"Zachary Hunter, you come here right now." Officer Jones yelled into the swarm of people at the flea market. The boy in question turned and, realising who was shouting at him, spun back around and ran. Darting through the crowds he pulled up his grey hood, looking back every so often, he saw Jones' face get redder and redder as he pushed through the throng. It's not that he was unfit, but rather that oftentimes he spent his days giving talks at schools and being a reassuring presence to the people of West Williamsburg then chasing eleven year old thieves. Zach turned a corner and blended into a passing group of boys his age, on the way back from some sports tournament. He smugly smiled as the policeman ran straight past him. He slowly edged out of the line and ran the opposite direction. He tripped on his untied shoelaces and fell, face first onto the stony street. He couldn't suppress a small cry out. "Of course!" He sighed as he quickly jumped back up.

It was enough to get Jones' attention. He marched over to the boy who hurriedly removed his shoes and sprinted down a tight alleyway, hopping slightly. Jones was close behind. A ginger cat squealed as Zach foot caught it's tail. "Sorry." Zach breathed. He looked forward and saw…a dead end. A straight up four story brick wall with windows dotted along each story. He pushed his back against the wall, willing it, however futile, to move with all his might. He saw Jones come around the bend. He scrunched up his eyes, bracing himself for the lecture of a lifetime. "You little- oh my God."

Zach slowly opened one eye and then the next. He was, floating? He looked around and saw that he was spread eagled, clutching to the sides of the window frame. Tentatively, he looked down and saw the confusion on Jones' face. Jones shook his head, blinked hard and then looked back up, more bewildered now then before. "Don't play tricks on me, Hunter. I'm going to get a ladder. Don't go anywhere." He laughed at his little joke as he lightly jogged down the alley and around the corner. Zach cursed himself as he thought to what his mother was going to say. "She's going to kill me." He whispered to himself. He saw that same ginger cat lick its paws atop a dustbin, it seemed to be glaring coldly at him. Then his mind backtracked, "I didn't know I could jump so high." He smiled. He looked around to try and get some idea of how he got here. Even the bins were a long way from up here, so he couldn't have used them to give himself a leg up. The cat seemed to smirk at him, as if it knew exactly how he got up there but he wasn't going to tell you, because, for one thing it seemed too petty of a business for the cat and two, he was a cat! Zach felt his hands starting to sweat and readjusted the way he held himself. The way he held himself, a long way off the ground, he thought, letting out a long breath.

"I'm just going to put the washing out mami, momma'll look at your drawing in just a seco-. What the hell do you think you're doing?" A woman from inside the apartment shrieked as she opened the window. Zach struggled to keep himself up and he wobbled slightly. The woman was yelling at him in Spanish and Zach tried to remember what little he could from his classes. "Lo siento, lo siento." He garbled as the woman began to push him with a broom. Jones came around the corner, heaving a ladder. "Ma'am stop that, ma'am please." He shouted up. A toddler started screaming, the cat screeched and the noise was too much for Zach. He put his fingers in his ears and the woman gave one big shove.

Zach tumbled to the ground and couldn't suppress a cry out that escaped him just as he felt the air cushion him as he fell forward. Slowly the air seemed to guide him down to the ground where Jones caught him. "Come here often." Zach smiled.
"You're coming home, Zach. Isabelle can deal with you." He took Zach's rucksack, grabbed him by the shoulder, apologised to the woman who was now cursing them and led him back home.

Isabelle was a pretty young woman who's looks had been somewhat wearied by circumstance. After the disappearance of her boyfriend and Zachary's father, the young woman fell on hard times and for a brief time lived on the streets with her baby. Now she worked three jobs and struggled to bandy together the rent for their one bedroom apartment. Against Zachary's wishes she slept on the sofa bed in the living area. She was catching up on her sleep; the night before had been disrupted by the scratchings and callings of a cat outside, when there was a pounding at the door. Yawning, she opened it to Officer Jones and Zach. "Oh Zach what have you done now?" She said welcoming the officer inside.
"I caught him stealing a camera at the market." He said opening the rucksack and pulling out a camera. "Zach!" She sighed, "what are the charges?"
"No charges Isabella, I wont report this."
"Bella, please. You don't have to do that, you shouldn't do that. I don't want you to get into troub-"
"It's no trouble to me Isa- sorry Bella. Just." He looked over at Zach sulking on the sofa. "Sort him out."
She thanked him and walked him down to the door. Zach stood at the top of the stairs and listened in. "-don't know what to do with him. He doesn't need to steal he just. I'll let you get back to work."
"It's no problem, I'm here for you, both of you."
"Thank you Will."
"My pleasure." The door swung shut and Zach hurried into his room, picking up his rucksack. His walls were a white that had faded over time into a dull yellow. The paint had cracked and peeled off in places, specifically from across his bed where at night, when he couldn't sleep he would throw and catch a n old tattered tennis ball. The bed was the only piece of furniture in the room as it was the only one that fit. The wall was more like a roomy cupboard then a bedroom for a young boy. His clothes were a in a messy pile under his bed, which he flopped onto and it rebounded against the wall and the springs creaked.

