who pays attention to the world around him who succeeds in—”
Winterbottom never got to his point—or his father’s—as the next sound out of his mouth was a cry of pain. He had slipped stepping onto the dock, his leg going in one direction, and his foot the other.
“It’s not too bad, Winterbottom. A mild sprain. Keep this tape around it for a week and don’t put too much pressure on it, and the ankle should be fine.”
“Thank you, Dr. Sorrow,” Winterbottom said.
Alexander had spent all of Dr. Sorrow’s visit in a surly mood, twisted up in a bearskin blanket, his back to the physician and his red-skinned face toward the flames of Baddenfield Castle’s walk-in fireplace. He surely needed medical attention himself, but Alexander wouldn’t give Dr. Sorrow the satisfaction. Instead, he decided to chide the doctor.
“I bet you feel pretty stupid now, Mr. First-Best Doctor in the World.”
“And why would I feel stupid?” Dr. Sorrow said, packing up his bag.
“You said there was no such thing as a cat having nine lives, and yet they do, and now so do I.”
“How are you so certain you have these nine lives?”
“I’ve already used up two of them,” Alexander said, crossing his arms. “Yes, I know what dying is all about, and being alive too. More than you’ll ever know.”
“Tell me, Alexander,” Dr. Sorrow said. “Have you ever heard the story of Icarus?”
Alexander shrugged.
“Icarus had a father named Daedalus who created a pair of wings out of feathers and wax. Daedalus told the boy to fly neither too high to the sun nor too low to the sea, because both were dangerous. Rather, he should stick to the middle course where it was safe. Icarus didn’t listen to his father, and was having such a good time that he decided to fly all the way up to the sun. But the sun melted the wax, and one by one the feathers fell from his wings until Icarus was left flapping his bare arms. He fell into the sea and drowned, never to fly—or live—again.”
“That’s a great story,” Alexander said, sitting up. “Winterbottom, I need a set of wings like that!”
Dr. Sorrow sighed, stood up, and shook his head walking out. He should have known better.
The Icarus idea brought a pleasing period of safe activity to Baddenfield Castle, at least as far as Winterbottom was concerned. Alexander was so taken with the idea of flying that he forgot about the idea of dying. He even lost interest in his menagerie of poisonous and murderous pets, no longer bothered by his python’s conspicuous lack of appetite. In fact, Winterbottom had never seen Alexander so absorbed in anything before, and even dared hope that this whole crazy adventure would turn out for the best. Until, that is, the wings were finished and Winterbottom found himself standing on the 86th-floor observation deck of the Empire State Building.
Of feathers and wax these wings were not. The aerodynamics experts and computer engineers at Baddenfield Aeronautics had created a technological masterpiece for Alexander, a pair of self-correcting, heat-proof glider wings. Daedalus could have done no better.
“These wings are not only aerodynamically but ergonomically perfect,” the technician strapping in Alexander explained. “Flying with these is as simple as flapping your arms. Keep your palms flat inside the wings to maintain present altitude, rotate them thumbs up to go higher, and thumbs down to descend. The computer chips stitched into the fabric will take care of the rest.”
“See, Winterbottom. This isn’t dangerous at all.”
“Do you even know what ‘ergonomically’ means, Alexander?”
“Of course I do,” Alexander said, getting ready to jump. “It means ‘birdlike.’”
With that, Alexander took a big breath and started to run for the railing at the edge of the deck. Immediately, the wings lifted him up and over the heads of the Baddenfield personnel and tourists crowding the 86th-floor porch. The controls for the wings were so natural, he hardly had to think about them, and almost immediately Alexander was diving and swooping and doing a circle around the spire of the Empire State Building, to the cheers of the people watching below.
But it wasn’t just those on the observation deck who noticed Alexander. As he flew through the canyons of midtown, people on their balconies and in their offices looked agog at the flying boy. For the first time in his life Alexander had fond, warm thoughts of his fellow man, the little people who now crowded Broadway to aim their cameras and cell phones skyward to capture a photo of him. Ah yes, the little people—getting littler the higher he soared. Alexander found himself simultaneously charged with a surge of adrenaline and soothed by the quiet peace of the sky.
In spite of the tale of Icarus—or b
ecause of it—Alexander found himself overwhelmed by the urge to get nearer to the sun. Alexander flapped his wings harder and harder, flying up to touch the clouds and to go through them. They weren’t solid after all! His face went moist, and he got a bit cold. And it was then, when he had almost reached the heavens, that Alexander came undone. But not by the sun. It was on account of an itch.
His arms had gotten completely, indescribably, irresistibly itchy. It was one of those can’t-live-without-scratching-it kind of itches. What were these wings made of? Winterbottom had always insisted on Alexander wearing nothing but organic cotton clothing, but these were some kind of plastic he must have been allergic to. He knew he shouldn’t do it, but finally Alexander couldn’t resist—he had to scratch. Moving one arm across the other, however, ruined the aerodynamic balance of the wings, and Alexander suddenly began to drop, then spiral. The wings wrapped around him like a cocoon, and as his plummet turned into a free fall, his skin felt like it would rip off his face. Alexander gasped for breath. He then remembered what Winterbottom had told him in the plane about Humpty Dumpty. If he hit the pavement from so high up, he’d never survive.
His head had begun to go faint, but with his last ounce of strength Alexander spread apart his fingers. He began to spin the other way, and his wings unspooled at the same time he found himself hurtling down the side of the Empire State Building, past floor 102 . . .
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