New York Fantastic

by Paula Guran

  Suddenly, Elf tripped and let go of me. The path shook itself, and she was gone. Poof. Nowhere in sight.

  By this time, I’m freaked totally out of my mind. I look around, and there’s this guy, hauling himself over the edge of the cliff, stocking cap jammed down over his head, face gray-skinned with dirt, half his teeth missing. I don’t know why I didn’t scream—usually, it’s pitiful how easy it is to make me scream—I just turned around and ran.

  Now, remember that there’s about fifty million people in the park that day. You’d think I would run into one or two, which would mean safety because muggers don’t like witnesses. But no.

  So I’m running and he’s running, and I can hear him breathing but I can’t hear his footsteps, and we’ve been running, like, forever, and I don’t know where the hell I am, which means I must be in the Ramble, which isn’t that near the Boat Pond, but hey, I’m running for my life. And I think he’s getting closer and I really want to look, just stop and let him catch me and get it all over with, but I keep running anyway, and suddenly I remember what my fairy’s name was (is) and I shriek out, “Bugle! Help me!”

  I bet you thought something would happen.

  So did I, and when it didn’t, I started to cry. Gulping for breath, my glasses all runny with tears, I staggered up a little rise, and I’m in a clear spot with a bench in it and trees all around and a low stone wall in front of another granite cliff, this one going straight down, like, a mile or two.

  The guy laughs, low and deep in his throat, and I don’t know why because I don’t really want to, but I turn around and face him.

  So this is when it gets really weird. Because he’s got a snout and really sharp teeth hanging out, and his stocking cap’s fallen off, and he has ears—gray, leathery ones—and his skin isn’t dirty, it’s gray, like concrete, and he’s impossible, but he’s real—a real, like, rat-guy. I give this little urk and he opens his jaws, and things get sparkly around the edges.

  “Gnaw-bone!” someone says. “Chill!”

  I jump and look around everywhere, and there’s this amazing girl standing right beside the rat-guy, who has folded up like a Slinky and is making pitiful noises over her boots. The boots are green, and so is her velvet mini and her Lycra top and her fitted leather jacket—all different shades of green, mostly olive and evergreen and moss and like that: dark greens. Browny, earthy greens. So’s her hair—browny-green, in long, wild dreads around her shoulders and down her back. And her skin, but that’s more brown than green.

  She’s beautiful, but not like a celebrity or a model or anything. She’s way more gorgeous than that. Next to her, Taylor Swift is a complete dog.

  “What’s up?” she asks the rat-guy. Her voice is incredible, too. I mean, she talks like some wise-ass street kid, but there’s leaves under it somehow. Sounds dumb, but that’s what it was like.

  “Games is up,” he says, sounding just as ratty as he looks. “Fun-fun. She saw me. She’s mine.”

  “I hear you,” the green girl says thoughtfully. “The thing is, she knows Bugle’s name.”

  I manage to make a noise. It’s not like I haven’t wanted to contribute to the conversation. But I’m kind of out of breath from all that running, not to mention being totally hysterical.

  I’m not sure what old Gnaw-bone’s idea of fun and games is, but I’m dead sure I don’t want to play. If knowing Bugle’s name can get me out of this, I better make the most of it. So, “Yeah,” I croak. “Bugle and me go way back.”

  The green girl turns to look at me, and I kind of wish I’d kept quiet. She’s way scary. It’s not the green hair or the punk clothes or the fact that I’ve just noticed there’s this humongous squirrel sitting on her shoulder and an English sparrow perched in her dreads. It’s the way she looks at me, like I’m a St. Bernard that just recited the Pledge of Allegiance or something.

  “I think we better hear Bugle’s take on this beautiful friendship,” she says. “Bugle says you’re buds, fine. She doesn’t, Gnaw-bone gets his fun and games. Fair?”

  No, it’s not fair, but I don’t say so. There’s a long silence, in which I can hear the noise of traffic, very faint and far away, and the panicked beating of my heart, right in my throat.

  Gnaw-bone licks his lips, what there is of them, and the squirrel slithers down the green girl’s shoulder and gets comfortable in her arms. If it’s even a squirrel. I’ve seen smaller dogs.

