School's Out--Forever Read online

  28

  “Holy moly,” I breathed. Just then we heard heavy footsteps coming up to the front door.

  “They’re back,” Fang whispered. “Upstairs!”

  We whirled and ran up the steps. But the moonlight streaming through the windows cast our shadows down the stairs.

  I heard the front door shut, and then a voice bellowed, “Hey!”

  Heavy, uncoordinated footsteps pounded up behind us, and it sounded like someone swung a baseball bat against a wall. We heard a heavy thunk and then the sound of breaking plaster.

  “That’s your head!” one guy shouted. “We’re gonna bust you up!”

  At the top of the stairs, I darted to the right, the way we had come in. I was past several rooms when I realized Fang wasn’t with me. I skidded to a halt and spotted him at the other end of the hallway.

  I motioned to Fang, but just as he started toward me, the two crackhead squatters lurched into the hall between us.

  One of them slapped the bat against his open palm with chilling smacking sounds. The other held a broken bottle.

  “So,” one growled. “You think you can pop our crib?”

  Pop their crib? Come again?

  They stopped for a moment, then their smiles grew wider. Grosser.

  “It’s a chick, man!” one exclaimed.

  The bottle-holding slug pulled a wicked-looking knife out of his belt. He held it up so it caught the moonlight.

  Fang? You go ahead and make your move. Any time now, I thought tensely. Where are you, Fang?

  “We don’t care whose chick you are,” one said. “For the next hour, you’re gonna be our chick.” The guys were totally scuzzy, grinning horribly, showing holes where teeth should be.

  “Excuse me?” I said acidly. “Can we say sexist?”

  They didn’t have time.

  “Boys, God doesn’t like you,” Fang intoned behind them.

  Whaaaaat? I thought, dumbfounded.

  “Wha!” they said, whirling.

  At that moment, Fang snapped out his huge wings and shone the penlight under his chin so it raked his cheekbones and eyes. My mouth dropped open: He looked like the angel of death.

  His dark wings filled the hallway almost to the ceiling, and he moved them up and down. “God doesn’t like bad people,” he said, using a really weird, deep voice.

  “What the hell,” one of the squatters muttered shallowly, his mouth slack, his eyes bugging out of his head. “I’m trippin’.”

  “I see it too,” whispered the other one. “We’re both trippin’.”

  I whipped my own wings open—impressive as all get-out. Fun, anyway.

  “This was a test,” I said, using my best spooky voice. “And guess what? You both failed.”

  The bums stopped dead, looks of horror and amazement on their faces.

  Then Fang growled, “Rowr!” He stepped forward, sweeping his wings up and down: the avenging demon. I almost cracked up.

  “Rowr!” I said myself, shaking my wings out.

  “Ahhh!” the guys yelled, backpedaling fast. Unfortunately, they were standing at the top of the staircase. They fell awkwardly, trying to grab each other, and rolled down two flights like lumpy bags of potatoes, shrieking the whole way.

  Fang and I slapped each other a quick high five—and we were out of there, jack.

  And then my Voice was in my head. So glad you’re having fun, Maximum. While the world burns.

  29

  I’ll say this for the world, and civilization: The whole hot-shower thing totally worked for me.

  Reluctantly, I turned off the water and got out, then wrapped myself in my own personal towel, Dove fresh. On the other hand, civilization had its own quirky demands: remembering to brush your hair, wearing different clothes every day—details I wasn’t used to.

  But I was dealing.

  “Max?” Iggy knocked on the door. “Can I come in? I just have to brush my teeth.”

  “No—I’m in a towel,” I called back.

  “I’m blind,” he said impatiently.

  “No! You’re kidding! Are you sure?” I grabbed my comb and rubbed a hole in the fogged-up mirror—then stifled a shriek. Eraser Max was back.

  “Very funny,” said Iggy. “Well, don’t take forever. Primping’s not going to do much for you, anyway.”

  I still hadn’t taken a breath by the time I heard his footsteps reach the end of the hall.

