“The first time you don’t take care of him, boom, he’s out,” Fang said. “Understood?”
Angel’s face lit up, and she threw herself into Fang’s arms while I gaped at him. He hugged Angel back, then caught my expression. He shrugged and let Angel go.
“She made Bambi eyes at me,” he whispered. “You know I can’t resist it when she does Bambi eyes.”
“Total!” Angel cried. “You can stay!”
She hugged the small wiggling black body, then drew back to beam at him. Total gave a happy yip, then made an excited leap.
And our jaws dropped. We all stared in disbelief. Total almost hit the top of the band shell, about sixteen feet above us.
“Oh,” said Angel, and Total landed, almost bottomed out, then jumped up again and licked her face.
“Yeah, oh,” I said.
133
That night we made a small camp fire and sat near the water in a part of New York called Staten Island. We were licking our wounds. Especially me. I hurt all over. But I was also unbelievably excited about what I’d found at the Institute.
“Okay, we’re all safe, all together.” I took a deep breath and slowly released it. “We found the Institute and maybe we got exactly what we went there for. Guys, I found names, addresses, even pictures of people who might be our parents.”
I could see surprise, shock, incredible excitement on all of their faces, but also hints of fear and trepidation. Can you imagine what it’s like to meet your parents when you’re somewhere between six and fourteen? I sure couldn’t.
“What are you waiting on?” asked Iggy. “The envelope, please. Open it, already. Then somebody tell me what it says.”
I felt a trembling sense of elation as I started pulling out the pages I’d taken from the Institute. Here were the answers to the mysteries of our lives, right? The others gathered around me, leaning over my shoulders, helping me smooth the printed pages flat without smearing the ink.
“Max, what did Jeb mean—you killed your brother?” Nudge asked out of the blue. The question was so typical of her—off in her own world again. “He didn’t mean that Ari was your brother, did he? You guys weren’t—I mean, triple yuk—”
I held up my hand, trying not to shriek from bottled-up emotion. “I don’t know, Nudge,” I said, forcing myself to sound calm. “I can’t think about it right now. Let’s read these pages. When someone gets to something interesting, yell.” I handed out the wrinkled stacks.
“Who’s your daddy?” crowed the Gasman. “Who’s your mommy?”
134
Angel started reading slowly, so
unding out words. “This doesn’t make sense to me,” she said after about ten seconds.
Then the Gasman sat up. “Here I am!” he shouted. “Here I am!”
“Let me see, Gazzy.”
The Gasman handed me his stack and I pored over it. Sure enough, I found his name: “F28246eff (the Gasman).” My heart nearly stopped.
“Here’s an address!” I said, tracing my finger down a page. “It’s in Virginia!”
“I’ve got an address too, and some names,” said Fang. “And my name. And, oh man, there are pictures.”
“Let us see, let us see!”
Everybody gathered around Fang, and even though he’s usually Mr. Calm, Cool, and Collected, he was shaking. We all were. I myself was trembling like the temp had dipped about fifty degrees.
Nudge was pointing at a photocopy in Fang’s hand. It showed a man and woman who seemed to be in their thirties. “He looks just like you, Fang. And so does she. They’ve got to be your mom and dad! No doubt.”
Her voice choked up, and suddenly we were all crying, except Fang, of course, who just muttered, “Maybe, maybe not.”
Then everybody was looking through the pages, searching for their parents. Nobody made a sound. Until—