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Authors: Juliet Rosetti
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The
guard stared at me, flinty-eyed. “Hold it right there, lady. Let’s see some
identification.” His hand twitched toward his weapon, which was the size of an
elephant gun. Why would you need a gun that size in this place? To keep the
little kids from peeing in the pretend toilets? I edged away as he advanced,
but the autograph hounds hemmed me in. Couldn’t go forward. Couldn’t go left or
right.
Trapped! This was
where it all ended. I could almost feel the cold metal cuffs clamping onto my
wrists.
But something odd
was happening. The crowd wasn’t parting to let the guard through. If I hadn’t
known better I would have sworn they were deliberately obstructing him, the
gray-haired woman whomping her walker down on his foot, another woman tugging
on his arm, asking him to show her the way to the ladies’ room. Nudging the
knife-wielding brat aside, I forced my way to the balcony rail, looked over,
and saw that there was a twelve-foot drop to the floor below.
I put one leg
over the railing, then froze in place, assailed once again by the height virus:
clammy palms, queasy stomach, the sensation of being needled by a million
wasps. My brothers had attempted to cure my fear of heights the way the Navy
cures water-phobics: by dumping them in a pool, sink or swim. My brothers
dumped me off roofs. There was an art to it: I would cling to the roof edge by
my fingertips, crying and whining, until my brothers stomped on my knuckles. If
I survived the jump, my brothers rewarded me with bubble gum.
The therapy
didn’t take. Heights still literally made me sick.
I put the other
leg over the railing, teetering on tiptoes on the narrow lip of ledge. The
guard dived at me. I jumped.
She lands! She
scores a perfect two-point landing without breaking either ankle!
Above, Mr. Law
and Order jerked his gun out of its holster and ripped off a shot. Twitchy with
nerves, he shot high. A huge chip of porcelain zinged off a toilet seat
attached to the Great Wall and razored across my upper arm.
Jesus! This guy was nuts. What was he using for ammo—cannonballs? Luckily he
couldn’t shoot for shit; his next shot hit a pink toilet on the top row. It
tore loose from its anchor bolts and plummeted into the toilet below, which
ripped loose in turn, knocking against the bowls next to it. The goon kept
blasting away as though he was saving the fake bathrooms from raving hordes of
Taliban.
Suddenly there
was an ominous creak, followed by the sound of a million bolts ripping loose.
And then the entire wall of toilets avalanched down, the higher ones knocking
into the lower ones in a thunderous chain reaction of shattering porcelain. The
toilets smashed to the floor and exploded, jagged chunks of china spraying
through the air like shrapnel. A black toilet bowl thumped down behind me like
a bomb as I hurtled toward the fire exit.
Every
tourist in the building had the same idea. Screaming and hysterical, they
stampeded through the doors and scrambled out into the parking lot. I ran along
with them, zigzagging between careening cars. The lot was fenced in by hedges
and there were only two exits. I sprinted for the closest one, but just as I
reached it, a patrol car squealed to a halt directly in my path. Two local cops
heaved themselves out and eyeballed the scene. This was where the cops bellowed The jig is up, Maguire! and made me flatten myself against a car.
Then I remembered
a scene in The Fugitive. Pursued through a building by the marshal,
Richard Kimble is halted by security guards. He yells to them that there’s a
guy with a drawn gun behind him. The guards tackle the marshal while Richard
Kimble once again skips away, leaving a thick layer of egg over the faces of
his pursuers.
“There’s a man
with a gun!” I yelled, pointing toward the building.
The
cops’ heads swiveled toward the design center. At that moment Mr. Safe’n’Sound
burst out, waving his
guard stared at me, flinty-eyed. “Hold it right there, lady. Let’s see some
identification.” His hand twitched toward his weapon, which was the size of an
elephant gun. Why would you need a gun that size in this place? To keep the
little kids from peeing in the pretend toilets? I edged away as he advanced,
but the autograph hounds hemmed me in. Couldn’t go forward. Couldn’t go left or
right.
Trapped! This was
where it all ended. I could almost feel the cold metal cuffs clamping onto my
wrists.
But something odd
was happening. The crowd wasn’t parting to let the guard through. If I hadn’t
known better I would have sworn they were deliberately obstructing him, the
gray-haired woman whomping her walker down on his foot, another woman tugging
on his arm, asking him to show her the way to the ladies’ room. Nudging the
knife-wielding brat aside, I forced my way to the balcony rail, looked over,
and saw that there was a twelve-foot drop to the floor below.
I put one leg
over the railing, then froze in place, assailed once again by the height virus:
clammy palms, queasy stomach, the sensation of being needled by a million
wasps. My brothers had attempted to cure my fear of heights the way the Navy
cures water-phobics: by dumping them in a pool, sink or swim. My brothers
dumped me off roofs. There was an art to it: I would cling to the roof edge by
my fingertips, crying and whining, until my brothers stomped on my knuckles. If
I survived the jump, my brothers rewarded me with bubble gum.
The therapy
didn’t take. Heights still literally made me sick.
I put the other
leg over the railing, teetering on tiptoes on the narrow lip of ledge. The
guard dived at me. I jumped.
She lands! She
scores a perfect two-point landing without breaking either ankle!
Above, Mr. Law
and Order jerked his gun out of its holster and ripped off a shot. Twitchy with
nerves, he shot high. A huge chip of porcelain zinged off a toilet seat
attached to the Great Wall and razored across my upper arm.
Jesus! This guy was nuts. What was he using for ammo—cannonballs? Luckily he
couldn’t shoot for shit; his next shot hit a pink toilet on the top row. It
tore loose from its anchor bolts and plummeted into the toilet below, which
ripped loose in turn, knocking against the bowls next to it. The goon kept
blasting away as though he was saving the fake bathrooms from raving hordes of
Taliban.
Suddenly there
was an ominous creak, followed by the sound of a million bolts ripping loose.
And then the entire wall of toilets avalanched down, the higher ones knocking
into the lower ones in a thunderous chain reaction of shattering porcelain. The
toilets smashed to the floor and exploded, jagged chunks of china spraying
through the air like shrapnel. A black toilet bowl thumped down behind me like
a bomb as I hurtled toward the fire exit.
Every
tourist in the building had the same idea. Screaming and hysterical, they
stampeded through the doors and scrambled out into the parking lot. I ran along
with them, zigzagging between careening cars. The lot was fenced in by hedges
and there were only two exits. I sprinted for the closest one, but just as I
reached it, a patrol car squealed to a halt directly in my path. Two local cops
heaved themselves out and eyeballed the scene. This was where the cops bellowed The jig is up, Maguire! and made me flatten myself against a car.
Then I remembered
a scene in The Fugitive. Pursued through a building by the marshal,
Richard Kimble is halted by security guards. He yells to them that there’s a
guy with a drawn gun behind him. The guards tackle the marshal while Richard
Kimble once again skips away, leaving a thick layer of egg over the faces of
his pursuers.
“There’s a man
with a gun!” I yelled, pointing toward the building.
The
cops’ heads swiveled toward the design center. At that moment Mr. Safe’n’Sound
burst out, waving his
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