~Chapter One~

I was on top of the world.

Diving headfirst down, sweeping over the troubled world below, it was incomparable. Surfing along beside clouds, floating through a clear blue sky, drifting effortlessly, a feather resting on a still deep river, the peace, the tranquillity...

My oasis was interrupted as Gazzy zoomed over me, with an effective "vroooooom!" noise, doing 360 degree somersaults in mid air, a childish grin appearing on his freckled face, a look which only an eight year old can pull off.

"And The Gaz shoots into the lead!"the Gasman commentates, "leaving Max behind to face the bitter, dismal and sour face of defeat"

I glared at Fang who was sailing beside me, his eyes closed, his face impassive. "I told you not to buy him that dictionary"

Fang shot me a rare smile, before returning to his own oasis, which luckily for him, had not been so rudely interrupted.

Nudge swept down from her position at the front of the flock, (so that she is the first to see everything and therefore the first to comment) and came to rest beside me, her tawny wings beating in time with mine. I was enjoying the synchronization, until she opened her mouth.

"I know that you said your voice told us to go wherever we're going, but can you tell us all because it never works out when you don't tell us where we're going, like do you remember that time you stopped and flew down to help Ella and you didn't come back for aaages and then the Erasers said you were dead, but I didn't believe them cus you wouldn't just do that would you Max, I guess if you were in a REALLY bad situation like if there was a grizzly bear, how do you think a grizzly bear wou-"

I held up a hand to silence her, and she shut her mouth abruptly. I noticed the rest of the flock were listening, and looked away when I glanced back at them. They trusted me, I could be leading them to the pits of hell and they'd follow. As it happened, I sort of was. At that moment I knew I had to tell them where we were going.

"Ok guys. The voice, lets remember has never steered us wrong before-"

This was followed by a snort of disgust from Total, who was being carried by Iggy in the baby carrier my Mom had given us, what seemed like a lifetime ago. I shot him a glare and continued

"-and you guys said you wanted a new objective..."

"I think what we said is that we were sick of places that were too cold, and we wanted a new place that was less dangerous to stand in, where there wasn't the constant danger of being mauled by various Antarctic animals " Iggy said with an au de sarcasm.

I sighed. It wasn't fair on them that they had to go through so much, without a break. I did a 360 sweep just to check our surroundings, when Angel smiled at me. I had no choice whether she knew where we were going. She seemed unafraid, she'd grown up so much, so quickly in the last year or so.

"We're going back to The School"

As you can imagine, this was not met with mass cheering and balloons.

The flock was silent for the next few minutes. The weather, I had noticed had changed for the worse, grey clouds had replaced the blue sky. Wonderful.

"Max..."Gazzy began

"Yeah sweetie?"

"I don't want to go back there"

Its as if someone then switched the flock from silent to louder-than-anyone-can-possibly-imagine.

"I don't want to go either Max, they're evil, I thought they'd shut down anyway..."

"You've lost the plot Max, we can't go back there, not after what happened last time..."

"This is what happens when there's too much pressure, I read it in Hello Magazine once and lack of food and sleep can cause distress and in some cases insanity..."

"You shouldn't believe everything you read in Hello Magazine Total..."

I looked around at the chaos. Fang had said nothing, but now his eyes were open, looking at me. I could see the concern in his eyes, the concern that I had finally gone crackers. Angel was cruising beside me on my left, and she smiled at me again, forever trusting. Celeste's head poked out of a rucksack on her back. I had grown tired of the screams every time she had slipped out of Angel's grasp. The conversation above me had gone from arguing about where we were going, to arguing over what the best magazine was.

"I don't care what you say, Hello has always had the perfect amount of gossip in contrast to fashion and popular knowledge"

"Oh come on, I don't even know how you can read that crap. Who cares what's going on in the world and what the latest fashion in hats are, what a magazine needs is cars, sport and the occasional girl in a bikini"

"I care about the fashion in hats! How else can you co-ordinate your outfit? Hats are a very important part of fashion!"

"Why is there no magazine on dangerous gases?"

I flew upwards and got in between them all, and almost hit Total with my 12ft wingspan. "I think it's time we hunkered down guys"

About fifteen minutes later we found a a great big tree in the middle of nowhere, which Fang and I decided would have to do. This pleased the little-uns as it was a while since they'd climbed a tree. It also pleased Iggy as he found the tree was full of acorns, which he happily pelted everyone with. Total was not so happy.

"Its so high up. I think I'm afraid of heights"

Fang and I exchanged a look. "If you're afraid of heights, you're probably with the wrong bunch of mutant freaks" Fang said tiredly.

"OH MY GOD! Guys, check this out!" Nudge's voice seemed to startle a few birds in a tree a couple of miles away.

Reluctantly, I stirred my muscles out of the comfortable position I was in and climbed up to where Nudge was shouting from, closely followed by Fang.

"Isn't this awesome!" Nudge was sitting on the bottom level of what appeared to be a quite extensive tree house. Connected by a couple of bits of old rope was two other higher levels, and right at the top there was even a hammock suspended between two branches.

"What's going on?" Iggy said, whilst hitting Gazzy right between the eyes with a well aimed acorn. His hand rested on the lowest level of the tree house. "Wha-"

I quickly glanced at Fang, who understood me immeadietly and began climbing higher up the tree, checking each branch and level to check it wasn't going to collapse under the weight of six mutated children and a talking a dog. He gave me the nod.

"Ok guys, it looks safe" I said, quite enjoying the overall effect of it.

"Its a tree house Ig," Nudge explained, relieving Iggy of his puzzled expression.

I checked on my flock and saw Total looking concerned as Angel lifted him onto the highest level. He sniffed around a little, and then began to make his mark.

"EWWW! Dibs on not sleeping on Total's piss!"Gazzy yelled

Fang had clambered back down the oak, and we were sitting on the lowest level. He looked at my content expression, and laughed.

"Its so long since I've seen you that happy"

"Its so long since I've heard you laugh!" I smiled at him

"Perhaps its time to call back the troops and discuss you're, um, plan" he said, still wondering what exactly possessed me to go back there. I'd forgotten about it too. I'm betting they had as well. I hated how whenever we were all happy, I always had to ruin it. Fang gave my hand a squeeze. I guess it was time to tell them the whole story.

"Guys" Fang called up. "Come back down here. Max is gonna tell us why she is delusional."

Right. Here goes nothing.