The Boy Who Could Fly Without a Motor (2 page)

The visitor was as fat as Jon's father was skinny. His face was as round as a pumpkin and as unusual as this unusual day. His skin was orange brown and looked as though a glistening layer of grease had been spread all over it. He appeared to be very old, yet he had no wrinkles. Over his button nose, the visitor stared out toward Three Fathom Shoal. Was he a friend of Eunice Jones?

Jon considered running up the path to summon his father, who was painting high on the lighthouse's outer steps. His mother was probably still inside. Jon was certain they'd both like to meet this man. Or would they? Yet Jon thought he might be seeing something that wasn't there at all. Wasn't there at all. Maybe he was dreaming in his four-poster while still wide awake? Or maybe he was just going crazy, like Eunice had predicted.

Jon was startled but somehow not frightened. Perhaps the visitor had indeed cast a spell over the entire cove. The seals had shut up and so had Smacks. The gulls had vanished. And where was the man's boat? He wasn't wet, so he couldn't have swum in. Jon thought again of Eunice and the Ghosts of Clementine. But this old man looked nothing like the ghosts she had described as clad in spiderwebs, with white gelatin eyes and clammy hands.

Not wanting to say the first word but wanting to attract attention, Jon picked up a small piece of driftwood and threw it into the water. The stranger quickly turned his head.

"Good morning," the man said pleasantly, in English. He spoke with a soft accent that Jon had never heard on the mainland or over the radio. It was clearly a foreign voice.

"I live up there," said Jon, pointing back over his own shoulder. Why wasn't he frightened?

"I know."

"How could you know?" It was a sensible question for Jon to ask.

"I saw you come down the path."

"But you weren't even here."

"Yes, I was," the man said, matter-of-factly.

"Are you dead? Are you a ghost?"

"Yes, I'm long dead, but I refuse to be a silly ghost. I died when the Clementine crashed into this foul chunk of what was once a volcano. I'd been sent by the Manchu dynasty to entertain my fellow countrymen in that idiotic San Francisco. Don't ask me more stupid questions, Jon."

"How do you know my name?"

The man laughed a lemon laugh, slightly sour. "I've been getting your foolish vibrations for months."

"My 'vibrations'?" The telepathy had worked!

"Your thoughts and your dreams, dear boy. You've pestered me night after night as I've voyaged around, not knowing you'd picked me as your target. I kept receiving
body flying, body flying,
over and over and over. I've found it quite difficult to concentrate on more important things. And now that I've met you, I see you're most insignificant, not worthy of concentration." Jon didn't know what to say. He kept looking into the man's eyes. They seemed endless. Two green tunnels that went on forever.
How did he get here? Where did he come from?

"By the way," the visitor announced, "I'm the Great Ling Wu, magician and member of the Celestial Court, and I've come here to get you to leave me alone."

"
I DON'T KNOW WHAT THE CELESTIAL
Courtis," said Jon JefFers.

"Heathen! If you had a thimbleful of brains, you'd know I am heavenly royalty, entertainer of emperors, a son of Buddha."

Jon also did not know what
heathen
meant, much less those other things.

Reading his mind, Ling Wu sighed and said, "A heathen is an unworthy one, a useless one; one who is not born in the light of Buddha.
That is you
"

Jon swallowed and thought again about running up the path for his father, to prove he wasn't dreaming. And to prove he wasn't insane.

But his feet seemed firmly glued into the sand. He couldn't even wiggle his toes. To change the subject from how useless he was, Jon said, "I've never seen clothes like yours."

"Is there something wrong with my clothes?" Ling Wu snorted.

"I've just never seen a man in a red gown. Or velvet pants."

"Should I appear in beggars' rags?" Ling Wu stormed.

"If you live with the other ghosts, why aren't your clothes wet?" That was a legitimate question, Jon thought.

"You are an impudent boy and don't deserve answers of any kind," said Ling Wu.

Not knowing what to say or how to please this ghost who wasn't a ghost, Jon apologized.

"Do you know what I can do?" asked the Great Ling "Wu.

"No, sir."

The roly-poly man extended sausage-like fingers that were studded with rings in which huge, spinning red stones were set.