  Have I mentioned I’m really scared? I’ve never been this scared before in my entire life. And it’s not even that I’m afraid of what Gnaw-bone might do to me, although I am.

  I’m afraid of the green girl. It’s one thing to think fairies are wicked cool, to own all of Brian Froud’s Faerie books and see Fairy Tale three times and secretly wish you hadn’t outgrown your fairy friend. But this girl doesn’t look like any fairy I ever imagined. Green leather and dreads—get real! And I’m not really prepared for eyes like living moss and the squirrel curled like a cat in her arms and the sparrow in her hair like a bizzarroid hair clip. It’s way too weird. I want to run away. I want to cry. But neither of these things seems like the right I thing to do, so I stand there with my legs all rubbery and wait for Bugle to show up.

  After a while, I feel something tugging at my hair. I start to slap it away, and then I realize. Duh. It’s Bugle, saying hi. I scratch my ear instead. There’s a little tootling sound, like a trumpet: Bugle, laughing. I laugh too, kind of hysterically.

  “See?” I tell the green girl and the humongous squirrel and Gnaw-bone. “She knows me.”

  The green girl holds out her hand—the squirrel scrambles up to her shoulder again—and Bugle flies over and stands on her palm. It seems to me that Bugle used to look more like a little girl and less like a teenager. But then, so did I.

  The green girl ignores me. “Do you know this mortal?” she asks Bugle. Her voice is different, somehow: less street kid, more like Mom asking whether I’ve done my math homework. Bugle gives a little hop. “Yep. Sure do. When she was little, anyways. Now, she doesn’t want to know me.”

  I’ve been starting to feel better, but now the green girl is glaring at me, and my stomach knots up tight. I give this sick kind of grin. It’s true. I hadn’t wanted to know her, not with Peggy and those guys on my case. Even Elf, who puts up with a lot, doesn’t want to hear about how I saw fairies when I was little. I say, “Yeah, well. I’m sorry. I really did know you were real, but I was embarrassed.”

  The green girl smiles. I can’t help noticing she has a beautiful smile, like sun on the boat pond. “Fatso is just saying that,” she points out, “because she’s afraid I’ll throw her to Gnaw-bone.”

  I freeze solid. Bugle, who’s been getting fidgety, takes off and flies around the clearing a couple of times. Then she buzzes me and pulls my hair again, lands on my shoulder and says, “She’s not so bad. I like teasing her.”

  “Not fair!” Gnaw-bone squeaks.

  The green girl shrugs. “You know the rules,” she tells him. “Bugle speaks for her. She’s off-limits. Them’s the breaks. Now, scram. You bother me.”

  Exit Gnaw-bone, muttering and glaring at me over his shoulder, and am I ever glad to see him go. He’s like every nightmare Mom has ever had about letting me go places by myself and having me turn up murdered. Mine, too.

  Anyway, I’m so relieved I start to babble. “Thanks, Bugle.

  Thanks a billion. I owe you big time.”

  “Yeah,” says Bugle. “I know.”

  “You owe me, too,” the green girl puts in.

  Now, I can’t quite see where she’s coming from on this, seeing as how she was all gung-ho to let Gnaw-bone have his fun and games before Bugle showed up. Not to mention calling me names. On the other hand, she’s obviously Very Important, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned from reading all those fairy tales, it’s that it’s a very bad idea to be rude to people who wear live birds and squirrels like jewelry. So I shrug. Politely.

  “Seven months’ service should cove
r it,” she says. “Can you sing? I’m mostly into salsa these days, but reggae or jazz is cool too.”

  My mouth drops open. Seven months? She’s gotta be out of her mind. My parents will kill me if I don’t come home for seven months.

  “No?” Her voice is even more beautiful than it was before, like a fountain or wind in the trees. Her eyes sparkle like sun through leaves. She so absolutely gorgeous so not like anyone I can imagine having a conversation with, it’s hard to follow what she’s saying.

  “I don’t sing,” I tell her.

  “Dance, then?” I shake my head. “So, what can you do?”

  Well, I know the answer to that one. “Nothing,” I say. “I’m totally useless. Just ask my French teacher. Or my mom.”

  The beautiful face goes all blank and hard, like granite. “I said Gnaw-bone couldn’t have you. That leaves all his brothers and sisters. You don’t need much talent to entertain them.”

