Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride 3)

Fang stared at me in disbelief. “Are you nuts? Did they finally send you around the bend? Ari needs to go now!”

“He doesn’t have anywhere else to go! He helped us, remember? They’re not gonna let him back in. Plus, I keep telling you, he’s only seven years old, no matter how big he is. How’s he gonna survive?”

“I don’t give a crap,” Fang said icily. “I’m fine with him not surviving at all. Remember this?” He yanked up his shirt to show the pink lines of his healed scars, the ones from when Ari had sliced him up like a tenderloin and almost made him bleed to death.

I shuddered just thinking about that awful day. “I remember,” I said quietly. “But I can’t just kick him out into the cold with no place to go, no way to survive. Not knowing that the whitecoats will be gunning for him now. It’s only for a few days—just till he expires.”

It felt weird saying it like that. Like retire. Expire. All different words for die. He was seven years old and wasn’t going to live to see eight.

And his first seven years had sucked, big-time.

Fang poked me hard in the chest.

“Hey!” I said.

He leaned very close, several inches taller than me, and got right in my face. But this time he didn’t kiss me.

“You’re making your worst mistake,” he snarled. “And it’s gonna cost you. You’ll see.”

With that, he turned and jumped off the porch, not even hitting the ground before his wide, dark wings took him soundlessly into the night.

60

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Today’s date: Already Too Late!

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TO EVERYONE, EVERYWHERE

WARNING

HEADS-UP

EVIL SCIENTISTS WILL END LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

And even as we don’t know it.

I know what it’s called now, folks. It’s called the Re-Evolution Plan. And the By-Half Plan. We got out of the School (anyone who wants to bomb them, feel free). Now we’re in hiding, ha ha. While we were there, we found out that the plan is to basically KILL anyone with any kind of disease or weakness. The only people left will be perfectly healthy and have useful skills. So everyone bone up on something useful! Or go into hiding. And if you have the sniffles, crawl under a rock and don’t come out.

What would be useful, you ask? I’ve made a chart.

USEFUL NOT USEFUL

Plumber Politician

Carpenter Publicist

Boat builder Art history buff

Farmer Celebrity chef

Sanitation crew Interior designer

Cattle rancher Pet psychic

Scientist Celebrity rock/pop/hip-hop star