The Girl Who Could Fly (9 page)

CHAPTER NINE
 

L
ILY’S TELEKINETIC,” Violet whispered softly. Piper was seated next to Violet in the art room, where the class, after all the excitement of the afternoon, was finally quietly occupied with basket weaving. Violet’s voice was so soft that Piper didn’t realize that she was being spoken to.
    “Telekinesis means you can move stuff with your mind. Lily does that thing with the water glass to kids all the time.” Violet never took her eyes from her task.
    “You talking to me?” With the exception of Bella, the only thing Piper had gotten from the kids up to this point was a hard time.
    “Shhhhh.” Violet looked away nervously. It was rare that anyone actually caught a glimpse of Violet’s eyes, which were filled with a saintly compassion so deep that she was liable to shrink or grow in response to the emotional states of the people around her. Her ever-changing size caused her no end of embarrassment, and in a futile attempt to mitigate her situation, she averted her gaze at all times, hid behind her dark complexion, and spoke with a voice softer than a gentle breeze.
    “I’m Violet. Keep your eyes down and don’t look at me.” Piper did as Violet asked, and after a moment Violet started talking again in the same soft way. “That kid in front of you is Smitty. He’s got X-ray eyes and he can see through anything, even steel. If he looks at your dress too long, he’s checking out your underwear and you should belt him. And hard too. The big girl over there is Daisy. She’s the strongest person alive. Shake her hand and she’d break all your fingers and all the bones in your arm too without meaning to. Don’t worry, though, not all of us do big, scary things like them. See that kid over there? The small thing?” Violet nodded her head in the direction of Jasper.
    “The little fella?”
    “Voice down. Don’t attract attention,” Violet warned. Piper put her eyes back on her basket and listened more closely. “That’s Jasper. He’s the youngest. No one knows what he can do. Story goes that when he came here, Nurse Tolle yelled at him so bad, he forgot.”
    Piper looked at Jasper in amazement. She’d sure love to solve that mystery. “What about him?” Piper nodded at Conrad.
     “Shhhhhhh.” Violet’s fingers accidentally snapped the twig she was twisting into place on her basket and Piper couldn’t help but marvel at the fact that she also shrank several inches. “That’s Conrad. Don’t look at him and don’t talk to him. He’s trouble. Big trouble. Just stay as far away from him as you can. Conrad runs this place. Always has. He’s a genius, but more than a genius. They say he’s fifteen times smarter than Einstein. He’s so smart they’re all afraid of him, even Nurse Tolle. Conrad’s mean and he does bad things. Terrible things.”
    “What sorta terrible things?” Piper’s mouth hung open and she looked from Violet to Conrad.
    “Things that will hurt you.” Violet met Piper’s eyes for the first time and Piper saw fear in her face.
    “Was it him who did something to Bella?”
    Violet shrugged and shrank several inches more.
    “You reckon Bella’ll be alright?” Piper persisted.
    “You don’t even know what you don’t know yet and I can tell that you’re the sort of girl who’ll go and get herself into trouble. Get herself hurt. Like Bella.” Violet shook her head sadly. “We have rules down here and if you don’t know them or follow them, you’ll pay the price. Rule number one: Don’t mess with Conrad and if you value your health, you’ll learn it fast.”
    “But Bella—”
     “Listen to me, you’ve gotta get Bella out of your head. There’s nothing we can do for her now.”
    Piper wanted to argue with Violet, but Violet turned to her basket again and didn’t say another word.
    “Professor Mumbleby.” Conrad raised his hand politely. “The glue is all gone.” He held up the glue container and turned it over to demonstrate its emptiness.
    “Yeah, we’re—”
    “—out too,” chimed in the Mustafa twins.
    Professor Mumbleby sighed. The art room was on the third tier of the thirteenth level facing the atrium and the supply closet was on the first tier, about as far away as it could possibly be. He’d specifically arranged for double the necessary supplies to prevent just such a predicament.
    “I see.” Professor Mumbleby irritably got to his feet. “You vill all behave until my return.” He fixed a few of the students with a pointed look.
    Conrad shifted the twenty stolen glue bottles that he’d hoarded in his desk and waited long enough for Professor Mumbleby’s footsteps to quiet in the hall.
    Haughtily rising to his feet, Conrad assumed command of the classroom. “Jasper, what do you have there?” He sauntered through the rows, stopping at Jasper’s desk, where the already tiny boy vainly attempted to make himself even smaller.
