I let the Russian’s weight pull me down, and we began moving to shore fast. Really fast. Mr. Hoodie finally twigged to the fact that things weren’t going as he’d thought they would. “What is happening?” he demanded. “This does not look like hotel! I think I call Werewolves!” But as long as he had to hold my ankles, I didn’t think he’d be using my phone to call the Werewolves or anyone else.
Then his ankles slammed into the railing. He didn’t let go of me right away, so the collision twisted me around and sent me skidding across the sidewalk on my wings.
But like I’ve said, my wings are tough. Captain Craptastic, on the other hand, smacked the wet sidewalk hard, and his hoodie wasn’t much protection. That was when he finally let go. “Filthy joker bitch!” the Russian howled. Then he tried to stand up, but fell again and shrieked. His ankles might have been broken. I sure hoped so, anyway.
I picked myself up and kicked Butt Monkey in the knee as hard as I could. That made him shriek, which was nice. There was just enough light for me to see the shocked look on his ugly face. And that his mouth was bleeding.
Then Wally came running from a clump of trees, grabbed Fuck Face (Aunt Joey has really rubbed off on me) by the hoodie, and started dragging him off the sidewalk. Wally was now wearing a dark hoodie himself, ready for the next part of our plan.
But before Wally could reach the trees again, a gravelly voice called from farther down the sidewalk.
“Mr. Rustbelt,” it said. “You can drop that piece of garbage. We’ll take care of the side quest, and you and Miss Adesina can finish the main mission.”
I turned toward the voice and saw five darkened figures, backlit by a single unbroken lamp, approaching through the mist. They were the only other people in this darkened part of the park.
“I’m glad you made it,” I said. “But I didn’t know you were bringing company.”
Wally picked up the Russian by the hood and held him off the ground, dangling and flailing. He stepped closer to me and peered toward the approaching figures. “Do I need to do something about them, Adesina?”
I shook my head and plucked my cell phone from Mr. Hoodie’s back pocket. “No, Wally. You aren’t the only person I texted before I flew to the ship.”
The lead figure of the five stopped a few yards away, shook drops of water from the flowers on his head, and then took off his glasses and wiped them with the tail of his checkered shirt.
“Tulip Ralph!” Wally exclaimed.
Ralph nodded. “Hope you don’t mind that I let these knuckleheads come along. But when I told ’em the game you two were running, they wanted in.”
The giraffe-necked guy came up on Ralph’s right, and the lizard-skinned lady came up on his left. The bug-eyed guy and the nerdy nat joined them.
“Is that the dirtball who sells joker kids?” the giraffe-necked guy asked.
The dangling Russian spat a bloody gob at him. “Don’t worry, big-nose,” he said. “You and lizard bitch would not bring enough money to be worth trouble.”
The lizard-lady hissed. “Oh, yessss,” she said. “That’sss him.”
Ralph put on his glasses. “Seriously, Mr. Rustbelt,” he said. “You and Miss Adesina can go. As a Jokertown businessman, I know which cops are honest. So I’ll make a call, and the knuckleheads and I can, uh … look after this person until they get here.”
“Gosh, thank you!” Wally said. “I was gonna tie him up, but I lost my rope when I was busting out lights.” He chucked Mr. Hoodie to the sidewalk at Ralph’s feet, and the Russian lay there like a discarded, filthy rag.
Ralph cleared his throat, and his four knuckleheads grabbed Mr. Hoodie and dragged him toward the trees. The Russian started to scream, but then the nerdy nat produced a roll of duct tape. So Corporal Dingus was quiet by the time they got him out of sight.
“I owe you one, Ralph,” I said.
Tulip Ralph shrugged. “You and Miss Yerodin come into the Dice as soon as you can, and we’ll call it even.” He started for the trees, then looked back at us. “You punks kick some ass, okay?” He vanished into the foliage.
I checked the time on my phone against the time stamp on the smiley face. We had thirteen minutes.
“We gotta go, Wally,” I said, sliding my phone into my jacket pocket. “You ready?”
He gave a rust-raspy nod. “I am if you are.”
Then I had to swallow hard. “I am. But Wally, I’m—I’m sorry I had to trick you.”
Wally’s eyes grew wide. “Aw, geez, there’ll be time for that stuff later. We have to get my daughter!”