Before Jon could blink, a white dove appeared on one of the fingers and then fluttered off into the air. Suddenly, a black rabbit hung by its ears from Ling Wu's left hand. When Ling Wu released it, it bounded up the path, finally vanishing just like the dove, and Ling Wu flicked a speck of dust from the rich red cloth of his gown as though he'd done nothing at all.

Jon felt like saying "They weren't real" but didn't dare. Ling Wu might make him vanish, too.

"I am the greatest magician ever, but much more than that, much more," intoned Ling Wu, without the slightest modesty. "No one dead a thousand years, and twice again, or living ten thousand years from now, will ever astound and amaze as I have astounded and amazed."

The green eyes glittered and the parchment skin glistened.

"Show me another trick, please," Jon said.

"
'Trick?'
"roared Ling Wu. "Trick?"

Jon knew he'd said the wrong word. "I've performed my art for emperors and empresses in imperial palaces and the great halls and fairs of Peking. Trick indeed, ant brain!"

Jon nodded, feeling smaller and more insignificant than any ant on earth.

Ling Wu's eyes narrowed, his smooth skin drawing tight around them. "Watch closely."

Before Jon's eyes, across the incoming tide, the Great Ling Wu was rising as if invisible strings tugged him toward heaven. His body was soon one foot, two feet, three feet, off the brown pebbly rock. Lying back, enjoying himself, he extended his legs and laughed smugly.

"You're floating," Jon said breathlessly.

"Clearly," replied Ling Wu.

Jon looked toward the lighthouse and the figure of his father far up die iron ladder. He opened his mouth to shout so that his father could see this marvelous feat that was happening down in their cove.

"Uh-uh," warned Ling Wu. "This is for your eyes only. You are
never
to mention this as long as you live. If you do, I'll turn you into a one-eyed calico toad."

Jon clamped his lips together.

The magician turned one way and another. He flapped the sleeves of his gown as if he were a bird, then kicked as if swimming in thin air was as easy as swimming in water.

He turned his head and an almost evil smile crossed his face.

Jon gasped. Ling Wu wasn't just floating.

He was body flying.

"
I CAN'T BELIEVE IT," SAID JON, WATCH
-ing the Chinese magician float comfortably in the air, a fat stringless kite, a multicolored bird.

"But you do see it, don't you?" asked Ling Wu, finally lowering himself to the rock, adjusting his magnificent red gown as he sat down again.

"Is it the robe? Is that how you do it?" Jon asked excitedly.

"Not at all."

"Well, how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Body fly."

"Levitation, my child."

"Levi?..."

"Tation.
L-e-v-i-t-a-t-i-o-n
"

It was a huge, teeth-pulling, tongue-wrapping word.
Levitation!

"Anyone can do anything, provided they know how."

Jon's voice was as thick as cream when he asked, "Can I?"

Ling Wu's green eyes sharpened until they were stabbing green points afire with anger. "You're asking me for my secrets! I knew you would, unworthy heathen!"

There was that awful word again. "Only this one secret," Jon somehow found the courage to say. He could leave Clementine now and then, find friends on the mainland, have fun, then fly home. "Only one, sir."

"Only this one secret, you earthworm. You say it so lightly. The very idea. Of all the nerve." Ling Wu was again livid with rage. His skin had turned as crimson as his gown. His jowls quivered and his thick fingers shook.

Jon had never been so terrified in his entire life, knowing Ling Wu could easily make him vanish like the dove and the rabbit. The green points of Ling Wu's eyes raked him, searched his insides, and went straight into his thudding heart.

Yet he found the courage to speak again. "Please! You don't know how lonely my life has been. Some mornings I don't even want to wake up."

Ling Wu turned off his rage as if it were faucet water. "Hmh. You're forgiven for being so greedy, I suppose." Then a fat finger aimed toward Jon's chest. "You'll promise to tell no one. Ever? Even after death? We've never met! I don't exist!"

"No one, I promise."

"Not your honorable father?"

"Not my honorable father."

"Not your honorable mother?"

"Not my honorable mother."

"Or honorable aunt or uncle or cousin or friend or foe?..."

Jon's mouth was as dry as uncooked oatmeal. He began to repeat, "'Or honorable aunt or uncle—'"

"Never mind," Ling Wu broke in sharply. "No one shall you ever tell. Ever. Ever and ever. I don't exist."

