The Amazing Flight of Darius Frobisher Read online

  “And whose problem is that?”

  “She’ll kill me.”

  “Exactly. Like I said, not my problem.” He took out another handful, then handed Darius the near-empty bag. “If you’re going to die, you might as well have some.”

  Darius put the bag on the counter and went back into the living room. Anthony followed, his mouth and hands filled with cookies, and hovered inches away from Darius—much too close for his liking. “What were you doing?” Anthony asked. “Probably something stupid.”

  “I was reading a book.”

  “Something stupid, just like I thought,” said Anthony. “At Crapper Academy we don’t have time to read. There are too many important things to do.”

  Darius was mystified. He liked reading, and he assumed that’s what all kids did at school. “You don’t read books?” he asked.

  “Oh, some, sure…. One or two.”

  “Then what do you do?” asked Darius.

  “Important things. Like drilling and marching. I’m especially good at drilling—a lot better than you’ll ever be. We polish buttons on our uniforms and get ready for inspections. And we have meetings about discipline and order. Discipline and order are very important.”

  “Why is discipline important?”

  This question upset Anthony. He started circling around Darius, leaning over him and yelling, “Why is it important? What kind of idiot are you? Don’t you know anything? If there’s no discipline, everything falls apart. Soon the enemy would come and take over!”

  “Who is the enemy?” asked Darius, trying to move out of range of Anthony’s terrible breath.

  “Who’s the enemy? You’re even stupider than I thought,” said Anthony, backing Darius down into Aunt Inga’s big chair. “The enemy could be anybody, anytime. You know, if you went to Crapper Academy, you’d probably be under disciplinary arrest all the time.”

  “Disciplinary arrest? What’s that?”

  Anthony shrieked with laughter. “What’s that? WHAT’S THAT? It’s when you can’t do anything right, and they have to punish you. Half the school is under arrest all the time! You’d be under arrest the minute you got there, that’s for sure.”

  Darius shuddered. “What happens to you when you’re under arrest? How can they arrest so many kids?”

  “A special squad of students is chosen to guard them, and we’re in charge of punishment.” Anthony leaned very close and smiled. “I’m going to be captain of the guards next year. I’ll get to decide what the punishments are.”

  Darius was thinking that Crapper sounded like the most unpleasant school in the universe, when all of a sudden Anthony pounced on top of him and started twisting his arm. “Let’s wrestle,” he said. “I’m sure I can wrestle better than you can.”

  “Ouch! Stop it!” yelled Darius. Anthony was twisting his arm so hard that Darius was afraid he would twist it off. Darius squirmed and struggled, trying to get away.

  “Stop it, Anthony! Stop it!” he yelled, but Anthony only laughed louder. Darius looked around in desperation, trying to think of a way to stop this torture. The only thing within his reach was the television remote control. With his one free hand, he grabbed it and pushed the ON button.

  “Anthony,” he screamed, “let’s watch some television.”

  The second the television came on, Anthony let go of Darius and sank to the floor, staring at the screen.

  Darius looked at Anthony. The boy’s eyes were glazed over. Darius turned off the television. Anthony instantly came back to life and leered at Darius.

  “I’ll twist your arm off, just like I do to kids at school,” he cackled, reaching toward Darius.

  Darius hit the ON button again. Anthony slumped back to the ground and stared at the screen.

  TV off. Anthony came to life. TV on. Anthony stared.

  It was magic! This is a handy little trick, Darius thought. He left the television on and headed to the library for his daily visit, leaving Anthony in the room, staring in silence as the television chattered on.

  Over the next several days, early every morning, Darius tried to fix the bent rim. He took the wheel off the bike and clamped it in a vise bolted to the worktable in the basement. But when he tried to bend the rim straight with a pair of pliers, he only made it worse. If you’ve ever tried to get something back into shape after it’s bent, you know that it can be as hard as getting toothpaste back in the tube after you have squirted out too much. The wheel grew more and more twisted, and the spokes began to look like day-old, dried-up spaghetti.

