The Boy Who Could Fly Without a Motor (7 page)

"Shue Ming said that only Ling Wu can obtain them," said the doctor.

Jon's hopes vanished. He'd let the whole world know that Ling Wu existed. He had broken all the oaths except one. He deserved every terrible punishment that Ling Wu had threatened to use. The only thing he could do, if he could even summon the magician from wherever he was, was to ask Ling Wu to have mercy on him, the nine-year-old heathen who had the brains of an ant.

"Thank you for all your help," he said to Dr. Buxtehede.

The kindly neurosurgeon replied, "I hope you find him."

"So do I," said Jon, with thoughts of carrying red-lead buckets or wearing lead-soled shoes as long as he lived filling his mind.

After five days in San Francisco, the heavyhearted and sad-faced Jeffers, and Smacks, went to the Coast Guard landing and boarded the steam tug for the trip back to Clementine Lighthouse.

There was a big bag of mail waiting on the tug. Every living relative of the Jeffers had written, some asking if they could come and spend time at the lighthouse. The bosun shouted, "Are they all craZy? Our table only sits four!"

There were hundreds of letters to Jon. Everyone wanted to know how to body fly. There was even a letter from Eunice Jones:
You're famous! Just to think you're sleeping in my old room! You must have had help from those ghosts. I've got to talk to you.

ON THE WAY BACK, THE BOAT GENTLY
rising on the sparkling, cold blue sea, the Jeffers talked about Jon's problem.

His mother said, uncomfortably, "Son, we know about your imagination—how big it is. Did you, did you..." She stopped and took a breath. "Did you invent Ling Wu and somehow teach yourself to fly?"

Bosun Jeffers, with a grave face, tried to finish her thought. "Not being natural for humans, it somehow..."

Jon shook his head. "Ling Wu is real, believe me."

The Jeffers fell silent. Feeling defeated, they stared down at the deck. Their only son was ill physically—and maybe mentally, too.

Before too long, the tug arrived at the dock. Wishing that it would steam on past Clementine, steam on forever, and not return him to his old lonely life, Jon untied the rope that attached him to his seat, picked up his buckets once again, and followed Smacks's leap to the dock.

The memories of the night flight over the
Cacciatore Roma,
Hiram K. Forbes and the Roosevelts, the White House lawn, and Dr. Buxtehede were still very fresh in Jon's mind.

FOR THE NEXT
thirty-two days Jon trudged up and down the fifty-four steps to Clementine's cove, carrying the buckets of red lead, and trying to summon Ling Wu. He thought the isolated cove might help his telepathy signals reach the great magician.

He also climbed the 155 inner and outer lighthouse steps to the platform, resting at every 10 steps. Perhaps Ling Wu would hear him from up there.

But tears usually flowed before he reached the top. The buckets seemed to weigh fifty pounds each. The bosun had wrapped padding around the wire handles, but Jon had worn creases in his palms and now wore leather gloves. He'd lost ten pounds, which he could ill afford.

The bosun volunteered to strap his son on his back, carry him to the cove, and secure him with a rope near the dory rock. He even offered to do the same up on the lantern platform.

But Jon decided both plans were risky. If Ling Wu saw his father en route to either mental-message-sending location, the magician might forgo his visit.

Using telepathy, Jon pleaded every day with Ling Wu to return to the cove rock or the lighthouse or any other place on which the magician might choose to alight. Meanwhile the Coast Guard boat circled the cove around the clock to keep the Russians from kidnapping Jon. During the day his father also kept watch with his telescope.

At last, on the thirty-third day, Jon discovered Ling Wu sitting at the exact same spot on the rock beside the dory where Jon had first met him. His skin was red with anger. He'd changed clothing. His gown was now a shining green; his pants were coal black; his shoes were silver-colored, as was the tiny hat on his head.

He said, "You miserable heathen, you tick on a cow's back—"

"Where have you been, Ling Wu? I've been trying to call you for more than a month."

"None of your insignificant business where I've been."

"I'm in deep trouble, Ling Wu."

"I know you are. You didn't listen. I knew you wouldn't listen. You upset your brain cells flying back from that fishing boat without practice. I warned you to be careful."

"I apologize."

"That's not enough. Not only did you not listen, you broke your vow. Are you ready for dragon's bile and flaming straw and the shark's back?"

"Please, don't do that to me!" cried Jon in alarm. "Please forgive me, Ling Wu. I made mistakes. Don't boil me in dragon's bile. Don't sentence me to a lifetime of carrying weights around so I don't go to the moon. I plead guilty. I was lonely. The whole world was passing me by. I had no friends except Smacks. I felt trapped on this rock."