  Swallowing hard, I reached up with trembling fingers and touched my cheek. It was smooth skin. The mirror showed a hairy paw with ragged claws, caressing my muzzle.

  “How is this happening?” I whispered, terrified.

  Eraser Max smiled at me. “But we’re not so different,” it said. “Everything is connected. I’m part of you. You’re part of me. We can help each other.”

  “You’re not part of me,” I whispered. “I could never be like you.”

  “Max, Max,” Eraser Max said soothingly. “You already are.”

  I whirled away from the mirror and burst out of the bathroom. Quickly I went to my room and shut the door, before anyone could see me.

  I sat on my bed, shaking, and kept touching my face over and over to make sure I was still me. “Am I really, finally going crazy?” I murmured.

  30

  A little tap on my door made me jump, every muscle bunched with fear. It had to be Iggy. “I’m out of the bathroom,” I called, hearing my voice shake a little.

  “Yeah,” Fang said. “I can tell, ’cause your voice is coming from in there.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “No!”

  So of course the door opened. Fang leaned in the doorway. He saw how I looked, pale and big-eyed and freaked. Compulsively I touched my face, looked down at my hands. Still covered with plain skin.

  One of his dark eyebrows rose, and he came in and closed the door. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I whispered. “Something’s wrong with me, but I don’t know what.”

  Fang waited for a moment, then sat next to me on the bed and put his arm gently across my shoulders. I was all huddled up, damp in my towel, feeling miserable and more scared than I’d been in—days.

  “You’ll be okay,” he said.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I know everything, as I keep reminding you.”

  I was too miserable to smile.

  “Look,” he said. “Whatever this is, we’ll deal with it. We always have before.”

  I swallowed. I was dying to tell him about Eraser Max but was too afraid and ashamed.

  “Fang—if I’m changing, if I’m turning into something . . . bad—will you deal with it?”

  He was silent, his eyes on me.

  I took a deep breath. “If I turn into an Eraser,” I said more strongly, “will you deal with it? To protect the others?”

  Our eyes met for a long time. He knew what I was asking him. If I turned into an Eraser, it would be his job to kill me.

  He looked down at his feet, then up at me. “Yes. I’ll do what has to be done.”

  I breathed out in relief. “Thank you,” I said quietly.

  Fang stood up and squeezed my shoulder. “You’ll be okay,” he said again. He leaned down and quickly kissed my forehead. “I promise.”

  Then he was gone, and I was more confused than ever.

  31

  “Bombs away!” the Gasman yelled, right over my head.

  I looked up, startled, and saw Gazzy flying low over the pond. He tucked his wings in, curled into a ball, and dropped, cackling maniacally. I winced as he crashed into the water, sending up a huge craterlike wave.

  Soon his blond head surfaced, a smile splitting his face. “Did you see that?” he crowed. “That was so awesome! I’m going to do it again!”

  “Okay,” I said, grinning. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

  “And don’t hurt me!” Nudge yelled, as Gazzy clambered out of the water. “Watch whe
re you drop! You almost landed on me!”

  “Sorry,” Gazzy said.

  I was glad that he and Nudge weren’t letting their disappointment get to them too much. Fang and I had told them about our fruitless search for our parents in the city. It had been one more false lead.

  I typed in another command and shielded the screen so I could read it. Yes, this was the ticket, going wi-fi out by the private pond. I’d pulled over an Adirondack chair and borrowed Anne’s laptop, and I had lemonade close at hand. It was a tough life, but someone had to live it.

  The search results popped up on the screen. I scanned them and frowned.

  Ten kids had gone missing in the DC area in the last four months. Had whitecoats taken them, as fodder for their experiments? I could only imagine what the families were going through. What had happened when we had gone missing? Our parents had cared, hadn’t they? They’d missed us, right?

  Hmm. That was a thought. I typed in a new Google search.

