Anne pulled into the drop-off line.
“Okay, kids,” she said. “They’re expecting you. All the paperwork is done.” She looked back at us, sitting tensely in the rear seats. My stomach hurt from nerves, and I was pulling my wings in so tight that they ached.
“I know it seems scary,” she went on gently. “But it’ll really be okay. Please just give it a chance. And I’ll have a treat waiting for you at home this afternoon. We clear on how you’ll get home?”
I nodded, feeling as tight as a coiled spring. How about by way of Bermuda?
“It’s about a ten-minute walk,” Anne confirmed. “And here we are.” She pulled up to the curb, and we piled out of the car. I took a deep breath, looking at the poor lemmings filing in through the big double doors.
“Here we go,” lemming Max muttered, then I took Nudge’s and Angel’s hands as we walked into the school.
42
“Okay, they’re here,” Ari said into the mike clipped onto his collar. He refocused his Zeiss binoculars, but the hated mutants were already out of sight, inside the building.
He’d have to switch to the thermal sensor, one of his favorite toys. He pulled the headpiece on and slid the lenses over his eyes. Inside the school was a wash of red: warm human bodies streaming through the halls.
“There,” he breathed, as six orangey yellow images emerged from the red river. He grinned. The bird kids ran hotter than humans, hotter than Erasers. They were easy to pick out.
“Wanna see?” Ari pulled off the headpiece and handed it to the person sitting next to him. She put it on, smoothing her hair under its straps.
“Cool,” she said. “Did you check out those goofy uniforms? Jeez. I’m not gonna have to wear one, am I?”
“Maybe. How do the freaks seem to you?” Ari asked her, as she continued to watch them.
The girl shrugged, her hair brushing her shoulders. “They don’t suspect a thing. Of course, this is just the beginning, really.”
Ari grinned, revealing his canines. “The beginning of the end,” he said, and she grinned back. They slapped high fives, the sound like a rifle shot in the quiet woods.
“Yep. It’s gonna be great,” said Max II, and she popped a piece of gum into her mouth. “Now everything gets doubly interesting.”
43
The distinct lack of an antiseptic smell was slightly encouraging, I decided. And the interior of this school looked nothing like the School, our former prison.
“Zephyr, is it?” A tweedy, teachery woman smiled uncertainly at us. She said her name was Ms. Cuelbar.
“Yeah?” said Gazzy. “That’s me.”
The teacher’s smile grew. “Zephyr, you’re with me,” she said, holding out her hand. “Come along, dear.”
I nodded briefly at Gazzy, and he went with the woman. He knew what to do: memorize escape routes, gauge how many people there were, how big they were, how well they’d be likely to fight. If he got the signal, he could burst through a window and be out of here in about four seconds flat.
“At least he’s not Captain Terror anymore,” I murmured to Fang.
“Yeah, Zephyr’s a big improvement,” Fang said.
“Nick? And Jeff? I’m Mrs. Cheatham. Welcome to our school. Come with me and I’ll show you your classroom,” another teacher chirped.
I tapped the back of Iggy’s hand twice. Watching him and Fang go down the hall was really hard. Teachers came for Angel and Nudge, and then it was just me, fighting my overwhelming instinct to get out of there.
The teachers seemed okay. They hadn’t really looked like possible Erasers—too old, not muscled enough. Erasers hardly ever made it past five, six years old, so when they weren’t morphed, they looked like models in their early twenties.
“Max? I’m Ms. Segerdahl. You’re in my class.”
She looked fairly acceptable. Harmless? Whatever. Probably couldn’t conceal many weapons under her skirt and sweater.
I managed a smile, and she smiled back. And our school day had begun.
44
“Now, does anyone remember this area’s name?”
Angel raised her hand. She figured it was time to sound smart.
“Yes, Ariel?”
“It’s the Yucatán. Part of Mexico.”
“Very good. Do you know anything about the Yucatán?” Ms. Solowski asked.
