Dactyl Hill Squad

by Daniel José Older

  “And if he doesn’t whup ’em?” Mapper asked.

  Bernice and Mr. Barrett traded an uneasy glance.

  “Things’ll get very dire indeed, I’m afraid,” Bernice said. “And they’re already pretty bad, as you yourselves saw last night.”

  “How do we look?” Sabeen said, posing in the doorway with an elegant gown that was about four sizes too big. She even had lavish fake silk gloves and a humongous sun hat. Cymbeline appeared behind her, also fully decked out in evening wear.

  Amaya came downstairs and ducked past them, still in her plain orphanage dress. “Utterly ridiculous,” she muttered, shaking her head.

  “Amazing!” Two Step and Magdalys said together, standing up and applauding.

  “Completely unprepared for the day ahead,” Bernice chided. “But also utterly adorable.”

  Sabeen and Cymbeline curtsied at the same time.

  Bernice started scooping sweet oats out of a big iron pot into bowls. “Now everybody eat up and then go change into clothes you won’t mind getting covered in soot and dactylpoop.”

  “Dactylpoop!” Mapper and Two Step exclaimed.

  “AND GO!” LITTLE Sabeen yelled.

  Magdalys, Two Step, and Mapper, now all in street clothes, charged across the rooftop, full speed. Up ahead, a squad of dactyls huddled at the edge of the building, sunning themselves and chattering in shrill squawks.

  “This seems like the worst idea in the world,” Two Step pointed out, already out of breath.

  “Maybe it is,” Magdalys said, but she couldn’t keep the smile from breaking out across her face. “But it’s the only way to get across.”

  “Maybe getting across is overrated,” Mapper suggested from a little behind them.

  Magdalys rolled her eyes. “We’ve already swept all the chimneys on this block.”

  “This is gonna sound ridiculous,” Two Step said, “but we could always, you know, climb down the stairs like normal people and then walk across the street to the next block.”

  “And waste all that precious time?” Magdalys scoffed. “Please! Anyway, too late!”

  They came up fast on the dactyl squad, just like Bernice had told them to do. “Dactyls are not the brightest pteros,” she’d said while they finished the last of their sweet oats. “And some of those micro and mini ones are pretty weak, all told. But they’re social. That means that to survive, they travel in a group. A group of dactyls is called a squad. That’s why you see ’em all grouped up on those building tops like that. You just gotta find a squad, then pick one, get a good running start, surprise the pteropoop out of it …”

  All five pairs of eyes went wide.

  “Not literally, of course,” Bernice added with a chuckle. “And then off you go!”

  On either side of Magdalys, Mapper and Two Step were shaking their heads in horror.

  “Just stay within the boundary lines of Dactyl Hill, please, and mind you don’t go near that silo on the edge of town. Or the Penitentiary, for heaven’s sake. And keep track of the chimneys you sweep so I can go charge them for it when you’re done. Now finish your breakfast, kids. You have a long day ahead of you. And when the summer’s over, we’ll see about getting you enrolled in that African Free School they opened up over in Weeksville.”

  Now they were bearing down on the squad, and the dactyl Magdalys had picked was flapping its wings like it might be about to take off. Magdalys narrowed her eyes and ran harder, slamming into the dactyl’s back and wrapping her arms around its neck like Bernice had said to do. An explosion of caws and shrieks erupted around her as two dozen wings started flapping at the same time. She felt herself plummeting and heard the dactyl screech. Fly! she thought, but even as she did, the buildings around them fell away and she and the dactyl soared toward the sky.

  She glanced back, saw Two Step on top of another dactyl, screaming for dear life. Mapper stood on the roof, surrounded by flapping wings, shaking his head. Sabeen was a few feet behind him, watching in awe. The morning sun threw their shadows long across the rooftops.

  And then all of Brooklyn stretched beneath Magdalys: the giant Penitentiary at the top of the hill, the neighborhoods rising and falling amidst the wilderness, the sun-soaked bay.

  She released a yell of pure joy, felt the summer wind kiss her face and play with her hair.