  Angel’s head popped out of the water. “Max!” She’d been under about ten minutes. Even though I knew about her ability to breathe under water, it still took all my self-control not to leap in after her when I didn’t see her come up for a while.

  “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “What’s the best way to catch a fish?”

  I thought. “Well, I guess it depends on the kind of fish,” I began.

  “No, what’s the best way to catch a fish?” Angel asked again.

  Oh. “I don’t know?” I said warily.

  “Have someone throw it to you!” Angel laughed, I groaned, and, next to me, Total chuckled.

  “Good one,” he said, and I rolled my eyes, looking around for the voice-throwing Gasman.

  Uh, but Gazzy was fifty feet in the air, dive-bombing the pond again.

  Total trotted off, sniffing for rabbits, and I looked at Angel.

  “Angel?”

  “Yeah?” She looked up, all blue-eyed innocence.

  I felt stupid, but . . . “Can Total, um, talk?”

  “Uh-huh,” Angel said casually, squeezing water out of her hair.

  I stared at her. “He talks. Total talks, and you didn’t tell me?”

  “Well . . .” Angel looked for him, saw he was pretty far away, and lowered her voice. “Don’t tell him I said this, but he’s actually not that interesting.”

  I was nonplussed. My mouth was hanging open, and I shut it before I started catching flies. I turned to see the small dog trotting among the cattails and daylilies.

  “Total?” I called. He looked up alertly, then ran over to me, small pink tongue hanging out.

  “Total?” I said when he was close. “Can you talk?”

  He flopped down on the grass, panting slightly. “Yeah. So?”

  Jeezum. I mean, mutant weirdos are nothing new to me, you know? But a talking dog?

  “Why didn’t you mention this before?” I asked him.

  “It’s not like I lied about it,” said Total, reaching up with a hind leg to scratch behind one ear. “Between you and me, I’m still trying to get used to the whole flying-kid thing.”

  32

  That night I was lying awake in “my” bed, watching the moonlight create shadows on “my” walls, so I heard the door open almost silently.

  “Max?” Angel’s whisper barely disturbed the air.

  I sat up. “Yeah, sweetie?”

  “I can’t sleep. Can I go fly around?” she asked.

  I glanced at the clock. Almost midnight. The house was quiet and still. Except for the soft footsteps padding down the hall.

  The Gasman put his head around my door.

  “Max? I can’t sleep.”

  “Okay, put your clothes on. Let’s go take advantage of the wide-open spaces.”

  In the end we all went, including Total.

  “I love flying!” he said, leaping into Iggy’s arms. “Just don’t drop me.”

  It was glorious. Out here in the country, there were few lights, no planes, and, so far, no Erasers.

  The air was crisp and cool, near forty degrees, and felt like liquid oxygen in our lungs. I swooped in huge arcs, catching wind currents, coasting, feeling almost weightless. It was times like this that I felt the most calm, the most normal. As if I were just a normal part of the world and I actually fit into it.

  You do fit into it, Max, said the Voice. You’re part of everything, and everything is part of you. Everything should flow together. The more you resist, the more pain you’ll feel. The more you go with the flow, the more whole you’ll be.

  I frowned. Was that a bumper sticker?

  Don’t resist the flow, Max, said the Voice. Become one with the flow.

  Well, since I didn’t have a single freaking clue about what that meant, I decided to go with the airflow right now and enjoy myself.

  “Look, bats!” said Nudge.

  33

  As soon as I looked, I saw them, hundreds, if not thousands, of fluttering bats. They swept jerkily among the trees, odd little black quotation marks against the deep purple night sky. We’d flown with hawks before, but not bats.

  “Hey, they’re mammals, like we are,” I said. Were they more like us than birds? Well, not the whole eating-insects thing.

  “My ears hurt,” Total complained.

  “It’s their echolocation,” I heard Iggy explain. “It’s way cool. Now be quiet, I’m trying to concentrate.”

  Total huffed and settled down.

  Nudge, Angel, and I swung into a circle, each keeping one wing tip touching the others’, and flew around like feathered spokes on a wheel.

