The Boy Who Could Fly, Page 3

  “Of course you will, of course you will,” Juju said, his bald wrinkly head and naked eyelids making Bug think of a turtle in a suit. “But don’t you want to have another ten million in the bank for a rainy day? Just in case?”

  So Bug had signed the papers. Here he was, posing on a dock at South Street Seaport in a pair of gold trainers called “Buggy Gs”, trainers the Skreechers people expected to sell all over the world. About thirty metres away, executives from the company watched the photo shoot, relaxing over lobster rolls and late afternoon cocktails, while Bug stood as still as possible and tried to look regal. Juju gave Bug the thumbs-up as he paced back and forth, barking into his mobile phone, and the photographer snapped, snapped, snapped his pictures, darting around Bug like a dragonfly.

  It was all deeply boring.

  Bug wondered what Gurl was doing. Probably hanging out with her rich friends from the rich school she went to. What was it called? The Princess Academy? Everyone that went there was loaded. Technically, Bug was loaded too, but he didn’t enjoy it the way other people seemed to. The only reason he was doing this whole endorsement thing was so that he didn’t have to touch his father’s money. He didn’t want to use a cent of that money – gangster money, hate money, blood money. Bug was not like his father at all. And he was going to prove it to the whole world. He would even prove it to Gurl and her parents, if he ever got a chance to see them. But Gurl was probably having a ball with all the rich girls. She wasn’t even calling herself Gurl any more; she was calling herself Georgie, a name that Bug still hadn’t got used to. He hadn’t seen Gurl – um, Georgie – in months, which made him feel guilty, but not too guilty, because Georgie didn’t seem to be trying too hard to see Bug. At first, it was because she finally found out who her parents were and she wanted to take the time to get to know them. (Bug understood that. He wasn’t an insect.) But then weeks went by, and then a month, and then the whole winter was gone. What was up with that? What was a person supposed to think?

  Exactly what I am thinking, Bug thought. That Georgie had better things to do than hang out with the son of Sweetcheeks Grabowski, no matter how many stupid adverts that son had been in.

  Bug heaved another sigh, trying to ignore the bright blue sky stretched overhead, trying to ignore his aching arms, trying to pretend he was back home in his apartment (but then, he didn’t want to be there either, because no one was there, and who wants to hang out all by yourself with no one to talk to, even if you don’t really want to talk, you just want to sleep).

  Oh great, thought Bug, now my ankle itches. But this itch wasn’t really an itch. It was more like a gentle pressure, like a finger poking him. Bug looked down. There was something grey and slimy lying limply across his foot.

  “What the…” said Bug. Was it a rope? Where did the rope come from? He tried to shake it off.

  “Bug! What are you doing!” shrieked the photographer. “Stand still!”

  “There’s a rope—” Bug began.

  “Who cares?” the photographer shrieked again. “I’m shooting your face now. So stop frowning!”

  Bug frowned even more deeply when the grey, slimy rope began to writhe, began to pluck at his shoelaces. He shook his foot again, this time more frantically.

  “You’re ruining my shots!” the photographer wailed, turning round to look at Juju. “Juju! Tell your boy he’s ruining the shots!”

  “Bug, baby!” Juju called. “Don’t ruin the man’s shots.” He gave the Skreechers execs a bright, toothy smile, waggling the skin where his brows would normally be. “These athletes. So twitchy. Can’t get ’em to stand still.”

  One of the executives eyed him with eyes the colour and warmth of polar icecaps. “You better get this one to stand still. We’re paying you enough.”

  But Bug was not standing still. He was staring down at the grey, slimy thing; he was trying to pull away from it.

  It looked like a tentacle. Yes, it looked exactly like a tentacle. Suckers and everything.

  And it was doing more than playing with his laces, it was curling around his foot, it was grabbing him by the foot, and it was dragging him towards the edge of the dock.

  The photographer threw up his hands and whirled in a dramatic circle. “How am I supposed to work like this? I’m a professional! I want to work with professionals!”

  Juju covered the mouthpiece of his phone, not even looking in Bug’s direction. “Bug!” he yelled. “Quit fooling around!”