     “This doesn’t look like a basket to me.” Conrad snatched up Jasper’s half-finished basket and swung it back and forth at eye level in front of Jasper. “Are you trying to pass this piece of rubbish off as art? You think we’re stupid? You think
I’m
stupid?”
    Strangled whimpers started to emerge from Jasper’s throat. By this point, Nalen and Ahmed were flanking Conrad. They enjoyed a good fight and loved it when Conrad stirred up a bit of trouble.
    “Say what, Jasper? What did you say?” Conrad leaned in closer to Jasper as though he could hear Jasper saying something. “You think I’m wrong? You think your basket is good?”
    Piper’s agony at being forced to witness the spectacle of a small child being picked on by someone twice his size quickly morphed into a furious rage. Fidgeting in her seat on the verge of exploding, Piper’s forearm was abruptly seized by the steadying hand of Violet. “Don’t do anything, Piper. Sit down. Don’t look at them.”
    “But he’s bullying! That ain’t right!”
    “It’s not your business. You can’t do anything about it anyway.”
    Conrad started bashing Jasper’s basket violently against his desk, and Jasper burst into sobs. A second later Piper could stomach it no longer and jerked her arm out of Violet’s hold; she leapt to her feet.
     “Hey, Conrad, you let him be,” Piper yelled. “Din’t anyone ever tell you it ain’t right to bully? Why don’t you pick on someone your own size!”
    Violet sighed in the way you do when you know something bad is going to happen, but hope against hope that it won’t, but it does anyway and you realize that you always knew it would and were stupid for having made yourself believe that you could stop it.
    Piper came to the other side of Jasper’s desk and confronted Conrad head-on, her eyes blazing. “Get back his basket to him.”
    Conrad smiled, like a cat that just swallowed a canary. “I’m sorry, what did you say?
Get back his basket?
Are you speaking English or is that some primitive grunting language? Unga bunga. Maybe if you could actually communicate like a human being and not a hayseed, I’d return the basket.”
    Piper shook with rage. “You know what I mean. It ain’t yours. And you’re bigger than him besides. Now give it back.”
    “You’re confused, new girl. It’s clear you need guidance on exactly how things work around here.”
    Nalen and Ahmed sneered and nodded their heads. The rest of the class waited with bated breath.
    “Don’t need no one telling me the difference between what’s right and wrong. Especially the likes of you. And I know a bully when I see one. And that basket you’re holding doesn’t belong to you. Now get it back.” Piper seethed. “NOW!” she yelled.
    Conrad smirked. “Shucks, seeing as you puts it that way, I’m guessin’ I’d best do as you says.” Conrad held the basket out at arm’s length in front of Jasper. “Well, what are you waiting for, Jasper? Here it is. Take it.”
    Jasper looked to Piper for guidance and she nodded for him to take it. Terrified out of his mind, Jasper reached out one thin, shaking arm. All watched the slow journey of his lone hand until it finally arrived at the basket and tentatively moved to grasp the handle. At that very second, right before his fingers could touch the wood, Conrad suddenly snapped the basket back, flung it around, and tossed it across the room.
    Professor Mumbleby had opened one of the windows, but the basket avoided falling to the atrium floor by a mere three inches, and instead got caught on the rail above the window, which hung some thirteen feet above the classroom floor.
    “You stinking piece of cow poo!”
    “Be that as it may, there it is, Piper. If you’d like Jasper to have his basket back, I invite you to retrieve it at your earliest convenience.” Conrad nodded to the basket on the rail, challengingly. “Allow me to rephrase that so you can understand—
go fetch, girl. G’on now. Fetch. Yeee-hawwww.
”
     Piper was fit to be tied. “Don’t think I won’t!”
    “Don’t think? What I think is that you are a stupid hick who doesn’t know a basket from a brick. And if there’s any thinking to be done around here, I’ll be the one doing it.” Conrad moved around the desk and came face-to-face with Piper.
    “Your fancy words don’t fool no one. All that thinking that goes on in your head don’t make you smart. Or didn’t anyone tell you that yet?” Piper stepped around Conrad and marched across the classroom to the window.
    Instantly the class abandoned their seats and crowded around Piper as she climbed atop a desk located directly beneath the basket. Reaching to her full height, she was still well below her goal of reaching Jasper’s basket.
    Ahmed and Nalen snickered knowingly.