“It has Cancún, a popular vacation spot,” said Angel. “And Mayan ruins. And it’s close to Belize. Its ports are some of the closest to America. So it’s convenient for drug runners to siphon drugs up from South America, through the ports, and then on into Texas, Louisiana, and Florida.”
Her teacher blinked. Her mouth opened and then closed again. “Ah, yes,” she said faintly, stepping back to the world map hanging in front of the whiteboard. She cleared her throat. “Let’s talk about the Mayan ruins.”
“Tiffany.”
“Tiffany?” The teacher looked confused. “I thought your name was Krystal.”
“Uh-huh. Tiffany-Krystal.” Nudge made a hyphen in the air with one finger.
“Okay, Tiffany-Krystal. In language arts we’ve been working on some cross-media spelling words.” The teacher pointed to a list written on the whiteboard at the front of the class. “Those were last week’s. This morning I’m going to give a pop quiz about this week’s words, just to see where everyone is and where we need to focus.”
“Well, all right,” said Nudge agreeably. She waved a hand. “Bring it on. But just so you know, I can’t spell worth crap.”
“Do you know where the dictionary is?”
Fang looked at the girl who had spoken. “What?”
“Our reference materials are over here,” the girl said, pointing. “When we have free study time, you can walk around and do homework. If you need to look up stuff, the computers and other references are over here.”
“Oh. Okay. Thanks.”
“No problem.” The girl swallowed and stepped closer. She was shorter than Max and had long, dark red hair. Her eyes were bright green, and her nose had freckles.
“I’m Lissa,” she said. “And you’re Nick, right?”
What did she want? He looked at her. “Uh-huh,” he said warily.
“I’m glad you’re in our class.”
“What? Why?”
She stepped still closer, and he could smell the lavender scent of soap. Giving him a flirtatious smile, she said, “Why do you think?”
“Watch this! I’m gonna fly!”
The Gasman looked up with interest. Some spud from his class was balanced precariously on the top of the metal jungle gym, holding out his arms like wings.
I hope he’s got more than arms, the Gasman thought. Well, maybe he did have wings. After all, maybe there were more kids like them out in the world. No way to tell. That was one of the mysteries to be solved.
“Yeah?” he said, shielding his eyes from the sun. “Let’s see it.”
The kid looked a bit taken aback, then set his jaw. He crouched down a bit and jumped off the top of the play structure.
He couldn’t fly worth a nickel, hitting the ground almost instantly, landing in an awkward, crumpled heap. There was a stunned silence, and then he started wailing. “My arm!” he sobbed.
Immediately the playground supervisor hurried over, gathered up the kid, and rushed him toward the nurse’s office. Gazzy went back to making a nice collection of hefty rocks. Weapons, if he needed them.
“What’d you do that for?” someone asked belligerently.
Gazzy looked up. “What?”
A larger kid was leaning over him angrily. “Listen, spaz, when some wingnut says he’s gonna fly off of something, you tell ’im, ‘Get the heck down from there!’ You don’t say, ‘Let’s see it!’ What’s the matter with you?”
The Gasman shrugged, but he was actually a little hurt inside. “I didn’t know.”
The kid stared at him. “What, you grow up under a rock?”
“No,” said Gazzy, frowning. “I just did
n’t know.”
The kid made a disgusted face and walked away. Gazzy heard him saying, “Yeah, he didn’t know. ’Cause he’s from the planet Dumbass.”
Gazzy’s eyes narrowed, and his hands formed into lethal little fists.
“Where did you get your hair done?” someone asked.
I turned to see a pale, skinny girl smiling at me. I pushed my lunch tray farther down the line. “Um, my bathroom?” Was she speaking in code? I had no clue what she meant. A recurring theme in my life.
She laughed and put a green apple on her tray. “No, I meant the blond streaks. They’re awesome. Did you have it done in DC?”
Oh. My hair had blond streaks? Right. “I guess the sun did it,” I said lamely.
“Lucky. Oh, look—banana pudding. I recommend it.”
“Thanks.” I took some, to be nice.
