Читать книгу The Night Flyer's Handbook 2-Book Bundle - Philippa Dowding - Страница 22

My body just flies me as high and far as it can, as fast as it can. It’s like when you let the air out of a balloon, and it just flies all over the place with no particular plan. For a moment I’m so high up I can see our whole town, and the melting place between the edge of town and the dark empty fields ready for sowing corn, all below me. Way off in the distance I see a bright glow on the horizon. It’s the city, a place I’ve never been.

My body stops long enough for me to notice how huge the world is, how dark and how much is waiting for me, too.

It’s powerful but terrifying.

The second thing my body does is take me over to the trees, where I whiz and spin and fly through them. Somehow I don’t hit any branches or leaves, but they are touching my feet, my hands, as I whiz by. I can smell the trees, the smell they make in the night. It’s like secrets, and green.

I’m whirring all over those trees. I see stars, then sky, then the moon, then stars again. I’m flashing all over the place, like a butterfly or a hummingbird.

Or a bat.

Then my body takes me low, really low, so I buzz over the grass and I can smell dirt and lawn and flowers. I buzz over the neighbours’ flowerbeds and make their bushes and tall yellow flowers swirl and dance with the air I stir as I blow by.

Before I know it, I whiz three lawns over and I get the fright of my life: a giant snarling dog leaps out of his dog house and up into my face. I almost get my face bitten off. Flecks of dog spit actually hit me in the mouth. I know this killer dog lives in this yard, but in the excitement of the moment, I just forgot about him. He misses me but leaps up again and again, snapping at my heels as I try to escape. My heart is pounding. For a terrible second I feel myself slowly sinking, as I stare down at my toes getting closer and closer to that stupid, snarling, snapping dog.

This is not the moment to stop flying, body! Move IT! I shriek to myself. I can feel his heat and his rage, and it scares me. That scare gets my heart pumping, and my legs start kicking and my arms start flailing, and I zoom over his head. Luckily no one in the house wakes up, and I escape.

I fly away as fast as I can without any real direction in mind. That was just too close. That dog is known to kill things, cats and rabbits, mostly. Cassie refuses to go anywhere near the house whenever I take her for a walk.

How could I be so forgetful? I feel like dumb luck just helped me escape a great harm. I have to pay more attention here.

I fly to my roof, hovering near the chimney, when suddenly I feel dizzy and sick.

I hang on to the chimney, because I think I’m going to throw up, for real. Stupid dog. I suddenly want down. I hang on to the chimney for all I’m worth. I peek between my toes to the grass below me: I’m a long way up and I’m sweaty and panicky, and I can’t fly and my body feels like a lead weight. I think I’m just about to die ...

… when suddenly a voice right beside my head says, “Hi, Gwennie Golden. How do you like floating now?”

But this time it isn’t Mr. McGillies. Oh, no. This time it’s the warm, beautiful voice of Mrs. Forest.

I must be hallucinating.

I turn my sweaty head toward the warm voice, but I’m too scared and sick to say anything and my eyes are closed tight so I can’t see anything either. I’m just covered in sweat now, and shaky. My arms are about to give out and I’m going to fall … when Mrs. Forest puts her big arms around me and says, “Okay now, Gwennie, how about you just carefully let go of that chimney, and we get you safely onto the roof?”

The warmth of her body, her closeness, even the faint smell of sweet candy on her skin is awfully real for a hallucination. I turn my head into her shoulder and mumble, “M … mmm … Mrs. Forest, is that you?” just like a little kid. I unsqueeze my eyes just a little, and there she is in all her big glory. I let go of the chimney, and she lays me on the roof so gently that in my state I think for a moment that she’s an angel.

My dark angel.

“Mrs. Forest?” I pant, lying there and staring at the starlit sky. I feel so sick. My head is swirling around and I’m all sweaty. My pyjamas cling to me, even though it isn’t a boiling hot night or anything. I start shivering and shuddering.

“Yes, honey?” she says calmly. She’s digging in a backpack she must have brought along and pulls out a warm blanket, which she puts over me. I’m instantly happier. Then I hear her rummaging some more in her backpack, and I smell chamomile tea. She pours hot tea from a flask into the little plastic lid and helps me sit up to take a sip.

“Mrs. Forest, is that really y-y-you?” My teeth are chattering. This surprises me: they really do chatter, like people say.

“Yes, Gwennie, it’s me,” she answers, sitting on the roof beside me. She groans softly as she lowers her big body to the roof. Her warmth moves from her and along to me, just a little.

She seems pretty convincingly real.

“How did you get here?” I ask. After the sip of tea, I feel a little less sick and look around. We’re a long way up, on the top of my house, looking out over the whole neighbourhood. The sky is slightly pink in the east. The sun is coming.

“Mr. McGillies came to get me,” she answers matter-of-factly.

“Mr. McGillies?” I’m confused then remember that I was talking to him earlier. “Well, I mean, how did you get up here, on my roof?”

Then she says something very softly. “Look around, Gwennie. Do you see a ladder or anything? It’s five o’clock in the morning. We’re sitting on your roof. How did you get up here? How do you think I got up here?”

I swallow my tea and pull the blanket over my shoulders. I decide not to speak, because whatever I say will sound crazy and I’m tired of it. I’m still half convinced this is a dream. Maybe I’m coming down with something.

“I’m not going to tell you how I got up here, because it’ll sound crazy, but I think you know how you got up here, Mrs. Forest. Okay, no ladder then. But how are we going to get down?”

“Like I said, the same way we got up here.”

She looks straight through me with her dark, dark eyes. She isn’t smiling.

Very quietly she says, “We fly.”