When the Wind Blows - James Patterson [39]
Little baby! She mocked herself. Cry baby! Cry baby! Cry, cry, cry your baby eyes out.
She was lying on her belly and legs. Her arms were wrapped for dear life around a stout, knobby branch. Soon exhaustion overcame her and her eyes simply closed. Just like that, all systems were down.
Max slept. At least she hadn’t been put to sleep. She hadn’t been caught. Not yet, anyway.
Her mind was in a terrible turmoil when she opened her eyes again. She couldn’t believe that she’d let herself fall asleep. How much time had passed? Minutes? Hours? Where was Uncle Thomas and the other Security guards? His little band of killers?
It was still night, and she was still hugging the big, gnarly branch as if it were her best and only friend in the world. About a mile away, the house she’d been staying in was silhouetted against the moonlit sky. All the lights were off now.
She couldn’t make out movement or sounds anywhere in the woods. No hunters. No Uncle Thomas.
Only when she was sure the immediate danger had passed did Max feel the terrible, aching pain of loss. The house was no longer safe for her. She was homeless again. She wished Matthew were here, and just the thought of him brought tears to her eyes.
I got Matthew!
Or—I’ve got Matthew!
She had to think, to remember the precise sound of the words.
Which was it? Was her little brother alive, or had they put him to sleep? Was poor Matthew dead?
A strange, high-pitched humming sound broke into her thoughts. It increased steadily in volume. Hummmmmm. That was the sound.
She looked up and Max saw tiny lights tacking across the sky. The lights came closer, and the noise got even louder.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s… a plane!
She’d seen airplanes fly over the School now and again. American Airlines, America West, United, smaller jets and prop planes. Whenever she saw an airplane, she wanted to fly. But it had been forbidden. You fly—you die! That was the School motto. Catchy, huh?
Stars blinked and twinkled everywhere, and the full moon had a kindly look on its face. It was as if the man in the moon himself were looking down on her. He seemed like an okay guy, but right now Max didn’t trust anybody.
She had an idea. A crazy one, maybe. Take it to the Max, she thought. That was her motto, and she was definitely living by those words now.
She stood up on the wide, sturdy tree branch, bounced a little on the balls of her feet. She still had her trusty ballet slippers, though they were wearing a little thin.
She spread her wings, let them rise above her head. Max took a slow, deep breath. Let it out. Took in another one, just like the other one.
“You fly—you die,” she whispered.
Then she pushed off and flew.
Chapter 40
UNBELIEVABLE!
The night air was cool and damp and thick as she cut through it as fast as a missile. The air stung her cheeks, numbed her nose, made tears slip out of her eyes.
God, it was so cool, so wonderful, so magnificent to fly. She couldn’t have even imagined how it would feel. No one could, unless you did it yourself, and who could do it but her? The pleasure of free flight overrode all thought, all other bodily sensations. She just let it happen. She stretched her wings and the air seemed to suck her upward as if it had a will all its own.
The thumbs of her hand, the dulas, or bastard wings, knew what to do automatically. Reflexively, she spread them outward, and immediately they acted as slats would, bleeding air through the slots, reestablishing airflow over the top of her wings, giving them lift.
She continued up, and up, higher than she had ever been before. Everything was so distant and tiny down below. She was nearly on a level with the approaching, groaning plane.
The air around the plane’s propellers churned up the entire night sky. She understood the man-made machine’s incredible power for the first time. As hard as she beat her wings, Max found that she was suddenly flying in place.
Then, for a split second, she was outside the brightly lit cockpit. Maybe twenty or thirty yards away. She could see inside.
The