Laura Ruby - The Boy Who Could Fly

As the other girls snickered, Georgetta, or Georgie, as her parents called her, flushed angrily and looked down at the floor. She had been at the Prince School for just three weeks, but she had already spent many days flushing angrily and staring at the floors. And now here she was, on her very first school trip, counting dots in the tiles while she tried to follow her parents’ advice. Just ignore it . But just ignoring it wasn’t going so well.

“I hear that those ancient mammals were giants, too,” Roma said. “Maybe there’s a giant monkey in there. Maybe it’s your long-lost aunt.”

You’re the monkey , thought Georgie. Except that was too stupid to say. Also, an insult to monkeys. Dunkleosteus , a vicious sea predator with jaws so sharp they could cut through bone – now that was more like Roma. Georgie almost said so, but she knew that just saying the word Dunkleosteus would get her labelled the worst sort of egghead-nerd-freak. At the Prince School, it was not cool to know things.

“That’s enough, Roma,” said Ms Storia, as if that was going to stop Roma. Roma had been keeping up a steady stream of insults since they came to the museum. Georgie was related to the walrus. Georgie was related to the squid (which Roma had wrongly called an octopus. Georgie made the mistake of pointing out the obvious differences between a squid and an octopus, something that Roma said only proved her point).

But this time Roma shrugged and flounced into the Hall of Primitive Mammals, her fire-red hair a beacon for the others. Wherever Roma went, the other girls of the Prince School quickly followed. The only one who didn’t was the senior girl acting as a chaperone, who seemed to prefer the long-dead animals on display to the pack of princesses she was supposed to be chaperoning.

Georgie tried to hide in the middle of the pack, tuning out Ms Storia’s talk about how the platypus had so many primitive features it was called a “living fossil” and wasn’t that just fascinating? Georgie wished she were back at home with her parents, discussing their plans for the day, the way they had all winter and into the spring. Some days, they went to one of the city’s many museums. Most days, they went to the library and picked out books for Georgie to read. Even though The Richest Girl in the Universe could have purchased every book in the city and still have enough left over to buy a few planets, Georgie thought it was lovely to be able to borrow any book you wanted, and then bring it back and exchange it for another.

Before you think Georgie a skull short of a full skeleton, you must understand that there were very good reasons for Georgie’s lack of interest in the truly mind-boggling amount of money she had. You see, Georgetta Rose Aster Bloomington wasn’t always The Richest Girl in the Universe. As a matter of fact, she wasn’t always known as Georgetta Rose Aster Bloomington. Just six months before, Georgetta Rose Aster Bloomington was a girl named Gurl who lived in a miserable orphanage. There, she spent much of her time daydreaming about a happy life, a real life, without ever expecting to live one. But reality turned out to be more mind-boggling than any daydream. Half a year ago, she learned a lot of things about her life, among them:

1 That she had been kidnapped by the gangster Sweetcheeks Grabowski when she was just a baby.

2 That she was subsequently lost by the gangster Sweetcheeks Grabowski because of a special power she had, the power to turn herself invisible.

3 That she was found by a homeless woman and given to an orphanage called Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless.

4 That Georgie escaped Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless with the help of her good friend Bug, who turned out to be none other than the son of the gangster Sweetcheeks Grabowski.

5 That her real parents were The Richest Couple in the Universe. And finally:

6 That this was an awful lot for a person to take in and still remain sane.

But Georgie was doing her best to adjust to her new life as well as she could, and that included trying to ignore the snotty second-, third-and fourth-richest girls in the universe and paying attention on school trips. Up ahead, Ms Storia was yammering enthusiastically about the development of marsupials. At least that was better than the teachers at Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless. The only animals they ever wanted to talk about were the ones that could fly.

“Next up,” Ms Storia said, “is the Hall of Flight! We’ll see birds, of course, but also flying squirrels and insects! And we’ll see how scientists are studying the evolution of human flight! Isn’t that fascinating?”

Sigh .

“We are going to learn so many important things!”

Uh-huh , thought Georgie. The most important thing that Georgie had learned in the last six months was the fact that money does not buy happiness. Because as happy as Georgie was with her parents, there were many other things that made Georgie unhappy.

“Ow!” said Bethany Tiffany when Georgie accidentally crashed into her.

“Sorry,” Georgie muttered.

“That is the third time you’ve bumped into me!” Bethany said, rubbing her elbow as if Georgie had hit it with a hammer.

“I said sorry.”

“You’re always bumping into people and you’re always sorry.”

Georgie clenched her teeth to refrain from saying something rude about Bethany’s tiara. Georgie’d had a growth spurt that had happened overnight and her body wasn’t her own any more. The doctor said it was from good nutrition and seemed pleased by this turn of events. Georgie, whose joints ached and whose feet grew so fast that her parents couldn’t keep her in shoes, wasn’t as pleased. She felt like a marionette, all arms and legs jangling and none of them ever under her control.

This wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t a leadfoot – a person who couldn’t fly at all. Apparently, you can have more money than everyone in the universe put together, but if you can’t fly even a smidge, well, then you might as well be living in Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless, eating lard on toast and getting pounded by a girl called Digger (who got her name because she picked her nose). And it didn’t matter that Georgie had a special power all her own. The fact that she could turn herself invisible – that she was the first person in more than a century who could – was the reason she had been kidnapped by Sweetcheeks Grabowski in the first place. Her parents didn’t want to take the risk ever again. They had made her promise that she wouldn’t use the power or even mention it. They had told her to trust no one with her secrets. And that meant that it was impossible to make a real friend.

“Fly, I mean, walk with us, Georgetta.”

The red-haired goddess herself, Roma Radisson, appeared next to Bethany Tiffany and London England. Georgie was immediately suspicious.

“Georgie,” Roma simpered. “We were just kidding before. We didn’t mean anything by it.”

Right , thought Georgie. Roma meant every spiteful word she said. But then, even with everything Georgie had been through, she was a deeply curious girl, the kind of girl who watches the world and misses nothing; she wanted to know why Roma was talking to her. And though she would never have admitted it, Georgie was also a hopeful girl. In the back of her mind, a little voice told her that maybe, maybe , if she were nice to Roma, if she could joke and laugh like the rest of the girls, Roma might be nice to her.

“Tell us,” Roma said. “Were you really kidnapped when you were a baby?”

Even though the story had been in the papers for months and months, everyone always asked the same questions over and over again, as if Georgie would suddenly answer them differently. “I was kidnapped by Sweetcheeks Grabowski. He’s in jail.”