The Girl Who Could Fly (19 page)

    Piper nodded and Conrad helped her place the ribbon around her neck. The little wooden bird fell across her chest, resting against her heart, and at once the words came to her lips.
    
“I’m as light as a cloud, as free as a bird. I’m part of the sky and I can fly.”
    Piper’s body tingled and then her whole body ascended into the air. Conrad watched as she flew about the room, and then zipped out through the open window and into the atrium.
    “I can fly!” Piper called up and down the large well. She had had a long absence from flying and wasn’t exactly steady, but she made up for her wobbling with a blinding bliss. The air kissed her skin, her smile took over her face, and she flew faster and faster.
    Conrad paused in his plans, appreciating the miracle and beauty of Piper’s flight. She was turning and twisting through the large atrium and skimming across the sides of the building so that she was reflected in the glass.
    Not taking his eyes off of the spectacle of Piper McCloud flying, he made himself comfortable at Letitia Hellion’s desk and picked up the phone. “Yes, I’d like to speak to Senator Harrington, please.” Conrad sat back and put his feet up on the desk.
     “I’m sorry, but the senator is not taking calls right now. May I take a message?”
    His father had yet another snotty assistant who was once again going to try to give him the runaround. Any other day, they would have been successful. But not today. “Please tell the senator that his son,
Conrad
, is calling. If he can’t make time for me now, he will have the opportunity to see me on the six o’clock news, at which time I know he’ll make the time to hear what I have to say.”
    Less than ten frenzied seconds later, Senator Harrington’s careful voice was on the line. “Hey, sport. Great to hear from you. Uh . . . is Dr. Hellion there?”
    “No, Father, she is not. Nor will Dr. Hellion ever be here again, because I’m now here. And from now on you’ll be dealing with me.”
    Piper zoomed past the experimental laboratory, where she could see Jasper placing his hands on the bent and broken gray giraffe. Moments later a glow brighter than the sun streamed through the windows. Piper laughed out loud as she shielded her eyes from the blinding light.
    The giraffe’s wattage reached every part of the facility, and for the agents already captured it was yet another bizarre happening on this, their strangest day ever. The scientists and support staff followed the children’s demands without resistance and peacefully left their workstations and reported to makeshift detention centers. Only a few agents put up a struggle, and those unlucky fellows were welcomed by Smitty, Kimber, Lily, Boris, Daisy, and Myrtle, itching to hand out a taste of what they’d had to endure over the years.
    Much to Kimber’s displeasure, by late evening there wasn’t a single agent left to wrestle with and her fun was all over. In less than ninety minutes flat, and with remarkable ease, I.N.S.A.N.E. was officially under the control of the kids. Needless to say, their boundless joy was only slightly tempered with chagrin—why had they waited for so long and been so fearful when release had actually been accomplished so effortlessly?
    “Making the decision was a whole lot harder than actually doing it.” Smitty grinned, picking strawberry seeds out of his teeth. The kids were celebrating their victory in the kitchen with a generous snack. Staging a revolt worked up a healthy appetite. It was soon unanimously decided that their first course of action would be to reach the surface and feel the sun upon their faces.
    Nalen and Ahmed immediately volunteered to clear the sky of clouds and they all excitedly boarded the elevator for the journey to the surface.
    “Sure wish Bella was here.” Piper sadly shook her head. “She’d have made a rainbow that stretched from here to kingdom come.”
    The other kids nodded in agreement. There had been many casualties and things that just couldn’t be put right, not even under Jasper’s hands. Many creatures simply didn’t have the strength, after the long weeks and months of torture, to reclaim their abilities. It tempered the triumph of the day with sadness and made the kids appreciate their good fortune all the more.
    
“Level eight,”
the computer voice reported, unperturbed by the goings-on of the day.
    Despite themselves, the kids felt anxious as they rose to the top. What if something unexpected went wrong again?
    
“Level six.”
    “Piper? You think my parents will be happy to see me?” A nervous quiver played with Lily’s voice.
    Piper didn’t want to lie. The truth was that some parents were going to be less than pleased and Lily’s very well might fall into that category. “Will you be happy to see them?”
    Lily thought before answering. “Yes,” she said finally. “Very happy.”
    
