The Boy Who Could Fly. Laura Ruby

screeched the Skreecher execs. But it was too late. Bug looked, the photographers snapped, and the execs freaked.

      But Juju managed to work his juju. He convinced the Skreecher execs that Bug’s bad boy persona would only bring more street cred to the Skreecher brand.

      “What do you mean, bad boy persona?” said Bug. “I don’t have a bad boy persona. I don’t even know what a persona is!”

      “Sure you do,” said Juju, giving Bug a wink.

      Mr Ice Eyes nodded. “I see what you mean. Skreechers are hip. They’re tough. They’re gritty. They’re mad hot.”

      Mad hot? Bug wondered if the guy had eaten some bad clams.

      Juju and the Skreecher execs were so excited about their trainers’ new street cred that they forgot all about Bug. He was left to dry alone on the dock like a fish at a seafood market. Even the paparazzi had got bored and moved off in search of other famous people doing humiliating things.

      No one else had seen a tentacle; no one believed that there was a tentacle. After all that shrieking and lecturing, Bug was beginning to wonder if he hadn’t got his foot tangled in some rope and fallen into the water. It was possible. The photo shoot had gone on for hours; he was exhausted and distracted; he’d been holding his arms over his head for so long that perhaps not enough blood was going to his brain. Maybe he had got confused.

      He should have taken the Bloomingtons’ offer, he realised. Right after Flyfest, they’d asked him to move in with them for a while, just till he got on his feet. But he’d said no. He’d said he wanted to do things on his own. He’d just got Juju appointed his agent and legal guardian, and he said he’d be fine.

      Sure. Right. Fine. He was so fine he was conjuring up imaginary tentacles and flinging himself off docks. He could hear his father laughing now. You’re less than nothing, Sylvester. You’re just less, how about that?

      Bug sat up. The water lapped gently, laughing at him. Nope. No razor-lipped monsters lurking there.

      Geez, what a spaz he was. He made a fist and punched the dock.

       Wham!

      A strange sucking noise and a briny sort of smell made him glance towards the water.

      A tentacle was patting the dock. Patting the dock as if it were looking for something.

      Looking for him?

      Bug scrambled backwards on all fours as another tentacle flopped on to the dock, then another, and another. As Bug watched in horror, two huge, dark eyes peeked over the surface of the dock. Then the tentacles curled themselves around the wooden columns all around the dock, and the biggest octopus Bug had ever seen – the biggest octopus Bug had ever imagined – hauled itself out of the water. Its skin was a mottled bluish-grey, with a craggy, rocklike texture that was all bumps and gnarls and knobs. So terrified that he forgot he could walk, run or fly, Bug scrabbled off the dock as fast as he could, not able to tear his eyes from the approaching monster. The octopus’s arms were at least six metres long and lined with rows of suckers the colour of teeth, while its weird, balloon-like mantle hung limply behind its eyes like an empty hood. The octopus used its insanely long tentacles to shimmy and curl and twirl itself across the surface of the dock to the street beyond. It paused as it passed Bug, blinking its large, unfathomable eyes.

      Fish food, thought Bug. I’m fish food.

      But the octopus wasn’t interested in Bug; it cycloned its rubbery limbs over to the table where the Skreecher execs had been enjoying a late lunch. The octopus snatched up big tentaclefuls of lobster rolls and shrimp cocktail and clams casino and shoved them underneath its head, where Bug knew its mouth was hidden, where its able-to-crush-shells-and-bone beak was neatly tucked. Bug glanced around, frantic to find a person, any other person, but this area had been closed off for the shoot and there was no one else to see what he was seeing.

      The octopus ate all the food left on the table, right down to the lemon garnishes and the daffodil centrepieces. When it was satisfied, it turned on its coiling, muscular limbs and snaked its way back towards the dock. As it passed Bug, it paused again. The octopus reached out a single tentacle and, like a fond aunt, ruffled Bug’s hair. Then it was moving quickly past Bug, over the wooden dock. It slipped into the waves with the barest of splashes. When Bug could finally bring himself to the edge of the dock to look, the water murmured secretly to itself – as if there had never been anything there at all, and if there had, the sea wasn’t telling.

       Chapter 3

      Pinkwater’s Momentary Lapse of Concentration

      “Are all you brats just going to stand there? Aren’t any of you going to see if she’s alive? Oh, never mind. Hello! Are you all right?”

      Georgie opened one eye and peeked out through the pile of bones. It wasn’t Ms Storia. A stunningly beautiful girl with olive skin and white wrap on her head stood looking at her. Hewitt Elder, the senior chaperone.

      Georgie tried to climb out of the pile. The tibia of the giant wombat rolled off her shoulder and landed on Hewitt’s foot.

      “Sorry!” Georgie said.

      A muscle in the girl’s cheek twitched, but otherwise she made no other movement. “Are you injured?” she said stiffly.

      “Um…” Georgie flexed her arms and legs. “I don’t think so.”

      “So nothing’s broken?”

      Bethany Tiffany snickered. “Nothing except the entire exhibit,” she said.

      Hewitt Elder ignored Bethany. “Next time, watch where you put your feet.” She glanced at Roma Radisson. “There are people in this world who enjoy tripping you up.”

      “I’ll remember that,” Georgie said. The beautiful girl turned and walked away, moving so gracefully that she appeared to be flying, but she wasn’t. Georgie wished she could move like that. She wished she were small and graceful and beautiful enough to wear a wrap on her head instead of being huge and pale and clumsy enough to take out a mega marsupial.

      Roma put her hands on her hips as she watched the beautiful girl walk away. “Who does she think she is?” But she didn’t say anything directly to Hewitt. Something about Hewitt cowed even Roma Radisson.

      Ms Storia, who had been busy apologising to the museum employees because of her destructive student, marched to Georgie’s side. “Girls, the excitement is over now. Let’s get moving.” She hissed in Georgie’s ear, “Please be more careful next time!”

      Georgie said nothing, the shame overwhelming her vocal cords. She waited till the last giggling, snickering, laughing Prince School girl passed her. Then, after ducking behind the nearest skeleton, she vanished.

      Literally.

      As soon as Georgie was invisible, relief flooded through her body. This way she could visit any exhibit she wanted without having Roma calling her a monkey or a marsupial or whatever else came into her vicious Dunkleosteus brain. And Ms Storia would be so busy being fascinated by all the sights in the Hall of Flight and so busy sharing that fascination with the girls of the Prince School, she’d never notice that Georgie was missing.

      As she strolled the near-empty Advanced Mammals gallery, she did feel the merest, slightest twinge of guilt. Her parents had let her attend school on one condition: that she never use her power of invisibility in public. But, she told herself, this was an emergency. Her parents couldn’t expect that she wouldn’t use her power in an emergency. They wouldn’t want her to be humiliated by Roma Radisson, Walking Dunkleosteus. They wanted Georgie