So I fluttered into the air so he could grab my ankles the way the Russian had. I’d struggled flying with that Butt Monkey, and he weighed a lot less than Wally. Even so, I was pretty sure I could get Wally aloft—but could I get him high enough and keep him there long enough? And fly fast enough?
I mean, I was tired.
Wally grasped my ankles. His hands were bigger than Mr. Hoodie’s, and they made a slight clang as his fingers clasped. I could tell he was trying to be gentle. But still, hey, metal hands. Owie.
I flapped my wings, and nothing happened. Again. It was the same as when I’d tried to get the Butt Monkey up into the air, only worse. This time, I knew my passenger wasn’t messing with me.
But one way or another, we had to go. So I gave a grunt and flapped my wings as hard as I could. I swear I felt something pop, but we went up about five feet. Then every flap took us a little higher until, at last, we rose above the trees.
And ever so slowly at first, but gaining altitude and velocity with each flap, I began flying us over the park, and then over the streets, toward the Hotel on Rivington.
“You got this, Morpho Girl!” Wally cried. “You betcha!”
I gritted my teeth and strained.
Hang on, Ghost, I thought. We’re coming.
Mom’s Diary
I guess I might become a hero after all.
When Drake couldn’t control his power, I absorbed the massive explosion and went into a coma. I saved New Orleans from being destroyed.
I’m out of the coma now, but when I was unconscious, I dreamed about a lot of weird stuff. I dreamed about a little girl.
Her name is Adesina.
Time slows down when everything hurts. With each flap of my wings, my muscles screamed a little more. My legs turned numb from Wally’s weight. Breathing was torture.
When I went into my cocoon as a little girl, it was because I was afraid and in pain. But now, I couldn’t hide in a cocoon. I had to keep moving. And I had no way of knowing if I was moving fast enough.
Then, through the pounding in my head, I heard Wally shout.
“There it is!” he cried. “Half a block! Six Werewolves on the west side of the roof. And oh, gosh, a Werewolf with Yerodin on the other side!”
I blinked to clear my eyes of mist and tears. We were about thirty feet higher than the roof of the Hotel on Rivington, which was illuminated by floodlights. Near the eastern edge, several yards from a clump of Werewolves, Ghost was lying unconscious on the tarred gravel. She was guarded by a Werewolf in a Golden Boy mask.
With what felt like the last of my energy, I put on all the speed I could muster. But I didn’t let myself descend. Not yet. I didn’t want the Werewolves to see that Wally wasn’t the Russian until it was too late.
“Wally,” I rasped. “I’m going to drop you on the one beside Ghost! You throw him at the others and hold them off so I can pick her up. Then I’ll hover so you can grab hold again, and I’ll fly us all out of here.”
“Oh gee, no!” he replied. “If you try that, one of them might grab you first.” Then he gave a grim chuckle. It didn’t sound like anything I’d ever heard from him. “Besides, I need to stay long enough to give these boys something to remember me by. You just fly Yerodin away from here and meet me at our apartment, okey dokey?”
And now we were less than a quarter block away, so there was no more time to discuss it. “Here we go, then!” I yelled.
“Like, gravity isn’t just a good idea—it’s the law!”
I went into a dive, and we came in hella fast. We were only ten feet over the cluster of six Werewolves when we shot across them and streaked toward the one in the Golden Boy mask.
“Shit!” Golden Boy yelled. He had seen that Wally was not the Russian. But it was too late. Wally let go of me, dropped like the mother of all rusty bombs, and crashed down on him. They hit the gravel two feet from where Ghost lay, and it sounded like every pot and pan in Williams Sonoma falling to the floor all at once.
With Wally suddenly gone, I bounced up another ten feet, and that wiped out my forward momentum. I spun in the air, managed to stabilize, and found myself hovering.
Wally leaped to his feet, grabbed the flattened Golden Boy Werewolf, and flung him at the six who had now started toward them. Golden Boy hit two, and they went down. The others all stopped where they were.
Wally’s hoodie and shirt had ripped apart, and anyone else’s skin would have been shredded. But not his. If anything, he looked shinier and stronger. Some of the day’s rust had been scraped away.