  “Oh, boogers!” said Darius, growing more and more frustrated. Every morning at ten o’clock, he had to stop working and wait until the next day, when the wheel problem seemed even more impossible to solve. One morning he sat on the basement steps looking at the mangled wheel in his hands, completely empty of hope. “I’ll never get this fixed,” he moaned. “I need help. I need to find that guy, Daedalus.”

  But he had no idea where to look.

  The next morning, Darius woke extra early and walked back to the spot where he had met the strange man. It was just an ordinary corner in the middle of an ordinary neighborhood. There was nothing around that had anything to do with a man who fixed bicycles and flew through the air. Darius sat on the curb watching the traffic. He waited as long as he could, hoping Daedalus might come by. But not one single flying bicycle appeared.

  “Daedalus,” he said to himself, “I know his name is Daedalus.”

  He could think of only one person in the town who might be able to help him.

  “I’m going to the library, Aunt Inga,” he said that afternoon.

  “Fine,” grumbled his aunt, not looking up from her television show. “Go off and do as you please. It’s all you ever do anyway. But don’t be dragging any books back into this house and cluttering up my home with your mess.”

  The library is a nice place for anyone, but it seemed particularly welcome to Darius that day. The children’s section was almost empty, and Ms. Bickerstaff was behind her desk.

  “Hello, Darius,” she said. “How can I help you today?”

  “I need to find someone named Daedalus,” Darius said. “Can you help me?”

  “Do you mean the man who flew?”

  “Yes! Yes!” Darius said. “Do you know him?” He couldn’t believe it. “Have you seen him fly?”

  Ms. Bickerstaff laughed. “No, I’ve never seen him fly. And if he really did, it was thousands of years ago.”

  “What do you mean?” Darius asked. Now he was really confused. “I just met him the other day.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” said the librarian. “The Daedalus I know is in a Greek myth. Do you know the story?”

  “No,” said Darius. He was disappointed that Ms. Bickerstaff didn’t know the Daedalus who flew on a bike. Still, he was interested in the story. “Can you tell it to me?”

  “Yes, I can,” said Ms. Bickerstaff. And she did.

  9

  Feathers and Wax

  Darius sat down on a chair by the desk. Ms. Bickerstaff put her elbows on the desk and leaned toward him. She lowered her voice and whispered the story like it was a secret.

  “Daedalus was a master craftsman and inventor. He lived on the island of Crete in the Mediterranean Sea. King Minos ordered him to build a labyrinth, an elaborate maze, to imprison the minotaur.”

  “What’s a minotaur?” asked Darius.

  “A creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man. And not nice at all. It ate children.”

  “Just children?”

  “Adults, too. Anything.”

  “Yikes,” said Darius.

  “Exactly!” said Ms. Bickerstaff. “Daedalus built a labyrinth so winding and complicated that the minotaur couldn’t get out. And they say that Daedalus invented sails for boats, too.”

  “Pretty smart,” said Darius. A builder and an inventor. The story made him think of the Daedalus who had fixed his bicycle chain.

  “Right again, Darius,
” said Ms. Bickerstaff. “And he had a son named Icarus, whom he loved very much.”

  Darius smiled.

  Ms. Bickerstaff went on with the story. “But King Minos learned that Daedalus had once betrayed him, so he had him locked away. And then Daedalus did the most amazing thing.” She stopped, looking at Darius with dancing eyes.

  “What? What did he do?”

  “He built wings to fly! He made them of bird feathers and wax and string. One pair for himself and one for his son.”

  “His son was in prison with him?”

  “Yes! Daedalus planned for them to escape together. When he put the wings on his son he said, Icarus, when we fly with these wings, don’t fly too close to the sun. The wax will melt and you’ll fall.”

  Now Darius knew it was just a story. You would have to fly millions of miles to get close to the sun. But that didn’t bother him at all. When you’re listening to a good story, you can ignore little things like how far away the sun really is. “What did Icarus do?” asked Darius.

  “He didn’t listen. He was too excited about flying. Or perhaps he thought he knew everything. Who knows?” said Ms. Bickerstaff, holding her hands, palms up, in the air.

