Waterwings

by James Patterson

  “You can just watch for now,” he’d said briskly.

  I shook my head. “Let’s get it over with.”

  So he’d explained what he was going to do and how I should block it or evade it, but I was already thinking about lunch and didn’t really pay attention. Then he’d come at me, and I dodged to one side, under his arm, then kicked his knee out from in back, making him sag.

  He started to spin, but I gave him a two-handed chop on the shoulder, trying not to break his collarbone, then jumped and did a spinning back kick, right into his chest. That was when he’d smacked up against the wall and slid down like a raindrop.

  He looked a little better now, wheezing slightly and sitting up.

  “I told ol’ Palmer that we had a pretty good handle on this, but I guess he didn’t believe me,” I said apologetically.

  His eyes narrowed as he slowly stood up, a good six inches taller than me, and I’m five-eight. He probably outweighed me by about a hundred and forty pounds. “That was a fluke,” he said. “I was going easy on you because you’re a kid. But if you want a fight, I can fight.”

  I guess this gets filed in the bulging folder of Max’s Nongirliness, but my heart gave a little jump. I’d been worried about getting soft, losing my razor-sharp survival instincts. And what do you know, this nice navy guy was volunteering to help me brush up on them.

  “Yeah?” I said, trying not to look too excited. Behind me, I heard Fang snort, saw Gazzy and Iggy start to calculate odds and exchange money.

  “Don’t hurt him too bad, Max,” said Angel, smothering a grin as fury crossed the instructor’s face. He rolled his shoulders, walked about ten paces away, and cracked his knuckles. The other students looked nervous and backed away from us, edging toward the door.

  He stared at me with cold, cut-me-no-slack determination, then got into a fighting stance, holding one hand out, beckoning me.

  “I saw that movie too!” I said. “It was like the coolest movie of all —”

  He launched himself at me.

  That was when his day really went downhill.

  It didn’t last that long — maybe four minutes. Which can feel like a long time when someone’s whaling on you. Not to malign the U.S. Navy or anything, but he didn’t land a single blow. Maybe he was having an off day. Finally, we resumed our earlier position: me leaning over him as he gasped on the floor.

  “It’s not your fault,” I said, not even breathing hard. “I’m genetically enhanced. And, you know, ruthless. Plus, of course, meaner than a rabid wolverine. Are you okay?”

  After a long pause, he nodded silently.

  I jerked a thumb at the rest of the flock. “Do you want to try it against any of them?”

  Everyone except Fang failed at not looking hopeful. The guy shook his head no.

  “Good choice. Then how about you give us a checkmark saying we passed the self-defense part of the BS? Okay?”

  He nodded again.

  I looked at the others. “Is it lunchtime yet? I’m starving.”

  Iggy felt his watch. “It’s a little past nine. In the morning,” he clarified.

  I groaned. “Okay, let’s find some vending machines. I need, like, about a million Twinkies.”

  It looked like we might be finished by four, after all.

  35

  Q: You’re presented with a smooth-faced, eight-foot-high wooden wall. Your objective? Get over it. To, like, save comrades or something. How to accomplish this?

  A: Take a running start, brace one foot against the wall, throw one hand to the top, try to hang on long enough for a comrade to either grab your hand at the top or for another comrade to push your butt over from below. It takes teamwork!

  BKA (bird-kid answer): Or, you could just, like, fly over it.

  Q: Twenty yards of dirt to crawl across on your belly. The catch? Rows and rows of barbed wire, strung eighteen inches off the ground. How do you get across without being snagged?

  A: Do the “sniper” crawl. Be sure not to raise your butt or shoulders or head too high. Ouch.

  BKA: What can I say? We’ve been crawling like rats and slithering like snakes for years. How else to sneak up on each other, hiding beneath the bed frame to grab Iggy’s ankle when he gets up for a drink of water? Plus, we’re really thin. If we keep our wings tucked in tight, no worries.

  Q: Is there anything a bird kid can’t do?

  A: No. Apparently not.

  BKA: Well, we still totally fall down in the table-manners department. I’m just saying.

