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3—
Then, like an umbrella popping open, the wings caught air and jerked him back aloft. After a quiet drift upward, he came to a perfect soft landing at the very spot on the 86th-floor observation deck from which he had taken off.
Bravos and clapping surrounded him. What a glorious day for Alexander! What Baddenfield had ever anywhere had people cheer for him? Even Winterbottom, quite in spite of himself, had to applaud.
It was like he was traveling through a dream.
In the car on the way home, Alexander replayed every detail of the day in his mind. For the first time since he was born, he felt truly alive. People said that kind of stupid crap all the time, but they didn’t know the half of it. If you went around worried about the one life you might lose, then you were as good as dead already. It paid to be reckless. In fact—
Alexander’s train of thought was interrupted by the sight of a black cat in the middle of the street. Alexander and the cat met eye to eye. They stared at each other for what seemed like a while but could only have been a split second. Sam the driver swerved and smashed into an oncoming car, and Alexander Baddenfield was ejected from his unstrapped-in perch on the front seat. The boy went crashing through the windshield, was sent hurtling across the street, and smashed skull-first into a brick wall.
By the time his body fell to the sidewalk, Alexander was already dead.
The Fourth Life
of
ALEXANDER BADDENFIELD
(For Real This Time)
Winterbottom and Sam reached Alexander just as he began his new life. His face and clothes covered with blood, Alexander looked like a horror, and behaved like one too.
“Why didn’t you just run that stupid cat over!” he said to Sam. “It probably has lots of lives left!”
“And you have fewer and fewer,” Winterbottom said.
Alexander remained undaunted.
“Oh, who’s counting? Besides, I can always just get another cat and tack on eight more lives, can’t I?” He wiped the blood away from his forehead, which was completely smooth. “In fact, we should use that cat,” he said, nodding in the direction of where the black one had run off. “He owes me one.”
Yes, there is no daunt in the boy, Winterbottom thought.
By any standards, it was an utterly, completely ridiculous sight. “Alexander,” Winterbottom said, “what are you doing in that old Halloween costume?”
“This is no costume. This was the outfit worn by Pedro Romero Martínez, the greatest bullfighter of all time, when his portrait was painted by Goyá,” Alexander said, turning to admire himself in the mirror. “That’s the bean guy.”
Winterbottom wasn’t sure what to make fun of first. The sequins? The purple short pants and matching jacket? The ruffled shirt? The turquoise sash? No, the hat. “It makes you look like a Mouseketeer.”
Alexander ignored him. He waved his red cape back and forth in front of Shaddenfrood and shouted, “Olé! Olé, you dumb cat.”
“Dare I ask what this is leading to?”
“We leave tonight for Pamplona,” Alexander said. “That’s in Spain. Tomorrow afternoon, I will be the third and final matador in the bullring at Plaza de Toros.”
Bullfighting. So this is what it had come to. Winterbottom didn’t have the strength to argue. He supposed every Winterbottom had gone through the same thing, in one way or the other.
“I’ll start packing,” Winterbottom said.
“Excellent! And when you’re done, pack for me too. Olé!” he said, and twirled around, his red cape fluttering above his head. “I have to practice.”
Alexander cranked the handle on his great-great-grandfather’s old record player and put on a paso doble from an album called Songs of the Torero. Facing himself in the mirror, Alexander cocked his hat down over his forehead, picked up his estoque—that’s a matador’s sword—and started stabbing imaginary bulls to the DUNT dadaDUNT dadaDUNT dadaDUNT-DUNT of the music. “Take that! Olé! And that! Olé! And that!”
In the mirror, Alexander couldn’t take his eyes off of himself, he looked so magnificent in that hat. He felt Shaddenfrood rub against his leg. But it seemed longer than Shaddenfrood—and then it crossed up over his thighs. He looked down.
“Cortez?”
Before he could do a single other thing, the python wrapped itself around Alexander’s chest, pinning his arms to his sides, and started curling around his neck.
Cortez, roused from his sleep by the music, had seen Alexander from behind, wearing the hat, and thought it was the biggest mouse he had ever seen. And since it had been three weeks since the pet store owner had fed him, it was time for his next meal.
“Now . . . you’re . . . hungry . . .” Alexander said, his voice getting strangled out of him.
He still had the estoque in his right hand, and he managed to place the sharp point of it against the neck of the python. He pressed the tip in and then—Sssss!—the snake flinched and squeezed his coils tighter. Alexander lost his grip on the handle, and the sword went clanging to the ground.
The only body part he could still move—barely—was his left hand. He managed to slip it into the front pocket of the great Pedro Romero Martínez’s pants and switch his phone on. He then began to press around the screen for the DIAL icon. When he hit the right spot, the phone automatically called the last person he had spoken to. By that time, however, Alexander was feeling the now familiar chilly fingers of death on his heart, and passed out.
Winterbottom was just sticking his underwear in his suitcase when his phone started ringing. ALEXANDER the screen said.
“Hello?” he said. “Hello, Alexander?” He heard rustling. Pocket dialing. The boy was always pocket dialing. Winterbottom knew the sound all too well. But did he also hear . . . the paso doble?