    Undaunted, Piper stacked a chair atop the desk and climbed both the desk and then the chair, carefully rising to her full height, only to discover that once again, the basket was still out of reach.
    The kids murmured in anticipation as they watched Piper stack a second chair atop the desk and, with precarious movements, climb all three. Several times Piper lost her balance and Conrad, with gleeful anticipation, expected her to fall, while the other children gasped in horror.
    Smitty leaned over to Kimber, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “Four bucks says her tailbone gets an introduction to the floor.”
    “Make it ten.”
    “You’re on, Sparky.”
    At her full height, above two chairs and one desk, Piper reached and her fingers fluttered a mere two inches beneath the basket. Her feet were stretched upward and she balanced on the very tips of her toes, but could go no farther. The chairs swayed dangerously.
    “Careful, Piper,” Violet urged. Lily watched through her fingers.
    Piper knew that Conrad was already smugly anticipating her empty-handed descent.
Thinks he’s so smart. But he doesn’t know everything and I’ll be darned if he gets the best of me.
She was going to do whatever it took to get Jasper’s basket back to him and show Conrad a thing or two. Piper closed her eyes and silently said the words.
    Because the rest of the class was closely gathered at the foot of the desk Piper was standing on, they weren’t able to see what was happening above them. It was Conrad, haughtily leaning off to the side, who saw everything. Like everyone else who saw it for the first time, it took his breath away.
    Piper flew. Not much. Just those two inches and then she grabbed the basket and got her feet right back onto the chair.
     Conrad was shocked and surprised. Novel emotions for a genius for whom the unexpected was often anticipated with unerring accuracy. His facial muscles registered nothing of the electromagnetic firestorm of cognitive excitement that was instantly sparked inside his brain. In short order (meaning in less than two to three seconds, tops) Conrad processed Piper’s capacity to fly, generated and then reviewed all options, selected a course of action, and then calculated its success to a two percent plus or minus degree. Thus accomplished, Conrad confidently set forth.
    Piper turned triumphantly to the class, holding the basket like a trophy above her head.
    “She did it!” Kimber shouted, excited to have won the bet with Smitty. Except for Nalen and Ahmed, the others gave out various cheers and excited gasps. Especially Violet.
    Piper gently dropped the basket into Jasper’s grateful little hands and he smiled nervously up at her and blushed in appreciation.
    “Looks like you owe someone an apology.” Piper grinned, noticing that Conrad’s face kept a stony calm as the kids turned to him. He’d been the undisputed class leader for so long, it was both sacrilegious and exhilarating to have him challenged.
    “You mean, apologize? To Jasper?” Conrad strutted forward and the children parted to allow him a path to the desk. “Perhaps you’re right. An apology is in order. But not to Jasper, to you.”
    “Me?”
    “Yes, you.” Conrad reached the desk. “For the record, I’m very sorry. Perhaps one day you’ll know exactly how much.” With that, Conrad reached forward and gently touched the edge of the bottom chair upon which Piper was delicately balanced. It was the exact amount of pressure placed at precisely the point required, as Conrad well knew, to send Piper toppling in only one direction.
    “Whoa.” Piper flailed, her arms swinging.
    “Watch out,” Violet squeaked.
    Piper swayed first left, then right, then left again, and to the surprise of all gathered, except Conrad, at last fell backward, arms swinging like a windmill, out the open window directly behind her. A second later she was gone.
    Silence.
    Not a child moved, so shocked were they by the outcome of events. The classroom was three floors above the atrium floor—a fall that would have killed any one of them. Kimber’s face went bright red. Violet’s face went white and she forgot herself and all the rules completely and turned on Conrad furiously. “You killed her. You
killed
her!”
    Conrad sauntered away unperturbed. “You think?”
     Still none of the other kids moved and absolutely no one went to the window to look out, for fear of what terrible sight might be waiting for them on the hard stone of the atrium floor below.
    Jasper, being the youngest and most fragile, began to cry.
    “She’s dead,” Lily whimpered. And they all believed it to be true, except one.
    Then suddenly, Piper shot upward, soaring through the air. “Ha. I told ya, you ain’t none too smart, Conrad, or else you’d know well and good that you can’t keep a good girl down.”
    Conrad snorted and rolled his eyes. Everyone else was rendered mute with astonishment.
    “She can fly.” Violet almost fainted with relief. “She’s alright because she can fly.”
    “Man, would ya look at her fly.” Smitty clapped his hands together.