“Stink bomb,” Total chortled, in between bites of cookie. “That must’ve been great.”
49
No. The bigger playground. Angel looked into her teacher’s eyes and pushed the thought at her gently. They were supposed to go to the younger kids’ playground at recess, but Angel wanted more room. There was no reason they shouldn’t play on the big field.
“I guess there’s no reason you can’t play on the big field,” Angel’s teacher said slowly.
“Yes!” said one of Angel’s classmates, and they turned and ran through the gates and onto the big playground.
“Ariel! Come play with us!”
Angel ran over and joined Meredith, Kayla, and Courtney.
“Can we play Swan Lake?” Angel asked. Their teacher had just read them that story, and Angel had loved it. Her whole life was like Swan Lake. She was a swan. Fang and Max were hawks, kind of big and fierce. Iggy was a big white seabird, like an albatross or something. Nudge was a little pheasant, smooth and brown and beautiful. Gazzy was something sturdy—an owl?
And she was a swan. At least for today.
“Yeah! Let’s play Swan Lake!”
“I’m Odette,” Angel called, holding up her hand.
“I’m the second swan,” said Kayla.
“I’m the littlest swan,” said Meredith, holding out her uniform skirt to make it more tutulike.
Angel closed her eyes and tried to feel like a swan. When she opened them, the whole world was her stage, and she was the most beautiful ballerina-swan ever. Gently she ran in graceful circles around the other kids. She took big, soft running leaps, staying in the air as long as she could. Then she landed, raised her arms over her head, and twirled in little circles.
The other girls were dancing too, tiptoeing across the browning lawn, swishing their arms in slow movements to look like wings. Again Angel tripped lightly over the grass, spinning and jumping and feeling just like Odette, cursed to live as a swan because of Rothbart’s spell.
Another spin, another arabesque, another long leap where Angel seemed to hang in the air for minutes. She wished so much that she could take out her wings and really do Swan Lake the way it should have been done, but she knew she couldn’t. Not now, anyway. Not here. Maybe after Max saved the world. After Max saved the world, most of the regular people would be gone. Jeb had told Angel so, when she’d been at the School again, last month. Mutants like them had a greater chance of surviving. They’d been designed to survive. So maybe when most of the regular people were gone, Angel wouldn’t have to hide her wings anymore, and she could just fly around and be Odette anytime she wanted to.
She could hardly wait.
50
Study Hall was my favorite class. The school had a great library, with seemingly endless books and six computers for kids to do research on.
The school librarian was this nice, smart guy named Michael Lazzara. Everybody seemed to like Mr. Lazzara a lot, even me. So far, anyway.
Today I was in research mode. Maybe if I hit some code-breaking sites I could figure out a different approach for how to find our parents.
All six computers had kids sitting at them. I stood there a moment, wishing I could just tip a kid out of a chair.
“Here, I can get off.”
I looked over at the guy who’d spoken. “What?”
The guy got up and gathered his books. “I don’t need the computer. You can have it.”
“Oh, okay. Thanks.”
“You’re new,” the guy said. “You’re in my Language Arts class.”
“Yeah,” I said. I’d recognized him—years of paranoia had honed my ability to remember faces. “I’m Max.”
“I know. I’m Sam.” He gave me a warm smile, and I blinked, realizing he was cute. I’d never really had the luxury of noticing cuteness or lack thereof in guys. Mostly it was the lethal/nonlethal distinction that I went with. “Where did you move from?”
“Uh . . . Missouri.”