  Rope swings over quicksand, wading through rivers while holding weapons above our heads, balancing on spinning logs, climbing ropes, running fast, crawling through tunnels — we were starting to seriously depress our fellow naval classmates, all of whom were older than us and had already been in training for a while.

  Explaining that we’d been designed to be strong, fast, and light didn’t really cheer them up. They just saw us kids beating the socks off them. We were barely panting when our classmates were bent over at the knees, throwing up from exertion. Heights don’t bother us. (Duh.) We’ve already been in awful, to-the-death fights. We’ve already been chained in dungeons. Locked in dog crates and experimented on. We’ve crawled through miles of air-conditioning ducts. Been pushed to our extreme limits physically, psychologically, emotionally. All of this BS training was just kind of a picnic after that.

  Is that what Jeb had meant when he said everything that we’ve gone through was just a way to train me for the future? I would so hate for him to be right.

  “This is fun!” Gazzy exclaimed, shoveling down the food at lunchtime. “That obstacle course reminded me of that time when we were jacking the car from the chop shop, remember? And we had to climb through all those piles of car parts without making a sound? Pass the ketchup.”

  I pushed the ketchup his way.

  “I gotta hand it to the navy,” said Iggy. “They know how to keep the chow coming.” He got up to get fourths, easily threading his way through the tables and the crowd, picking up a fresh tray and starting again at the beginning of the line.

  “Okay, are we done yet?” I asked Fang. “It’s almost one o’clock. My mom has been tied up on a sub for almost two days! Every minute counts here!”

  “We’ve gotten through self-defense, the obstacle course, and outdoor survival,” said Fang. “We’ve still got weapons use. We’ll probably be done by five or so.”

  “What’s next?” Angel asked, starting on her third hamburger.

  Fang checked our list. “Covert ops.”

  Angel smiled.

  36

  “TAG! YOU’RE IT!” Gazzy tapped the navy guy on the shoulder, causing him to jump about a foot in the air and stifle a shriek.

  I have to admit, it was almost fun being set loose in a patch of heavily palm-treed terrain and then having to get past guards to get to “home base.”

  Fang pretty much just walked past the camouflaged guards, taking slow, quiet steps, pacing his breathing, and simply blending in with the trees.

  Iggy and I had been forced into more stealthiness, actually ducking behind trees and the occasional huge volcanic boulder. All the same, despite the wide-eyed alertness of the sailors on guard, it really wasn’t too hard to slither past them in a big circle.

  Gazzy had relied on the element of surprise, as he often does. First, he’d perfectly mimicked a bird call, making a guard look up. Gazzy had tagged that guard. Then, when the guards were in pursuit, he’d utilized his other — well, I refuse to call it a skill. In fact, I think of it as a huge design flaw. Despite how hilarious the guys think it is, Nudge and Angel and I are simply more evolved than that. We try not to encourage demonstrations of his mastery of the gaseous arts.

  Suffice it to say that Gazzy incapacitated the guards, leaving them coughing and gagging, gasping on the ground, their eyes watering. Then he raced through the trees, cackling in triumph, and burst out into the clear meadow where the lieutenant colonel was waiting with a clipboard and
a stopwatch.

  Iggy and Fang gave Gazzy high fives just as Lieutenant Colonel Palmer’s nose turned up, and he frowned at the woods.

  “It’ll dissipate in a couple minutes,” I said, flopping down on the grass. “It always does.”

  Palmer turned a ferocious glare on Gazzy. “You were forbidden to bring or to use antipersonnel weapons!”

  “That’s the sad thing,” I said, just as Angel trotted out of the woods. “He didn’t. I mean, his name is the Gasman. We’re not just whistling Dixie, there.”

  “Am I the last one?” Angel asked as she got near. “Sorry. Got sidetracked by some wild orchids.” She handed me a small bouquet of creamy flowers.

  “Ooh, thanks, sweetie,” I said, inhaling their delicate scent. “So. Time for weapons class?”

  The lieutenant colonel glared first at me, then at Angel. The two guards staggered out of the woods, still holding their rifles, but with their helmets askew and their camo gear trailing behind them.

