Total sat down, looking just as stubborn as Gazzy did sometimes. “I want to go with.”
Fang smirked at me over Total’s head. I breathed out heavily.
“Fine,” I said tightly, and Total leaped into my arms and licked my cheek. I was gonna have to talk to him about that.
Five minutes later we were airborne and headed to DC.
“So, Angel?” I said, looking over at her. She was gliding through the night sky, her eight-foot white wings looking like a dove’s. “Have you picked up anything from Anne, about anything? Anything off?”
“Not really.” Angel thought. “From what I can tell, she does work for the FBI. She does care about us and wants us to be happy. She thinks the boys are slobs.”
“I’m blind,” Iggy said irritably. “How am I supposed to make everything all tidy?”
“Yeah, because you’re so handicapped,” I said sarcastically. “Like—you can’t build bombs or cook or win at Monopoly. You can’t tell us all apart by the feel of our skin or feathers.”
Gazzy giggled next to Iggy, and Iggy frowned.
I turned back to Angel. “Anything else?”
“There is something she isn’t telling us,” Angel said slowly. “But I don’t know what it is. It’s not even clear in her mind. Just something that’s going to happen.”
All my senses went on alert. “Like what? Is she going to turn us over to the whitecoats?”
“I’m not sure she even knows what whitecoats are,” said Angel. “I don’t know that it’s something bad. It could be, like—she’s going to take us to the circus or something.”
“Wouldn’t that be redundant?” Fang muttered.
“Hmm. Well,” I said. “I know how easy it’s been to relax there, guys. But let’s try to keep on guard, okay?”
“Okay,” Angel said.
“I’m chilly,” said Total.
My eyes narrowed.
Angel smiled at me.
“You’re wearing a fur coat,” I pointed out.
“It’s chilly up here.”
I gritted my teeth, unzipped my coat, zipped Total into it, and tried to ignore how the boys were snickering. Total’s little head peeped out at the neck of my jacket.
“Much better,” he said happily.
“Yo—first address is down there,” said Fang, pointing. “Showtime.”
36
“Maybe her dad was a barber?” Nudge said.
I looked over at Fang. This was the address that had been closest to his name, the address where his mom had supposedly lived. We thought she’d been a single mom, a teenager, and that she’d given Fang up for adoption. But like the first two addresses, this was a bust—a barbershop in the shadow of an office building.
Fang shrugged, looking unconcerned. But I knew him, and the stiff set of his jaw.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. For just a moment, he met my gaze, and I saw his emotion. Then his eyes went flat again.
“No big. Didn’t think it would add up to anything anyway,” he said. “It’s probably more wasting of our time, but should we check out this last one?”
“Yes,” said Iggy. It was the address next to his name.
“Okay, let’s go,” said Fang, and he took off, not turning to see if we were following.
“He’s really upset,” Angel whispered to me, as Nudge and Gazzy leaped into the air.
“I know, sweetie,” I whispered back.
“I don’t care where I came from,” Angel said earnestly, looking into my eyes. “Wherever I came from, I don’t want to go back. Not if you can’t come too.”
I kissed her forehead. “We’ll deal with that if and when it happens,” I said. “But right now, let’s catch up to everyone else.”
“Hang on,” said Total, trotting over to a fire hydrant. “Potty break.”
37
“Are there apartments on top of the stores?” Iggy asked, his feelings written all over his face.
“No.” I heaved a sigh. Iggy’s coded address had turned out to be an Asian food store in a little strip mall.
“What’s across the street?” Iggy asked.
“A used-car lot,” I said. “I’m sorry, Ig.”
“It’s my fault, guys,” said Fang. “I thought I’d cracked the code, but obviously I was totally off my gourd.”
“Well, if you were wrong,” Nudge said, “then we don’t have to be disappointed, right? It just means we still don’t know.”
“Yeah, that’s right, Nudge,” I said, thankful that she was taking it so well.