“Level five.”
    “I’m going to run and run and never stop.” Myrtle’s face shone with excitement. Her remark seemed to unleash the others.
     “I’m gonna look right up at the man in the moon and wave to him.”
    “I’m going to brew up some thundershowers.”
    “And then some sun.”
    “And then some wind.”
    “I’m going to shrink so small that I’ll ride on that wind like a leaf.”
    Giggles and laughter.
    
“Level three.”
    Piper looked at Conrad and he smiled. She smiled back.
It was worth it. It was all worth it. There isn’t a thing I would change,
Piper thought.
    
“Level two.”
    No one moved.
    
“Level one.”
    Everyone held their breath.
    
“You are now exiting the facility. Have a nice day!”
    “I programmed her to say that.” Conrad shrugged. “It sounds more friendly, don’t you think?”
    
CLICK
. Slowly the doors retracted. The lobby was all steel walls and marble floors, as quiet and still as a church. Trembling, they moved forward to embrace their freedom. At the last and final door leading to their release, though, there was hesitation.
    “You go first, Piper.” Conrad stepped aside and reached for the door to give her first passage. “You deserve it. If it weren’t for you, none of us would be here.”
    “Sure you would. I just told you what you already knew. There wasn’t nothing to that.”
    “There was if we didn’t know we knew it,” Violet assured her.
    “Here goes.” Conrad swung the door open wide.
    Standing before them, barring the way, and to the shock and horror of all, was none other than Letitia Hellion.

CHAPTER TWENTY

L
ETITIA HELLION was not poised and definitely not pretty. Clutching a military-grade stun baton in her scratched and bleeding hands, she swung it violently back and forth. Her hair wildly uncoiled out of rigid pins, her clothes were dirty and ripped from a to-the-death struggle to escape her cell, and she sported an insane look in her rolling eyes that was anything but practiced.
    “You!!!” Dr. Hellion advanced on Piper menacingly, swinging the baton erratically. Piper instinctively flew several feet into the air and dodged back and forth to avoid the electricity of the baton.
    “You will return to your room where you belong. None of you are going anywhere. Get back. Get back.” Letitia aimed at Jasper and sent electrical voltage pumping through him. Jasper fell to the floor, out cold.
    “Ahh,” Lily yelped and jumped back.
    Myrtle took advantage of an opening and easily zipped past Letitia and out through the open doors. Ahmed and Nalen dodged, but Letitia was on a rampage, grabbing and hitting. Kids scattered like frightened mice. Kimber boldly charged forth to battle, but the electricity shooting from her fingers collided with the electricity from the baton and she was short-circuited. In a burst of electrical fireworks Kimber was thrown to the ground, singed and smoking. Conrad took advantage of the commotion to dart out. Daisy was grounded next, like a bull in a slaughterhouse. Piper dodged, but Letitia was supernaturally agile and seized hold of her ankle.
    “You can’t fly. Do you hear me? You are sick and you need help. I WILL HELP YOU.” Letitia dug her feet into the ground to stop Piper from flying away. Piper fought back and propelled her way out of the shack, dragging Letitia’s dead weight behind her.
    “Please, Dr. Hellion, you gotta let me go.” Piper lugged the fighting Dr. Hellion.
    Letitia yanked her down with a vengeance.
    “I will save you, Piper McCloud, if it’s the last thing I do.”
    Piper pulled up. Letitia pulled down. Little by little, Piper towed Letitia Hellion off of the ground. And while the sky was the one place that Piper felt safe, it was also the only place where she would be unable to receive any help from the others, who remained land bound. Chasing after them in vain, Conrad, Myrtle, and Violet were rendered helpless spectators as Piper ascended out of reach.
    “I won’t ever let you go. I won’t stop.
Ever
.” With a failing grasp, Letitia Hellion doggedly held on for all she was worth.
    “Ahhh.” Piper was being pulled apart like taffy. Win or lose, she would be several inches taller by the time this was done. Piper reached six yards above the ground. Then seven. Then eight.
    “Arrrrrrghhhhh.” Letitia Hellion roared beneath her, a demon wrestling her back to the clutches of the dark underworld.
    Letitia’s little finger slipped away from Piper’s ankle and she cursed it. The neighboring finger betrayed her next and she damned it. A moment later she could only count on the allegiance of her index finger and thumb to latch firmly around Piper’s ankle. But then their loyalty was called into question.
    Piper reached ever upward, her eyes only for the sky. Her heart welled with the words.
    
I’m as light as a cloud, as free as a bird.
    