  Bug looked up, a wild and not very regal expression on his face. “I’m not fooling around. Something’s got me, something—”

  His last words were cut off as the rope that was truly a tentacle jerked Bug right off the dock. He barely had a second to register that he was in the water before the tentacle was pulling him under the water, into the greyish murk, deeper and deeper. Bug flailed wildly and his lungs burned. His mind screamed silent, hysterical things like WHAT IS IT? and WHAT’S GOT ME? and I’M IN THE WATER!!! I CAN’T FLY AWAY IN THE WATER!!! Whatever held his ankle had him in an iron grip as it dragged him down, down, down.

  And then, suddenly, it stopped.

  Bug had the sensation of dozens of questing fingers running over his face, but he didn’t dare open his eyes for fear that he’d see a monster there, a monster with arms for legs and teeth for eyes and hooks for teeth and razors where its lips should be. His mind screamed more hysterical things, but these things weren’t words, they were just sounds, just bright bursts in his head, as the arms or legs or suckers of the razor-lipped, hook-toothed thing prodded him like a doctor feeling for swollen glands.

  And then, just like that, the thing let him go.

  His lungs close to popping, Bug kicked away from the monster and swam up towards the surface of the water. When he got his first lungful of oxygen, he launched his body from the murk like a rocket. Bug hovered in the air a moment before collapsing face-down on to the dock.

  “Ow,” he said, and coughed.

  “Bug,” said a stern voice.

  Bug flipped to his back, still coughing.

  “Bug!”

  “What?” Bug managed to say. He opened his eyes, which had been squeezed shut, to see a great many very angry people glaring down at him.

  Juju’s wrinkled turtle head was even more wrinkled. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “What?” Bug gasped. “What do you mean?”

  “What do you mean what do I mean?” Juju said. “If you wanted to go swimming, we could have gone after the photo shoot.”

  “Something pulled me into the water!”

  The Skreecher execs shook their heads. “Mr Fink,” said the one with the polar-ice eyes, “we don’t appreciate these sorts of displays.”

  “Well, neither do I,” bellowed Juju. “And I assure you it will never happen again. Will it, Bug?”

  Bug was astonished. “Didn’t you see?” he said, coughing up more brackish water. “Didn’t you see the tentacle grab me?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Juju. “What tentacle? You tripped over a rope.”

  Bug squinted, focused in on the photographer. “Didn’t you catch it with the camera?”

  “Catch what?” shrieked the photographer. “Who could catch anything with you shaking and dancing around like that?”

  Another of the Skreecher execs shook his head. “Maybe we made a mistake hiring someone so young. They can never control themselves.”

  “We could still cancel the contract, remember? We’ve got that ‘bad behaviour’ clause,” said Polar Ice Eyes. “I’ll talk to the boss.” He whipped around. “Darn it! Paparazzi!”

  Everyone turned to see a small army of new photographers buzzing around like mosquitoes. “Hey, Bug! Look over here!”

  “Don’t look!” screeched the Skreecher execs. But it was too late. Bug looked, the photographers snapped, and the execs freaked.

  But Juju managed to work his juju. He convinced the Skreecher execs that Bug’s bad boy persona would only bring more street cr
ed to the Skreecher brand.

  “What do you mean, bad boy persona?” said Bug. “I don’t have a bad boy persona. I don’t even know what a persona is!”

  “Sure you do,” said Juju, giving Bug a wink.

  Mr Ice Eyes nodded. “I see what you mean. Skreechers are hip. They’re tough. They’re gritty. They’re mad hot.”

  Mad hot? Bug wondered if the guy had eaten some bad clams.

  Juju and the Skreecher execs were so excited about their trainers’ new street cred that they forgot all about Bug. He was left to dry alone on the dock like a fish at a seafood market. Even the paparazzi had got bored and moved off in search of other famous people doing humiliating things.

  No one else had seen a tentacle; no one believed that there was a tentacle. After all that shrieking and lecturing, Bug was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t got his foot tangled in some rope and fallen into the water. It was possible. The photo shoot had gone on for hours; he was exhausted and distracted; he’d been holding his arms over his head for so long that perhaps not enough blood was going to his brain. Maybe he had got confused.

