Laura Ruby - The Boy Who Could Fly

“My dreams did come true,” Bug said, fidgeting. “I mean, I’m a Wing now, right? And in all these adverts. Did I tell you about the Skreecher campaign?”

So much for conversation . “Yeah, you did. Just before.”

“Oh.” He pulled the sleeves of his jumper over his hands. He tipped his head, as if he was considering something. “So, how do you like school?”

“OK,” said Georgie, too embarrassed to tell him about Roma Radisson. Too embarrassed to tell him that even though she might be The Richest Girl in the Universe, no one liked her any better for it.

“I’ve got tutors,” said Bug. “Too much work to do to go to school.”

“I don’t know that falling into the East River counts as work.” She hadn’t meant to say that, but out it popped. When your arms and legs and feet and hair are threatening to take over the world and you’re wearing a T-shirt that says HOT STUFF in orange flames, things that you don’t intend pop out.

“I didn’t fall ,” Bug said. “Something pulled me into the water.”

“OK,” said Georgie. “Whatever you say.”

Bug’s cheeks got noticeably redder. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Georgie said, backtracking. “I don’t know what happened. I heard about it on TV. I wasn’t there.”

“No, you weren’t there.” He muttered something under his breath, something that sounded like “You’re never there.”

“What?” Georgie said.

Bug shook his head, a lock of sandy-brown hair falling into his eyes. “Forget it.”

More silence. Pinkwater’s Momentary Lapse of Concentration seemed to feel the tension, seemed to want to fix it. He darted back and forth between Bug and Georgie, as if he were trying to stitch them together. “Hello!” he squeaked. “Hello, you person!” He alighted on Bug’s shoulder, and proceeded to bonk Bug in the cheek with the top of his little blue head. Bonk, bonk .

“I think he wants you to pet him,” said Georgie.

Bonk .

“Oh,” Bug said. He reached up and petted the bird.

“Purr,” the bird said.

“Once he stops dive-bombing, he’s OK,” Bug said.

“Purr,” said the bird.

Georgie watched Bug pet the bird. “I think he likes you.”

“I think he does too,” Bug said. “So where’s Noodle?”

“Home,” Georgie said. “Which is probably where I should be going.” She felt tired and she felt stupid and she missed Noodle and she missed Agnes and the edge of the tree stump was making her bum ache. Maybe, she thought, she was outgrowing more than clothes and shoes. Maybe she was outgrowing her friend, too. That thought made her achy right in the middle of her chest.

Bug looked down at the clothes spread across the floor like wads of seaweed left by a storm surge. “It’s OK. I’ve got lots to do anyway.”

He seemed so lonely that for a second Georgie almost changed her mind, almost said something crazy like “Hey, maybe we could go flying in the park. Maybe we could make ourselves invisible and sneak into the cinema.” But she didn’t say these things. What she said was: “I like your suit of armour.”

“Thanks,” Bug said. “I found it. Well, that’s not exactly true. There were these guys moving out a couple of floors down. I think they meant to take it with them, but they forgot it in the hallway.”

“So you stole it,” Georgie said.

“I didn’t steal it. They forgot it,” Bug said.

“You could have found them,” said Georgie.

“How would I do that?”

“You could have asked around for their new address.” She had no idea why she was saying this stuff. She didn’t care about the suit of armour. And for all she knew, those guys didn’t want it any more and left it on purpose. But she couldn’t seem to help herself. “You could have shipped it to them.”

“I said, they forgot it.”

“Fine,” said Georgie.

“Anyway, you should talk.”

“What?”

“You’ve stolen things before,” Bug said. “A lot of things.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” said Georgie, getting angry.

“No? There was Noodle. She was just wandering around, and you kept her. And you don’t seem to feel too bad about it. What’s so different?”

Georgie felt the rush of blood through her veins, as if all of sudden she had too much blood and not nearly enough vein. “You sound just like your father.”

Bug sounded like a robot when he said: “Get out.”

“Bug, I just meant—”

Bug flew forwards so fast that he blurred before her eyes, and Pinkwater exploded into the air in a burst of feathers. “ Get out !”

Georgie jumped back, whipped round and charged towards the door. As she ran, she misjudged her footing, slamming into the suit of armour. It fell over like a stack of pots and pans. She opened the door, Pinkwater’s disapproving chirp following her out:

“Bad!”

Chapter 5

Georgie sprinted nearly all the way home from Bug’s apartment, slowing only to catch her breath before she reached her building. She didn’t want anyone to think she’d been running from something. Because she wasn’t running. She’d just been in a hurry to get home, that’s all. Bug? Who’s Bug? Oh, that weird-looking guy in the Cheeky Monkey ads.

“Ha!”

Georgie focused in on the crow perched in a nearby tree. “What are you looking at?”

“Ha! Ha!” said the crow.

“Keep laughing, beak-face. I’m going upstairs to get my kitty.”

“Ha!”

Dexter the doorman was waiting at the entrance of the building. “Good afternoon, Miss Bloomington,” he said gravely. He said everything gravely. His grave manner went with the grey hair, the grey beard and the grey uniform.

“Good afternoon, Dexter.”

“It’s Deitrich, Miss.”

“Oh, sorry,” said Georgie. “Deitrich.”

“Are you all right?” Deitrich said. (Gravely.)

“Yes, why?”

Georgie was tall, but Deitrich was one of the few people who was much, much taller. He looked down at her, gravely, but kindly. “You seem sad.”

“Sad? No, I’m not sad. I’m absolutely fine. Great, even,” Georgie told him.

“Of course,” said Deitrich, opening the door so that she could enter the building, discreetly slipping her a tissue so that she could wipe her eyes and blow her nose before going up to the penthouse.

“Georgie? Is that you?” Bunny Bloomington drifted into the foyer. “You’re a little late.”

Georgie couldn’t imagine she’d been more than an hour, but she knew her mother. “I hope you didn’t worry.”

Bunny pressed a kiss to Georgie’s cheek. “I didn’t. At least, not that much. Well, a little bit. Some.” She looked at Georgie critically, as if seeing her for the first time. “Where did you get those clothes?”

Georgie had forgotten about the clothes. How could she forget about the clothes? And, duh! She’d left her own clothes at Bug’s! “I spilled some Kangaroo Kola on myself, so Bug gave me this stuff to wear.”

Georgie could see her mother working to take this information in. “Oh,” Bunny said. “Next time you’re on a long visit, could you give me a call, please? I’m not saying that I don’t trust you, please don’t think I don’t trust you, I know you’re thirteen, and—”

“I know, Mum,” Georgie said. “You’re right. I should have called.”

Bunny bit her lip. “You and Bug didn’t decide to go on any, um, outings, did you?” That was her mother’s word for invisible exploration. Outings . “Because I’m just not comfortable with that. That’s the very thing that got you kidnapped in the first place, and I’m so afraid that someone will see you popping in and out of sight and get ideas.”