A moment later the door burst open. "I can't believe you. You promised me this would stop, you're lucky Will is so kind. I can't promise that I would be. I mean Jesus Christ Zach what the hell is wrong with you!?" He mumbled an incoherent response as he looked ashamedly at the ground. "What!?" She yelled sternly. He didn't reply. She sat beside him on the bed and tried to put her arm around him but he moved away. "Zach, why do you do it?" He shrugged and mumbled something about having more energy then other people. "It happened again."
"What?"
"The moving. I was running and suddenly I was halfway up a building."
"Zachary."
"It's the truth!" He exclaimed.
"Don't lie to me."
"I'm not." He stared at her plainly. She chuckled to herself as she hugged him. "What am I going to do with you. It's your last weekend before school, let's not ruin it."

Zach groaned as he entertained the thought of returning back to school. The taunting; people calling him weird because of things out of his control. It wasn't his fault that when he got angry bad things happened. Like that time in English, when he forgot his book report on, actually he wasn't quite sure what it was on because in all honestly he hadn't read the book, but anyway the teacher had yelled at him for at least five minutes- closing her lecture with a snide comment about his talking to himself. Humiliated, he scrunched up his eyes and breathed deeply. A second later there was a shriek from the teacher. He opened his eyes to see her flying across the room. Tumbling and twirling, she screamed as she tossed and turned around the room. She ended her tour of the class with a resounding thump onto a large globe that proceeded to spin faster and faster. She leapt off and cried out of the room. He giggled as he remembered this, but it faded when he recalled the torment that came straight afterwards.

Isabelle kissed him on the forehead and went in to the living area. She sat on the sofa and a cat shrieked out in pain as it leapt out from under the blanket she had just sat on. She shrieked at it and Zach hurried out of his room. "What? What!" He cried. Isabelle pointed at the cat as she ran to a cupboard and began to search frantically for a broom. Zach tried to catch the cat, it went one way and then quickly stepped to the other and darted around Zach. He was chasing it in a circle around the room when Isabelle came in with a broom that she used to hit the cat away. "You're hurting him!" Zach exclaimed desperately. "He's a mangy stray!" Isabelle replied over the cats screeching. She hit the cats tail and he pounced over her head. Zach quickly raced round to catch him in his arms. The cat tore and swiped at him but Zach held his face away as he pushed it out of a window opened by Isabelle. The both collapsed onto the sofa and began to laugh.

Later that evening, after a pizza and a superhero film, Isabelle and Zach lay on the sofa asleep. He was dreaming of the market from earlier. It was a peculiar thing that happened once a year on the 29th of August. He was surprised to find that camera because most of the objects there were so odd. There were hundreds of thick leather bound books, strange artefacts (weirdly shaped skulls and bones) and abnormal plants and other materials. In the morning there would be no trace of it. It will have disappeared as quickly and suddenly as it had appeared. Stranger still were the people. There were teenagers moaning to each other about "all this damn reading" or children, his age, worrying to their parents. "But this is the last chance to really get everything." They wore long robes and got strangely quiet whenever he got nearer. Some even whispered and pointed at him.

Stirring at the sound of scratching at the window, he stretched and sleepily drifted over to it. There was a ginger cat there, scrabbling to get in. Carefully, so as not to wake his mother, he opened it. "Boo." He spat at the cat that simply glared at him. "Woof. Woof. Woof." He barked. The cat seemed to smile at him. He tried pushing it but it bit at him. He sighed as he picked it up and closed the windows. He placed it on the ground so he could lay a blanket over his mother. He looked back at the cat and it had gone. He heard a soft purring from his room and walked in to see it lying on his bed. He got into bed, picking it up and sitting it beside him. He reached under his pillow and pulled out the photo of his father. He stroked his mothers smiling face, her hands on her pregnant belly and smirked at his father pulling a face from behind her. He kissed it and replaced it in its spot.

He rummaged through his rucksack and felt something bulky at the bottom. He picked it out. It was the camera. He smiled as he turned it on. "Thank you." He whispered and imagined Officer Jones tipping a hat or something old timey that policemen do. He grabbed the cat and bought its cheek to his. Turning the camera, he took a series of pictures. He jammed his fingers at the buttons until a slideshow appeared.

There he was. His blonde cropped hair and green eyes. His fathers slightly tanned skin and cheeks but his mothers nose and eyebrows. He flickered through the photos when he realised something magical. Something both endearing and terrifying. Something that would change his life.

He was there, smiling his droll smile at the camera and his eyebrows raised inquisitively. Oh he was right there in the photograph alright. But there was no sign of the cat.