Winterbottom shook his head, and pressed END on his phone.
The Fifth Life
of
ALEXANDER BADDENFIELD
As soon as he hung up the phone, Winterbottom had a vision of doom, and the urge to run downstairs to make sure Alexander was all right. But then Alexander would make fun of him, because that’s what Alexander always did. And maybe he was right to do it. It was true that Winterbottom was a nervous nellie—he had to admit it—and to what end, now that Alexander had so many extra lives? He went back to packing his underwear.
Then he stopped. He couldn’t change even if he wanted to. Winterbottom let the underwear drop and hurried up the stairs to Alexander’s room.
DUNT dadaDUNT dadaDUNT dadaDUNT-DUNT, the music went—but no sign of Alexander. Just his awful new pets and, of course, Shaddenfrood. Now where could Alexander have gone? He took out his phone and called him.
Ever so faintly, Winterbottom heard the ring of Alexander’s phone. Had he left it in the room? It sounded like it was under the bed, maybe. He searched around. That was when he noticed something different about the python—it looked like it had just eaten an elephant. Whatever was inside of the snake moved. The phone stopped ringing.
“Winnerboddommmmm!” came a muffled voice on the other end of the line. “Lemme oudda here!”
“Alexander!” Winterbottom said. “My goodness! Hang on! I’ll get the syrup of ipecac!”
“Whad?”
“Never mind!” Winterbottom said, running. “You’ll see what it is!”
When he returned, Winterbottom had a moment of pause before getting too close to the snake. But the python appeared to be either catatonic from its enormous meal or incredibly ill. Either way, the beast gave him little resistance when he lifted up its head, spread its jaws, and poured the whole bottle of ipecac down its gullet.
The eyes of the python went wide, it began to gag and heave, and then—in one generous hurl—Cortez vomited Alexander right out of its belly on a wave of stomach fluid.
“Gross,” Winterbottom couldn’t help but say.
Global warming may have been slow in coming to Greenland, but it had certainly hit Spain. The country was sweltering, almost uninhabitable. They sat at a sidewalk café table, downing bottles of salty fizzy water and eating tapas. Winterbottom couldn’t say the Spanish food agreed with him, but at least the portions were small. He picked at a tortilla and sweated, and it was not yet eleven in the morning.
“Where is he?” Alexander said, annoyed.
The two of them were waiting for Juan Francisco Bravo, an old toreador who managed the famed bullring of Pamplona. Bravo had been an acquaintance of the Baddenvaldez branch of the clan. Baddenfields had for centuries been great patrons of the bullfight, the one sport that brought cruelty to the level of an art form.
Winterbottom had tried to cancel the trip. Surely Alexander didn’t want to be killed by two different animals on consecutive days. “Besides, you are running out of lives,” he said. “You’ve died twice in just the last forty-eight hours.”
“Math, math, math. You always try to scare me with your math. But I’m not planning on dying,” Alexander said. “I’m planning on killing that bull. And here’s some math for you: I’ve got five lives left. That’s five times as many as you or anyone else on this planet has, including the bull. We’ll be having fresh steak for dinner, just you wait and see.”
At least Alexander had allowed Winterbottom to get rid of the scorpion and tarantula, not to mention the python, who was all too happy to go. Only the canal rat seemed sad to get the boot.
“I think that’s him,” Winterbottom said, looking at the man crossing the plaza toward their table. The aged gentleman was tall and thin and stood ramrod straight. He wore a tight-fitting suit, had a coat draped over one arm, and stabbed at the ground with a thin cane.
“Juan Francisco Bravo, at your service,” he said, coming to Alexander and bowing.
“Don Bravo,” Alexander said, and actually got up to shake his hand. It was the first time Winterbottom had ever seen the boy polite, let alone impressed. “Is it really true you killed nine hundred sixty-four bulls?”
Bravo waved a hand like it was a magic wand and said, “It is what I do.” Winterbottom noted an air of sophistication about Don Bravo which was somewhat intriguing, and somewhat annoying.
“Are you sure you are ready for today, young Baddenfield?” Bravo said. “The first day a boy steps into the bullring—this is the day he becomes a man.”
“I’m ready,” Alexander said. “I’ve been practicing a lot.”
“Muy bien,” the old master said, and took a sip of the sangria he had ordered. “Why don’t you show me your skills.”
Alexander didn’t need to be asked twice. He bounced out of his seat and posed still as a statue in matador pose, resplendent in his costume, his rhinestones a-glitter. Juan Francisco Bravo smiled, and everyone on the plaza turned to look at the boy, as if a real bullfight were about to start.
“DUNT dadaDUNT dadaDUNT dadaDUNT-DUNT,” Alexander hummed as he whirled around, all red cape and flashing sword. Three times he whisked his cape away at the last second from an imaginary charging bull, and then, for his grand finale, he thrust the cape aside and lunged with his sword, putting the would-be beast to the ground. “Olé!” he shouted, and bowed.
