Here's
another theme: seeing but not believing.
"When you think you already know, you don't see." Do you think this is true? Is it more true of adults than kids, or
vice versa?
Have you
ever seen Bat Boy (his picture, not in person)? He appears regularly in a tabloid called
The Weekly World News, that
used to be on supermarket news racks until just a few years ago. Fortunately (or not), WWN is still in
business, just not in print. If you
check the website a few times, Bat Boy is bound to show up--in fact, he's on the
newspaper logo. You'll also find stories about aliens and mutants and
other strange doings that might make an appearence in this
story.
Chapter
Four:
THE
ORIGINAL
That was
the first time Roy Ray had seen his teacher discombobulated. Though anybody would look
discombobulated if they'd just dropped eight feet from a rafter to a concrete
floor. In fact, most people would
have looked a little . . . injured?
Most people would have writhed and groaned and maybe clutched a
knee. But after the man had hopped
to his feet and twitched his head and shoulders, he looked pretty much like the
same Mr. G who had just barged into Roy Ray's life and taken it over. Except maybe for the
pajamas.
"Roy Ray!" he said. "You . .
. startled me."
"Uh huh." The boy suddenly
noticed that under the old tweed jacket he never seemed to take off, Mr. G's
back was twitching. Or maybe not
his whole back, just the part of it that lumped up between his shoulders. "Are you
okay?"
"Right as rain." The coach
was gathering scraps of his scattered dignity. "Considering that I was snatched from a
sound sleep by a kid who ought to be in bed right now, not traipsing about in
the wee hours on some foolish . . . kid-business." He folded his arms and thrust his head
forward. "Training requires sleep;
lots of sound, restful sleep. You
should be ashamed of yourself. Now
scamper on back to bed and see you don't--"
"You're a bird man, aren't you?" Roy Ray burst out, in a sudden, shocked
whisper.
"What do you-- What are you--"
Mr. G bounced in alarm.
"That's why you didn't hurt yourself when you fell from the
ceiling--because you've got
feather
bones! And why you were up there in
the first place--"
"Not so hasty, young man--"
"And you have a hump on your back where your wings would
be--"
Mr. G made
an effort to stop the twitching and make the hump lie flat. "A lively
imagination."
"And your
feet . . ." He'd just noticed: Mr.
G's toes were scarily long, with nails curving over the end of each pink toe
like claws. Just like his own, only
more so. "Oh my gosh, your
feet--"
"Stuff
it!" The long-toed feet arched
as the man reared up to his full five-foot-two. The warm brown eyes turned black and
pointy and the soft nervous mouth had set like steel. Roy Ray
stuffed.
"It's not I've anything to hide, Roy Ray," Mr. G went on in a calmer
tone. "But revelations have to wait
their time, see? Unless they are
pushed, as you've done in your floundering way."
"Floundering?? I'm
not the one who fell off the rafters.
Do you always sleep on a perch?
Do I have to start sleeping on a perch? And wearing a ratty old jacket all the
time?
Because--"
Mr. G threw up his hands.
"Enough! If words were
bullets, I'd be holey as a sieve.
Go to bed, and--" He
pointed, to forestall another outburst: "Tomorrow I will tell all you need to
know.
Savvy?"
"Uh huh," Roy Ray muttered.
"Again. Is that
understood?"
"Yes sir."
Tomorrow
took its own sweet time coming, and when it did Roy Ray was the one getting his
teacher out of bed: "You promised!"
"Right,"
(big yawn) "but first things first.
Can't yammer all morning on an empty
stomach."
He
proceeded to put away so many pancakes and sausage links Mrs. Rappaport had to
stir up more batter. She was
clearly re-thinking what she'd said about the board part of room and board not
being a problem. To Roy Ray it was
further proof of last night's discovery: Mr. G ate as much as his student
because they were the same species.
Avials! He couldn't wait to
see the wings: what color were they?