  “Ensigns Baker and Kipowski!” Palmer barked. “All five of these recruits exited the woods within four minutes! Did you see them?”

  Looking dazed, the ensigns tried to straighten up. One of them cleared his throat. “We didn’t see the tall dark one, sir, or the tall blond one, or the oldest girl. We saw the younger boy, but he… incapacitated us.”

  Palmer just stared at them.

  Gazzy stifled a snicker. “Burritos for lunch,” he whispered, and Iggy and Fang tried to hold in their laughter.

  “What about this one?” Palmer pointed his pen at Angel, who gave him a sunny smile.

  The guards looked at her, and confusion crossed their faces.

  I tried not to groan.

  “I think I saw her,” one said slowly. “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t —” Palmer seemed speechless. I knew it couldn’t last.

  “I might have seen her,” said the other guard, his eyes on the ground. “I just — it’s all — I don’t know.”

  I stood up and brushed off my khaki butt. “I guess it’s time for weapons class,” I said pointedly.

  Palmer was still staring at the two guards. I went over to him.

  “Lieutenant Colonel,” I said. “Can I call you L? No? Well, look, it’s not their fault. They probably would have caught anyone else. But we’re good at this stuff. As I keep telling you.”

  “She’s a child!” Palmer burst out, gesturing at Angel.

  “She’s a sneaky and devious child,” I explained. “Plus, you know, I think she zapped the guards. With her mind. She can hear people’s thoughts and sometimes control them. It’s weird, it’s scary, but there you go. Your guys never had a chance.”

  The lieutenant colonel seemed less comforted by my explanation than you might think. Finally, he let his clipboard dangle at his side. “Weapons class,” he said. But you could tell his heart wasn’t really in it anymore.

  37

  LIEUTENANT COLONEL PALMER, still looking tense from the demoralizing covert ops training, stood at the front of the classroom. He opened a case on the desk and took out a James Bond–like handgun.

  “This is the Beretta M9, a semiautomatic pistol,” he said, being careful not to point it at anyone. “It’s one of the safest and best-designed handguns in the world and is standard issue for several branches of the U.S. military.”

  Gazzy raised his hand.

  The lieutenant colonel seemed to go a little pale but ignored him. “Capable of handling fifteen-round magazines, this weapon has proved to be one of the most reliable and accurate —”

  Gazzy waved his hand back and forth. Impossible to ignore.

  Palmer tried looking stern. “This better be good, son,” he said, gritting his teeth.

  “The Beretta is great and all,” said Gazzy earnestly, “but I’ve heard the military-issued model tends to jam something awful. People think it’s the weird finish on the barrels. Plus, it’s supposedly really heavy, bowling ball heavy. Kind of like the all-steel M1911 model. And then the trigger’s too far away for most people, even if they have big hands…”

  Lieutenant Colonel Palmer was nonplussed. Again.

  Gazzy looked at him, concerned. “Um, it’s still a really neat gun, though,” he said. “And did you know — if you stick the spring from a clothespin right under the safety when it’s in the left-hand mode, then pull the trigger, it’ll explode about two-point-nine seconds later? I mean, throw it first.”

  “Sometimes two-point-seven seconds,” Iggy added. “Don’t dawdle. And man — try doing that with the barrel full of Spam sometime!” He and Gazzy chortled and slapped high fives.

  About a minute later, the lieutenant colonel rubbed his eyes. “Class dismissed.”

  38

  LIEUTENANT KHAKI, whose name was actually Lieutenant Morgan, sat at her desk, reading Lieutenant Colonel Palmer’s report. Every once in a while she looked up at us sharply, as if she were having trouble believing it. Finally she put it down and laced her fingers together.

  “So you’re saying these children can easily run four miles carrying heavy packs?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” said the lieutenant colonel, looking straight ahead. The flock and I were lined up against one wall.

  “They outperformed the rest of the cadets in every way?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “The eight-year-old beat your best cadet in hand-to-hand combat?”

  “So did the six-year-old girl, ma’am. Actually, she beat the instructor also.”

