James Patterson: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Again Fang looked down at the screen, at the message just like the one he'd received yesterday.

One of you is a traitor, it read. One of the flock has gone bad.

We'd never been to Dallas before, and the next day, we decided to visit the John F. Kennedy memorial, as part of our "Highlights of Texas" tour. Or at least the other kids had decided, and they had outvoted me and my wacky "lie low" suggestion.

Now we wandered around the outdoor site, and I have to tell you, I could have used a couple of explanatory plaques.

"This thing is going to fall on our heads any second," Total said, examining the four walls towering over us and looking around suspiciously.

"It doesn't say anything about President Kennedy," the Gasman complained.

"I guess you're supposed to know already when you come here," Iggy said.

"He was a president," Nudge said, trailing one tan hand along the smooth cement. "And he got killed. I think he was supposed to be a good president."

"I still think there was a second shooter." Total sniffed and flopped on the grass.

"Can we go now?" I asked. "Before a busload of schoolkids comes on a field trip?"

"Yeah," said Iggy. "But what now? Let's do something fun."

I guess being on the run from bloodthirsty Erasers and insane scientists wasn't enough fun for him. Kids today are so spoiled.

"There's a cowgirl museum," said Nudge. How did she know this? No clue.

Fang opened his laptop to a Dallas tourist site.

"There's a big art museum," he said, with no convincing enthusiasm. "And an aquarium."

Angel sat patiently on the ground, smoothing her teddy bear Celeste's increasingly bedraggled fur. "Let's go to the cowgirl museum," she said.

I bit my lip. Why couldn't we just get out of here, go hide someplace, take the time to figure everything out? Why was I the only one who seemed to feel a pressing need to know what the heck was going on?

"Football game," said Fang.

"What?" Iggy asked, his face brightening.

"Football game tonight, Texas Stadium." Fang snapped the laptop shut and stood. "I think we should go."

I stared at him. "Are you nuts? We can't go to a football game!" I said with my usual delicacy and tact. "Being surrounded, crowded, by tens of thousands of people, trapped inside, cameras everywhere-God, it's a freaking nightmare just thinking about it!"

"Texas Stadium is open to the sky," Fang said firmly. "The Cowboys are playing the Chicago Bears."

"And we'll be there!" Iggy cheered, punching the air.

"Fang, can I talk to you privately for a second?" I asked tersely, motioning him out of the memorial.

We stepped through an opening in the cement wall and moved a couple yards away. I put my hands on my hips. "Since when are you calling the shots?" I demanded. "We can't go to a football game! There's going to be cameras everywhere. What are you thinking?"

Fang looked at me seriously, his eyes unreadable. "One, it's going to be an awesome game. Two, we're seizing life by the tail. Three, yeah, there's going to be cameras everywhere. We'll be spotted. The School and the Institute and Jeb and the rest of the whitecoats probably have feeds tapping every public camera. So they'll know where we are."

I was furious and didn't know what to think. "Funny, you didn't look insane when you got up this morning."

"They'll know where we are and they'll come after us," Fang said grimly. "Then we'll know where the tornado is."

Comprehension finally dawned. "You want to draw them out."

"I can't take not knowing," he said quietly.

I weighed Fang's sanity against my determination to remain the leader. Finally I sighed and nodded. "Okay, I get it. One major firefight, coming right up. But you so owe me. I mean, my God, football!"

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?"

Angel and I looked at each other, and I saw a world of comprehension in her gaze that made her seem much older than six.

It took only seconds for the rest of the flock to hear the whispers and to realize that the whispers were growing and spreading.

"Mom! I think that's those bird kids we saw in the newspaper!"

"Jason, look over there. Are they the kids in the pictures?"

"Oh, my goodness!"

"Rebecca, come here!"

And so on and so forth. I guess some photographer must have gotten picures of us flying away from Disney World and splashed them all over the newspapers. God forbid we should be able to watch a lousy football game with nothing extreme happening.