  He should have taken the Bloomingtons’ offer, he realised. Right after Flyfest, they’d asked him to move in with them for a while, just till he got on his feet. But he’d said no. He’d said he wanted to do things on his own. He’d just got Juju appointed his agent and legal guardian, and he said he’d be fine.

  Sure. Right. Fine. He was so fine he was conjuring up imaginary tentacles and flinging himself off docks. He could hear his father laughing now. You’re less than nothing, Sylvester. You’re just less, how about that?

  Bug sat up. The water lapped gently, laughing at him. Nope. No razor-lipped monsters lurking there.

  Geez, what a spaz he was. He made a fist and punched the dock.

  Wham!

  A strange sucking noise and a briny sort of smell made him glance towards the water.

  A tentacle was patting the dock. Patting the dock as if it were looking for something.

  Looking for him?

  Bug scrambled backwards on all fours as another tentacle flopped on to the dock, then another, and another. As Bug watched in horror, two huge, dark eyes peeked over the surface of the dock. Then the tentacles curled themselves around the wooden columns all around the dock, and the biggest octopus Bug had ever seen – the biggest octopus Bug had ever imagined – hauled itself out of the water. Its skin was a mottled bluish-grey, with a craggy, rocklike texture that was all bumps and gnarls and knobs. So terrified that he forgot he could walk, run or fly, Bug scrabbled off the dock as fast as he could, not able to tear his eyes from the approaching monster. The octopus’s arms were at least six metres long and lined with rows of suckers the colour of teeth, while its weird, balloon-like mantle hung limply behind its eyes like an empty hood. The octopus used its insanely long tentacles to shimmy and curl and twirl itself across the surface of the dock to the street beyond. It paused as it passed Bug, blinking its large, unfathomable eyes.

  Fish food, thought Bug. I’m fish food.

  But the octopus wasn’t interested in Bug; it cycloned its rubbery limbs over to the table where the Skreecher execs had been enjoying a late lunch. The octopus snatched up big tentaclefuls of lobster rolls and shrimp cocktail and clams casino and shoved them underneath its head, where Bug knew its mouth was hidden, where its able-to-crush-shells-and-bone beak was neatly tucked. Bug glanced around, frantic to find a person, any other person, but this area had been closed off for the shoot and there was no one else to see what he was seeing.

  The octopus ate all the food left on the table, right down to the lemon garnishes and the daffodil centrepieces. When it was satisfied, it turned on its coiling, muscular limbs and snaked its way back towards the dock. As it passed Bug, it paused again. The octopus reached out a single tentacle and, like a fond aunt, ruffled Bug’s hair. Then it was moving quickly past Bug, over the wooden dock. It slipped into the waves with the barest of splashes. When Bug could finally bring himself to the edge of the dock to look, the water murmured secretly to itself – as if there had never been anything there at all, and if there had, the sea wasn’t telling.

  Chapter 3

  Pinkwater’s Momentary Lapse of Concentration

  “Are all you brats just going to stand there? Aren’t any of you going to see if she’s alive? Oh, never mind. Hello! Are you all right?”

  Georgie opened one eye and peeked out through the pile of bones. It wasn’t Ms Storia. A stunningly beautiful girl with olive skin and white wrap on her head stood looking at her. Hewitt Elder, the senior chaperone.

  Georgie tried to climb out of the pile. The tibia of the giant wombat rolled off her shoulder and landed on Hewitt’s foot.

  “Sorry!” Georgie said.

  A muscle in the girl’s cheek twitched, but otherwise she made no other movement. “Are you injured?” she said stiffly.

  “Um…” Georgie flexed her arms and legs. “I don’t think so.”

  “So nothing’s broken?”

  Bethany Tiffany snickered. “Nothing except the entire exhibit,” she said.

  Hewitt Elder ignored Bethany. “Next time, watch where you put your feet.” She glanced at Roma Radisson. “There are people in this world who enjoy tripping you up.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Georgie said. The beautiful girl turned and walked away, moving so gracefully that she appeared to be flying, but she wasn’t. Georgie wished she could move like that. She wished she were small and graceful and beautiful enough to wear a wrap on her head instead of being huge and pale and clumsy enough to take out a mega marsupial.