How big? And how did Mr. G
manage to fold them up under that jacket?
He'd probably teach Roy Ray to do the same. It would be cool to hide the wings
sometimes, even though he didn't care for the idea of looking like a
hunchback. Suppose some bad guys
had him cornered, and just when they were closing in on him he could whip off
his jacket and spring into the air!
"For
heaven's sake, Roy Ray," his mother said.
"That's your sixth pancake!
Take some time to chew, at least."
"Too right," Mr. G agreed.
"Avial appetite is, er, voracious but digestion is only slightly faster
than a human's. Besides, everyone
should take time to enjoy their food. You're a lucky lad, to have such a superb
cook in the household. Is there any
more of that chokecherry syrup about, Mrs.
Rappaport?"
Finally, after the world's longest breakfast, Mr. G suggested they go for
"a walk in the bush"--meaning out in the countryside. "As an aid to digestion,
hey?"
Since the Rappaport house was at the north end of town, "the bush" was
only a few blocks away. They
followed Highway 7 across the railroad bridge and turned east on a farm road
that followed Rick's Crick--or Creek, as some people insisted on calling
it.
"Excellent flying country hereabouts," the teacher remarked. "Like the Mongolian steppes or upper
Alberta. Level plain for takeoff,
clear landscape, fair skies--chirrupy wind, though. Unpredictable. But that's good for training because . .
."
Roy Ray was trying very hard not to interrupt. But at the first pause he stuck a word
in: "Uh, sir? You, uh,
promised?"
"So I did. First of all,
your suspicion is correct. I was
born, just like you, with, er, incipient wings."
"And your name's not really Godwit, is it?" Roy Ray guessed this sometime during a
sleepless night, and went so far as to look it up in the dictionary: a godwit is
a large shore bird of the genus Limosa.
"Dead right."
"So what kind of wings do you have?
And why do you cover 'em up?
And--"
"Patience,
Roy Ray. Some of those questions
aren't ripe for an answer, but I'll cover a fair bit of ground today. As you know, there have been other
feathered mammals of history.
Pegasus, for example--"
"But that's just a myth!" Roy Ray exclaimed, thinking of his Cousin
Ruthie's "My Storybook Pony," with the silvery-pink wings and the long pink tail
he couldn't resist pulling out.
"Some 'myths' are the, er, luxuriant foliage that grows from a kernel of
deadright truth."
Roy Ray guessed he was being told that certain stories got started
because they had really happened somewhere. "Wow."
"I reckon winged horses are born even today, but because of the demands
of an avial physique they don't last long.
Same for winged dogs, cats, toddlers--who
knows?"
"You mean, when their wings come in, they
croak?"
"I reckon. Just my
theory."
"What about . . . " Roy Ray searched his memory. "Spargo the Wonder Dog? Did he
croak?"
"The exception that proves the rule." Mr. G went on before Roy Ray (who had
always wanted a dog) could ask where Spargo was now, "Avials have probably been
born throughout history, when medical science couldn't keep them. But now . .
."
"You mean--" Roy Ray bounced excitedly-- "That there's more of us in the
world today?"
"Ever hear of Bat Boy?" His
teacher paused, eyebrows raised.
Immediately, an image flashed in Roy Ray's mind. "You mean that bald, fang-jawed kid from
West Virginia is for real?"
"Nah, nah," the teacher said. "You can't believe everything you read in the tabloids." After a brief pause he added, "Gyorgi is from Hungary, not West Virginia."
"You've seen him?"
"I've trained him. Gyorgi Kodolay, a.k.a. 'Bat Boy'. Not a true avial, of course, since he has no feathers, but--"
"Where's he now? What's he
doing?"
"You're
getting ahead of me, Roy Ray" Mr. G said.
"Oh yeah. What happened with
your wings, sir?"
