Max
"AND A-ONE, and a-two -- " Nudge said, leaning into a perfect forty-five-degree angle. Her tawny russet wings glowed warmly in the afternoon sunlight.
Behind her, the Gasman made squealing-brakes sounds as he dropped his feet down and slowed drastically. "Hey! Watch gravity in action!" he yelled, folding his wings back to create an unaerodynamic eight-year-old, his blond hair blown straight up by the wind.
I rolled my eyes. "Gazzy, stick to the choreography!" He was sinking fast, and I had to bellow to make sure he heard me. "This is a paying job! Don't blow it!" Okay, they were paying us mostly in doughnuts, but let's not quibble.
Even from this high up, I could hear the exclamations of surprise, the indrawn gasps that told me our captive audience below had noticed one of us dropping like a rock.
I'd give him five seconds, and then I'd swoop down after him. One... two...
I wasn't sure about this whole air-show thing to begin with, but how could 1 refuse my own mom? After our last "working vacation" in Ant-freaking-arctica, my mom and a bunch of scientists had created an organization called the Coalition to Stop the Madness, or CSM. Basically, they were trying to tell the whole world about the dangers of pollution, greenhouse gases, dependence on foreign oil -- you get the picture.
Already, more than a thousand scientists, teachers, senators, and regular people had joined the CSM. One of the teacher-members had come up with the traveling air-show idea to really get the message out. I mean, Blue Angels, Schmue Angels, but/lying mutant bird kids? Come on! Who's gonna pass that up?
So here we were, flying perfect formations, doing tricks, air dancing, la la la, the six of us and Total, whose wings by now had pretty much finished developing. He could fly, at least, but he wasn't exactly Baryshnikov. If Baryshnikov had been a small, black, Scottie dog with wings, that is.
I ignored the jab. "Here's a more interesting piece of information: Brigid's at a news conference," I said. "I confronted her after I spotted her earlier. She said she was going to expose Mr. Chu."
"We'll see," said Fang, sounding somewhat disinterested, to my surprise and delight. "I guess we're finally alone" -- a tiny smile curved his lips -- "for the immediate future."
"Huh," I said, my heart kicking into high gear. "Huh. That's... nice."
Very, very carefully, Fang lowered himself even closer to me. I could almost feel his breath in my ear. We'd never flown this close to each other before. A delicate electric quiver ran down my spine.
Below us, a small golden head bobbed up and down in the water. I loved seeing Angel so happy, so carefree, not doing anything particularly evil at the moment.
"She really is special, isn't she?" I mused.
"Yes," he said. Fang switched hands, and 1 shook mine, trying to get some blood back into it.
"Maybe she really is the key to everything," I said, "whatever everything is. She keeps saying it's all about her. Maybe it really is."
"Max." Fang let go of my hand. "Right now, it's really all about -- us."
He swooped down to the right in a big semicircle, ending facing me. Slowly we climbed upward, until we were almost vertical, flying straight up to the sun.
While carefully synchronizing our wings -- they almost touched -- Fang leaned in, gently put one hand behind my neck, and kissed me. It was just about as close to heaven as I'll ever get, I guess. 1 closed my eyes, lost in the feeling of flying and kissing and being with the one person in the world I completely, utterly trusted.
When we finally broke apart, we looked down at the others, who were way far below us now. Angel was shading her eyes, looking up at us with a big smile. She was sitting on a dolphin's back, and I hoped soon someone would explain to the dolphin that he shouldn't let Angel take advantage of his good nature.
Still looking up at us, Angel gave us a big thumbs-up.
"She approves," Fang said with a hint of amusement.
"Jeez," I wondered aloud. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
By the time I'd counted to four, the Gasman had ended his free fall and was soaring upward again, happiness on his relatively clean face.
Hanging out with the CSM folks had some benefits, chiefly food and decent places to sleep. And, of course, seeing my mom, which I'd never be able to get enough of, after living the first fourteen years of my life not even knowing she existed. (I explained all this in earlier books, if you want to go get caught up.)
"Yo," said Fang, hovering next to me.
My heart gave a little kick as I saw how the sun glinted off his deeply black feathers. Which matched his eyes. And his hair. "You enjoying being a spokesfreak?" I asked him casually, looking away.
One side of his mouth moved: the Fang version of unbridled chortling.
He shrugged. "It's a job."
"Yep. So long as they don't worry about pesky child labor laws," I agreed. We're an odd little band, my fellow flock members and I. Fang, Iggy, and 1 are all fourteen, give or take. So officially, technically, legally, we're minors. But we've been living on our own for years, and regular child protection laws just don't seem to apply to us. Come to think of it, many regular grown-up laws don't seem to apply to us either.
Nudge is eleven, roughly. The Gasman is eightish. Angel is somewhere in the six range. I don't know how old Total is, and frankly, what with the calculations of dog years into human years, I don't care.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, Angel dropped down onto me with all her forty-one pounds of feathery fun.