“My name’s J.J.,” she said, seeming completely comfortable with this social interaction. My palms were sweating. “It’s short for Jennifer Joy. I mean, what were my parents thinking?”
I laughed, surprised that she would confide in me like that.
“Max is a cool name,” J.J. said. “Sporty. Sophisticated.”
“Yeah, that’s me,” I said, and she laughed some more, her eyes crinkling.
“Here’s a couple spots,” J.J. said, pointing to an empty lunch table. “Otherwise we’ll have to sit next to Chari and her gang.” She lowered her voice. “Don’t mess with them.”
I was halfway through lunch before I realized that J.J. and I had been talking for half an hour, and I apparently had not seemed so freakish that she’d run away screaming.
I had made a friend. My second one in fourteen years. I was on a roll.
45
“Capital of Paraguay?” the teacher asked.
Asunción. Inhabited principally by the Guarani. Explored by Europeans starting in 1518. Paraguay is a landlocked country in South America. Population, six million and change—I raised my hand. “Asunción?”
“Yes, that’s right. Very good. Tonight I want you all to read about Paraguay in chapter eight of your world studies textbook. And now let’s take out our science workbooks.”
Feeling like a busy little student bee, I took out my science workbook. What further surprises would the Voice have for me? So far, it had been up on any number of subjects taught in the ninth grade. How handy. For once.
As I flipped past the bone structure of frogs, someone knocked on the classroom door. The teacher went over and had a whispered conversation, then turned to me. What?
“Max? They need you in the office for a moment.” She gave me an encouraging smile, which somehow I didn’t find all that encouraging.
Slowly I stood up and walked to the door. Was this it? Was it starting now? Was this person about to turn into an Eraser? My breath started to come faster, and my hands coiled at my sides.
Maybe not. Maybe there was something wrong with our paperwork. Something normal.
“In here.” The assistant opened a door that led to a small anteroom. On two chairs in the little room were Iggy and the Gasman. Gazzy looked up at me and smiled nervously.
Oh, no. “Already?” I whispered to him, and he shrugged, wide-eyed.
“The headmaster will see you now,” said the assistant, opening another door. “That’s right now.”
46
The headmaster, William Pruitt, according to a gold plaque on his desk, did not look happy to see us. In fact, he looked like he was about to blow his top. The second I clapped eyes on him, I couldn’t help it: I hated his guts. His face was red and flushed with anger. His lips were full and wet- looking, a gross dark pink. Sparse tufts of hair ringed his shiny bald head.
I had the sinking feeling that this schmuck’s inside was going to match his heinous outside, and I went on full alert.
“You are Maxine Ride?” he said with a sneering British accent that made the hairs on the back of my neck rise.
“Just Max,” I said, resisting the urge to cross my arms over my chest and scowl at him.
“These are your brothers Jeff and . . .” He consulted his notes. “Zephyr?”
“Yes.”
“Your brothers have set off a stink bomb in the second-floor boys’ lavatory,” said the headmaster. He sat back in his chair, lacing his beefy red fingers, and stared at me with cold, piggy black eyes.
I blinked, careful not to look at Iggy and Gazzy. “That’s impossible,” I said calmly. For one thing, they hadn’t had enough time to acquire the materials to make one. . . .
“Oh, is it?” Pruitt asked unpleasantly. “Why is that?”
“They’re not troublemakers,” I replied, injecting an earnest note into my voice. “They wouldn’t do anything like that.”
“They say they didn’t do it. They’re lying,” he said flatly. His bushy eyebrows needed trimming. And the nose hair—yuck!
I looked indignant. “My brothers don’t lie!” Of course, we all lie like rugs when we have to, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“All children lie.” Mr. Pruitt sneered. “Children are born knowing how to lie. They’re dishonest, disrespectful, unhousebroken animals. Until we get to them.”
Which made me question his career choice. Nice school you picked out, Anne. Sheesh.
I raised my chin. “Not my brothers. Our parents are missionaries, doing the Lord’s work. We would never lie.”
