The Boy Who Could Fly

  But that was the old Bug. The good Bug. Not the new Bug, the changed Bug, the I’m-in-adverts-and-aren’t-I-amazing Bug. His heart was probably a grey pebble. A lump of coal. A balled-up napkin with a blob of ketchup on it.

  It was getting close to noon, so Georgie decided that she had time for one more gallery before she had to get back to the group. She ended up in a sculpture gallery. She stopped at a piece by a guy named Alberto Giacometti, a piece simply called Dog. “Dog” was small, lumpy, and funky-looking, like a pile of sticks that a creative kindergartner had decorated with globs of papier-mâché, but then it also really looked like a dog, tail down, nose close to the ground, sniffing for a scent trail. Georgie thought it was funny how not-dog and so-very-dog Dog was.

  She moved on to a sculpture called Standing Woman. Standing Woman had been cast in the same way as Dog, the same, lumpish stick-figure way, but this felt different. “Standing Woman” seemed stretched entirely out of proportion, with a small head, super-long skinny legs, and enormous feet. Her face was cast downwards just a bit, as if someone had just told her to stand up straight but she couldn’t quite make herself do it.

  “Look at that!” said a voice behind her. “Someone made a sculpture of Georgetta Bloomington! That’s so fab™!”

  Georgie whirled around. Roma, Bethany and London were standing behind her. Roma was pointing to Standing Woman. Specifically, pointing at Standing Woman’s supersized feet.

  “How long did you have to pose for it?” Roma said sweetly.

  “Yeah, how long?” Bethany said.

  London twirled a blond curl around her little finger. “I don’t really think it’s tall enough to be Georgie.”

  “What did I say about thinking, London?” Roma said.

  “Oh, right,” London said, dropping the curl.

  Georgie racked her brains for something witty and cutting to say, tried to imagine Hewitt Elder in the same position – what would Hewitt do? Hewitt probably wouldn’t hear a word Roma said, and if she did, she wouldn’t care about any of it. But that was the problem. Georgie always heard. Georgie always cared. She remembered thinking something mean and maybe even a little funny about the sequins on Roma’s skirt, but her thoughts refused to gel.

  “Anyway,” said Roma, turning away from Georgie as if she wasn’t there, “Bug and I were talking about what we’re doing on Saturday. He wants to take me to this new restaurant that’s opening up downtown. It’s called the Red Room. It’s supposed to be amazing.”

  Georgie’s brain buzzed. Bug? Roma and Bug? Impossible.

  “And then later, he wants to take me flying.”

  “That’s so fab,” Bethany said.

  Roma glared. “Hey, that’s trademarked, you know.”

  Not fab, Georgie thought. Not. Fab. Flying was their thing, hers and Bug’s. It was not possible he’d take someone like Roma. Someone who thought sewing sequins on a uniform skirt was a good idea, someone who wanted to wear a dress made out of thousand-dollar notes, someone who kicked other people in the backs of their knees to make them fall down.

  “I can’t believe you guys are going out,” said London.

  “What’s so unbelievable about it?” Roma said. “He’s famous, I’m famous. What could make more sense? Maybe we’ll even get to do an advert together. Maybe I’ll put him in my film.”

  “Oh, wow!” Bethany said. “That would be perfect!”

  Perfect? Sure. Perfectly disgusting.

  Georgie walked away from Roma and her friends, her stomach in knots. She gripped herself around the middle. So what? She and Bug weren’t talking anyway. It wasn’t as if they were actually friends any more. What did she care? No, she didn’t care at all.

  Not at all.

  She marched towards Dog on her way out of the gallery, but some odd movement caught her eye. It was Dog. Or rather, the person standing next to Dog.

  “Hewitt?” Georgie said. But the person turned and walked briskly from the gallery before Georgie could see her face. Georgie looked towards the statue and gasped. Instead of having his nose pointed towards the ground, Dog’s head was lifted, his ears pricked up, his tail wagging. As Georgie watched in astonishment, too surprised to move, Dog jumped down from his platform, ran up behind Roma, and bit her right in the sequins.

  Chapter 9

  How Much is That Demon in the Window?