"Oof! What are you doing, goofball?" I exclaimed, dipping about a foot. Then I heard it: the high-pitched, all-loo-familiar whine of a bullet streaking past my ear, close enough to knock some of my hair aside.
In the next second, Total yelped piercingly, spinning in midair, his small black wings flapping frantically. Angel's quick instincts had saved my life. But Total had taken the hit.
IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE, I rolled a full 360, spinning in the air, swooping to catch Total and also performing evasive maneuvers that, sadly, I've had way too much practice doing.
"Scatter!" I shouted. "Get out of firing range!"
We all peeled away, our wings moving fast and powerfully, gaining altitude like rockets. I heard applause floating up to me -- they thought this was part of the act. Then, I looked down at the limp black dog in my arms.
"Total!" I said, holding his chunky little body. "Total!"
He blinked and moaned. Tm hit, Max. They got me. I guess Tm gonna live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse, huh?"
Okay. In my experience, if you're really hit or seriously hurt, you don't say much. Maybe a few bad words. Maybe grunting sounds. You don't manage pithy quotes.
Quickly I shifted him this way and that, scanning for wounds. He had both ears, and his face was fine. I patted along his wings, which still looked too short to keep him aloft. Bright red blood stained my sleeve, but so far he seemed to be in one unperforated piece.
"Tell Akila," Total gasped, eyelids fluttering, "tell her she's always been the only one." Akila is the Alaskan Mala-mute Total had fallen for back on the Wendy K., the boat where we lived with a bunch of scientists on our way to Antarctica.
"Shh," I said. "I'm still looking for holes."
"I don't have many regrets," Total rambled weakly. "True, I thought about a career in the theater, once our adventures waned. I know it's just a crazy dream, but I always hoped for just one chance to play the Dane before I died."
"Play the huh?" I said absently, feeling his ribs. Nothing broken. "Is that a game?"
Total moaned and closed his eyes.
Then I found it: the source of the blood, the place where he'd been shot.
"Total?" I said, and got a slight whimper. "You have a boo-boo on your tail."
"What?" He opened his eyes and curled to peer at his short tail. He wagged it experimentally, outrage appearing THE WIND SWEPT THROUGH my hair, and I closed my eyes, coasting on a thermal current, feeling the sun warming my face and my feathers.
Fang was above me, moving his wings in perfect unison with mine. We were holding hands: his was reaching down, and mine was reaching up.
Most of the flock was swimming in the ocean below us, in the shallow bay off the coast of Oahu. Some dolphins had joined them, no doubt lured by Angel. I could hear the flock's laughter, hear the cheerful chirping of the dolphins as they leaped out of the water.
"I'm glad Mom and Ella are home again safe. And I guess Jeb is -- somewhere else." I didn't know whether Jeb was evil or not. He was totally confusing. Maybe I would never know.
"And I hear Total's off planning his and Akila's upcoming wedding," Fang added with a slight grin. "Guess what? You're maid of honor. Can't wait to see you in a poufy dress."
I ignored the jab. "Here's a more interesting piece of information: Brigid's at a news conference," I said. "I confronted her after I spotted her earlier. She said she was going to expose Mr. Chu."
"We'll see," said Fang, sounding somewhat disinterested, to my surprise and delight. "I guess we're finally alone" -- a tiny smile curved his lips -- "for the immediate future."
"Huh," I said, my heart kicking into high gear. "Huh. That's... nice."
Very, very carefully, Fang lowered himself even closer to me. I could almost feel his breath in my ear. We'd never flown this close to each other before. A delicate electric quiver ran down my spine.
Below us, a small golden head bobbed up and down in the water. I loved seeing Angel so happy, so carefree, not doing anything particularly evil at the moment.
"She really is special, isn't she?" I mused.
"Yes," he said. Fang switched hands, and 1 shook mine, trying to get some blood back into it.
"Maybe she really is the key to everything," 1 said, "whatever everything is. She keeps saying it's all about her. Maybe it really is."
"Max." Fang let go of my hand. "Right now, it's really all about -- us."
He swooped down to the right in a big semicircle, ending facing me. Slowly we climbed upward, until we were almost vertical, flying straight up to the sun.
While carefully synchronizing our wings -- they almost touched -- Fang leaned in, gently put one hand behind my neck, and kissed me. It was just about as close to heaven as I'll ever get, I guess. 1 closed my eyes, lost in the feeling of flying and kissing and being with the one person in the world I completely, utterly trusted.
When we finally broke apart, we looked down at the others, who were way far below us now. Angel was shading her eyes, looking up at us with a big smile. She was sitting on a dolphin's back, and I hoped soon someone would explain to the dolphin that he shouldn't let Angel take advantage of his good nature.
Still looking up at us, Angel gave us a big thumbs-up.
"She approves," Fang said with a hint of amusement.
"Jeez," I wondered aloud. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"