Laura Ruby - The Boy Who Could Fly

“Amazing!” said London. “And is it true that no one could find you for years and years, and you lived in an orphanage practically your whole life?”

Georgie nodded. “I didn’t even know my real name.”

“Speaking of real,” London said, eyeing Georgie’s thick silver ponytail and fluffing her own blond curls with her fingers, “is that your real hair?”

“Whose hair would it be?” Georgie joked.

The other girls gave each other funny looks, and not the kind that indicated they thought Georgie’s joke was amusing. “Well, anyway,” said Roma, fanning the air. “I bet that orphanage was just so grimy and horrible. I did a TV special once where I had to meet some poor people. They sent me to a farm. I had to pick tomatoes. Awful! I had dirt under my fingernails and everything!”

“At least you could have eaten the tomatoes,” Georgie said. “At the orphanage, I was always hungry.” The girls gaped at her. So much for joking. Since Georgie was always trying not to reveal too much, she was prone to saying strange and unfunny things. (When you’ve spent years in an orphanage shunned by everyone but a cat, you’re prone to saying strange and unfunny things.) Georgie cleared her throat. “So, you were on TV? Was it, uh, cool?”

“She’s been on TV thousands of times,” Bethany said, eyes so green that Georgie wondered if Bethany had ordered them from a boutique. “You haven’t seen Roma’s advert for Cherry Bomb lip balm?”

“Or the video from her new CD, Don’t Get Up, Get Down ?” said London.

“Or the ads for Jump Jeans?” said Roma.

“No,” said Georgie. “I don’t watch much TV.”

“What do you do?” Roma demanded.

“Well,” Georgie said. “I’ve been reading a lot.”

“Reading!” London said, her sky-blue eyes wide. “Why would you do that?”

Roma admired her French manicure, glancing askance at London. “Have you ever thought, London, that she’s been reading my memoir, Fabulousity ?”

“Oh!” said London. “Right. That’s a different story.”

Georgie didn’t believe that fabulousity was an actual word, but she decided not to say so. Instead, she said another wrong thing. “I’ve been reading From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler .”

“The mixed up what ?” London said.

“That’s a kid’s book!” said Bethany in horror.

Georgie was tempted to point out that, technically, they were still considered kids, at least by adults too dim to know better, so a “kid” reading a kid’s book wasn’t so surprising, but somehow knew that wasn’t the right thing to say. She was also tempted to tell the girls how thrilling it was to pore over all the books she’d missed reading as a child, but then she knew that wasn’t the right thing to say either. Georgie lumbered along, trying to figure out something fabulous and witty to talk about. Mechanical monkeys stole my memory? No, too crazy. My cat Noodle is really unusual, even for a cat. She’s what they call a Riddle, see, and she can put you in a trance if she wants to … no, too childish. Um, there are giant rats with filed teeth living underground that call themselves The Sewer Rats of Satan. They’re obsessed with kittens . No, too bizarre.

“So tell us about Bug Grabowski,” Roma said, stopping to stare at yet another mounted skeleton of something or another. “Is he really Sweetcheeks’s son?”

“Yes.”

“Oooh! A gangster’s boy! How dangerous!” said London.

“Well,” said Georgie. “It was until they threw Sweetcheeks in jail. Now he’s just a regular boy.”

“Not such a regular boy,” said Bethany. “Is he your boyfriend?”

Georgie felt herself flush. “No, he’s not my boyfriend.”

“Did you see that advert he did for Rocket Boards?” Bethany said. “Those muscles!”

Ever since Bug was declared the youngest winner of the citywide Flyfest competition, he’d been spending hours and hours every day working out with his personal trainer. Like Georgie, Bug had also grown some centimetres… wider. His biceps bulged and his stomach now looked as if someone had carved furrows in it. Georgie still hadn’t decided whether she liked it or not, but it was clear that Roma, London and Bethany did.

“He’s got the most interesting face,” Roma said, which, to Georgie, was a polite way of saying that Bug looked a lot like a bug. “If he’s not your boyfriend,” said Roma, “you won’t mind setting me up.”

“Setting you up?” said Georgie. “But…” She trailed off. She wanted to say that she never saw Bug herself, now that he was so famous. And then she wanted to say that Bug was just another reason she knew money couldn’t buy happiness. That the last time she did see him, months ago, things hadn’t gone so well. He couldn’t seem to remember her real name and kept calling her Gurl, and she didn’t know what to say about his father being… well, his father. She asked him if he wanted to go flying and he bragged about a late-night photo shoot he’d been on and how that had made him too tired to do anything. He asked her if she wanted to turn them both invisible and wander around the city, but she told him that her parents didn’t want her to do that any more. They’d sat at the Bloomingtons’ huge dining room table and pushed the chef’s food around their plates in silence.

But Georgie wouldn’t talk about any of this with Roma, London, and Bethany. And even if Georgie wanted to talk to them, they wouldn’t have given her the chance.

“What?” said Roma. “You don’t think I’m good enough for him?”

You’re not , Georgie thought. “No!” Georgie said. “It’s just…”

“It’s just what?” Roma snapped.

“Nothing,” Georgie said. “I meant—”

“Just because you’re rich doesn’t mean that you’re all that, OK?” Roma said, her voice icy. “Anyway, you don’t have that much money.”

A hot flash of annoyance made Georgie blurt, “I’m The Richest Girl in the Universe.”

“Oh!” said Roma, lavender eyes blazing. “Well. You might have more money than most people, but you’ve never actually done anything.”

Georgie, who had rescued her cat from an army of giant rat men, unwillingly stolen for a matron with a plastic surgery obsession, endured a makeover by a magical Personal Assistant named Jules, defeated a cabal of Punks, escaped a narcissistic gangster (twice) who just happened to be a former child model, evaded a zipper-faced pterodactyl, and befriended a genius Professor with grass for hair, said, “I’ve done a lot of things!”

Roma put her hands on her hips. “Have you made your own CD? Written a book? Had your own line of deodorants?”

Georgie, who didn’t think that having your own line of deodorants was anything to boast about, said, “No, but—”

“You can’t even fly!” exclaimed Roma. “You’re a leadfoot! And I know you haven’t trademarked your own slogan. Have you ever heard anyone say: ‘That’s so fab’? Well, I own that.”

“Own what?”

“The words! I made up that phrase all by myself!”

“But anyone can say that!” Georgie protested. Oops. Roma got so red in the face that she resembled a Roma tomato.

“Fine,” she said, glaring at Georgie with her lavender eyes. “I only invited you to walk with us because I was trying to be nice. I won’t bother any more!” She and the three girls sped ahead of Georgie, Roma announcing: “Georgetta Bloomington in is love. With herself . So not fab™.” The three girls flew off as if Georgie was just another dead thing the museum had mounted on a stick.