  “Ouch!” yelled Roma. She twirled around in a circle, but Dog had already scooted from the gallery, out of sight.

  Roma’s eyes narrowed when she saw Georgie standing there, staring. “You!” she said. “You did this!”

  “Did what?” Georgie managed to squeak.

  “I don’t know,” Roma said. “But you did something. I know you did!”

  A security guard heard the commotion and floated over. “Is there something wrong, miss?”

  Roma started to sob – big, heaving sobs that involved no actual tears. “She’s always hated me. She’s always been so mean to me!”

  “Now, now,” said the guard. “Why don’t you tell me what’s going on.”

  “Her!” Roma stuck a finger at Georgie. “Georgetta Bloomington. She thinks she’s better than everyone else ’cause she’s so rich. She must have kicked me or something!” She sobbed again.

  The guard turned to Georgie. “Is this true, Ms Bloomington? Did you actually kick this young woman?”

  “I’m Roma Radisson!” yelled Roma. “How could you not know my name! I’m in the ad for Jump Jeans! I have my own line of deodorants! I’m in a video!”

  “It wasn’t me,” Georgie said quietly.

  “What?” the guard said.

  “I didn’t do anything. It was the dog.”

  “What dog?” said the guard.

  “The one that was over there,” Georgie said.

  The guard saw the now-empty display where Dog had been and gasped. “Ms Bloomington, did you do something with the statue?”

  “No!” Georgie said. “It just jumped off that shelf thing and bit Roma in the… uh…”

  “The statue jumped,” said the guard.

  “Yes,” said Georgie. Roma, Bethany, and London were staring at her. Everyone in the gallery was staring at her.

  “A statue,” repeated the guard. “A statue made of bronze.”

  “Um, that’s what it looked like,” Georgie said, realising too late that she had, yet again, said a strange and unfunny thing, the type of thing that was bound to get her noticed for all the wrong reasons. “Actually, it probably just fell down and hit her. That’s what happened.”

  “It fell down and hit her though she was standing nowhere near it.”

  Georgie said nothing.

  “And then what?” the guard said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Where’s the statue now?”

  Georgie opened her mouth, but no sound came out.

  The guard took hold of Georgie’s arm and pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt. “Darius,” he said. “You better get over to the Giacomettis. We’ve got a problem.”

  “Yes, Mrs Radisson, I understand that,” Bunny was saying into the phone. “Georgetta feels very sorry for Roma. But she says she had nothing to do with, er, whatever happened to Roma. And I trust my daughter.”

  Bunny winced and pulled the phone away from her ear as Roma’s mother screeched and then hung up. Bunny replaced the handset in its cradle. “That went well,” she said mildly. “I don’t think I’ll be invited to any more of her fundraisers.”

  “Big loss,” said Solomon.

  “Sol,” warned Bunny. Both the Bloomingtons looked at Georgie, who was curled as tight as a wood louse in the leather chair in her father’s office. Whenever the Bloomingtons had something important to discuss, they always discussed it in Sol’s office. Usually, Georgie loved Sol’s office, which was much more of a garden than an office, a garden that was always in bloom. Tulips and daffodils sprouted in colourful bunches around the chairs and waves of silvery wheat danced around the perimeter of the room, while a
peach tree, heavy with fruit, loomed over the desk. Georgie reached down and plucked a ripe strawberry from one of the many strawberry bushes, but couldn’t bring herself to eat it. She gave it to Noodle, who sat on her lap. Noodle didn’t like to eat strawberries, but she did like to roll them with her nose.

  “Georgie,” Sol said. “Why don’t you tell us again what happened?”

  “I already told you, Dad. I was walking out of the gallery when one of the statues just… came to life. It bit Roma. Then it was gone. That’s all I know.”

  “That’s crazy,” Bunny said.

  Georgie picked at her fingernails. “So’s a room with vegetables growing out of the carpet,” she muttered.

  “The city is a strange place,” said Sol. “Stranger things have happened.”

  Bunny sighed. “I know. I don’t have to like it, though.”

