Wing It: A Maximum Ride Story {DISCONTINUED}

chapter 6

We all made it back to the hotel room and crammed in.  I was squished between Dylan and Nudge, who was bouncing up and down with excitement.  Dylan was stiff with concentration and probably a bit of anger, I guessed from his frowning expression.  He must have still been angry.  Guys with their anger issues.

            I sighed a bit too audibly and everyone stared at me.  I looked around at the anxious faces.  Nudge nudged me with her knee and looked at me.  “Go on, Max.  Tell them about what you saw.  They need to know.”

            I sighed again and got up to stand in front of everyone.  I stood there uncomfortably trying not to look into anyone’s eyes.  “Well, I found Angel and Star in a sewer with the One Light,” I mumbled.

            I tried to go sit back down but Nudge pushed me back up front.  “Max, tell them where he said to find them,” she probed.

            Reluctantly I began to speak again.  “He gave me a dumb riddle.  He said I’d find them on an island where lemurs and wild animals roam free and the sun shines bright and hot all the time.  It’s just a stupid puzzle.  I don’t know what it means.”  I looked back to Nudge for approval.  “Can I sit back down now?”  She nodded, and I resumed my seat beside her.  I peeked around her to see Fang and the rest of his group pondering the location.  I tried to look away from a few smirking faces.  They were probably thinking the same thing:  Max?  Shy?  What’s up with that?!

            “I think we should research this,” Fang said slowly, carefully looking at me for a quick moment, then looking back to the wall, trying to appear as though he hadn’t.  But I had seen him.  I tried not to care.  I looked at Nudge who was already typing away on her computer.

            “Well,” she began.  “I’ve found some places highly populated with lemurs, but they are mostly places in zoos, which don’t all have really warm climates.  But we need to find a place with wild animals, not ones in captivity.  They have a couple reservations that have lemurs but they are in heated buildings…ugg!  This is hard!  Where on Earth…”  Ratchet cut her off.

            “Whoa there, motor mouth.  You’re way over the speed limit.  Settle down and lets all think.  Are there any books, movies, stuff we’ve seen or heard that had lemurs, wild animals or sunshine?”  We all sat there pondering this.

            “You know, we haven’t really seen many movies and we aren’t really that educated,” I pointed out.

            “True,” he said.  “But Kate and I have.”

            “Also true, but if you guys can’t figure it out, then we’re at a loss.”

            “When I was little, I saw the movie Madagascar, you know, the one with a talking lion, zebra…” Kate said quietly.  “There were a lot of lemurs.  It’s an island, and it can be pretty warm.”

            We all stared at her, a few of us in awe.  “I think she’s right,” Gazzy said.  “I mean, it’s all we’ve got and it makes sense.”

            I nodded in agreement.  A few others were doing the same.  “Wait a minute,” Dylan said, speaking for the first time since we got to the hotel.  “Isn’t it a really long way to go from France to some island off the coast of Africa?  How are we going to get there?  We’ve got almost no money, and not all of us here can fly.”

            He had a point.  An excellent point.  That One Light guy was pretty slick.  He probably figured that we would spend all our effort figuring out how to get there and then be tired and in bad shape when we got there.

            “What about this,” I said.  “We could take shifts in a sort.  Some of the time half of us will work on finding a way to get there, the other half will train.  That way, we won’t be at a total loss.”

            “Good idea,” Fang said, suddenly speaking up.  “We just need to make sure we divide up the groups in a good way.  And we should probably have one person in charge of training the whole time and one person the whole time for research and stuff.”

            “I don’t know,” I countered.  “Not everyone needs to work on searching, although he more ideas the better.  But everyone needs to train.  We are all going to need it,” I said, forcing myself to look straight into Fang’s dark eyes.

            “I think you’re right,” he answered, breaking my gaze.  “Maybe in each group we just have a kind of leader who can lead the training or something.”

            Along with the others, I nodded.  “Let’s get to it!” Nudge said, raising her laptop in one hand like a victory punch.

            “For Angel!” Our flock said.

            “For Star!”  The other group cried.

            Fang said nothing.  Through all of the high-energy and excitement in the room, he just stared at me.  And I stared back.