  And this dactyl — this strange and beautiful creature with its wrinkled, gray-brown hide, barrel chest, and slender neck — she wanted to hug it. Bernice had told them to use the crest extending from the back of the dactyls’ heads to nudge them one direction or the other, but this one had already responded to her thoughts just like the brachy had, and Magdalys had no intention of yanking its head around if she didn’t have to.

  Up, she thought, and the reply in her mind sounded something like fubba fubba fubba fubba. It was real, this connection. She wasn’t making it up. Maybe she’d always had it, but had never gotten a chance to let it manifest — it’s not like she’d been able to spend much time with dinos up till now, and when she did, she certainly didn’t try to communicate with them. Or maybe this was a new skill that had developed somehow. Either way, it was the greatest gift she could imagine. And she was absolutely sure no one would believe her if she tried to explain it. They’d probably lock her up in a whole other kind of asylum. No. The world wasn’t ready for Magdalys’s special abilities. It would be her secret with the dinos.

  Fubba fubba fubba fubba, sang the dactyl.

  They soared even higher and then careened in a wide circle toward the shipyards at Red Hook, filled with boats of all kinds and the long necks of sauropods off-loading crates, and then back around toward Dactyl Hill.

  That tree-lined neighborhood at the top of the smaller slope must be the Crest, Magdalys thought, where all the affluent Brooklynites were said to live, promenading along the streets astride their graceful duckbills. An elegant dome punctuated the cluster of official-looking buildings in downtown Brooklyn, and there was the wide stretch of Flatbush Avenue that ran from the ferry terminal up to the top of Dactyl Hill.

  Then, suddenly, they were sinking again, and the building tops rushed up toward Magdalys as the two plaits Sabeen had braided her hair into that morning flapped behind her in the rushing wind. Fubba fubba fubba foooooooo! came the strange muttering in her mind. The dactyl was diving.

  “Don’t stay on ’em long,” Bernice had offered as a final warning. “Most of the untrained ones are not that strong and can’t hold your weight for much time. Just get to the next rooftop and let ’em free. One thing there’ll always be more of on Dactyl Hill is dactyls.”

  Right. In the wonder of seeing the whole world from above for the first time, Magdalys had forgotten that part. The rooftops got bigger and bigger and Magdalys was pretty sure she was about to get dashed across them and splattered to a million pieces when the dactyl swooped low over the chimneys at the last second and then came in for a bumpy landing, stopping right at the building edge. Magdalys hopped off and teetered back and forth for a few seconds, trying to remember what gravity felt like.

  “Thank … you …” she stuttered. The dactyl squawked twice in what might’ve been a snicker, and took off to join its squad.

  Magdalys scanned the rooftops for her own squad. She caught sight of Two Step still screaming his head off on dactylback not too far away. “Over here,” Magdalys called, laughing. “Two Step!”

  He stopped screaming long enough to see her, then veered his ptero toward the rooftop where she stood waving. They landed in a tangled crash and then Two Step popped up with a huge smile on his face. “That was amazing!”

  “Didn’t sound like you were having much fun,” Magdalys pointed out.

  “I mean, it was terrifying but whoa! Whoa.”

  Magdalys shook her head. “You’re a mess, Two Step, you know that?”

  He shrugged. “Where’s Mapper?”

  “Don’t think he made it off the rooftop. He was watching from the edge when I looked back.”

  �
��I don’t blame him,” Two Step said. “That was the scariest thing I’ve done since … well, since last night, when I did about five hundred scary things I never thought I’d do.”

  “Good point,” Magdalys said.

  “What we do now?”

  “Sweep the chimneys, I guess.” She pulled the brush-extending pole out of her satchel. “Let’s do it.”

  By the time the sun started setting over the Manhattan skyline in the distance, Magdalys and Two Step were covered in soot, but they’d gotten the whole process down to a smooth, step-by-step rhythm. Hop to a rooftop, spread out to opposite ends and sweep each chimney until they met up in the middle, jump a dactyl to the next block and start it all again. They even made a game out of it; whoever swept the most chimneys got first pick from the dactyl squad and could decide which way they headed next.

