It was around 3:00 a.m. when we got back to Anne’s. We headed toward the window we’d left open, in a little-used storeroom on the second floor.
“Fang.” He looked at me, and I gestured at the house with one hand.
We could see Anne’s silhouette clearly in the window of her room. She was awake and looking for us at 3:00 a.m. Didn’t that woman ever sleep?
Was Anne just a spy? For the FBI or someone else?
Suddenly I felt exhausted. We coasted down to the house, tucked our wings in at the last second, and zipped through the window. We stacked hands and tapped them, then went to our separate rooms. I kicked off my shoes and fell into bed in my clothes. I didn’t expect Anne to come to my room.
She’d already seen everything she needed to see.
69
The next couple of weeks were the most surreal ones of my life, and that’s saying something, since it beats growing up in a cage, being on the run, finding other mutants in a lab deep below the subways of New York City, and, oh yeah, having wings.
This was way weirder than that.
Nothing awful happened.
We went back to school, and it was business as usual, except that Gazzy and Iggy somehow managed to get through their days without detonating anything. A first.
The headhunter stayed out of our way, perhaps for health reasons, trying to avoid an apoplectic fit.
Angel’s teacher seemed to behave pretty normally—like, she didn’t suddenly take her class to a toy store and buy them anything they wanted. That would have been a tip-off for me.
Nudge got invited to a birthday party. A nonmutant birthday party. Anne promised to help her find an outfit that would hide her wings but still look normal.
And—brace yourself. I saved the best and the worst for last:
That guy Sam asked me on a date.
“You what?” Iggy burst out.
“I got asked on a date,” I repeated, flinging mashed potatoes onto my plate.
“Oh, Max!” Nudge said.
“You’re kidding,” said the Gasman with his mouth full. He laughed, trying not to spit food. “What a loser! What’d he say when you shot him down?”
I busily cut my steak.
“You said yes, didn’t you?” Nudge asked.
“Oh, my God,” said Iggy, his hand on his forehead. “Max on a date. I thought we were trying to avoid tears and violence and mayhem.”
Yet another frustrating instance of dagger glances not working on Iggy.
“I think it’s great,” said Angel. “Max is beautiful. She should go on dates.”
“What are you going to wear?” Anne asked with a smile.
“Don’t know,” I muttered, my face getting hot.
And did you notice who didn’t say one word?
Right.
70