E. PONYMOUS
GODWIT'S STORY
(The Short
and Sour Version)
First of all, his real last name was not Godwit, nor his second Ponymous
(which, by the way, is pronounced PON-i-mus, not PONY-mouse). But his first name did start with an E:
Edward. He was born in Humpty-Down,
Australia and, like Roy Ray, showed no avian leanings until well past babyhood:
three years and four months to be exact.
("I was faster," Roy Ray remarked.)
("A better diet than mine, I reckon," observed his teacher.) His parents managed a sheep station in
the Outback, so when little Ed's wings showed, there wasn't even a family doc to
take him to, much less a university professor.
Once he'd outgrown his down feathers his primaries came in golden brown
with a black band, his secondaries pure white. Quite handsome, but his parents couldn't
decide if Ed was more devil than angel: "Devils and angels began in the same
place, you know."
"They did?" Roy Ray said with a puzzled
frown.
Mr. G sighed. "Kids
today. Shameful neglect of worlds
unseen."
Anyway, little Ed never really knew what his befuddled mum and dad made
of him. It was a different story
with his brothers and sisters.
There were six of them, and every one had decided he was a freak from
hell. One who took up more than his
fair share of space at the table and in the bed. He decided they were jealous--that’s why
they pulled his feathers out and threw things at him and tried to squash his
rounded chest by sitting on it.
Flying was his only escape.
He taught himself, meaning he flopped and flapped and wasted a lot of
energy but still got up there.
Also, being a curious sort, he taught himself avian anatomy by killing
and dissecting birds of all sizes.
Not
surprisingly, word leaked out.
There aren't many people in the Outback, but it only took a few to notice
a little boy in the sky. BIRDBOY
ASTOUNDS PARENTS!! was soon appearing on the front page of tabloids in
supermarkets all over the world. It
wasn't long before strangers started showing up at the station: strangers with
sunglasses and sport coats, driving dusty convertibles and chomping on big
cigars. Strangers who pulled out
fat wads of bills and started counting by tens and fifties.
Ed didn't
know what this meant until his mum packed a suitcase with all his clothes, then
put up a huge lunch with (he remembered clearly) five oatmeal bixies
(meaning cookies) and two whole apples. No kid in his family ever got more than
two biscuits and half an apple at once.
She gave him a hug and wiped her eyes, and he finally understood what was
going on.
"Congratulations, Ned," said his father, with a firm handshake. "You get to see the world, while the
rest of us muck along with the sheep.
The agreement is you'll be home for a week at Christmas, a week for Anzac
Day and the whole month of August.
Also time off for molts.
Good luck, boy."
He'd been sold to Arthur Crockett's Absolutely Amazing Arial Show, with
stunt pilots, parachutists and aerial ballerinas who danced on the wings of
planes. It wasn't a bad life, at
first. Nobody was sitting on Ed's
chest or throwing rocks at him; he had plenty to eat and a bunk to himself and
some of those ballerinas thought he was cute.
Arthur
Crocket had imagined his new attraction adding drama to the aerial dogfights by
emerging from one of the planes and waving a banner to end the fight. Like the Angel of Peace, or
something. But Ed's flying skill
was quite limited at the time, so his part in the show reverted to flapping
around in a circle while the announcer claimed he was the only Bird Boy in
captivity and the crowd ooh'd and ah'd.
"It wasn't a pretty sight, I can tell you that--disgusting style, like an
ostrich." Mr. G shuddered at the
memory.
After the
spangles-and-tights part of the show he moved to a smaller tent where he sat on
a stool in his training sweats and allowed local "experts" to inspect his
wings. He didn't enjoy that, as
there was always some wise guy who tried to pull a souvenir feather. But one of Crockett's men was always
nearby with a sharp eye.
Feather-pullers got tossed, and quick.
