Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

101

"Take a picture, it'll last longer," I told the whitecoats, and they almost jumped when I spoke, staring at me with new curiosity.

"Ah, hallo," one guy said in heavily accented English. "We will ask you some questions, okay?"

I rolled my eyes, and they murmured excitedly among themselves.

"You have a name, yes?" he said, pen ready over his clipboard.

"Yes," I said. "My name is seven-five-nine-nine-three-nine-ex-dash-one. Junior." I heard ter Borcht hiss over at his desk, but he stayed out of it.

The whitecoat looked at me in confusion, then turned to Nudge. "What is your name?"

Nudge thought. "Jessica," she decided. "Jessica Miranda Alicia Tangerine Butterfly." She looked pleased with her name, and smiled at me.

The whitecoats murmured among themselves again, and I heard one of them whisper, "Butterfly?"

They turned to Angel. "We will call you Little One," the leader said, obviously deciding to dispense with the whole confusing name thing.

"Okay," Angel said agreeably. "I'll call you Guy in a White Lab Coat." He frowned.

"That can be his Indian name," I suggested.

One of the other ones spoke up. "Tell us about your sense of direction. How does it work?" They all looked at me expectantly.

"Well, it's like I have a GPS inside me," I told them. "One of the talking ones. I tell it where I want to go, and it tells me, Go twenty miles, turn left, take Exit Ninety-four, and so on. It can be pretty bossy, frankly."

Their eyes widened. "Really?" said one.

"No, you idiot," I said in disgust. "I don't know how it works. I just know it has an unfailing ability to point me in the opposite direction of a bunch of boneheads."

Now they looked a little irritated. I gave them another, say, five minutes before they cracked and this interview came to an exciting end.

"How high can you fly?" one asked abruptly.

"I'm not sure. Let me check my tummy altimeter." I looked down and pulled up my sweatshirt a couple inches. "That's funny. It was here this morning..."

"As high as a plane?" Guy in a White Lab Coat snapped.

"Higher," said Nudge. They whirled on her.

"Higher than a plane?" one asked eagerly.

Nudge nodded confidently. "Yep. We can go so high that we can't even hear the rubber band making the little propeller go around-thwip, thwip, thwip." She made a circling motion with one finger. She frowned. "You meant a toy plane, right?"

Ter Borcht exploded to his feet. "Enuff! You vill get novere vis dese failures!"

"Now, now, Borchy," I said. "These nice people came all this way to talk to us. They know we can fly really high. They know we can always find our way, even in the dark. They know we can go faster than, like, a hundred miles an hour. I'm sure they want to know more about us." Let's just dangle a carrot and see what they do, I thought. It would be my little science experiment.

The five whitecoats were busy scribbling down these tidbits. Ter Borcht, looking furious, sat down heavily.

"You know, Borchy," I said in a loud whisper, "you might want to lay off the fried foods." I patted my stomach, then pointed to his much, much bigger one. I winked at him and then faced the questioners seriously. "I guess you guys also know that we need lots of fuel to keep going. Every two hours. Stuff like milkshakes, doughnuts, chicken nuggets, steak, french fries, uh..."

"Hamburgers," said Angel. "And carrot cake and pastrami and, um, French bread and-"

"Waffles," said Nudge. "And baked potatoes with cheese and bacon. And more bacon by itself. And peanut butter sandwiches and Snickers bars and root beer an'-"

"Hoagies," said Ari in his rusty voice. They looked at him, startled, as if they hadn't figured him capable of speech.

Then the five whitecoats huddled and talked excitedly among themselves while I wiggled my eyebrows at my flock and got hopeful about a major snack headed our way.

"You don't need to eat," ter Borcht said more calmly. "You are dying soon anyvay."

The head whitecoat went over to him and talked, and ter Borcht started looking angry again. I heard him say, "No! It's too late."

"Why can't you get into their heads?" I whispered very softly to Angel. "Make 'em see ants everywhere or something."

"I don't know," Angel said, disappointed. "I just feel...shut out. It's like I start to get in and then I get pushed out again."

"Now I'm really hungry," Nudge whispered.

"Me too," said Ari.

"Me three," whispered Total. "I'm ready to eat one of them."

The rest of us made "eew" faces, but then the door to the lab opened, and everyone turned to look.

It was Mom. And frankly, she didn't look that happy to see me.