I’m part of the sky and I can fly.
    Nine yards up. They were quickly reaching the breaking point.
     At ten yards the flagging resources of the exhausted index finger and thumb gave out.
    Freed, Piper rocketed upward.
    “NOOOOOOOO!” Letitia raged with the force of every emotion she’d ever repressed. Which, it must be noted, was a ridiculously large amount. Some might say it was even incalculable. Unleashed, the rejected and abandoned feelings chemically combusted in a cellular firestorm. It was so catastrophic that Letitia Hellion’s mind and emotions, long distant strangers, were welded back together. The abrupt reintroduction after such a complete and rigid disassociation was brutal. Like a migraine of the DNA.
    
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!”
Letitia Hellion directed her pain at Piper McCloud.
    Smitty saw it first, as he usually did. “Conrad, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
    Conrad was indeed seeing. All of them were. It was shocking. It was terrible. It could almost not even be explained. And yet, Conrad was somehow not surprised. Everything now made sense.
    “Piper, watch out!” Violet screamed.
    Piper glanced over her shoulder and was so stunned, she did a double take.
I’ll be! That’s near about the prettiest thing I ever saw!
At last Piper had found what she’d always been looking for and her first instinct was to stop dead.
    Dr. Letitia Hellion could fly.
     At that moment Letitia was flying fast and with a burning fervor—it was a sight to behold.
    The look of unadulterated rage splashed across Letitia Hellion’s face woke Piper from her fantasy of an impromptu fliers reunion, and propelled her to beat a hasty getaway.
    “Get back here!” Letitia Hellion stayed on Piper’s tail, getting ever closer.
    “Dr. Hellion, please. Just let me be.” Piper twisted and turned. Their aerial acrobatics took them farther and farther due north, leaving the shack and watching children far behind.
    Letitia Hellion flew like the wind—or a demon, depending upon your perspective. She was agile too. It was obvious to Piper that she wasn’t going to be able to out-fly or outmaneuver her and that her only chance for escape was in the clouds. Unfortunately, flying through misty clouds is a dangerous proposition. With no visibility, a bird or an icy mountain could strike hard without warning. Not to mention the fact that Dr. Hellion would undoubtedly follow Piper into the white soup, where she would lurk, ready to pounce.
    Piper took a sharp left and felt the mist of the cloud closing in around her. She changed her course several times and hovered a good long bit in what she hoped was the center of the cloud. Surrounded by white mist and quiet, Piper felt like she was suspended in a half-sleep state, waiting for a dream, or perhaps a nightmare, to hit her. Thankfully the nightmare was not materializing, and after waiting even longer, Piper tentatively dropped below the cloud, checking for any sign of Dr. Hellion.
    What she discovered was an empty sky hanging over a vast expanse of icy cliffs far below. They had flown so far north that the terrain was both treacherous and beautiful. The sun shone off of the ice, making it sparkle like a million diamonds, and jagged cliffs proudly displayed opened jaws of razor-sharp teeth. The sight took Piper’s breath away and distracted her for a moment from the imminent danger she was in.
    “Don’t move!” A wretched voice breathed in her ear. An iron grasp clamped down on her shoulder.
    Piper braced for the worst as Dr. Hellion spun her so that they were face-to-face. Dr. Hellion’s hair had been completely blown out during her flight and was strangely wild and beautiful.
    Without thinking, Piper said the first thing that came into her mind. “Dr. Hellion, could you teach me to fly like that? I bet you’re the best flier ever. Fastest too.”
    “You didn’t practice enough,” Dr. Hellion snapped. “Your turns are sloppy.”
    “Maybe if you showed me how—”
    “You won’t accomplish anything until you keep your arms tightly in formation and your legs straight. Your left knee keeps bending out.”
    “Will you teach me to fly backward too?”
    “Fly? Teach you to fly?” Suddenly concern knitted Letitia’s brow. “You can’t fly. It’s not possible.”
    “But, Dr. Hellion . . . we’re both flying. See?”
    Jolted, Dr. Hellion looked around, and for the first time noticed that she was hovering several hundred feet in the air. What’s more, she found she liked it up there. A lot.
    “Yes, I can fly,” she realized slowly. “And I’m good at it too.
Damn good
.”
