Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

6

This may surprise you, but people in Texas are very into their contact sports. I saw more than one infant wearing a Cowboys onesie.

I was wound tighter than a choke chain on a rottweiler, hating everything about being here. The Texas Stadium was, shock, Texas size, and we were surrounded by more than sixty thousand popcorn-munching opportunities to go postal.

Nudge was eating blue cotton candy, her eyes like Frisbees, looking at everything. "I want big hair!" she said excitedly, tugging on my shirt.

"I blame you," I told Fang, and he almost smiled.

We sat down low, by the middle of the field, about as far from any exit as we could be. I would have been much happier, or at least slightly less miserable, in the nosebleed section, close to the open sky. Down here, despite the lack of roof on the stadium, I felt hemmed in and trapped.

"Tell me again what we're doing here," I said, running a continuous scan of our surroundings.

Fang popped some Cracker Jack into his mouth. "We're here to watch manly men do manly things."

I followed Fang's line of sight: He was watching the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, who were not doing manly things, by any stretch of the imagination.

"What's going on?" Iggy asked. Unlike the others, he was as tense as I was. In a strange place, surrounded by loud, echoing noise, unable to get his bearings-I wondered how long it would take him to crack.

"If anything happens," I told him, "stand on your chair and do an up-and-away, ten yards out and straight up. Got it?"

"Yeah," he said, turning his head nervously, wiping his hands on his grubby jeans.

"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?"