  “I bet he was a teenager!” said Darius. “I know someone just like that!”

  “Yes,” laughed Ms. Bickerstaff, “he probably was a teenager. He probably rolled his eyes and said, ‘Sure, sure, sure, whatever you say. Just let me fly.’”

  “Then what?”

  “Daedalus and Icarus took off. The wings worked! Soon they were over the prison walls and soaring out over the sea. I think it must have been beautiful. Can’t you just imagine it? The sun was shining, and the sky was blue, and so was the sea. And the wind was rushing through the feathers of the wings. It would be wonderful to fly like that.”

  Darius nodded. It would be wonderful.

  “They flew on and on. Daedalus loved flying. But Icarus was completely entranced. ‘Look at me!’ he yelled. And he flew higher and higher.”

  “Oh no!” Darius exclaimed.

  “Oh yes!” said Ms. Bickerstaff. “Icarus was so fascinated with flying that he forgot about the ground. He forgot he was just a boy. He forgot his wings were made of feathers and wax. He forgot what his father said.

  “‘Icarus, come back!’ Daedalus called to him. ‘Don’t fly any higher!’ But Icarus still didn’t listen. Maybe he was too far away already. Maybe he was in the spell of the sun and the wind and the sea. But he flew higher and higher. The wax melted. The feathers fell out. And then he fell into the sea.”

  Darius’s eyes filled with tears. At first Ms. Bickerstaff didn’t notice. She went on with the story.

  “Daedalus tried to find him. But his son was lost in the ocean. Daedalus never saw him again.”

  Darius tried not to cry, but he couldn’t help it.

  “Oh dear,” said Ms. Bickerstaff. “What have I done? What’s wrong?” She reached out and touched Darius’s arm.

  “It’s all right,” said Darius, wiping his eyes with his sleeve. “It’s okay. It’s just a story, I know.”

  Ms. Bickerstaff handed Darius a tissue. “No, Darius,” she said, softly but seriously, “you’re wrong. Nothing is ever ‘just a story.’ If a story speaks to you, then it can be a way to understand how and why things happen. I know that, because my whole life is about stories, real and imaginary. And they’re all important.”

  They were both quiet for a moment.

  Perhaps you think silence means nothing is happening. But often, silence means more than words. Words are wonderful, but, as you may have discovered yourself, sometimes they aren’t enough.

  Finally, Darius spoke. “It’s a good story,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Ms. Bickerstaff, patting his arm.

  “It reminds me of my dad.”

  “I see.” Ms. Bickerstaff knew that more words were of no use right then.

  Darius sat up straight in his chair. “I still need to find a real person named Daedalus,” he said. “He lives around here somewhere. He fixed my bicycle.”

  “Oh! Why didn’t you tell me before I went on and on about that myth? Let’s see. We can look in the phone book,” said Ms. Bickerstaff. “Does he have a last name?”

  “I don’t know. I just know his name is Daedalus.”

  “If we don’t know his last name, we’ll have to look a little harder. It will be our own little labyrinth, with Daedalus waiting at the end. Come on over here to the computer and let’s see what we can find.”

  It was like finding the way out of a maze. For the next ten minutes, Ms. Bickerstaff’s fingers danced over the keyboard. When her search came to a dead end, she tried another route. Finally, a name popped up on the screen. The first name was Daedalus. The last name was Panforth. He lived on a street called Magnolia Terrace.

  “Do you know where that is?” asked Ms. Bickerstaff.

  “No,” said Darius, “but I can find it on a map.”

  And he did.

  As Darius was leaving the library, Ms. Bickerstaff held out a book. “Can you take just one book home?” she asked.

  “I can try,” Darius said, taking the large book in his hands. The cover showed a man flying above the earth in a chariot being pulled by four white horses, and the title was D’Aulaire’s Book of Greek Myths. Darius opened the book. It was old and worn—the pages were soft and frayed on the edges—it had been read many times. He turned to the first page. “In olden times,” it began, “when men still worshipped ugly idols, there lived in the land of Greece a folk of shepherds and herdsmen who cherished light and beauty.”