The promise about coming home for Christmas and molting season wasn't
always kept, because Arthur Crockett might get an offer to go to Port Moresby or
Jakarta. Off Ed would trek, and not
be home for Christmas or Anzac Day, which bothered him more than he thought it
would. Especially after a whole
year and a half went by without going home, so that the next time he went, it
didn't seem like home. Show people
were his family now, even though few stayed for more than two seasons.
In time, Ed
began to get the idea that Arthur Crockett's show was not top of the line. The trailers, trains, and hotels they
used got seedier and grimmer, the mattresses lumpier, the food greasier (and
less of it). As a swiftly growing
avian lad of thirteen and fourteen, Ed required twice the average carnie's diet,
and seldom got it. "But Mrs.
Arabella Simms made up for a lot," he went on. "She could no longer wing-dance herself,
because of her age, but she coached the girls. She took a motherly interest in me,
taught me the rudiments of breathing and posture."
"Was she an avial, too?"
"No. But she was a superb
dancer. Flying and dancing have
somewhat in common, you'll see. And
then I met someone else, when we were touring the west. We were booked for two nights in Perth,
and on the second night, during the examination phase, I noticed a professor in
the crowd. His type stood out, you
know. Very few academics came to
the Q&A part of the show, because they couldn't be convinced the wings were
real--"
"Yeah," Roy
Ray interrupted, "what's up with that?
I mean, the more somebody thinks they know, the less chance they'll
believe." Professor Lemke, whom he
couldn't remember, was the only university man Roy Ray knew of who thought he
was worth studying.
Mr. G
shrugged. "Just as you say: when
you think you already know, you don't see."
Anyway, on
their second night in Perth, under the hot lights of the exhibition tent, Ed
noticed the flashing lenses of a very academic-looking bloke. This was Dr. Enoch Pettibone, professor
of ornithology at the University.
Dr. Pettibone had done some research into the avian phenomenon and a
brief examination convinced him that Ed was the fair dinkum (meaning, the real
thing).
"My card,"
he said, offering Ed the same. "I'd
very much like to examine you further.
Please give me a call at your earliest convenience."
As it happened, Ed's earliest convenience was the very next week, after a
fight with Arthur Crockett himself.
Both sides were to blame. Ed
had slacked off his performance standards since Mrs. Simms retired, and Crockett
had not sent his pay home to his parents for over a year--Ed had been working
for peanuts, almost literally. So
he ran away and hitched a ride back to Perth with a lorry driver who believed
his tale of escape from a botched government experiment. "Eh, I'm sure I read about it in the
tabbies. That'ud be right. Too bad,
mate."
To cut a long story short, Dr. Pettibone took him in. "And there, with the aid of his vast
ornithological knowledge (and his wife's excellent cooking), I developed my
capacity for flight and for dozens of other skills just as needful. And ate better than any time in my
life."
By this point in the story, they were sitting on a rock above Rick's
Crick in the shade of an aspen grove.
A breeze fluttered the silvery leaves and cast jumpy shadows on their
heads.
"Do you see him any more?" Roy Ray asked. "Dr.
Pettibone?"
"We didn't part on the best of terms," Mr. G said. "Poor show overall, but I owe him a lot,
namely my training." He rose,
shaking out his pants in a persnickety way. "Speaking of that, we should do
some. Time flies, if you'll excuse
the expression."
For a short-legged man, he could move fast. He was up the bank and on the road
before Roy Ray realized a huge chunk had been left out of the story. "Hey!"
He climbed the bank and bounded after his teacher. "Just a minute," he panted. "Sir?"
"Yes?" Mr. G paused, eyebrows mildly raised, as
though Roy Ray were about to ask the time.
"You didn't tell me what happened after-- And all those avials you
trained-- And why you don't use your wings--"
"Ah. That's another
story. Of flying too high and
hitting too hard, you might say. A
story for another time."
"But what about--"
"Another time, I said!"
A sudden hardness gleamed off his teacher's eyes, and the bright sunny sky seemed to shiver. Roy Ray decided not to argue the point.
Here's Chapter Five.
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