Laura Ruby - The Boy Who Could Fly

Fish food , thought Bug. I’m fish food .

But the octopus wasn’t interested in Bug; it cycloned its rubbery limbs over to the table where the Skreecher execs had been enjoying a late lunch. The octopus snatched up big tentaclefuls of lobster rolls and shrimp cocktail and clams casino and shoved them underneath its head, where Bug knew its mouth was hidden, where its able-to-crush-shells-and-bone beak was neatly tucked. Bug glanced around, frantic to find a person, any other person, but this area had been closed off for the shoot and there was no one else to see what he was seeing.

The octopus ate all the food left on the table, right down to the lemon garnishes and the daffodil centrepieces. When it was satisfied, it turned on its coiling, muscular limbs and snaked its way back towards the dock. As it passed Bug, it paused again. The octopus reached out a single tentacle and, like a fond aunt, ruffled Bug’s hair. Then it was moving quickly past Bug, over the wooden dock. It slipped into the waves with the barest of splashes. When Bug could finally bring himself to the edge of the dock to look, the water murmured secretly to itself – as if there had never been anything there at all, and if there had, the sea wasn’t telling.

Chapter 3

“Are all you brats just going to stand there? Aren’t any of you going to see if she’s alive? Oh, never mind. Hello! Are you all right?”

Georgie opened one eye and peeked out through the pile of bones. It wasn’t Ms Storia. A stunningly beautiful girl with olive skin and white wrap on her head stood looking at her. Hewitt Elder, the senior chaperone.

Georgie tried to climb out of the pile. The tibia of the giant wombat rolled off her shoulder and landed on Hewitt’s foot.

“Sorry!” Georgie said.

A muscle in the girl’s cheek twitched, but otherwise she made no other movement. “Are you injured?” she said stiffly.

“Um…” Georgie flexed her arms and legs. “I don’t think so.”

“So nothing’s broken?”

Bethany Tiffany snickered. “Nothing except the entire exhibit,” she said.

Hewitt Elder ignored Bethany. “Next time, watch where you put your feet.” She glanced at Roma Radisson. “There are people in this world who enjoy tripping you up.”

“I’ll remember that,” Georgie said. The beautiful girl turned and walked away, moving so gracefully that she appeared to be flying, but she wasn’t. Georgie wished she could move like that. She wished she were small and graceful and beautiful enough to wear a wrap on her head instead of being huge and pale and clumsy enough to take out a mega marsupial.

Roma put her hands on her hips as she watched the beautiful girl walk away. “Who does she think she is?” But she didn’t say anything directly to Hewitt. Something about Hewitt cowed even Roma Radisson.

Ms Storia, who had been busy apologising to the museum employees because of her destructive student, marched to Georgie’s side. “Girls, the excitement is over now. Let’s get moving.” She hissed in Georgie’s ear, “ Please be more careful next time!”

Georgie said nothing, the shame overwhelming her vocal cords. She waited till the last giggling, snickering, laughing Prince School girl passed her. Then, after ducking behind the nearest skeleton, she vanished.

Literally.

As soon as Georgie was invisible, relief flooded through her body. This way she could visit any exhibit she wanted without having Roma calling her a monkey or a marsupial or whatever else came into her vicious Dunkleosteus brain. And Ms Storia would be so busy being fascinated by all the sights in the Hall of Flight and so busy sharing that fascination with the girls of the Prince School, she’d never notice that Georgie was missing.

As she strolled the near-empty Advanced Mammals gallery, she did feel the merest, slightest twinge of guilt. Her parents had let her attend school on one condition: that she never use her power of invisibility in public. But, she told herself, this was an emergency. Her parents couldn’t expect that she wouldn’t use her power in an emergency . They wouldn’t want her to be humiliated by Roma Radisson, Walking Dunkleosteus . They wanted Georgie to be normal. They wanted Georgie to be happy.

And, looking at a skeleton of a sabre-toothed tiger, she was happy. There was something soothing about literally fading into the woodwork. No one to stare at her ridiculous mop of silver hair. No one to see her trip over her own feet. No one to ask her “How’s the weather up there?” and giggle as if that was the funniest thing anyone ever said. Nobody taking pictures of her when they thought she wasn’t looking because her parents happen to be The Richest Couple in the Universe. No one gaping—

—a little boy was gaping. But he couldn’t possibly be gaping at her, because she was invisible. And there was nothing else close but the sabre-toothed tiger. It’s OK , she thought, he’s just afraid of the tiger .

“Mummy?” said the boy in a quivering voice.

His mother, a largish woman in stretchy green trousers who was examining the skeleton of an ancient horse, said, “What, honey?”

“Mummy, look!” He tugged on her trouser leg. He had large brown eyes that seemed to grow larger by the second.

“What is it?”

“There’s a nose!”

“What did you say?” said his mother.

“There’s a nose floating in the air. Right there!”

“Oh my!” said the woman, clapping her own hand over her mouth in shock.

Oh no! thought Georgie, clapping a hand over her face.

Georgie fled the Advanced Mammals gallery, the woman’s shouts following her all the way down the stairs and through the Hall of North American Birds. She didn’t stop running until she reached the State Mammals gallery. Breathing heavily but trying not to, she lifted her hand and peered at her reflection in the glass of a display. There it was, as clear as the poor, sad stuffed bobcats behind the glass.

Quickly, she focused all her energies: I am the wall and the ground and the air I am the wall and the ground and the air I am the wall and the ground and the air … She looked into the glass again. Her nose was gone, just the way it was supposed to be.

What was that about? she wondered. Then again, she hadn’t disappeared in more than five months. And it’s not like anyone had ever explained invisibility. It’s not like there was anyone who could, except maybe The Professor, and she hadn’t seen him since Flyfest in November. She never understood how it worked, why her clothes disappeared with her, why objects or people she touched did too, but not, say, whole houses when she touched the walls. She’d brought these things up with her parents, but they never wanted to talk about it. They warned her against experimenting with it, as if the power of invisibility was some sort of weird itch one had to try not to scratch, like eczema or chicken pox.

She sighed and poked around the State Mammals Hall, which displayed the state’s most common mammals in dioramas. She studied the porcupines, hares, and shrews but swept right by the bats. (She heard enough about flying without having to see the bats.) She turned the corner to the next hall, where she caught her foot on a metal radiator, which might not have been a problem except that she was wearing open-toed sandals.

“OW!” she shrieked.

A family of four who had been waiting for their turn at the water fountain looked in her direction, then all around the hall. “Did you hear something?” the father said to the mother. “I thought I heard something.”