He charged the cluster. But then five more Werewolves surged out of the roof exit behind them. And the three who had gone down were getting up.
Wally stopped four yards short of the twelve Werewolves. He balled his right hand into a fist, then punched it into his open left hand. There was that sledgehammer-hitting-an-anvil sound again.
The reinforced Werewolves wore masks ranging from puppy dogs to demons to Golden Boy. To, of course, the Amazing Bubbles. They were armed with chains, knives, pipes, and baseball bats. And a few guns.
A wiry Werewolf in a Bubbles mask pointed a pistol at Wally and chortled. Laughing Boy. “You weren’t invited, lead-for-brains!” Laughing Boy crowed. “So we’ll have to show you the way out!” He pulled the trigger, and there was a loud pow.
And then a ping and a puff of rust as the slug bounced from Wally’s forehead. “Well, gosh darn it,” Wally said. “I’m only here because you fellas went and hurt my daughter, don’tchaknow. So pardon me for bein’ rude!”
Then he charged again, like a locomotive with legs.
The Werewolves were about as distracted as they were going to get. So I dropped into a sudden dive, plunged behind Wally, and landed on the roof with a skid that almost tore off my shoes. I slid right into Yerodin, and she almost rolled into the low steel lip at the edge of the roof. But she stayed limp, and there was a horrible moment when I thought she might be dead. Then we came to a stop, and she groaned. I reached down, scooped her up, and held her tight.
Then, over the clanging and screams from the other side of the roof, I heard a crunch of gravel behind me. One of the Werewolves had managed to avoid Wally. “Fuhggeddabout it, you double-crossin’ bitch.” I didn’t have to turn around to know it was Brooksie. “You ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
But, yeah, I was pretty sure I was.
I leaped straight up, spreading my wings with a whoomp. Compared to Wally, Ghost felt like nothing. But my arms, shoulders, and wings still trembled with fatigue. And before I could get totally clear, Brooksie was able to grab my left foot.
I kicked at him with my right and tried to keep heading up and out. But he was dragging me down and keeping me from crossing the edge of the roof into open air, holding me back just like Captain Craptastic the Butt Monkey had. And a Golden Boy Werewolf, broken free of Wally’s attack, was now running toward us—and if he latched onto Brooksie, they would pull me down to the roof again. For sure.
I grunted and flapped my wings with every ounce of strength my shrieking muscles could muster, pushing through the pain. Then my left shoe slipped off. Brooksie fell back with a shout, and both he and Golden Boy went down to the gravel while Ghost and I popped up high above them.
Thank God for clogs.
We spiraled upward, and I hugged Ghost to my chest as I felt her arms slip around me. Down below, Wally had been surrounded by the rest of the Werewolves. They began to swarm and pile on, and he vanished beneath them.
I paused in my ascent. I was, like, two seconds away from diving back down to try to help.
Then I heard a metallic roar, like a road grader revved up to drag-racing speed, and the piled-on Werewolves exploded outward. It was as if a grenade had gone off in a mound of marionettes.
One of the Bubbles-masked Werewolves went over the edge of the roof, screaming and crying as he fell. I recognized the voice even though it wasn’t chortling now.
“So long, Laughing Boy,” I muttered. And maybe this makes me a bad person … but hey, I didn’t feel sorry for him at all.
Wally looked up at me and Yerodin as he windmilled his arm and brought his huge fist down on the head of a puppy-dog Werewolf who was trying to kneecap him with a crowbar.
“Cripes!” Wally shouted. “You two get out of here! This is just gonna take a while, that’s all.”
He clunked a couple of demon-Werewolf heads together, then stacked the demons atop the puppy dog. Then a few more Werewolves attacked, and they were added to the pile.
“Later, Wally!” I called, and made a shallow dive to gain enough airspeed to turn away.
Wobbling and slow, I flew away from the Hotel on Rivington toward the Lower East Side. A couple of shots rang out behind me, but I only felt one slug hit my wings. It bounced off almost as neatly as the one that had bounced off Wally’s forehead, albeit with less ping. I had known my wings were tough—but this was the first time I’d realized they could deflect bullets.
Yup, the New Teenage Me was lots tougher than the Old Little-Girl Me had been. And that was pretty cool.
But maybe a little confusing, too.
