Max (Maximum Ride 5)

"Angel?!"

"Get Gazzy! He's hurt! Oh—Nudge?!"

"Angel—hi!"

Fang swooped down and scooped up Gazzy, who had some weird contraption hanging off his head. His eyes were closed, and his face looked like a bulldozer had run over it.

"He's hurt!" Angel said again. "Nudge! I can't believe you're back!"

Here's what I was feeling: elation about seeing Nudge again, alive and unhurt; worry over Gazzy, who was now unconscious as we raced back to the naval base; a guilty thrill over what was happening between me and Fang (when will it happen again?); lingering anxiety about my mom; and a deep, abiding contentment that we were all together again, the six of us, my flock, my family.

Not bad, for someone who hates emotions.

46

IT TURNED OUT that Gazzy had been stung by a Portuguese man-of-war, an incredibly dangerous and even deadly jellyfish.

"Actually, it's not a real jellyfish," the navy doctor explained. "So its toxins are different, and we treat it differently."

"I offered to pee on him, but they said no," Iggy said, sounding disappointed.

The navy doctor smiled. "That was once thought to be acceptable treatment. Vinegar too. But actually, it's most important to remove any tentacles to prevent further discharge of venom. Rinsing the sting thoroughly with salt water can help."

All of us bird kids have had days when we looked like we'd been put in a blender set to "whip." As many fights as we've been in, as many hard places we've been—odds are that someone has at least a black eye, if not broken bones, on any given day.

But Gazzy really looked bad. They'd removed the man-of-war with gloved hands, dunked Gazzy in salt water, slathered him with goo, and given him a bunch of shots, and he still looked like he'd been dragged behind a chariot for a couple miles.

Of course, seeing the wings had freaked everyone out, but this was the U.S. military, and they got over it real fast. I mean, if they can deal with Area 51, they can handle anything, right? Including Total, who had left Akila back at the hut and come at Angel's request.

"He's going to sleep for about a day," the navy doctor said with a smile. "These stings really take it out of you."

I glanced at the wall clock. "We're getting on a sub in six hours."

"Oh, no," said the doctor. "He can't go anywhere. Trust me, he's going to feel terrible when he wakes up. There's no way he's getting on a submarine."

It's taken me a while, but I've learned not to pointlessly butt heads about dumb decisions that I don't have to follow anyway. It's been a real step of personal growth for me. So now, for instance, I didn't even argue with the doctor.

Instead, I got organized: I sent Fang and Iggy off to find food, got a debriefing from Angel about the adventures they'd had under water while they were supposed to be tucked into bed, and finally, finally, curled up in the hospital armchair with Nudge, while she told us all about being a real kid at school.

"It was awesome," Nudge admitted. "I loved it. In just a few days, I learned more than I'd learned from weeks of watching TV."

"That's good," I forced myself to say, and given my highly developed skills of deception, I even sounded very sincere. "And I'm glad to see you're still among the winged."

Nudge looked embarrassed. "Yeah. But anyway. I realized I just missed you guys so much. And I was too worried about your mom," she told me. "I had to be here to help, if I could."

I hugged her. "I'm so glad to have you back! Although you missed all the BS."

"Whaaat?"

The others filled her in while I checked on Gazzy and watched the clock. The doctor said the Gasman would sleep for a day, which I took to be about four hours in bird-kid time. Sure enough, along about four-thirty in the morning, he woke up.

It was time to head down to the dock—I wasn't going to risk missing the sub. It felt like a month ago that my mom had been kidnapped. Who knew what had happened by now?

"You good to go?" I asked Gazzy, fluffing his saltwater-sticky hair with my fingers.

He did a systems check, then nodded. "Yep. Feel like crap, but I'm okay."

"You look pretty tough with that face," I said admiringly, and he gave a pleased smile.