“This sucks!” Iggy shouted suddenly, his voice echoing off the glass storefronts. He punched a telephone pole in front of him, hitting it accurately. He winced, and I saw the scraped skin and bloody knuckles.
“I’m sorry, Ig—,” I began.
“I don’t care if you’re sorry!” Iggy shouted at me. “Everyone’s sorry! That doesn’t matter! What matters is that we find where we belong!” He walked angrily away from us, his boots kicking up stones in the parking lot. “I mean, I just can’t take this anymore!” he yelled, waving his arms and heading back to us. “I need some answers! We can’t just keep on wandering from place to place, always on the run, always hunted. . . .” His voice broke, and we all looked at him in shock. Iggy hardly ever cried.
I went over and tried to put my arms around him, but he pushed me away.
“We all want answers, Iggy,” I said. “We all feel lost sometimes. It’s just—we have to stick together. We won’t stop looking for your parents, I swear.”
“It’s different for you,” Iggy said, his voice quieter but bitter. “You don’t know what it’s like. Yeah, I make jokes, I’m the blind kid—but don’t you see? Every time we move on, I’m lost all over again. You guys—it’s so much easier for you. Even your lost isn’t as bad as my lost, you know?”
I’d never heard Iggy admit to feeling scared or vulnerable.
“We’re your eyes, Iggy,” said the Gasman, sounding small and anxious. “You don’t need to see when you’ve got us.”
“Yeah, but I won’t always have you!” Iggy said, his voice rising till he was shouting again. “What happens if you get killed? Of course I need to see, you idiot! I remember seeing! I know what it’s like! I don’t have it anymore, and I won’t ever have it again. And someday I’m going to lose you, lose all of you—and when that happens, I’ll lose . . . myself.”
His face was contorted with rage, and he swept one hand down and picked up a chunk of asphalt. Whirling, he threw it hard against a storefront, where it shattered a big plate-glass window. Immediately alarms went off.
“Uh-oh,” Iggy muttered.
“Let’s split,” Fang said. Angel, the Gasman, and Nudge took off. Total jumped up into my arms, and I zipped him into my jacket.
“No,” said Iggy, and I skidded to a halt.
“What? Come on, Iggy,” I said. “The alarm’s going off.”
“I know. I’m not deaf too,” Iggy said bitterly. “I don’t care. Let them find me, take me now. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters.”
And, to my horror, he sat down on the curb. I heard police car sirens wailing toward us.
“Iggy, let’s go, get up,” Fang said.
“Give me one good reason,” Iggy said, dropping his head into his hands.
I tossed Total to Fang, and the dog yipped, startled, as Fang grabbed him. “You guys go,” I ordered.
Fang took off, but the flock stayed nearby, hovering. The police sirens were getting closer.
I leaned down. “Listen, Iggy,” I said tensely. “I’m sorry about tonight. I know how disappointed you are. We’re all disappointed. And I’m sorry you’re blind. I remember when you weren’t, and I can’t even imagine what it’s like to lose that. I’m sorry we’re mutant bird kids, I’m sorry we don’t have parents, I’m sorry we have Erasers and people trying to kill us all the time.
“But if you think I’m going to let you give up on us now, you’ve got another think coming. Yes, you’re
a blind mutant freak, but you’re my blind mutant freak, and you’re coming with me, now, you’re coming with us right now, or I swear I will kick your skinny white ass from here to the middle of next week.”
Iggy raised his head. Flashes of light told me the cops were almost on top of us.
“Iggy, I need you,” I said urgently. “I love you. I need all of you, all five of you, to feel whole myself. Now get up, before I kill you.”
Iggy stood. “Well, when you put it that way . . .”
I grabbed his hand and we ran around to the back of the mall, then took off fast, racing toward the shadows at the edge of the parking lot. We stayed high, looking down to see two squad cars zoom into the lot.
We turned and headed toward Anne’s house, and I made sure the tips of my wing feathers brushed against Iggy’s on every downstroke.
“We’re your family,” I told him. “We’ll always be your family.”
“I know.” He sniffled and rubbed his sleeve across his sightless eyes.
