Well, Voice? I thought. What now?
I’m sure this will surprise you, but the Voice did not answer.
Next to me, Angel trustingly held my hand, watching the city go past the bus windows. It was up to me. I had to keep everyone safe. I had to find the Institute. If my brain attacks killed me, Fang would take over. But until then, I was numero uno. I couldn’t let the flock down. Do you hear that, Voice? If you’re going to make me let everyone down, you’re going to be sorry you ever . . . entered my brain.
Oh, my God, I was so freaking nuts.
“Okay, people,” the bus driver said over the PA system. “Fifty-eighth Street! This is where the fun is!”
Startled, I looked at Fang, then started hustling everyone out the back door of the bus. We stepped into the sunlight. The bus pulled noisily away, leaving us choking on its exhaust. We were at the bottom of Central Park.
“What—” I began, then my eyes widened as I saw a large glass-fronted building across the street. Behind its glass were an enormous teddy bear, a huge wooden soldier, and a fifteen-foot-tall ballerina up on one pointed toe.
The sign said AFO Schmidt.
The world’s most amazing toy store.
Well, okay.
90
We poor, underprivileged, pathetic bird kids had never been in a toy store.
And AFO Schmidt is where kids think they’ve died and gone to heaven. Right inside the front door was a huge two-story clock covered with moving figures. The song “It’s a Small World” was playing loudly, but I figured that was to keep out the riffraff.
I had no idea why we were here. It seemed too much to hope for that somehow this little romp was getting us closer to finding the Institute, but I made the executive decision to see where it took us.
A life-size stuffed giraffe surrounded by other life-size stuffed animals led the way to the whole stuffed-animal area, which was practically as big as our old house.
I looked down at Gazzy and Angel to see them staring, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at too many fabulous toys to even comprehend.
“Iggy,” the Gasman said, “there’s a whole room of Lego and Bionicle.”
“Go with them,” I told Fang. “And let’s keep an eye out for each other, okay?”
He nodded and followed the boys into the Lego room, while I trailed after Angel and Nudge, who were picking up one stuffed animal after another.
“Oh, my gosh,” Nudge was saying, holding a small stuffed tiger. “Oh, Max, isn’t he the cutest thing? Oh, his name is Samson.”
I dutifully agreed that he was in fact the cutest thing and kept glancing around for either an Eraser or some kind of clue my Voice might point me to.
“Max?” Angel tugged on my sleeve. I turned to her, and she held up a small stuffed bear. It was dressed as an angel, with a white gown and little wings on its back. A tiny gold wire halo floated above its head.
Angel’s eyes were pleading with me. I checked its price tag. The pleasure of owning this small stuffed bear could be hers for only forty-nine dollars.
“I’m so sorry, Angel,” I said, bending down to her eye level. “But this bear is forty-nine dollars. We’re almost out of money—I don’t have anywhere near that. I’m really sorry. I wish I could get it for you. I know it’s an angel, just like you.” I stroked her hair and handed her the bear back.
“But I want it,” Angel snapped at me, which was completely out of character for her.
“I said no. That’s it, kiddo.”
I wandered a few feet away, still within eyeshot of the girls, to look at a “mystical” display. There were Magic 8 Balls, and when you shook them, an answer would float to the surface of a little window. I shook one. “Very likely” was its prediction. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to ask it a question.
There was a game called Ca-balah!, a Gypsy Fortune-teller game, and the old favorite: a Ouija board. I breathed out, my hands in my pockets, and looked around the store. Maybe we should sleep here tonight.
Out of the corner of my eye, I detected a slight movement, and my raptor gaze locked on it. It was the little Ouija doohickey, the thing that “spirits” are supposed to guide across the board, pointing to certain letters, but everyone knows it’s really the kids doing it.
This one was moving with nothing touching it.