This seemed to give Mr. Pruitt pause, and again I congratulated myself on the brilliant backstory I’d given us. “Did anyone see them set off a stink bomb?”
“What is a stink bomb, anyway?” Gazzy asked, all blue eyes and innocence.
“There, you see?” I said. “They don’t even know what one is.”
Pruitt’s small eyes narrowed even more. “You’re not fooling me,” he said with clear venom. “I know your brothers are guilty. I know you’re protecting them. And I know something else: This is the last time you’ll get away with anything at this school. Do I make myself clear?”
Actually, not really, but I was going to let it slide.
“Yes,” I said crisply, and motioned to Gazzy to get up. When Iggy heard him, he rose also. I moved purposefully toward the door. “Thank you,” I said, right before we slipped out.
We slunk out into the hall, and I started marching them to their classrooms.
“We’re going to talk about this later, guys,” I said under my breath.
After I dropped off Iggy, I realized I had a throbbing headache. One that seemed to have been caused by regular garden-variety tension, rather than by, say, a chip, or a Voice, or some wack-job whitecoat torturing me. What a nice change.
47
“You ignorant little sah-vages,” Gazzy said, puffing and screwing up his face. As usual, his imitation was uncanny. I almost wanted to turn around to make sure the headmaster hadn’t snuck up behind us.
Angel and Nudge were cracking up at Gazzy’s recounting of the tale.
“You malignant little fiends,” he added, and I couldn’t help laughing.
“But sir,” Gazzy went on in my voice, “our parents are missionaries. Lying is the Tenth Commandment. They’re innocent of all wrongdoing. What’s a stink bomb?”
Now even Fang was laughing, his shoulders shaking. In his white dress shirt he hardly even looked like himself.
“Is lying really the Tenth Commandment?” Iggy asked.
“No idea,” I said. “Let’s cut into the woods. This road’s making me nervous.”
We’d walked along the main road until we were out of sight of the school. Now we headed into the woods at an angle, knowing we would meet up with one of Anne’s orchards soon.
“So who really did set off the stink bomb?” Nudge asked.
I rolled my eyes. “They did, of course.” I glared at Gazzy, frustrated that my look was lost on Iggy. “I don’t know how, I don’t know why. I just know they did.”
“Well, yes,” Gazzy admitted, looking a tiny bit embarrassed. “This kid was a total j
erk to me on the playground, and someone stuck a Kick Me sign on the back of Iggy’s shirt.”
“I told you I’d take care of that,” Fang said to Iggy.
I sighed. “Guys, you’re going to meet jerks in every situation. For the rest of your lives.” However long that would be. “But you can’t be doing stuff like stink bombs—not right now. We’re trying to blend, remember? We’re trying to not make waves, to not stick out. So making a stink bomb, setting it off, and getting caught was not the right way to go.”
“Sorry, Max,” said Gazzy, sounding almost sincere.
Inside, I understood why they’d done it. I even wished I’d been able to see the headhunter’s face when he’d found out about it. But this stunt had been totally uncool. And dangerous.
“Listen, you two,” I said sternly, as we crested a ridge and found ourselves at the edge of Anne’s property. “You put us all at risk. From now on you’re going to toe the line at that stupid school or you’re going to answer to me. Got it?”
“Got it,” Gazzy mumbled.
“Yeah, got it,” Iggy said reluctantly. “We’ll be more stupid and idiotic in the future. We’ll blend.”
“Good.”
48
Anne was not thrilled with us when we got home.
“I got a phone call” were her first words as we hung our jackets up neatly in the hall. “I guess you’re all adjusting. Well, anyway. Come on into the kitchen. There’s hot chocolate and cookies.”
Way to reward the buggers, Anne. Great mothering. I took the opportunity to give Gazzy another glare, and his small shoulders hunched.
“Let me just say that I’m very disappointed in your behavior,” Anne said, as she started pouring mugs of hot chocolate. She plopped two marshmallows in mine, and I tried not to think about the time Jeb had done the same thing for me, not too long ago.