  You know how your brain goes totally spla when you’re really scared? Well, my brain did that. And then I heard myself saying, “You said I was under Bugle’s protection. Just because you’re Queen of the Fairies doesn’t mean you can do anything you want.”

  I was sure she’d be mad, but—get this—she starts to laugh. She laughs and laughs and laughs. And I get madder and madder, the way you do when you don’t know what you’ve said that’s so funny. Then I notice that she’s getting broader and darker and shorter, and there’s this scarf over her head, and she’s wearing this dorky green housedress and her stockings are drooping around her ankles and she’s got a cigarette in one hand. Finally she wheezes out, “The Queen of the Fairies! Geddouddaheah! You’re killin’ me!” She sounds totally different, too, like somebody’s Aunt Ida from the Bronx.

  “The Queen of the … Listen, kid. We ain’t in the Old Country no more. We’re in New York”—Noo Yawk is what she said—“New York, U. S. of A. We ain’t got Queens, except across the bridge.”

  So now I’m really torqued, I mean, who knows what she’s going to do next, right? She could turn me into a pigeon, for all I know. This is no time to lose it. I’ve got to focus. After all, I’ve been reading about fairies for years, right? New Age stuff, folklore, fantasy novels—everything I could get my hands on. I’ve done my homework. There’s a chance I can b.s. my way out of this if I keep my cool.

  “Oh, ha ha,” I say. “Not. Like that rat-guy didn’t say ‘how high’ when you said ‘jump.’ You can call yourself the Mayor of Central Park if you want, but you’re still the Queen of the goddam Fairies.”

  She morphs back to dreads and leather on fast forward.

  “So, Fatso. You think you’re hot stuff.” I shrug. “Listen. We’re in this thing where I think you owe me, and you think you don’t. I could make you pay up, but I won’t.” She plops down on the bench and gets comfortable. The squirrel jumps off her shoulder and disappears into a tree.

  “Siddown, take a load off—have a drink. Here.” Swear to God, she hands me a can of Diet Coke. I don’t know where it came from, but the pop-top is popped, and I can hear the Coke fizzing and I realize I’m wicked thirsty. My hand goes, like all by itself, to take it, and then my brain kicks in. “No,” I say. “Thank you.”

  She looks hurt. “Really? It’s cold and everything.” She shoves it towards me. My mouth is as dry as the Sahara Desert, but if there’s one thing I’m sure I know about fairies, it’s don’t eat or drink anything a fairy gives you if you ever want to go home.

  “Really,” I say. “Thanks.”

  “Well, dag,” she says, disgusted “You read fairy tales. Aren’t you special. I suppose now you’re going to ask for three wishes and a pot of gold. Go ahead. Three wishes. Have a ball.”

  This is more like it. I’m all prepared, too. In sixth grade, I worked out what my wishes would be, if I ever met a wish-granting fairy. And they were still perfectly good wishes, based on extensive research. Never, ever wish for more wishes. Never ask for money—it’ll turn into dog doo in the morning. The safest thing to do was to ask for something that would make you a better citizen, and then you could ask for two things for yourself. I settled on a good heart, a really ace memory, and 20/20 vision. I didn’t know about laser surgery in sixth grade.

  So I’m all ready (except maybe asking to be a size 6 instead of the vision thing), and then it occurs to me that this is all way too easy, and Queenie is looking way too cheerful for someone who’s been outsmarted by an overweight bookworm. Face it, I haven’t done anything to earn those wishes.

  All I’ve done is turn down a lousy Diet Coke. “Thanks all the same, but I’ll pass,” I say. “Can I go home now?”

  Then she loses her temper. She’s not foaming at the mouth or anything, but there are sparks coming out of her eyes like a Fourth of July sparkler, and her dreads are lifting and twining around her head like snakes. The sparrow gives a startled chirp and takes off for the nearest bush.

  “Well, isn’t this just my lucky day,” Greenie snarls. “You’re not as dumb as you look. On the bright side, though,”—her dreads settle slowly—“winning’s boring when it’s too easy, you know?”

