signed The Answer Hand.
“But…” stammered The Professor.
“Please,” said Sweetcheeks. “I know that you’re a genius. Everyone knows that. I also know that given the proper motivation, you’ll find a way to get the information I need, won’t he, Mr John?”
The big man smiled with his baby teeth and clasped the silver tab of his zipper, drawing downwards ever so slowly.
The Professor had been correct.
Not pleasant. Not pleasant at all.
Chapter 1 The Girl Who Wasn’t There
GURL HAD NO IDEA WHAT made her do it. One minute she was surrounded by a sea of snoring girls, staring at the broken lock on the dirty window. The next minute she was racing through the city like an ostrich on fire.
She ran many blocks before she stopped, shocked at herself. She—Gurl the gutless, Gurl the helpless, Gurl the useless—had escaped from Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless, even if it was only for the night. In front of her, the city snaked out like an amusement park. Gurl drank in as much as she could: the glittering lights of the buildings, the laughter of the people floating by, the bleating horns of the taxis, the scent of car exhaust tinged with tomato sauce.
It was this last that drew her to the section of the city called Little Italy, to Luigi’s Restaurant. She loitered in front of it, catching her breath as she watched the diners inside sip wine and twirl spaghetti on to their forks. People-watching was her favourite thing to do and she was very good at it. It seemed to Gurl that everyone was either a watcher or a doer and the watchers were greatly outnumbered. However, there were benefits to watching. For example, inside Luigi’s a couple drifted from their table, forgetting a package of leftovers, which was then scooped up by the young waiter.
Gurl ran around the restaurant to the alley behind, crouched next to the garbage cans and waited for the waiter to come out with the evening’s trash. Someone kicked a can down a nearby sidewalk and its tinny clang echoed in the alley. “You wanna mess? You wanna mess?” she heard. “Yeah, boyee, let’s mess!” The voices got louder as a bunch of teenagers flew by the alleyway, throwing long shadows on the greasy pavement. Gurl smiled to herself. The noise was a part of the music of the city and she could listen to it all night long if she wanted.
She leaned her head back against the brick and looked up at the sky, plush and grey like a dome of fur, brightened by the lights from the skyscrapers and billboards. An occasional Wing darted high overhead, looping and weaving around the buildings, but it was nothing like daytime. In the daytime people hopped and bounced and flew all over the place, even if they could only get an inch or two off the ground. Just one more reason to enjoy the dark. Only a few showy Wings rather than thousands of them, thrilled with their own stupid tricks.
Airheads, the whole bunch. She was not jealous of them. Not one little bit.
The metal door of the restaurant opened and the young waiter hopped out, swinging two garbage bags. Even with the garbage bags, the waiter was trying to fly. He jumped straight up, but the weight of the bags and his obvious lack of talent ensured that his feet lifted no more than a yard from the ground. Gurl muffled a giggle with the back of her hand as the waiter jumped his way over to the Dumpster, looking very much like a giant, ungainly frog. He opened the Dumpster and tossed the trash bags inside. Then he turned and leaped into the air, this time clearing the top of the Dumpster before landing. Gurl was sure the waiter—only a few years older than Gurl herself—had hopes of being a great Wing, dreams of joining a Wing team or maybe competing in the citywide festival and taking home the Golden Eagle. She wondered when he would realize that his dream was just that, a dream. When he would see that most of his life would be spent scuttling closer to the earth.
The waiter dropped in a crouch, panting. He looked around, to the left and to the right. Gurl stiffened, keeping herself completely still behind the garbage cans that hid her. He squinted, staring at something. A mouse, running alongside the brick. The waiter jumped up again, crashing to the ground in front of the mouse. It gave a tiny squeal and ran the other way. The waiter did it again, jumping and crashing, terrifying the little animal, laughing as he did so. Gurl waited until he sprang up a third time before reaching out from her hiding place, snatching up the mouse and tucking it into her sleeve.
The waiter landed, his grin turning to a frown, wondering where his victim had gone. Then, shrugging, he veered around and went back into the restaurant, slamming the door behind him.
Gurl rested her hand on the pavement. The mouse crawled out from the safety of her sleeve and ran into the darkness. “Bye,” said Gurl, watching as it disappeared through a hole in the brick. She supposed she was lucky that the waiter hadn’t seen her, but then again, she was not the type of girl that people noticed—she was too thin, too pale, too quiet. Sometimes people looked right through her as if she weren’t there at all, their eyes sliding off her as if she were made of something too slippery to see. Nobody, nowhere. When she was little, it made her feel lonely. Now she only felt grateful.
She stretched and walked over to the Dumpster. After throwing open the lid, she dug around until she found what she was looking for: four foil-wrapped packages of leftovers. Ravioli, lasagne, salad and a huge hunk of gooey chocolate cake.
If only the other kids from Hope House for the Homeless and Hopeless were here, watching, maybe they wouldn’t think so little of her. But they, like everyone else, believed flying was their ticket to fame and fortune, and thought Gurl was horribly afflicted, maybe even contagious. Mrs Terwiliger, the matron of Hope House, had taken her to a specialist once. First he thumped at her knees with a rubber mallet to check her reflexes. He had her breathe in and out very quickly, hyperventilating, to see if the added oxygen might lift her off the floor like a soap bubble. Then he strapped her into a white quilted jacket with huge feather wings and had her run around the office flapping her arms. Finally, he said: “Not everyone can, you know, and most don’t do it well. In any case, it’s nothing to be ashamed of.” As a consolation, he gave Gurl a red and white beanie with a propeller on the top. Mrs Terwiliger told the other kids that people had different talents and they should celebrate them all. “Leadfoot!” the kids yelled as soon as Mrs Terwiliger left the room. “Freak!”
Gurl smiled bitterly to herself. If they were such big deals, why hadn’t they noticed the broken lock? Why hadn’t they thought to sneak out of Hope House at night? Why weren’t they having dinner at Luigi’s? No, this was hers and hers alone. “No man is an island,” Mrs Terwiliger had told her. “One must learn to get along.” But this sparkling city was an island and it got along fine, didn’t it?
Just as she plucked up a pocket of ravioli with her fingers, she heard a sound, one she had heard only on TV.
“Meow.”
She turned, sure that someone was playing a trick on her. But it was no trick. A cat, as plush and grey as the sky above, padded down the alleyway and sat a few feet from her.
Gurl dropped her ravioli, gaping. She’d seen pictures of cats in books and magazines, of course, but Gurl couldn’t imagine where this one came from. Perhaps it was lost? But how could it be? Nobody let a cat outside; they could get hurt or sick or worse. Plus, there was the matter of people’s regular pets: birds. If people saw a cat, especially without a leash, they’d call the police. What if it attacked an old lady’s budgie or a businessman’s parrot?
The cat regarded her with queer green eyes that glowed in the dark of the alley.