  A few times during the afternoon, Magdalys caught sight of Mapper and Sabeen jetting from roof to roof a few blocks away. They’d wave and shout insults back and forth about each other’s flying skills, then get back to work.

  “Think that’s the silo Miss Bernice mentioned?” Two Step asked, gazing off toward a spiraling cluster of dactyls in the darkening sky to the east.

  Magdalys brushed some soot off her overalls as she walked up next to him. A little beyond where the houses ended on the far side of Dactyl Hill, a towering concrete building stood surrounded by barren fields. It was round with no windows at all; a metal roof covered most of the opening at the top, but a gap could be seen leading into the depths. Hundreds of dactyls swarmed around it, diving in and out and fussing with each other.

  “No idea,” Magdalys said, taking a few steps back and letting a smile break out on her face that would tell Two Step exactly what was about to happen. “Guess we better find out.”

  “Aw, man! Mag-D, wait up!”

  THE ROOFTOPS OF Dactyl Hill passed beneath Magdalys like a slow-moving parade. It was near nightfall on a simmering July Saturday, and all the horrors of the night before seemed to be whisked away on the rushing wind. Folks were out and about on the streets below; they milled about like tiny, fancy ants. Even from way up in the air, Magdalys could tell they were dressed up nice, promenading along the avenues in clusters and pairs, probably heading to social clubs and balls.

  Then, very suddenly, a gray shadow seemed to pass over the world. The dactyl had taken her directly over the Penitentiary. The castle-like fortress stretched three whole city blocks along the summit of Dactyl Hill. Towers rose up at its four corners, each with narrow windows along the sides and a howitzer cannon perched at the top. Guards with shotguns marched on knuckleskull dinos along the tops of the wide walls. In the middle, various stone buildings clustered around a central yard with a platform in the middle: the hanging gibbet. Magdalys shuddered. She’d heard plenty of stories about black and brown people getting tossed within those stone walls for no reason at all. Being restricted to an orphanage had been bad enough; she couldn’t imagine being locked in a cage with who knew what kind of actual criminals.

  Up ahead, the sun dipped behind a hazy cloud bank and the world really did darken a few shades. And then they passed the Penitentiary and were soaring over open fields — cow pastures, Magdalys now realized. A few of the lumbering mammals stood grazing in the enclosures. Beyond that, the strange building loomed beneath what looked like a living tornado of dactyls.

  “What you think it is?” Two Step asked, pulling up alongside Magdalys.

  “No idea. But we’re gonna have to land on it. These dactyls won’t hold out much longer, and I don’t wanna end up in those pastures.”

  Two Step nodded and they surged toward the spiraling flock.

  The stench hit them like a wall of foulness about thirty feet out.

  “Gah!” Two Step yelled, covering his nose with one hand while keeping a tight grip on his dactyl with the other.

  Magdalys scrunched up her face. It smelled like the dead mouse they’d found in the orphanage one night, but times ten thousand. “Whatever this place is, it’s no wonder they keep it on the outskirts of town.”

  The closer they got, the worse the funk became, until Magdalys felt like she was going to retch. Their dactyls came in for a jolty landing on the rim of the huge silo. The squawking swirl of pteros around them eclipsed the whole sky.

  “Careful,” Two Step said as Magdalys stepped up to the inner edge of the building and peered in.

  “Fancy you saying that,” Magdalys chided, but then a terrible moan rolled through her so suddenly she almost toppled into the hole. “Ah!”

  “What’s wrong?” Two Step asked, dashing over to steady her.

  She shook her head, eyes closed. “It’s fine, just …”

  Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrroooooooooooooooooooooooghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! it came again.

  Magdalys felt like her heart was being torn to pieces each time the moan sounded. Like a sorrow was being born in her chest that was bigger than she was.

  “Mag-D,” Two Step said, his fingers tightening on her wrist. “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Wait,” she whispered. “Something’s …”

  Beneath them, a gigantic chain clinked, its jangly report echoing from the darkness. All the dactyls around them hurled into the air for a few moments in alarm, then came clamoring back down. The chain was fastened to a rusty platform at the far end of the rooftop. It twitched and shuddered, and the connecting link didn’t look like it was nearly strong enough to hold whatever was pulling it.

