Laura Ruby - The Boy Who Could Fly

“Gurl? Is that you?”

“Georgie,” she said, popping into view. “Who else would it be?”

“You got taller,” he said.

Georgie blushed, unconsciously slouching her shoulders. “So did you.”

Bug scowled as the bird raced around his cage. Georgie was surprised how much she missed that old scowl.

“Your bird’s a little hyper.”

“He’s not mine,” Georgie said. “He’s yours.”

“What do you mean?” said Bug.

“I mean, he’s a present. For you.”

“Oh. Well.” He looked at the budgie as if it were the last thing in the universe he needed. Georgie couldn’t believe Agnes had made her come here.

Bug shifted the pile of T-shirts in his arms. “Thanks. Um. You want to come in?”

“Sure,” said Georgie, certain she’d rather have gum surgery.

Bug led the way through the huge double doors into his apartment. Huge, with wide windows on two sides, it should have been bright and cheerful. Instead, the place had the look of a charity shop, packed with odd, unrelated items and not nearly enough actual furniture. A fine tapestry hung on a wall next to random posters of athletes. A giant stuffed gorilla sat in the corner of the living room. A suit of armour stood by the doors to the apartment. Georgie had heard that living alone made people weird, and this apartment was proof. She wondered where his agent, who was now his legal guardian, was. Bug always made it sound as if the guy was like a father to him.

“Sorry about the mess,” Bug said. “I was just going to do some laundry.” He dropped the clothes he’d been holding on to the ones strewn all over the floor. “There’s a chair around here somewhere.” He kicked through piles of junk to a lone chair set in front of a television the size of a cinema screen. “Here,” he said. “Sit down.”

“Thanks,” Georgie said.

Bug eyed Pinkwater’s cage. “I guess we can put that on the floor.” He set Pinkwater’s cage down. “Do you want something to drink? I’m not sure what I’ve got.”

“Anything is OK,” Georgie said.

He left, and Georgie could hear him banging around in the kitchen. “All I have is Kangaroo Kola.”

“That’s good,” said Georgie.

He came back with two cans, one for her and one for himself. “I did an ad for them,” he said. “They sent me a year’s supply.”

“Great,” said Georgie. She sipped her Kangaroo Kola. If you could fly, Kangaroo Kola could make you fly just a teeny bit higher (or so the advertisements claimed). Georgie supposed that was the only reason why people drank the stuff. It tasted like cough syrup.

“So,” Bug said. “Thanks again for the bird.”

“What’s a Wing without a pet bird, right?” She almost winced as she said this, it was so lame.

“Right,” said Bug. “Maybe I should let him out?”

Georgie shrugged. Bug crouched and opened the door to the cage. The budgie whirled around the room.

Bug said, “Does he have a name?”

“Pinkwater’s Momentary Lapse of Concentration, CD, Number Fourteen,” Georgie told him. “He’s a show bird. They all have names like that.” Abruptly, Pinkwater dive-bombed Georgie’s head, startling her so much that she spilled her Kangaroo Kola. She scrambled to her feet. “Oh no! I hope I didn’t get anything on your chair.”

“Nope. All over yourself, though.”

Plucking at the cold, wet patches on her thighs, she wanted to disappear again. She picked up one foot and shook it, spraying droplets of soda everywhere. “Sorry,” she said.

“Don’t worry about it. All these companies are always sending me T-shirts and stuff that I never use. I’ll get you some.” His eyes brightened. “And you know I’m doing this big ad campaign for Skreechers, right? I’ve got a million pairs of Skreechers trainers. I’m sure I’ll have something that fits you.” He eyed her feet. “You look about the same size as me.”

He turned and walked to the bedroom while Georgie sat, blushing furiously. Great , she thought. She had feet the same size as a guy . Just what every girl dreams of. Maybe she’d grow a moustache, too. Yeah. That would be really cool.

She folded her arms and waited. It was so strange to be here, to see Bug in this big and messy place, like he was some little kid playing house. Which, she thought, he was. So many things here seemed familiar. Like the monkey in the corner. The suit of armour. The tapestry on the wall, just like Bug’s father had in his lair. She hugged herself even tighter.

Bug came out of the bedroom carrying jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of trainers. “Here,” he said. “You can put these on in the bathroom.” He pointed. “Over there.”

“Thanks,” she said. She went to the bathroom and shut the door. She dropped the wet clothes to the floor and pulled on the dry ones. Thankfully, they were big enough to fit her. (It would have been horrible if the stuff had been too small.) Then she looked at herself in the mirror and sighed. The T-shirt said HOT STUFF in orange flames. She was hot stuff, all right. Her hair was in its customary thick ponytail, but random wisps stuck out all over, spraying sideways and tumbling down her shoulders and back. “Hi!” she said to the mirror. “I’m HOT STUFF!”

“What?” Bug called from outside the door. “Did you say something?”

“No!” Georgie said. And then, under her breath, “Just talking to myself like a complete lunatic.” She pulled out the ponytail and tried to comb her hair with her fingers as best she could, but it was no use. Her hair, like her body, was apparently intent on taking over the city.

Georgie threw open the bathroom door. “I have world domination hair,” she said irritably.

Bug frowned. “What?”

“Never mind,” Georgie said. She was going to sit in the chair, but Bug was sitting in it. She searched the room for another chair, but she didn’t see one. She settled for a coffee table shaped like a tree stump. Or maybe it was a tree stump, she didn’t know. Perching on the stump, she said, “Thanks for the stuff. I’ll give it back to you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Bug said.

Georgie frantically searched her feeble brain for something to say. “Do you know that pen that your… um… that Sweetcheeks wanted me to steal from my dad?”

“Yeah?”

“You won’t believe what it does.”

“Let me guess: writes?”

Georgie glanced up sharply, a little hurt that Bug sounded so sarcastic. “Yes, it writes. But it makes anything you write with it come true.”

Bug raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Nope. But things come true only the way the pen wants them to come true.”

“No way.”

“That’s what The Professor told my dad. And that’s what my dad told me. That people wouldn’t even be able to fly if someone hadn’t written something about flying a long time ago.”

“I think I remember The Professor hinting around about that the first time we met him. Something about how people weren’t supposed to fly.”

“Yes,” Georgie said. “But whoever started it didn’t write, ‘I wish all people could fly’ or whatever, he wrote something else, something that had nothing to do with flying at all. The pen did whatever it wanted to do. And now, well… you know the rest.”

“Wow,” said Bug.

“Wow is right,” said Georgie. She waited for Bug to say something else, but he didn’t. “So, um, if you had that pen, what would you want to write with it?”

“What?” said Bug. “I don’t know.”

“Come on. You must want something. It’s a pen that makes dreams come true.” Yikes, she thought. She sounded like one of those chain e-mails people send to all their relatives. She was now giving herself the creeps.