James Patterson - Two Schools Out - Forever

"Yeah, cool," Fang said.

For a few minutes we watched Angel and the Gasman playing in the shallow surf. I was amazed they weren't cold, but they seemed fine. Iggy and Nudge were walking down the beach. Nudge was putting different-shaped shells in Iggy's hands so he could feel them. I wanted time to freeze here, right here, right now, forever.

There was something I needed to say. "Sorry. About before."

Fang shot a sideways glance at me, his eyes dark and inscrutable, as always. He looked back out at the water. I didn't expect any more acknowledgment than that. Fang never-

"You almost gave me a heart attack," he said quietly. "When I saw you, and all that blood..." He threw a small rock as hard as he could down the beach.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't do it again," he said.

I swallowed hard. "I won't."

Something changed right then, but I didn't know what.

"Hey!" said Angel, standing up in knee-high water. "I can talk to fish!"

That wasn't it.

"You can what?" I called, getting up and walking toward the water.

"I can talk to fish!" Angel said happily, water dripping off her long, skinny body.

"Ask one over for dinner," Fang said, joining us.

The Gasman shook his head like a wet dog. "You can not," he said.

"I'll prove it!" Angel dived back under the water.

By this time, Nudge and Iggy were walking up.

"She talks to fish now?" Iggy asked.

Then, with no warning, a six-foot shark surfaced, mouth open, maybe two yards away from Gazzy. None of us made a sound-we were conditioned not to yell in a crisis. I'm sure we were all screaming in our heads. I sprang into the water, grabbed Gazzy's arm, and hauled him toward shore. He was frozen with fright and seemed like dead weight. I kept expecting to feel the huge tug of the shark taking off my leg.

Angel popped back out of the chest-high water. I motioned her urgently to do an up-and-away. She laughed.

"He's my friend!" she shouted. "He's saying hi!" The shark had circled and was now moving right toward her. My heart was in my throat-what if she only thought she could talk to fish? "Go on, maybe you should wave," Angel said to the shark, as I tensed to fly out over the water to snatch her up.

Before our eyes, the shark literally turned on its side, came a little bit out of the water, and waved a fin slightly.

"Holy cra-," the Gasman began, but I said, "Gazzy!"

"Would someone please tell me what the heck is going on?" Iggy said.

"Angel just made a shark wave its fin at us," Nudge told him breathlessly.

"Uh-wha...?"

Then three more sharks appeared in the shallow water around Angel. Together, the four sharks turned on their sides and waved their fins.

Angel was laughing. "Isn't that so great?"

Total trotted up next to me, his little feet kicking sand. "That's awesome! Make them do it again!"

My knees felt weak. I needed to sit down. "That was neat, sweetie," I said, trying to sound calm. "Now please ask the sharks to leave, okay?"

Angel shrugged and talked to the sharks again. Slowly they turned and headed back out to sea.

"That was so awesome," Total said, as Angel splashed toward shore. He licked Angel's leg, then spit. "Ugh! Salt."

"So, Angel talks to fish, is that right?" Iggy said carefully. "And this is useful how?"

We had to keep on the move. It was going to be dark soon, and we needed shelter. Most kids my age would be bummed about their next math test or that their parents cut their phone calls short. I was more concerned with shelter, food, water. The little luxuries of life.

We were over northern Florida now. All along the coast we saw a million twinkling lights of homes and stores and cars moving in threads like blood cells in a vein. If blood cells had, you know, weensy little headlights.

But there was a huge unlit area below us. In general, dark = no people. I looked over at Fang, and he nodded. We started to descend.

A few minutes' reconnaissance informed us that this was the Ocala National Forest. It looked like a good place, and we dropped down out of the twilight and aimed ourselves carefully through small gaps in the umbrella of treetops. And landed in water.

"Yuck!" I was calf-deep in muddy water, surrounded by cypress knees and towering pines. Looking around, I saw land a couple yards away and slogged over to it. "To the left!" I called, as Nudge and Iggy swooped in.

"This is good," I said, looking around in what was rapidly becoming the pitch-darkness. "Easy to get out of, straight up through the trees, but almost impossible for anyone to track us overland."

"Home, sweet swamp," said the Gasman, and I smiled.

An hour later we had a small fire going and were roasting things on sticks. I was so used to eating this way that even if I were, like, a grown-up making breakfast for my 2.4 children, I would probably be impaling Pop-Tarts on the ends of sticks and holding them over a fire.

Now Fang pulled a smoking, meaty chunk off a stick and dropped it onto an empty Baggie, which was Nudge's plate.

"Want some more raccoon?" he asked.

Nudge paused in midbite. "It is not! You went to the store. Didn't you? There's no way this is raccoon." She examined the meat critically.

Fang shrugged. I rolled my eyes at him.

"Oh, maybe you're right," he said seriously. "Maybe this is the raccoon, and I gave you the possum."

Nudge choked and started coughing.

"Stop it," I told Fang, reaching over to pat Nudge's back. He looked at me innocently.

"He's just kidding, Nudge," said the Gasman. "Last time I checked, Oscar Mayer wasn't making squirrel dogs." He held up an empty package, and Nudge wheezed a bit and swallowed.

I was trying not to laugh, and then I felt the hairs on the back of my neck prickle. I glanced around-we were all here. But I felt like someone was watching us. I see incredibly well in the dark, but the fire was too bright to see much beyond it. Maybe I was imagining it.

Next to me, Angel straightened up. "Someone's here," she whispered.

Or maybe not.

Well, it had been a whole day without an Eraser crashing-literally-our party.

I snapped my fingers softly twice, and five heads turned toward me, alert and tense.

"Someone's here," Angel repeated softly.

Fang kept turning things in the fire, but his back was taut and straight, and I knew he was reviewing escape plans.

"What are you getting?" I asked Angel out of the side of my mouth.

She frowned, her blond curls glinting in the firelight. "Not Erasers." She cocked her head to one side, concentrating. "Kids?" She looked puzzled.

I got slowly to my feet, scanning the darkness around the fire. Moving to the edge of our little circle, I peered intently into the woods. Then I saw them. Two small, skinny forms, inching toward our fire. Much too small to be Erasers. And human, not animal.

"Who's there?" I said strongly. I stood tall and put my shoulders back, making myself look bigger. Fang got up and came to stand next to me.

The two little forms slunk nearer, more quickly.

"Who are you?" I asked, sounding mean. "Come closer, where I can see you."

They crawled into our small area, two dirty, skinny, big-eyed children. I mean, all of us bird kids looked really long and slender compared to other kids our ages, but our bones didn't really stick out. Theirs did.

They gave us all wary glances but seemed riveted by the fire and the smell of food cooking. One of them actually licked her lips-they were a boy and a girl.

Hmm. They didn't seem like the biggest threat I'd ever seen. I leaned over, put some hot dogs onto a paper bag, and placed it in front of them.