During the performance, the people in the plaza rolled their eyes and waved disgustedly as they walked away, while the diners at the sidewalk tapas bar shook their heads and went back to eating. The face of Juan Francisco Bravo, however, turned from tan to pink to boiling red. When Alexander shouted “Olé!” a second time, Juan Francisco Bravo slammed his fist on the table, making the glasses and plates jump.
“How dare you!” he thundered, thrusting an accusatory finger to the sky. “You spoiled American brat! What you show me is nothing. It is worse than nothing—it is an insult! The bullfight is an art, a dance. Both weapon and bull are sacred and must be shown respect by the torero!”
“Look, old man,” Alexander said, annoyed. “I have the uniform, I have the music, and I have the moves. Let’s forget the sacred stuff and get to killing some bulls.”
“Ha!” the old matador said, picking himself up from the table. “You are not welcome in my bullring. Go home, yanqui!”
Winterbottom knew what was coming next. Another Alexander Moment.
“You old, crotchety, good-for-nothing, too-tight-pants-wearing, nose-stuck-up-in-the-air, Spanish pile of smelly dog caca! You are only jealous because you know that Alexander Baddenfield would kill that bull, and faster and better than you ever did, you big phony fraud! You are a chicken! You and your whole country! Cluck-cluck-cluck!”
Juan Francisco Bravo replied with a string of phrases in Spanish that we would translate, except we can’t, at least not in a book for children, or even young adults. But Don Bravo did add, in English, “You want your bullfight? Fine! You can have your bullfight—and I will cheer for the bull!”
The clocks of the town began to strike—bong! bong! bong!—agitating a throb in Winterbottom’s head that was only getting worse.
At the arena, the first contestant in the bullring was Guillermo Montezuma, a short, yellow-suited matador from Mexico with a long ponytail, and the second a local favorite wearing royal blue leggings and a matching jacket, Cayatano Filippo Velazquez Ordóñez. After lengthy and cruel prologues, both killed their bulls to olés and a shower of roses. The bloody spectacle horrified Winterbottom, but Alexander couldn’t get enough. He followed along with his estoque and cape, copying every move of the toreros.
When his turn came, Alexander strutted into the bullring to the stands-shaking music of the paso doble. The purple velvet of his jacket and breeches shimmered in the late afternoon Spanish sun. No one had ever looked more splendid, Alexander was sure. The audience had to be amazed and bedazzled.
But when his name was announced—El Americano, Alejandro Baddenfield—boos rained down on the boy instead of olés, not to mention overripe tomatoes and eggs. The sound of the crowd only changed when the bull was announced. Olé! Olé! Olé!
Alexander was furious.
When it was released, the snorting bull headed straight for the boy. With anger focusing his attention, the fearless Alexander stood his ground even as the hoofbeats of the bull resounded in his chest.
Winterbottom couldn’t bear to look. He dropped his head into his hands. The roar of the crowd swelled, then broke in a collective gasp.
The bull had charged right through Alexander’s cape and was befuddled to find nothing on the other side. Alexander had executed a perfect pirouette, spinning on his back leg to avoid the bull’s charge with the grace of an expert matador.
The bull turned on its heels, and gathered up a good head of steam for a return trip. The crowd cheered him on, then groaned when Alexander again pulled himself away at the last possible instant.
“My goodness,” Winterbottom said. “The boy is a natural.”
Instead of yanking his cape up at the last minute on the third charge, Alexander pulled it down, as if sweeping the ground. The bull stumbled to it
s front knees. Seeing his opening, Alexander drew his sword, and was about to stick the bull clean through the neck when the animal jerked its head up and speared a horn through Alexander’s side.
Even with deafening cheers rocking the stadium, Winterbottom could hear the cracking of Alexander’s ribs, each one like a broomstick being broken over a knee. Then came a sickening pop—Alexander’s lung—and another pop—Alexander’s other lung.
Alexander’s first death had been like a dream; his second, an electric thrill; his third, a surprise so quick he had hardly noticed it; and his fourth, a great big hug. But this, his fifth death, was horrible. Not only for the pain—and more pain he had never imagined—but also for the shame and embarrassment, as the bull (whose name was Pelusa, which means “peach fuzz”) took a victory lap around the stadium, to olés and a rain of roses. But mostly for the pain, as Alexander remained skewered. It grew more and more intense with each leaping, bucking stride the bull took, until, with one great galloping jump, the beast sent Alexander flying to land on the sand in the middle of the ring. As he lay there, in agony, Alexander only wished that he would die.
A few seconds later, his wish came true.
The Sixth Life
of
ALEXANDER BADDENFIELD
Tlexander was jolted back to life and up onto his feet. He heard the cheers—were they finally for him?
Alas, no. Alexander turned around to see the charging bull nearly upon him. The shock stopped his heart, and he dropped back down to the sand, dead.
The Seventh Life
of
ALEXANDER BADDENFIELD
Alive!
Bull.
Hooves.
Olé!
Dead.
The Eighth Life
of
ALEXANDER BADDENFIELD
The latest life of Alexander began with a jerking recovery of his senses.
“Bull! What? Where?”
But there was no bull. Instead, Alexander was surrounded by a crowd of people, matadors and doctors mostly, talking gibberish. Or rather, Spanish.
The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield Page 6