Ling Wu looked west, toward the horizon.

"Have you ever been lonely, Ling Wu, really lonely?"

The magician looked north, toward San Francisco. Then he looked up, with his silly spyglass, at the lighthouse, at Jon's father. "Hmh."

"Please, Ling Wu. There's an old magician in Chinatown who said he knows the five-thousand-year-old cure."

"Shue Ming?" Ling Wu asked scornfully.

Jon nodded.

"He knows nothing! The best of Shue Ming is turning kerchiefs into doves."

Jon wasn't interested in Shue Ming's best, nor was he interested in Dr. Buxtehede opening his skull to adjust his misbehaving brain cells. "Please, please, O great, great magician, I'll never fly again, I—"

Ling Wu's eyes, which matched the green of his gown, bored into Jon's soul. "This is not about flying, insignificant beetle. It is about your word to me, which you have broken. Repeat after me: I, Jon Jeffers, will never again speak the name of Ling Wu. I will honor my bond of silence."

Jon held up his right hand, as if being sworn in at the Celestial Court. In a voice as clear as a trumpet, righteous as a psalm, truthful as the Three Kneelings and Nine Knockings, Jon repeated each word: " 'I, Jon Jeffers, will never again speak the name of Ling Wu. I will honor my bond of silence.'"

Ling Wu nodded.

Jon waited, then said, "Is that all? Can I stop levitating now?"

"No, miserable ant, you cannot stop levitating now. You must think before you can do that."

"Think of what?"

"Think of what I have told you."

Desperately, Jon thought back over all Ling Wu had said to him when they first met. Words about soaring, about levitation, about hawks and hummingbirds, about—

"Kites!" cried Jon.

"Now, unworthy, you begin to use your brain," said Ling Wu.

"But what do I do now?" begged Jon.

"What does a kite have that you do not?" replied Ling Wu.

"A string!"

Ling Wu looked to the east. "And what is your string, miserable frog?"

Jon thought, thought harder than he ever had before—harder, even, than when he had learned to levitate. What held him to Earth the way a string holds a kite?

The answer was easy: It was his family, of course.

He concentrated still harder—so hard, he heard clickings and grindings and squeakings inside his brain, then finally a few bars of serene music.

"Close your eyes, heathen ant," Ling Wu said. "Good-bye, forever."

Jon did as directed and heard temple bells. After a few seconds he opened his eyes and looked around. Ling Wu was gone. Jon looked west. A sliver of green gossamer cloud was vanishing high in the sky.

"Thank you and good-bye," Jon called out softly.

He dropped the paint buckets, needing them no longer, and shouted for Smacks, who scampered down the fifty-four steps, then scampered back up, barking louder than ever.

Jon, his feet on the ground, his heart firmly tied to the earth, followed his best friend home.

T
WELVE-YEAR-OLD
J
OSE
M
ALDONADO USED TO
dream of becoming a fine artist. But this son of a poor Mexican farmer now focuses on survival, not art. After Jose's mother died, his father left to work in the United States, leaving Jose on his own in Mexico. When it's time for father and son to reunite, things go terribly wrong. Jose's attempt to cross the border is harrowing, and his stay at a migrant worker camp turns into a nightmare, forcing him to flee for his life. Hiding out in a church seems a wise thing to do, until the blood dripping from Jose's wounded shoulder lands on a statue of Christ. Now everyone thinks the statue itself is bleeding. Jose's accidental "miracle" kick-starts a media frenzy—and threatens the future of an entire town.

Theodore Taylor's uncompromising look at the power of love, hope, and redemption inspired the Showtime movie
The Maldonado Miracle,
which garnered major critical acclaim at the Sundance Film Festival.

T
HE YEAR IS
1868,
AND FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD
A
LIKA
and his younger brother, Sulu, are hunting for seals on an ice floe attached to their island in the Arctic Ocean. Suddenly the ice starts to shake, and they hear a loud crack—the terrible sound of the floe breaking free from land! The boys watch with horror as the dark expanse of water between the ice and the shore rapidly widens and they start drifting south—away from their home, their family, and everything they've ever known.

Throughout their six-month-long icebound journey down the Greenland Strait, the brothers face bitter cold, starvation, and most frightening of all, vicious polar bears. Their thrilling story of adventure and survival is a moving testament to the bond between brothers—and to the strength of the human spirit.