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The Wall and the Wing
By Laura Ruby HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2006 Laura Ruby
All right reserved. ISBN: 0060752564
Chapter One
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 onto their forks. People watching was her favorite 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 busboy.
Gurl ran around the restaurant to the alley behind, crouched next to the garbage cans, and waited for the busboy 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 gray 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 busboy hopped out, swinging two garbage bags. Even with the garbage bags, the busboy 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 busboy 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 busboy -- 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 busboy 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 busboy jumped up again, crashing to the ground in front of the mouse. It gave a tiny squeal and ran the other way. The busboy did it again, jumping and crashing, terrifying the little animal, laughing as he did. 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 busboy 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 busboy 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, lasagna, 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 . . .
Continues...
Excerpted from The Wall and the Wing by Laura Ruby Copyright © 2006 by Laura Ruby. Excerpted by permission.
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