“Let’s go fast,” Total said.
38
“What is this?” I said without thinking. “I mean—looks good. Smells good.” I sat down at the table and held my plate out. “Is that broccoli? Yum.”
Anne put a big spoonful of some casseroley-type stuff on my plate. I could identify peas and a possible carrot and something brownish that was probably of the meat persuasion.
I picked up my fork and put a smile on my face. “Thanks for making dinner, Anne,” I said, taking a bite.
“Uh-huh,” she said, giving me a wry look. “At least I made a lot of it. I’m learning.”
“It’s fine,” I said with my mouth full. I waved my fork in the air. “’S great.”
Fang passed Iggy his plate and tapped the table by his fork. Unerringly Iggy picked up his fork and started eating. I’d kept my eye on him since last night, but he’d been pretty okay today. At least, he hadn’t blown anything up or set anything on fire, so that was good.
All of us cleaned our plates. Twice. We’d gone hungry too many times to be picky eaters.
Then, to add to the American domesticity of the scene, Anne brought out an apple pie.
“I love apple pie!” Nudge said excitedly.
“Do you have two of them?” Gazzy looked anxious, already mentally dividing it.
Anne brought over another one. “I told you, I’m learning.”
Gazzy punched the air. “Yes!”
“I’d like to talk to you guys,” Anne said, dishing up the pie. “Sort of a family meeting.”
I kept my face blank, wondering whose family she thought she was talking about.
“You’ve all done beautifully here,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “You’ve adjusted better than I thought possible. And I find I’m enjoying it more than I ever imagined.”
I started to get a really bad feeling. Please don’t let her say something horrible, like she wanted to adopt us or something. I had no idea what I would do if that happened.
“I think we’re ready to take the next step,” she went on, looking around the table at us.
Please no please no please no—
“So I’ve enrolled you in school.”
Whaaat?
Fang burst out laughing. “Whoa, you had us going there for a minute,” he said.
“I’m not kidding, Nick,” Anne said quietly. “There’s an excellent school nearby. It would be perfectly safe. You could meet other people your age, interact with them. And—let’s face it: Your education has been spotty at best.”
Or nonexistent at worst, I thought.
“School?” Nudge asked. “You mean, like, at a school?”
There was that word again.
“Going to a real school, with other people?” Angel looked concerned.
“Holy frijoles,” Total muttered from under the table.
“You’ll start on Monday,” Anne said briskly, starting to gather empty plates. “I’ll pick up your uniforms tomorrow.”
Uniforms?
39
Without a word, I shoved my chair away from the table and stomped over to the back door. I yanked it open and jumped down the steps.
From there I did a running takeoff, snapping out my wings, feeling them push against the air filling my feathers. A couple of hard strokes and I was airborne, rising above the apple orchards, above the barn.
Once I was up high, I let the full range of my anger bloom. Taking a deep breath, I tried to remember how to fly really fast—and then, almost immediately, I was doing it, my wings seeming to move by themselves.
Let’s see just how fast I can get out of here, I thought grimly, and poured on the speed.
Running away never helps, said the Voice in my head.
“Yeah, well, flying helps—a lot!”
Fang was waiting for me by an open window when I got back. He handed me a glass of water, and I sucked it down.
“Gone a long time,” he said. “How far did you get? Botswana?”
I grinned wryly. “Just for a minute, before I had to turn around. They say hi.”
“How fast do you think you go?”
“Over two hundred,” I said. “Two twenty? Two forty?”
He nodded.
“Everything cool here?” I headed down the hall to my room, kicking off my shoes. The house was dark and quiet. My clock said one-thirty.
“Yeah. Wrangled Gazzy into the bath. Total fell in. Angel made Nudge change her mind about what book to read, and I came down on her.”
I looked at him. “Sounds like you’ve got everything under control.”
“I managed.”
I sat on my bed, not knowing what to say.
Fang sat down next to me. “Did you want to just keep going out there?” he asked. “Keep going and not come back?”
