“How old are you?” Brigid asked Fang.
I almost gagged on my potato chip.
“Fourteen. I think,” Fang said. “None of us are real sure of our birth dates. But we think Max, Iggy, and I are around fourteen.”
“You seem older,” Brigid murmured, and I shot to my feet, unable to bear this a second longer.
“I need some air,” I managed to get out between swallows.
I felt everyone looking at me as I bolted out of the galley and up the stairs to the deck.
“Max? Are you okay?” Sue-Ann called after me, but I didn’t answer. Instead I ran down the deck of the boat, feeling its engines churning beneath my feet. Just as I was about to slam into the metal side railing, I jumped out over the water and unfurled my wings. I stroked hard, down and then up, over and over, rushing into the cold night sky. Seconds later the Wendy K. was just a tiny steam-emitting dot on the blackness of the ocean, and I felt like I could breathe again.
Okay, Max, what’s going on? For once the voice in my head was my own. I didn’t answer it. Instead I just wheeled through the sky, catching the occasional updraft and coasting. I breathed in and out deeply, thinking about this mission, thinking about Fang and Brigid, and Fang and me, and me and the flock.
I almost forgot to keep checking all around me for Flyboys. Almost.
Maybe a month ago, my mom had taken a computer chip out of my arm. (She’s a vet. How appropriate.) I’d been all dopey on anesthesia, and I’d said some stupid stuff to Fang. He’d thrown it back in my face several times since then. And lately he’d kissed me a couple times, and I didn’t know where he was going with that. I was torn between (1) wanting to give in, to just let those emotions flood out and see what happened between us, and (2) sheer terror.
Now he seemed to be making cow eyes at a doctor who was seven years older than him.
And the one thing that stood out in my mind as I wearily made my way back down to the boat in ever-diminishing circles was:
Fang had never said that stupid stuff back to me.
34
WHEN I GOT BACK to the boat, all seven scientists were waiting on the deck. Three of them had night-vision binoculars trained on me. I made a short running landing and pounded to a stop. I walked toward them with my wings still outspread, letting them cool off.
“What’s up?” I asked with a sudden clutch in my heart. Had something happened? Had the boat been attacked? Was the flock okay? I thought I’d kept it in my line of sight, but I knew that I’d been so wrapped up in my own personal soap opera I could have missed Shamu leaping over the boat with a red ball in his mouth.
“We were just . . . watching,” Paul Carey said softly.
“Is something wrong?” I pressed.
“No, no, nothing’s wrong,” said Melanie quickly. “We just — we’ve never seen anyone fly before.”
“Oh. No, I guess you haven’t.”
“Is it . . . wonderful?” Melanie asked.
Again we were treading close to personal ground, and I was feeling all self-protecty, but I answered. “Yes. The flying part is wonderful. Better than anything.” Growing up in dog crates, being subjected to horrible experiments, being chased and attacked every time we turned around: not so much.
“I wish —,” said Brigid. She stopped and shook her head.
“What?”
She looked embarrassed. “I’m a wildlife specialist, like Paul. I’m here to learn about South Polar animals. The scientist in me is dying to ask you questions, to learn what it’s like to be such a different form of human. But I know how awful that must seem to you.”
I bit my lip so I wouldn’t say something snide, like, “Why don’t you ask Fang?”
“You’re human, with intelligence, courage, feelings, impressions,” Brigid went on. “I can’t ask a bird how it feels to fly. I can ask you. But your very ability to tell me means that asking you such a thing would be horribly intrusive and insensitive on
my part. I’m sorry.” She gave a little smile. “I’ll try to keep a lid on the scientist in me.”
“Good luck with that,” said Paul, chuckling. “Being a scientist isn’t what you do. It’s what you are.”
Brigid nodded, looking troubled.