“Now, now, Borchy,” I said. “These nice people came all this way to talk to us. They know we can fly really high. They know we can always find our way, even in the dark. They know we can go faster than, like, a hundred miles an hour. I’m sure they want to know more about us.” Let’s just dangle a carrot and see what they do, I thought. It would be my little science experiment.
The five whitecoats were busy scribbling down these tidbits. Ter Borcht, looking furious, sat down heavily.
“You know, Borchy,” I said in a loud whisper, “you might want to lay off the fried foods.” I patted my stomach, then pointed to his much, much bigger one. I winked at him and then faced the questioners seriously. “I guess you guys also know that we need lots of fuel to keep going. Every two hours. Stuff like milkshakes, doughnuts, chicken nuggets, steak, french fries, uh...”
“Hamburgers,” said Angel. “And carrot cake and pastrami and, um, French bread and—”
“Waffles,” said Nudge. “And baked potatoes with cheese and bacon. And more bacon by itself. And peanut butter sandwiches and Snickers bars and root beer an’—”
“Hoagies,” said Ari in his rusty voice. They looked at him, startled, as if they hadn’t figured him capable of speech.
Then the five whitecoats huddled and talked excitedly among themselves while I wiggled my eyebrows at my flock and got hopeful about a major snack headed our way.
“You don’t need to eat,” ter Borcht said more calmly. “You are dying soon anyvay.”
The head whitecoat went over to him and talked, and ter Borcht started looking angry again. I heard him say, “No! It’s too late.”
“Why can’t you get into their heads?” I whispered very softly to Angel. “Make ’em see ants everywhere or something.”
“I don’t know,” Angel said, disappointed. “I just feel...shut out. It’s like I start to get in and then I get pushed out again.”
“Now I’m really hungry,” Nudge whispered.
“Me too,” said Ari.
“Me three,” whispered Total. “I’m ready to eat one of them.”
The rest of us made “eew” faces, but then the door to the lab opened, and everyone turned to look.
It was Mom. And frankly, she didn’t look that happy to see me.
102
Mom—Marian Janssen—greeted the Chinese scientists warmly, so I figured they were offering her a big chunk of change to buy us as weapons.
“Are you finding out the information you need?” she asked. Ter Borcht snorted loudly over at his desk, and she cast him a glance.
“Are they cooperating?” Marian asked the room in general.
“What do you think?” I asked, just as Guy in a White Lab Coat said, “No.”
Marian took out a PDA. “I told you I had much of this information, but I understood that you wanted to interview them yourselves. Now, what do you need to know?”
“How fast can they fly?” asked one.
Marian clicked her PDA. “Max, here,” she said, gesturing to me, “has exceeded two hundred miles an hour, straight on, and upward of two hundred sixty miles an hour in a steep dive.”
The scientists looked impressed. I started to feel an icy chill creep down my back.
“How high can they fly?” another one asked.
“Max has been documented at altitudes of approximately thirty-one thousand feet for short periods of time. Her oxygen consumption increased appropriately but created no hardship. Her normal cruising altitude is usually between fifteen thousand and twenty-two thousand feet.”
Again the scientists looked impressed and made notes. One entered things into a calculator, then whispered results to the others.
I felt Nudge’s and Angel’s eyes on me, but I had a sinking feeling inside and didn’t want to look at them. I was betting that Spy Mom had gotten all this information from my chip, the one I’d had Dr. Martinez take out.
The head guy looked at me speculatively. “How much weight can they carry?”