I drew a shaky breath. “Yes,” I whispered.
“Anne’s never gonna take your place, Max,” Fang said, his dark eyes on me.
I shrugged, not looking at him.
“Anne’s just a—depot,” he said. He seemed to be getting more, well, comfortable with me lately. “We can rest up, eat, hang out, while we plan our next move. The kids know that. Yeah, they like not having to run or sleep in subway tunnels. They like having the same bed every night. So do I. So do you. Anne’s been nice to them, to us, and they like it. We don’t get a lot of down days, where we can just chill. They’re enjoying the heck out of this, Max. And if they weren’t, it would mean they were so messed up they couldn’t be saved, ever.”
“I know,” I whispered.
“But they know who’s saved their bacon too many times to count. Who’s fed them and clothed them and chased away the nightmares. Jeb may have gotten us out of our cages, but you’re the one who’s kept us out, Max.”
PART 3
BACK TO SCHOOL (THE NORMAL KIND)
40
You know how some kids get excited about the first day of school and have an outfit all picked out and a new lunchbox and stuff? Well, they’re bleeping idiots.
“Can we play hooky?” Iggy muttered as he scrambled eggs.
“Somehow I suspect they’re picky about that,” I said, dropping more bread into the toaster. “I bet they’d call Anne.”
“I look like prep school Barbie,” Nudge complained, as she entered the kitchen. She caught sight of me in my uniform and looked mollified. “Actually, you look like prep school Barbie. I’m just Barbie’s friend.”
I narrowed my eyes at her.
Our wings were retractable and pulled in pretty tightly to our backs, but you might say that we still looked kind of like a family of Olympic swimmers.
Angel arrived, and she looked cute in her plaid skirt and white blouse because she looks cute in anything. She put some eggs and bacon on a plate, then ripped up a piece of toast and set it on the table.
Total hopped up onto a stool and dug in, seeming almost doglike. “Woof!” he said, and chuckled to himself.
“Angel?” I said, bringing her a cup
of coffee. I lowered my voice. “No funny business with the teachers, comprende?”
She glanced up innocently. “Gotcha,” she said, taking a bite of bacon. I looked at her and waited. “I mean, unless I really have to,” she added.
“Angel, please,” I said, kneeling to her level. “Nothing that makes us stick out or look different, okay? Play by their rules.” I stood up and addressed everyone. “That goes for all of us,” I said quietly. “Try to blend, people. Don’t give anyone ammo to use against us.”
I got okays with various levels of enthusiasm.
“Goodness—you’re all up,” said Anne, coming into the kitchen.
She surveyed the production line of food, the flock packing it away. She smiled ruefully. “This beats frozen waffles. Thanks, Jeff. Oh, and Jeff—I meant to tell you. You and Nick will be in the same class. It’ll help you get your bearings.”
Iggy’s face flushed.
“Can Total come?” Angel asked.
Anne came over and straightened Angel’s collar. “Nope.” She walked over to the cabinet and took down a mug.
“I’ll be fine. Chase some ducks or something,” Total whispered, and Angel patted his head.
“This uniform is so uncool,” said Nudge.
“I know. Fortunately you’ll be surrounded by a whole bunch of other uncool uniforms,” Anne said. She frowned. “Ariel, are you drinking coffee?”
“Uh-huh,” said Angel, taking a big sip. “Get jump-started for first grade.”
I felt Total’s black eyes boring holes in me. Sighing, I got down a bowl and fixed him some coffee with milk and two sugars. He lapped it up happily.
Anne looked as if she was having some “pick your battles” thoughts and in the end decided to let it go.
“Okay,” she said, putting her mug in the sink. “I’ll bring the car around front. Wear jackets—it’s chilly this morning.”
41
The ride to school was short and silent—much as I imagine riding in a hearse would be.
When we pulled up to the building, I realized we’d seen it from the air. It looked like a great big private house, made of cream-colored stone. Ivy grew up one wall, and they’d let an OCD gardener have his way with the grounds. Extremely tidy.