  “There’s something big down there,” Magdalys said. “A dino.”

  Ooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrrrghhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!! came the moan, and this time it sounded like it was pleading with her, begging for … something. Magdalys squinted through the heaviness of that call, tried to decipher its meaning.

  Eeeeyyyyyoorgggghh!!

  All she could think of was Montez. Montez with his nose in a book, being annoyed with all her questions but answering them anyway. Montez keeping an eye on Sabeen and the other little ones. Montez teaching everyone how to read after lights out, coming up with clever ways to remember the more complicated stuff.

  Montez in a blue army uniform, trudging along toward battle with an old rifled musket, shoulders slumped.

  Montez in a hospital bed somewhere, wounded. Or worse …

  Aaaaaarrrrrooooooooghhhhh!!

  The moan snapped Magdalys back to the world around her, the now-dark sky, the swarming dactyls. Two Step.

  “Magdalys,” he said softly. “We gotta go.”

  Even not knowing any of what she’d been thinking, going through, somehow Two Step understood. He understood that he didn’t understand, and that was the most important thing of all. He knew enough to be tender with her without knowing why. If he’d tried to be pushy right then, she felt like she might’ve shattered.

  Whatever was down in that circular prison, there was nothing she could do for it right now. Not right now. But maybe … maybe if it was something big enough and fierce enough, maybe it could help her get where she needed to go. She cast an apologetic glance at the darkness beneath them, whispered, “I’m sorry, whatever you are, that I can’t help you,” and then turned around and followed Two Step to a nearby squad of dactyls.

  “HOW’D IT GO today?” Magdalys asked, setting her bowl of stew down and sitting on the bench beside Amaya. Around them, the Bochinche swarmed with rumors, tall tales, and nightmares about the Manhattan riots. David and Louis were nowhere to be seen, and that left everyone else to take wild guesses at all they didn’t know.

  “I heard the Feds been pulled back from the front to come handle the rioters.”

  “Psshh! Come on now. You think they give a damn bout us?”

  “Ain’t just about us, Mo. If these clowns resist the draft, who gonna fight?”

  “I’d fight!”

  “Go ’head, then.”

  “You know the riots comin’ here next, right?”

  “They can try. We ready.”

  Across the table, Two Step and M
apper chatted excitedly about their day while Sabeen ate quietly, her eyes glued to a book.

  Amaya waved a hand in front of Magdalys’s face. “Hello? How you gonna ask a question and then space out entirely when I’m answering?”

  Magdalys shook her head. “Sorry! There’s so much happening. Got caught up overhearing.”

  “You mean eavesdropping,” Amaya said, but she had a slight smile as she slurped her stew. “Anyway, it was alright. Just worked the counter most of the morning, learned how their whole cash system works and how to make about half of the drinks.”

  “Whoa! That’s a lot.”

  Amaya shrugged. “It’s kinda interesting, I guess. Beats running from rooftop to rooftop on stinky ol’ dinos.” She scrunched up her face.

  “Dactyls are pteros, not dinos, but anyway I didn’t know you hate dinos!” Magdalys said.

  “Heh, not everyone’s like you, Mags. Give me a good old reliable machine over a nasty flesh-and-blood poop factory any day.”

  “Poop factory!”

  “They poop a lot and you know it.”

  Magdalys covered her eyes. “That’s not all they do though! They’re amazing! And, like, today … They fly! Amaya, we flew today. It was … I’ve never …”

  “You can keep it,” Amaya said. Then she softened. “But I’m happy you had a good time. I do kinda wish I knew how to work ’em the way you do. It’d probably come in handy …”

  Magdalys didn’t ask what it would come in handy for in Amaya’s imagination, but she had a feeling it wasn’t just getting from place to place. “I could teach you,” she said. “I mean, I could try,” she added with a wink.

  “Ha … there’s definitely no guarantee. But yeah, I’d like that. Maybe I could teach you something in return?”

  In her head, Magdalys saw Amaya’s expert hands sliding the powder into the barrel of that pistol as the brachy thundered along down Fifth Avenue. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.” She smiled as she went back to her stew.