"No one shall I ever tell. Ever. Ever and ever. You don't exist." The promise was to last until death did him part—and beyond. Never would he tell.

The magician's green eyes were now squinting and glinting. "On threat of being boiled in dragon's bile and having flaming straw stuffed up your nose..." His hand shot out, grasping a bundle of flaming straw. He tossed it into the air. Jon could hardly breathe. ".. .your ears turned into goat's horns and your toes nailed to a shark's back..." Ling Wu nodded toward the cove. A ten-foot shark suddenly patrolled it.

Feeling faint, Jon managed to reply weakly, "No one shall I ever tell—"

"On absolute oath to a member of the Celestial Court who has done the Three Kneelings and Nine Knockings..."

Jon repeated in a bare whisper, "'On oath to—

"Never mind," said Ling Wu. He folded his arms over his potbelly and stared at Jon Jeffers for quite a while, then took a deep breath. "All right, then. I shall tell you."

"
WITH MY AMAZING, ASTOUNDING
brain I levitate. That's all," said Ling Wu. "My own astonishing brain."

"Like you," the magician went on, "I have billions of brain cells. But unlike you, and most other unworthy people, I use them. I levitate with maybe five hundred million. I could do it with less, but I feel more comfortable with that many holding me up."

With a tummy the size of a washtub, Ling Wu likely
needed
five hundred million cells, Jon thought. He'd read that every human had billions of brain cells.

But how did one command one's brain cells to levitate? Jon did not dare ask.

"Concentration, my unworthy," Ling Wu continued. "I put all that amazing and astounding energy together. It's very powerful, believe me. Using seven hundred million cells, I can lift that boat over there."

Jon watched as his father's dory, chained to a ring embedded in the rock, rose up as if a giant blast of air were beneath it. Straining against the chain for a minute or so, it settled again.

With glee, his almost evil eyes again laughing, Ling Wu then said, "If I used a billion cells, I could lift that lighthouse." "Oh, please don't!" Jon cried out, fearing his father would tumble off the side.

"Hmh," said Ling Wu thoughtfully, scanning the tall white cylinder.

Jon desperately wanted to change the subject. He did not doubt that the magician could raise the old brick tower. He said, "All I have to do is concentrate, then I can levi..."

"Tate!" Ling Wu nodded, shifting his eyes from the lighthouse. "Concentrate and levitate."

"Just tell myself I can do it, over and over," Jon said excitedly.

"Exactly."

Jon closed his eyes on the very spot and began to concentrate.

"Idiot heathen," Ling Wu lashed out, and Jon opened his eyes. "You cannot learn overnight. Your body has to get used to the idea. It may take weeks."

"I'll practice," Jon said eagerly.

Ling Wu nodded again. "You must practice many, many times. And once you learn how, don't do foolish things. Do it where no one will see you. People aren't used to seeing other people levitating all over the place. Do it at night."

But Jon wasn't really listening. He was thinking about what fun it would be for people to see him floating and flying. Here, there, and everywhere, like a butterfly, a hummingbird.

Ling Wu, however, seemed to know that Jon was apt to get into terrible trouble, and as if immediately regretting having revealed his secret, he said, "People who don't listen to warnings are likely to find disaster. Do not fly in fog or thunderstorms or high winds. And
don't
fly long distances—especially at first."

Jon nodded, but the words might just as well have been tossed into the ocean breeze. His thoughts were consumed by that magic word—
levitation.

Ling Wu shrugged. "Have fun, Jon Jeffers. Now you will actually be able to fly like a hawk or a heron or a hummingbird. You will soar like a kite. But do not forget that a kite must have a string to hold it to the earth. You will not have one."

But Jon was not thinking of kite strings. He was thinking of darting along on high—over cities and highways, over beaches and streets, forests and rivers—waving to everyone below:
Hello down there; I'm Jon Jeffers!
Ling Wu was right—he'd never be lonely again.

But then he heard Ling Wu's sharp, "Turn around, unworthy."

Obediently, he turned, looking up toward the top of the lighthouse, where his father was still painting. Then Jon thought he heard the sound of far-off temple bells. When he turned back, the Great Ling Wu was gone. The seals began to bark again.

Smacks, realizing the visitor had departed, left his hiding place and bravely raced down the fifty-four steps, matching the seals' hoarse bleats and honks.