35

“MAX!”

I was assaulted by excited bird kids as soon as I stepped over the threshold.Iggy andGazzy were sitting on our bunks, and there was so much energy in the air that we could have powered the boat with it.

“Yeah?” I said, trying to calm my jangled nerves.

“Max, this is great!” said Nudge. “This is way better than going to school. Or being on the run. It’s like we have something fun to do,plus we have people protecting us,plus food and beds, all at the same time!”

“The food and beds are a huge plus,” I agreed.

“And we have a real mission,” saidGazzy. “I mean, you’vebeen having a mission. But now we’re in on it too. And it’s a good mission!”

“You think?” I looked for a place to sit down and finally chose the tiny chair at the tiny built-in desk as my only option. Total was stretched out on Angel’s bunk, not sleeping, just sighing heavily from time to time.

“Yeah, I think!” saidGazzy.

“It’s pretty cool,” saidIggy. “Despite being cooped up like sardines in this can. It still makes sense. I’d like to do some actual good, instead of just trying to thwart bad all the time.”

“What’s wrong withhim? ” I jerked a thumb at Total just as Fang joined us. I didn’t look at him and was furious to feel my cheeks heat up again.

Angel patted Total’s small black head. “I think it’sAkila,” she confided.

“Cruelty, thy name is woman!” Total moaned. “Or rather, dog.”

“She won’t talk to him,”Gazzy told me.

“Total, she doesn’t talk,” I pointed out.

“She won’t even talk to me in theuniversal language, ” Total said.

“French,” Angel said knowingly.

“Love hurts,” Fang said, almost to himself.

“Oh, shutup! ” I snapped.

Which made five heads swivel toward me. I wanted to spit.

“Let’s talk about something interesting,” I said pointedly. Fang +Brigid = pain. Check. Fang + me = confusion, and also pain and fear. Check. Mission to save the world? Scary, challenging, uncertain, possibly very worthwhile. Check.

Total in love with a Malamute? That I could handle.

“What’s the problem, Total?”

“She won’t give me the time of day,” Total said wearily. “I can’t blame her. Look at her- she’s purebred, classy, important.Tall. I’m… a short mutant with no papers. Always on the run, hanging out with hunted criminals-”

“Hey!” I said.

“You’ve stolen three cars,” Total pointed out. “That I know of. Plus breaking and entering, assault-”

“Okay, okay,” I said irritably. “Whatever. Hey, anytime it’s too much for you, pal…”

Angel wrapped her arm around his neck.

Total drew himself up proudly. “And leave you on your own? I’m not a traitor! You need me!”

I was about to retort with a scathing “Forwhat? ” when Nudge interrupted.

“Total, just be nice toAkila,” she advised. “Don’t grovel. Just be yourself, but extra thoughtful, polite. Act more like a dog, you know, strong andsilenter.”

Total seemed to take this in, nodding thoughtfully.

“Now, about the mission,” said Nudge. “I’m all for it! I mean, it’s cold here, which sucks, but I like these people. I say we stay for a while.”

“Me too!” saidGazzy.

They were all waiting for me.

I didn’t want to argue with them about jumping on the global warming bandwagon. What the hey. We had food and beds. “All right,” I said, and they erupted into cheers. “Let’s stay for a while.”

36

“YOU NEED A JACKET,” I told Total the next day. We were on the upper deck, and it was, hey, really cold! The scientists had all sorts of cold-weather gear for us kids, so we were okay. They hadn’t even minded us slicing long slits in the backs.

Total was shivering, watching the endless ocean through the metal railings.

“Akiladoesn’t wear a jacket,” he said through chattering teeth.

“Then go below before I have to chip ice off your nose,” I said.

Turning with great dignity, he trotted over to the stairs and jumped down them.

“I can’t get used to a talking dog,” said Melanie, coming up next to me. “Or even flying kids, really.” She gave me a friendly smile, then went back to making notes in a log.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“We document weather conditions every day,” she explained. “Air temperature, barometric pressure, water temperature. Wind direction and speed, what the seas are like.” She flipped through the pages in her log to show me month after month of meticulously graphed weather conditions. It was cool thatsomeone was doing this, but it would have made me gonzo by the fourth day.

“Yougotta check out their computers,” Nudge said, running up to us. “They are so cool! They can show you what the earth will look like in fifty years, or what would happen if there’s an earthquake.Gazzy just ran a demonstration of what would happen if a tsunami hit Los Angeles!”

“Cool,” I said. “What’re Fang andIggy doing?”

“Scalping Brian andBrigid at poker,” she said matter-of-factly. Melanie looked up in surprise.

“What about Angel?”

“She’s ahead by about thirty bucks.”

Here’s a freebie: Don’t play poker with a kid who can read minds. Well, they would have to learn sometime.

“How long have you been here?” I asked Melanie out of sheer boredom. I don’t usually bother getting to know people, because (a) I don’t trust any of them, (b) we’re usually leaving soon, and in a hurry, and (c) they’re usually trying to kill us. The only humans I’d ever met and liked were my mom and my half sister, Ella.

“I’ve been part of an Antarctica team for five years,” she said. She put a small plastic container in aclawlike thing, which she lowered over the boat’s side on a rope. “Off and on. We’re privately funded, so every once in a while we run out of money and have to scramble.” She looked at me curiously. “How long have you been on the run? Dr. Martinez warned us we’d have to take extra measures to keep you safe.”

I decided it wouldn’t be a disaster to tell her. “We’ve been on our own for more than two years. On the run for- I don’t know- six months? It feels like forever.”

She nodded sympathetically.

Just then Angel appeared on deck, stuffing a wad of money into her pocket. “Whales,” she said.

37

“HUH?” I SAID.

Angel nodded toward the ocean. “Whales. I wanted to see them.”

Melanie drew up her water sample. “Yes, we’ll probably see some before too long. There are eight different species of whales in this region.”

“We’regonna see ’emnow,” said Angel, moving to the railing.

Smiling, Melanie said, “We’ll definitely see them at some point.”

“No, they’re here,” said Angel, pointing. “They’re curious. They think this boat smells yucky.”

“What?” Melanie said, just as the biggestgol -dang animal I’ve ever seen suddenly burst out of the ocean.

I gasped- it was like a gray-and-black wall of wet skin, almost filling my vision. It was super close, maybe forty feet away, and it got about two-thirds of its body above water before crashing back down in aginormous belly flop that rocked our boat.

Angel smiled.

“That was a humpback,” said Melanie. “They love to throw themselves out of the water. You think he was curious?”

“She,” Angel said absently, watching the water. “She’s curious. There’s a bunch of them down there.”

Paul Carey came out of the pilothouse. “There’s a pod of humpbacks all around us,” he said. “I just saw them on sonar.”

Angel glanced at him pityingly but didn’t say anything.

“I can’t believe how huge they are. How many of them are there?” I asked Angel.

“Can’t tell,” she said slowly. “They’re all thinking at once. Maybe twenty-five?”

Melanie’s brow wrinkled, and she looked at Paul, who shrugged.