  Georgie had to wonder if her parents knew how very strange the city was. So many things seemed to worry them. She didn’t want to worry them. She didn’t like the way they looked with their eyebrows all furrowed and their mouths curving down. She wanted them to be happy. “Maybe,” she said, “the statue did fall. I mean, it looked like it bit Roma, but maybe it just sort of fell on her or something.”

  “That sounds more reasonable,” said Bunny hopefully.

  “It does,” Sol said, even more hopefully. “If I didn’t know better, I would think that the pen is causing all of this, but The Professor has it, so…” He trailed off.

  Bunny cleared some climbing roses off the other chair and sat down. “How bad is this trouble with Roma Radisson?”

  “Everyone has trouble with Roma, Mum,” Georgie said. “She’s not a very nice person.”

  “Sometimes,” said Mrs Bloomington, “people aren’t very nice for reasons that might seem surprising. Maybe she’s having a hard time growing up.”

  Noodle dropped the strawberry on the floor and meowed a truly sarcastic meow.

  “Don’t start,” Bunny said, eyeing the cat. “Maybe it’s easy for kittens, but people do have a hard time growing up, you know. Roma’s parents are always jetting off to Europe and Asia. They don’t spend much time with her. She probably has low self-esteem,” Bunny suggested.

  Georgie thought that Roma had an overabundance of self-esteem. Roma had esteem poisoning.

  “What if you tried to be more understanding?” Bunny said.

  “Oh, nobody wants to understand Roma,” said Sol.

  “Sol!”

  “It’s true, Bunny. You’re just too nice to say so. But,” he added, “that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to try to get along with the other girls.”

  “I do!” Georgie said. “But because Roma doesn’t like me, nobody does.”

  “I can’t believe that,” said Sol. “You’re a wonderful person.”

  That was the problem with having fabulous parents: they were so busy loving you and supporting you and telling everyone that you were the best thing that ever happened to them that it was impossible for them to comprehend that other people might not think you were the cat’s meow. The bee’s knees. All that and a stick of gum. They tended to believe that any interpersonal problem was nothing more than a silly misunderstanding, that if you just smiled a little more, said “hi” a little more, got a good haircut once in a while, the world would fall at your feet.

  Sure.

  Georgie pulled Noodle close and stood. “OK,” she said. “I’ll try to get along.”

  Sol beamed. “That’s my girl.”

  One a.m. and Georgie couldn’t sleep. She was sitting up, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire open in her lap, but Harry reminded her of Bug, which reminded her of Roma, which reminded her of Bug and Roma, which reminded her that the idea of Bug and Roma going out or even occupying the same planet made her queasy. She closed the book, got out of bed, and checked her e-mail, but Hewitt still hadn’t responded to her note, and the only other people who had written were people wanting to sell her real estate and watches and arthritis medication.

  “It’s official, Noodle,” Georgie said. “Except for you, I’m friendless.”

  Noodle lifted her head and mewled, as if to say that having a cat for a friend more than made up for a lack of human ones. Which was mostly, but not completely true. How strange, Georgie thought, that she’d had no real friends at Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless for all those years and yet she felt worse now than she ever had then. Before, she supposed, she hadn’t known what she was missing. Now she did.

  And it was horrible.

  Noodle mewled again and Georgie sat on the edge of the bed to pet her, figuring Noodle would cast her kitty spell and clear Georgie’s head. But the cat didn’t turn on her hypnotic purr, and Georgie’s thoughts kept coming. Bug. Roma. The Punk. The statue. Bug. Roma. The Punk. The statue. Over and over again, like a cyclone of wasps.

  Georgie decided that snacks were called for. She left her bedroom and crept into the kitchen, almost shrieking with surprise when she found Agnes sitting at the table, the newspaper and a plateful of pierogi in front of her.

  “Agnes!”

  “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I wait for you. You wake me up.”

  “How did I wake you up?”

  “All that thinking. You think too much. You need pierogi.”

  “Not horseradish?”

  “Pierogi,” said Agnes, and pushed the plate over to Georgie.

  Georgie sat down at the table. The pierogi were sweet, with a luscious blueberry filling.

  When Georgie was finished, Agnes said, “Better?”

  “Yes, thank you. Agnes?”

  “What?”

  “How did you know what to do with the Punk?