    Piper giggled and suddenly Dr. Hellion did too. The giggling grew.
    “I don’t know why I didn’t remember before,” Dr. Hellion said between her giggles. “It’s fun, isn’t it?”
    “Most fun I ever had,” Piper agreed.
    “When I was a girl, I used to wake up in the middle of the night just so I could fly through the stars.” The memory tickled Letitia. “But that was before Sarah and I . . .” A jumble of memories surfaced all at once—
pop, pop, pop
. “Sarah was my younger sister. She couldn’t fly, but she used to love watching me.” Letitia paused, remembering even more. “It was just so lonely in the sky. Do you know what I mean?”
    Indeed, Piper knew exactly what Letitia meant. You yearn to share the joy of the sky when you are flying, because it’s so awesomely beautiful.
     “My parents told me not to, but Sarah and I didn’t listen. She wanted to see the world from up high as much as I wanted to show it to her, and so we snuck off, the two of us, and did it one day.” Letitia was no longer aware of Piper as her memories ran away with her. “Oh, what a day it was too! Glorious. Sunny, warm. There were only a few clouds in the sky, but it was like a picture postcard. Beautiful. I hadn’t ever carried anyone, and Sarah was heavier than I thought. Much heavier. But we managed it and it was so . . . it was everything we both thought it was going to be. Sarah kept pointing at things and shouting, ‘Look, Lettie, look at that cloud.’ ‘Lettie, go faster, go faster.’ ” Dr. Hellion smiled as though she were flying with Sarah that very moment. “It was like seeing the sky for the first time again too.
    “I guess I had been distracted in all the excitement because we were already over the canyon before I noticed that a strong wind had blown in. And then I saw the clouds, dark clouds—thunderclouds. The storm started like that.” She snapped her fingers sharply and Piper’s eyes grew wide. “The rain was so heavy. And I was so high off the ground. Sarah started to slip and I grabbed her—tightly. She was screaming. She was so scared—we both were. I tried to fly down as fast as I could and I was holding her tightly. Really tightly.”
    Dr. Hellion held up her hand as though Sarah’s hand was still in it. “She was gone in an instant. Gone. She just slipped away.” Dr. Hellion’s hands clenched shut, empty.
    Piper was aghast.
    Letitia Hellion’s chest heaved up and down from the terrible memories. Tears came to her eyes and she looked into Piper’s face helplessly. “I can’t,” she whispered, and for the first time in as long as Letitia Hellion could remember, she showed someone her real face. What Piper saw there was fragile and vulnerable and scared. “Flying is wrong, Piper. I just can’t do it.”
    Instantaneously, Letitia Hellion dropped like a stone and free-fell toward the earth.
    “Dr. Hellion!” Piper swooped downward, grabbing Letitia’s arms and trying to hold her up. “What are you doing? You have to fly.”
    “It’s not possible. Flying is wrong. Abnormal. Humans can’t fly.” Letitia tried to pry Piper’s arms away, fighting her. They descended rapidly.
    “Please, Dr. Hellion. Please. You’re gonna fall. You gotta fly.” Piper was struggling to hold Dr. Hellion’s weight, but she was too heavy and resisted any attempts Piper made.
    “I won’t be like you. I’m not like you. Let go of me. Don’t touch me!” Dr. Hellion madly scratched and hit at Piper as they tumbled to the earth. In a last-ditch effort to hold Dr. Hellion up, Piper grabbed her right hand and pulled with all of her might. Dr. Hellion pulled away with an even greater might.
    They stayed that way, suspended between the heavens and earth for a short while, Dr. Hellion insistently struggling to be released and Piper holding her. First Dr. Hellion’s little finger slipped out of Piper’s grasp—then the finger next to it.
    “Dr. Hellion, please. Stay.”
    “Let go of me, Piper McCloud. I’m not like you. I can’t fly.”
    “But you can. I just saw you.”
    “No. No.” Dr. Hellion violently shook her head and her middle finger released itself from Piper’s hold. “Let me go.”
    “But, Dr. Hellion, I don’t wanna be alone up here. Just hold tight to me. Don’t let go.” Piper struggled to hold Dr. Hellion while she struggled to think of a way to convince her to fly. “Dr. Hellion, please—I need you . . . stay with me. Fly with me.”
    Piper prayed every word, but in the end there’s no saving someone who won’t be saved. When her two remaining fingers slid out of Piper’s hand, Letitia Hellion fell without sound to the icy cliffs below, and Piper turned away, unable to watch.
    Once again, Piper McCloud was alone in a blue sky—defeated and triumphant in equal measure.