  I tried not to grin. The self-defense instructor had given all of us a pass, but the hand-to-hand combat instructor had been more stubborn. For a while.

  “So, like, we want to thank you for this great experience…” I began, shifting from foot to foot. “But now that we’ve gone through all your BS, can we go rescue my mom?”

  The lieutenant looked at me. “Yes,” she said finally, and my heart leaped. “Tomorrow.”

  “What?!”

  “We’re putting you on the USS Minnesota,” she went on smoothly. “Which is a state-of-the-art, Virginia-class nuclear submarine with many enhanced offensive and defensive capabilities. It’s on its way here now from San Diego. It will arrive here at oh-three-hundred hours tomorrow, will refuel, and be ready to deploy at oh-six-hundred hours. You will be waiting on the dock at that time. If you are two minutes late, it will leave without you. In addition, while on board the USS Minnesota, you will obey every senior officer without question, you will comport yourself with decorum and maturity, and you will do nothing to endanger the ship, its cargo, or its personnel.”

  I opened my mouth to say something, but the lieutenant plowed on. “Failure to follow these rules to the letter will result in your being disembarked at the closest possible location, and the mission will be scrubbed. Do I make myself perfectly clear?”

  Her icy blue eyes raked each of us one by one. I prayed that the others would stifle their trademark lack of respect and intolerance for bull and, for once, keep their mouths shut. My mom’s life was riding on this.

  Then, a miracle happened. No one said a word. I heard cautious, even breathing as each of us bit our lips and struggled mightily against our true natures.

  Don’t wait too long, I begged the lieutenant silently. Please dismiss us before we blurt out something bad, against our will.

  “Oh-six-hundred hours then,” she said curtly. “Dismissed.”

  39

  SO WHAT DO YOU DO if you have thirteen hours to kill before you rescue your mom? Well, if you’re wacky, devil-may-care bird kids, you go swimming!

  Pearl Harbor was in a bay off the coast of Oahu, this close to Honolulu. In fact, Honolulu means “sheltered bay,” according to a little sign by the mess hall. (See? Who says you never learn nothin’, hanging out with us?)

  Some of the shoreline near the base was off-limits, but there was a public part too. Despite it being early evening, the weather was perfect and balmy, and the water was blissfully warm. The beach wasn’t crowded, but there w
ere people swimming and collecting shells. I was starting to see Fang’s point about just finding a tropical isle and letting the rest of the world go crazy without us.

  “Keep your Windbreaker on,” I told Angel, who was shimmying out of her tiny uniform. “Bird kids weren’t exactly designed for bathing suits.”

  She made a face but nodded. “I think there’s like dolphins or something out there. I can hear things thinking, but they’re not human.”

  Concern shot through me. “Not human? Do they feel evil? They’re not, like, Erasers with fins or something, right?”

  Angel giggled. “No. They’re not Erasers. And they feel totally not evil. Okay, bye!” She ran across the sand and threw herself into the water. I watched as her golden curls submerged and disappeared. I sighed and sank down on the sand next to Akila and Total.

  Fang sat next to me, still looking out of character in nonblack clothes.

  “Whoa. Khaki much?” I couldn’t resist saying.

  He looked at me. “Uh-huh. And I dig your military hair.”

  “Touché.” Self-consciously, I touched the tight French braid I was required to wear here at the navy fun house.

  Gazzy and Iggy were already in swimming trunks, racing toward the ocean. They yelled when they hit the waves, plunging in far enough to bodysurf.

  Fang’s dark eyes scanned the water. He was counting heads, the way I was. I hadn’t gotten over the feeling that something was wrong because Nudge wasn’t here.

  “How long’s she been under?” Fang asked.

  “About five minutes. She said there were dolphins. Or something.”

  We sat together silently for a while. Gazzy and Iggy were shouting and splashing in the water. Angel still hadn’t come up for air, and I tried to let go of the normal expectation that she needed to. After all, what are a few gills among friends?

  Suddenly Angel did pop up, smiling and waving, heading toward us. “It’s totally awesome, clear and blue,” she announced, shaking off water.