  That sounded good to him.

  “Thanks,” said Darius. “Thanks for everything.”

  “You’re very welcome, Darius,” said Ms. Bickerstaff. Darius noticed the smile on her face, but he didn’t see the tears in her eyes.

  You’re probably wishing that Ms. Bickerstaff would stop Darius and ask him out to lunch, and he could tell her his whole story, and she would know just what to do.

  Or that Ms. Bickerstaff would tell Darius that he could sleep in the library in a featherbed surrounded by thousands of books.

  Or that Ms. Bickerstaff was one of those rare librarians who was actually paid what she deserved for all of her hard work and that she would adopt Darius and he would come live in her huge mansion, also filled with thousands of books.

  But none of those things happen in this story.

  Darius did have a map now, though. And a wonderful book.

  And an address for someone named Daedalus Panforth.

  After a fifteen-minute walk, Darius turned onto Magnolia Terrace. The first thing he noticed was a hand-painted sign on a telephone pole.

  As he quickened his pace, he saw a girl pedaling toward him on a bike with training wheels. A man, most likely her father, ran along beside her.

  “Excuse me,” said Darius. “I’m looking for someone named Daedalus.”

  “End of the street,” said the man as he ran by, “you can’t miss it.”

  “Yippee!” said the girl. Darius watched the two of them until they disappeared around the corner.

  When Darius turned back, he stopped in his tracks. His eyes bulged. His heart beat faster.

  Down at the end of the short street sat a small house.

  While the house itself was not spectacular, everything around it was.

  The yard was overflowing with old bicycles of every description. They were lined up next to each other, stacked vertically, piled on top of one another, arranged so that there were little paths between the piles. An ancient picket fence with peeling white paint surrounded the yard, as if it were trying to keep the bikes from falling out of the yard onto the street. A few bike wheels hung over the fence, looking like they were trying to escape. The mailbox swung from the front forks of a bicycle frame that was stuck vertically into the ground.

  Darius approached the house slowly, step by step, taking it all in. In one corner of the yard, under a cedar tree, he saw an enormo
us pile of handlebars. Fenders of every size, shape, and color lined the sidewalk. The porch was completely filled with wheels and tires, blocking the doorway. In the small side yard, a sculpture caught Darius’s eye. Welded-together gears, sprockets, kickstands, and countless other bicycle parts towered twenty feet into the air.

  In front of the sculpture was a neat row of bicycles. A sign hung on one of them.

  Darius thought this house was the most beautiful,

  wonderful,

  marvelous,

  and magnificent thing

  he had ever seen.

  His heart raced, and a pure, simple laugh bubbled up from deep inside him.

  “Hello there,” a voice called out from somewhere above him. Darius looked up. Along the peak of the roof he saw another row of bikes lined up next to a tall antenna. Standing on top of the chimney, adjusting a bike on top of the antenna pole, was Daedalus, his white hair sticking out in all directions. He turned the bike he was holding this way and that, until he seemed to have it where he wanted. “There …,” said Daedalus. “No, there. There … there … there!”

  Darius stared.

  Daedalus took his hands away from the bike, watching to see if it would stay. The bike teetered back and forth, then stopped, balanced perfectly on the metal rod.

  “Perfect,” Daedalus chortled. “This should help with the reception.”

  He looked down at Darius. “Meet me in the back,” he called. He winked and disappeared on the other side of the roof.

  Darius skirted the pile of handlebars and picked his way through the maze of bicycle remains. Like the front, the backyard was chock-full of bicycles, bicycle parts, and bicycle sculptures of every size and description. The old man was climbing down a trellis festooned with a jungle of vines. The large leaves sprawled out, hiding the porch like so many green elephant ears.

  Daedalus leapt from the trellis and looked Darius up and down. The old man turned his head to one side and then the other, squinting his eyes as if he were looking to see if any parts had been put on in the wrong place. A quick grin broke out on his face.

  “You found me,” he said. “I thought you would.”