  Then Gazzy came up and whapped Nudge on the back with one wing. “You’re it!” he cried, and darted away.

  Fang was up high, doing steep circling moves, banking, practicing the techniques he’d learned from the hawks out west. It was hard to see him—except when he passed in front of the moon.

  Then all at once I felt the all-too-familiar rush of heat flooding me, washing my face with fire. I began breathing fast, the adrenaline jump-starting my heart. Quickly I put my hand up to my face, hoping I didn’t look like an Eraser now, in front of the others.

  The next thing I knew, I was streaking into the sky like a rocket, my hair streaming in back of me, wind stinging my eyes. I was going incredibly fast, and I could hardly feel my wings moving. Oh, my God, what is this? I thought, seeing the earth blur beneath me.

  The flock and I could keep up a steady pace of eighty miles an hour with no effort, and could sprint at a hundred and twenty. Dive-bombing, we’d hit speeds of a hundred and eighty.

  I was going way faster than that now, straight out, by myself.

  It so totally rocked.

  A giddy joy rose up in me, but my laugh was snatched away, left far behind me as I shot into the night. Eventually I came back to myself, felt myself slowing.

  I wasn’t even breathing hard. Laughing again, I turned and headed back toward Anne’s house. I figured I’d gone about . . . thirty miles.

  The flock was where I’d left them. I saw them long before they saw me.

  I slowed and coasted up to them. Five faces turned toward me, looking stunned. Six, if you count Total.

  The Gasman was the first to speak. “You have warp drive,” he said faintly.

  “I want to ride with you,” Total said, trying to escape Iggy’s hold.

  I laughed and held my arms out, and he leaped into them. In his excitement, he licked my neck, which I could have lived without, but whatever.

  “What was that, Max?” Angel asked, wide-eyed.

  “I think I just developed a new skill,” I said, grinning big.

  34

  Take! Crack. That! Crack. Max! Crack.

  So Max could fly at the speed of light, eh? Snarling, Ari leaped forward again, smashing the bo across his opponent’s back. The heavy wooden stick, taller than he and as thick around as his wrist, made a dull, sickening thud.

  The Eraser dropped to the mat and lay there, groaning thinly.

/>   “Next!” Ari growled.

  Another member of his team morphed and sprang into the circle with him, his own bo at the ready. Ari went into attack mode, the blows of the heavy staff sending shock waves up his arms.

  He had clocked Max at more than two hundred miles an hour. He’d also seen the delight on her face, seen her hair whipping around her head like a halo.

  Jeb just kept giving the flock more gifts. And what had he given Ari? Unnatural, painful, heavy wings. He’d thought he wanted to fly, to be more like the flock. But having wings grafted onto an Eraser’s body wasn’t even close to what the flock had. Gall rose in Ari’s throat, burning him, and with a roar, he smashed his bo down on the other Eraser’s head.

  He would do that to Max, he thought. She was fourteen, and he was only seven, but he was three times as big as she was. He had huge muscles and a wolf’s power—a wolf’s nature too.

  Jeb had said it was necessary. Jeb had said to trust him. And look where that had gotten him. He had huge painful wings. And Max was still laughing at him. Well, those days were over.

  Soon he would be the golden boy, and Max would be a distant memory of an experiment gone bad.

  It had been approved by the higher-ups.

  It was a done deal.

  “Next victim!”

  35

  The first two addresses in Washington hadn’t panned out, but Fang’s map code was still the only thing we’d been able to come up with. And we had found that photo of the Gasman at the second address. At least, I was pretty sure it was Gazzy. So maybe it hadn’t been a complete waste.

  At any rate, we had two more addresses to check out. No information about me or my possible parents had turned up yet. I tried not to mind.

  “Wait, Total!” I said, as I pulled on my new jacket. It had big hidden slits for my wings, and I wondered where Anne had gotten it. Bird Kids “R” Us? Total kept trying to leap into my arms, determined not to be left behind.