  I wouldn’t know—I don’t usually win. But then, I don’t usually care that much. This is different. This time, there’s a lot more at stake than my nonexistent self-esteem. I’m glad she thinks I’m a moron. It evens things up a little. “I tell you what,” I tell her. “I’ll play you for my freedom.”

  “You’re on,” she says. “Dealer’s choice. That’s me. What shall we play?” She leans back on the bench and looks up at the sky. “Riddles are trad, but everybody knows all the good ones. What’s black and white and red all over? A blushing nun? A newspaper? Penguin roadkill? Puleeze. Anyway, riddles are boring. What do you say to Truth or Dare?”

  “I hate it.” I do, too. The only time I played it, I ended up feeling icky and raw, like I’d been sunbathing topless.

  “Really? It’s my favorite game. We’ll play Truth or Dare. These are the rules. We ask each other personal questions, and the first one who won’t answer loses everything. Deal?”

  It doesn’t sound like much of a deal to me. How can I know what question a Queen of Fairies would be too embarrassed to answer? On the other hand, what can a being who hangs out with squirrels and fairies and rat-guys know about human beings? And what choice do I have?

  I shrug. “I guess.”

  “Okay. I go first.”

  Well, sure she does. She’s the Queen of Central Park. And I see the question coming—she doesn’t even pause to think about it. “So, how much do you weigh, anyway?”

  Now you have to understand that nobody knows how much I weigh. Not Elf, not even my mom. Only the school nurse and the doctor and me. I’ve always said I’d rather die than tell anyone else. But the choice between telling and living in Central Park for seven months is a no-brainer. So I tell her. I even add a pound for the hotdog and the Mr. Softee I ate the boathouse.

  “Geddouddaheah!” she says. “You really pork it down, huh?”

  I don’t like her comment, but it’s not like I haven’t heard it before. It makes me mad, but not so mad I can’t think, which is obviously what she’s trying for. Questions go through my mind, but I don’t have a lot to go on, you know what I’m saying? And she’s tapping her green boot and looking impatient. I have to say something, and what I end up asking is, “Why are you in Central Park, anyway? I mean, there’s lots of other places that are more fairy-friendly. Why aren’t you in White Plains or something?”

  It sounds like a question to me, but she doesn’t seem to think so. “I win. That’s not personal,” she says.

  “It is too personal. Where a person lives is personal. Come on. Why do you live here, or let me go home.”

  “Can’t blame a girl for trying,” she says. “Okay, here goes. This is the heart of the city. You guys pass through all the time—like Grand Central Station, right? Only here, you stop or a while. You rest, you play, you kiss in the grass, you whisper your secrets, you weep, you
fight. This ground, these rocks, are soaked through with love, hate, joy, sorrow, passion. And I love that stuff, you understand? It keeps me interested.”

  Wow. I stare at her, and all my ideas about fairies start to get rearranged. But they don’t get very far because she’s still talking.

  “You think I don’t know anything about you,” she says. “Boy, are you wrong. I know everything I want to know. I know what’s on your bio quiz next week. I know Patty Gregg’s worst secret. I know who your real mother is, the one who gave you away when you were born.” She gives me this look, like Elf ’s brother the time he stole a dirty magazine. “Wanna know?”

  It’s not what I’m expecting, but it’s a question, all right, and it’s personal. And it’s really easy. Sure, I want to know all those things, a whole lot—especially about my biological mother.

  Like more than anything else in the world. My parents are okay—I mean, they say they love me and everything. But they really don’t understand me big time. I’ve always felt adopted, if you know what I mean—a changeling in a family of ordinary humans. I’d give anything to know who my real mother is, what she looks like and why she couldn’t keep me. So I should say yes, right? I mean, it’s the true answer to the green girl’s question, and that’s what the game is about, isn’t it? There’s a movement on my shoulder, a sharp little pinch right behind my ear. I’ve totally forgotten Bugle—I mean, she’s been sitting there for ages, perfectly still, which is not her usual.

  Maybe I’ve missed something. It’s that too easy thing again. Sure, I want to know who my birth mom is. But it’s more complicated than that. Because now that I think about it, I realize I don’t want Greenie to be the one to tell me. I mean, it feels wrong, to learn something like that from someone who is obviously trying to hurt you.

  “Answer the question,” says the green girl. “Or give in. I’m getting bored.”