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

“I want to be a cheerleader,” Nudge said wistfully.

“Oh, for God’s sake,?

?? I snapped, but a look from Fang shut me up. It meant, don’t rain on her parade. No matter how ill-conceived and sexist that parade might be. Inside, I was burning up. I never should have agreed to this. I was hugely miffed that Fang had insisted on it. Now, watching him practically salivate over the horrifically perky cheerleaders, I got even madder.

“They’re wearing tiny little shorts. One of them has long red hair,” he was murmuring to Iggy, who nodded, rapt.

And we all know how much you like long red hair, I thought, remembering how it had felt, seeing Fang kiss the Red-Haired Wonder back in Virginia. Acid started to burn a hole in my stomach.

“Max?” Angel looked up at me. I really had to get these kids into a bath soon, I realized, looking at her limp blond curls.

“Yes, honey? You hungry?” I started to wave down a hot-dog vendor.

“No. I mean, yeah, I’ll take two hot dogs, and Total wants two too—but I meant, it’s okay.”

“What’s okay?”

“Everything.” She looked up at me earnestly. “Everything will be okay, Max. We’ve come this far—we’re supposed to survive. We’ll survive, and you’ll save the world, like you’re supposed to.”

Well, reality just shows up sometimes, doesn’t it?

“I’m not comfortable in this stadium,” I explained, trying to look calm.

“I know. And you hate Fang looking at those girls. But we’re still having fun, and Fang still loves you, and you’ll still save the world. Okay?”

My mouth was agape, and my brain was frantically trying to process which statement to respond to first—Fang loves me?—when I heard someone whisper, “Is that one of those bird kids?”

7

Angel and I looked at each other, and I saw a world of comprehension in her gaze that made her seem much older than six.

It took only seconds for the rest of the flock to hear the whispers and to realize that the whispers were growing and spreading.

“Mom! I think that’s those bird kids we saw in the newspaper!”

“Jason, look over there. Are they the kids in the pictures?”

“Oh, my goodness!”

“Rebecca, come here!”

And so on and so forth. I guess some photographer must have gotten picures of us flying away from Disney World and splashed them all over the newspapers. God forbid we should be able to watch a lousy football game with nothing extreme happening.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw two blue-uniformed security men starting down the aisle toward us. A fast 360 revealed no one morphing into Erasers, but there were many eyes on us, many mouths wide open in surprise.

“Should we run?” Gazzy asked nervously, watching the crowd, mapping exit routes like he’d been taught.

“Running’s too slow,” I said.

“The game hasn’t even started,” Total said bitterly from under Iggy’s seat. “I have money on the Bears!”

“You’re welcome to stay here and see how the score ends up.” I stood, began grabbing backpacks, counting flock members. The usual.

Total crawled out and jumped nimbly into Iggy’s arms.

I tapped Iggy’s hand twice. In an instant, we climbed onto our chairs. The muttering of voices was swelling, rising all around us, and the next thing I knew, our faces were twenty feet high, being projected onto the enormous stadium screens. Just like Fang had wanted. I hoped he was happy.

“Up and away on three,” I said. Two more security guards were approaching fast from the right.