  “What Punk?”

  “You know what I’m talking about,” said Georgie.

  For a minute, Georgie didn’t think Agnes would answer. But then she said, “I’m from Poland. Lots of Punks there. Vampires too.”

  Well. What do you say to that?

  Agnes took Georgie’s plate. “OK. You go talk to him tomorrow.”

  “Talk to who?”

  “Talk to who. Boy, that’s who.”

  Bug. Of course Agnes knew Georgie was thinking about Bug. “He doesn’t want to talk to me.”

  “Sure he does.”

  “I can’t.”

  Agnes shrugged and put the plate in the sink.

  Irritated, Georgie picked up the paper and read through the headlines. PRESIDENT DECLARES CHICKENS NOT REAL BIRDS. AIRBOURNE INDUSTRIES INTRODUCES NEW FUEL-EFFICIENT MOTORISED FLYCYCLE. MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY UNVEILS MEGATHERIUM EXHIBIT. ROMA RADISSON PLANS TO SUE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART FOR PAIN AND SUFFERING. SYLVESTER “BUG” GRABOWSKI FILMING ADVERT AT THE EMPIRE STATE BUILDING; CITY PREPARES FOR TRAFFIC NIGHTMARE.

  Georgie read the entire article. Apparently Bug would be filming an advert for Hero® brand sportswear at the Empire State Building the next day.

  With her back still to Georgie, Agnes said, “So don’t talk. Go see him.”

  “He doesn’t want to see me.”

  “He not see you.”

  Agnes wanted her to turn herself invisible and go see Bug. Why did she want her to go see Bug so badly? “My parents don’t want me to do that any more. And besides, I don’t want to see him either. I don’t like him.”

  “Hokay,” said Agnes. She put the washed plate in the drain. Then she opened up a jar. She scooped a few tablespoons of whatever was in the jar into a plastic bag. Then she handed this to Georgie.

  “What’s this?”

  “Birdseed for budgie,” said Agnes. “Just in case.”

  “I’m going to bed,” Georgie announced.

  Georgie went back into her room. She could go to Bug’s shoot. Tomorrow was Saturday, so she wouldn’t miss any school. And she wouldn’t have to talk to Bug, either. She’d sneak over, check into that Roma thing. She just needed to know that it wasn’t true. And then everything would be OK. Sort of. So, since Georgie was feeling
sort of better, or at least anticipating feeling sort of better, she turned off the light and crawled back into bed. She pulled the covers all the way up to her chin and Noodle rearranged herself so that she was warming Georgie’s feet. Georgie’s breathing had just begun to slow, her eyelids had just begun to flutter, when she glanced at the window, nearly falling out of the bed when she saw someone hovering outside, scratching a fingernail down the length of the glass.

  “Bug?” she whispered. She yanked back the covers and crept over to the window, waving eagerly. Maybe he had come to apologise.

  But her hand flagged when she saw that the boy outside her window wasn’t Bug. This boy was much older than Bug, nearly a man, pale and thin, dressed in a very shiny black shirt and skinny black velvet trousers. His hair was blond and gelled and spiked, and she thought he might be wearing makeup. He didn’t seem to care that Georgie had stopped waving; he waved at her, two fingers snapping from the forehead in a salute.

  She approached the window warily. She didn’t know any people besides Bug who could fly this high. She couldn’t imagine who he was or what he thought he was doing. Was he just trying to show off? Was he some sort of freak? Was he here to kidnap her?

  He gestured again with his fingers, this time crooking them, telling her to come closer. She took one step forwards, and then another. The eyeliner was a little much, but he didn’t look scary. Actually, he didn’t seem that scary at all. And the outfit was very nice. Stylish. Like you’d see in a magazine. Bug should get some trousers like that, Georgie thought, so close to the window that she could almost kiss it. I really really like those trousers. And his big black wings were so pretty.

  The man mouthed something and Georgie shifted her face even closer to read his red, red lips. Can I come in?

  She thought about it for a second, thought about how not scary he was and how nice his outfit was and how pretty his wings were, and would a person wearing such a fabulous outfit be anything but fabulous? It seemed impossible.