I wasn’t a full-strength grownup yet. But I wasn’t a vulnerable kid anymore, either. And it had been a really rapid transition. Even after all that I had just managed to do, I still wasn’t sure what to make of it.
And if I wasn’t … well, I knew Mom wouldn’t be, either.
Mom’s Diary
I’m a mother now. I never thought I’d be one. But Adesina’s real parents are dead, and who else is going to take care of her?
Besides, we’re connected in some way. I’d still be in the coma without her help.
And we saved those children. That counts for something. It has to. I’m not saying it was a perfect victory, but some good came out of it. Maybe even a lot.
And now there’s Adesina … and me.
Plus, I sure did like beating the hell out of Tom Weathers’ Monster. That was the best. Filled to the top with chocolatey goodness.
Turns out that being a hero has an upside, after all.
Who knew?
I touched down on the roof of the Gundersons’ apartment building with an “Oof,” kicking off my remaining shoe to keep my balance. And then I saw that Yerodin’s eyes were wide open and staring up at my face. So I set her down and released her. She wavered a bit, but stood on her own.
“How’re you doing?” I asked. My voice sounded hella nervous. I was still scared that she might be mad at me.
She gave me a big, goofy smile. “You came and got me!” Then she swayed, and I put my hand on her shoulder. Her eyes blinked slowly.
“Of course I did,” I said. “Well, me and your dad. He kinda helped.”
Her eyes widened, and her forehead crinkled. “Did he tell you about our fight?”
“Yeah,” I replied. I nudged my lone shoe with my bare toe. “And I told him about us skipping school. I mean, I kinda had to.”
Ghost nodded. “I get that.” Then she smiled. “I almost feel sorry for the Werewolves. Dad’s really strong.”
“Oh, hells yes!” I said. “Once he got hold of them, I wasn’t the only flying joker in the neighborhood.”
She laughed, but then gave me a worried look. “Are we okay, Adesina? I miss you so much, and I’ve been afraid we won’t be friends anymore now that you’re…” She waved her hands in circles in front of me. “All this.”
I put on a deliberate smirk
. “Maybe I’ve changed a little, but I can still kick your butt at Ocelot 9.”
She stabbed an index finger toward the sky. “I call Baby Ocelot!”
“No way,” I said. “No dibsing after you’ve been kidnapped. Totes unfair!”
“Too late!” She pirouetted like a drunken ballerina. “C’mon. The Werewolves still have my phone, but my tablet is downstairs.”
I was suddenly happier than I’d been since before I’d changed. “All right, but I’m going to pwn you. You’re way too third dwarf right now. You know—Dopey!”
We went down to her and Wally’s apartment, where their neighbor Bob was still waiting to see if Yerodin would show up. So now he texted Wally, said goodnight to us, and went home. Ghost retrieved her tablet, and we sat on the couch to play.
She slaughtered me. And I loved it.
Then my phone buzzed. It was a text, but there were no words. Just an emoji of a tulip, followed by a thumbs-up.
I grinned. Tomorrow, my best friend and I would have to pay a visit to the Tumbling Dice.
* * *
“Daddy!” Ghost exclaimed when Wally came in. She jumped up and gave him a jumbo hug. His clothes were torn and dirty, and his face looked a little dinged-up. There was a new dimple in his forehead, and even a couple of small rips in the iron skin of his arms. But they didn’t seem to bother him.
“Oh, gosh, I didn’t ’spect to see you awake.” He held her close. “I’ve sure been worried, don’tchaknow. And we’re gonna get you checked out by a doctor right away, you betcha.”
Ghost was steady on her feet now. “Okay, Daddy,” she said softly. “But in the morning, please? I promise I’m all right. I’m just so sorry I scared you. And it’s not your fault I’m not big enough for high school.”
They both looked at me, and I wanted to sink into the floor. “I’m sorry, too. If I hadn’t changed—”
Wally shook his huge head. “All that matters is you girls are both okay.” He wiped a tear from his cheek. It left a rusty trail. “You did good today, Adesina.”
That embarrassed me. But I had an easy out. “I should be going. It’s after nine, and Mrs. Lehman is supposed to come stay with me if Mom isn’t back by ten.”
The Flight of Morpho Girl Page 5