  Roma put her hands on her hips as she watched the beautiful girl walk away. “Who does she think she is?” But she didn’t say anything directly to Hewitt. Something about Hewitt cowed even Roma Radisson.

  Ms Storia, who had been busy apologising to the museum employees because of her destructive student, marched to Georgie’s side. “Girls, the excitement is over now. Let’s get moving.” She hissed in Georgie’s ear, “Please be more careful next time!”

  Georgie said nothing, the shame overwhelming her vocal cords. She waited till the last giggling, snickering, laughing Prince School girl passed her. Then, after ducking behind the nearest skeleton, she vanished.

  Literally.

  As soon as Georgie was invisible, relief flooded through her body. This way she could visit any exhibit she wanted without having Roma calling her a monkey or a marsupial or whatever else came into her vicious Dunkleosteus brain. And Ms Storia would be so busy being fascinated by all the sights in the Hall of Flight and so busy sharing that fascination with the girls of the Prince School, she’d never notice that Georgie was missing.

  As she strolled the near-empty Advanced Mammals gallery, she did feel the merest, slightest twinge of guilt. Her parents had let her attend school on one condition: that she never use her power of invisibility in public. But, she told herself, this was an emergency. Her parents couldn’t expect that she wouldn’t use her power in an emergency. They wouldn’t want her to be humiliated by Roma Radisson, Walking Dunkleosteus. They wanted Georgie to be normal. They wanted Georgie to be happy.

  And, looking at a skeleton of a sabre-toothed tiger, she was happy. There was something soothing about literally fading into the woodwork. No one to stare at her ridiculous mop of silver hair. No one to see her trip over her own feet. No one to ask her “How’s the weather up there?” and giggle as if that was the funniest thing anyone ever said. Nobody taking pictures of her when they thought she wasn’t looking because her parents happen to be The Richest Couple in the Universe. No one gaping—

  —a little boy was gaping. But he couldn’t possibly be gaping at her, because she was invisible. And there was nothing else close but the sabre-toothed tiger. It’s OK, she thought, he’s just afraid of the tiger.

  “Mummy?” said the boy in a quivering voice.

  His mother, a largish woman in stretchy green trousers who was examining the skeleton of an ancient
horse, said, “What, honey?”

  “Mummy, look!” He tugged on her trouser leg. He had large brown eyes that seemed to grow larger by the second.

  “What is it?”

  “There’s a nose!”

  “What did you say?” said his mother.

  “There’s a nose floating in the air. Right there!”

  “Oh my!” said the woman, clapping her own hand over her mouth in shock.

  Oh no! thought Georgie, clapping a hand over her face.

  Georgie fled the Advanced Mammals gallery, the woman’s shouts following her all the way down the stairs and through the Hall of North American Birds. She didn’t stop running until she reached the State Mammals gallery. Breathing heavily but trying not to, she lifted her hand and peered at her reflection in the glass of a display. There it was, as clear as the poor, sad stuffed bobcats behind the glass.

  Quickly, she focused all her energies: I am the wall and the ground and the air I am the wall and the ground and the air I am the wall and the ground and the air… She looked into the glass again. Her nose was gone, just the way it was supposed to be.

  What was that about? she wondered. Then again, she hadn’t disappeared in more than five months. And it’s not like anyone had ever explained invisibility. It’s not like there was anyone who could, except maybe The Professor, and she hadn’t seen him since Flyfest in November. She never understood how it worked, why her clothes disappeared with her, why objects or people she touched did too, but not, say, whole houses when she touched the walls. She’d brought these things up with her parents, but they never wanted to talk about it. They warned her against experimenting with it, as if the power of invisibility was some sort of weird itch one had to try not to scratch, like eczema or chicken pox.

  She sighed and poked around the State Mammals Hall, which displayed the state’s most common mammals in dioramas. She studied the porcupines, hares, and shrews but swept right by the bats. (She heard enough about flying without having to see the bats.) She turned the corner to the next hall, where she caught her foot on a metal radiator, which might not have been a problem except that she was wearing open-toed sandals.