Chapter 7
"Breakfast!" Anne said. She passed out a dozen enormous plates, filled with bird-kid-sized portions of bacon, sausage links, and toast and jam.
"Hope it's good," she said. "I don't entertain much." She wandered away, cackling wildly.
"Where'd she get the fresh food?" Angel muttered.
"Poisoned?" Fang suggested.
"Nah, she wouldn't," I said. "Too much trouble. And in any case, we need to eat. If anything weird happens, there should be enough time for all twelve of us to whip Anne's ass. Angel?"
"Uh, I picked up nothing," Angel said. "But we lived with her, like, forever, and I had no clue she was a traitor. And she's a total lunatic now, so…" She looked around nervously. "You know what? I'm just gonna go with 'eat it'."
Iggy took a single bite of his toast, then whipped out a small electric piano.
"Where'd you get that?" Gazzy asked.
"Lifted it off somebody at the CSM base," Iggy said. "You remember what I've been saying, about music in our blood, like birds?"
"Yeah," I said. "I always thought it was a freakin' stupid theory."
"Et tu, Max?" Iggy said innocently. "Okay, I've never touched this keyboard before… but I bet you that if I play every note on it exactly once, then I'll be able to play any song flawlessly. I bet I can do that."
"No way," Max II said. "You're on, dude."
"I bet my breakfast," Iggy said.
"Don't," Max II said. "You're a jerk when you're hungry."
"I'm not gonna be hungry, Tooey. I'm telling you—music is part of us. We all dream about it, we all enjoy it. Am I right? Birds make music, it's instinctual."
"Birds also instinctually prepare their food by pre-digesting it and throwing it back up," I said dryly.
"Frankly, Max, that explains a lot. I'll play this just fine, and you'll all be begging me to—who's bleeding?" he said sharply.
"What?" Max II said.
"I smell blood. Bird-kid blood… but, like, mixed with something. What is that?"
Angel slouched lower in her seat.
Didn't change your pad, did you? I thought at her.
"Was I supposed to?" she said aloud.
"Yeah," I said.
"Nobody told me that."
"Thought it'd be common sense," I said, shrugging.
"Okay," Angel muttered. "Be right back."
Angel stalked off, leaving most of those at the table a bit bewildered, as the first sentence of the exchange had been purely telepathic… ha-ha, I love messing with these guys sometimes.
"What the hell was that about?" Iggy asked.
"Oh, Angel's… having some problems," I said.
"What are you talking about? What's wrong with her?" Iggy said anxiously.
"She's hit puberty, you moron," Fang sneered.
Iggy raised an eyebrow. "Have you hit puberty, dude? You've been sullen since we got here."
"Ya think?" Fang said. "Maybe it's because we got here! The School is getting to me. Can't we leave?"
"Nobody else is freaking out, man," Iggy taunted.
"Stop it, Ig," I commanded. I stroked Fang's hair. "We'll clear out after we eat breakfast."
"What about Anne?" Nudge asked.
"I talked to her. She doesn't intend to leave. We'll leave her here."
"Yeah, that's the only way to go," Fang muttered.
Angel returned, appearing just as humiliated but less smelly. She shot me a dirty look as soon as I had that thought, and I shrugged.
"You okay?" Gazzy asked.
"I dunno," Angel said. She looked between me and Nudge. "I'm given to understand we have a bird-like menstrual cycle?"
"Well, I'm not up on bird menstruation," I said, "but it's rapid, yeah. Expect to wear those two days out of every eight."
"Angel, I have to tell you…" Fang began.
"I know, I know, seems like just yesterday you were changing my diapers," Angel said.
"And now you change your own diapers," Nudge said solemnly, but unable to hold back a snicker.
"Okay, I don't want to talk about this," Angel said. She paused. "It is like a freakin' diaper, how could every girl in the world possibly be wearing these, and it's never a conversation piece?"
"Well…" Nudge began.
"Anybody so much as thinks the word 'tampon', I'm exploding that person's head," Angel snarled, sitting back down.
"Aye, I'm with ye on that," Imogen muttered.
"Okay, I think this isn't a dude-friendly dining room anymore," Gazzy said, standing up. "Who wants to go shoot at stuff?"
Max II pulled him back into his seat by the back of his shirt. "Stay put, dude," she said. "You might learn something."
"I find that a first-period story tells a lot about a girl," Nudge said to Angel. "Me, for instance… it was at our Colorado house, not long after I fake-turned-eleven, and, well, I was under the impression that my mutations were deteriorating around me and I would be dead within the hour."
"Yeah, when you were saying your goodbyes it took me a second to catch on," I added.
"Is that what that was?" Iggy said. "Wow, that was so long ago…"
"I remember, I was eleven," I said. "I kind of knew what the dealio was… Jeb was more terrified that I was, I'd say, having to fill in the blanks for me…" I chuckled, then stopped. "Was I just being nostalgic about Jeb?" I said. "Shoot, you guys gotta stop me before I do that." I pounded the table. "IMOGEN! Tell us your story."
"Ach, nothin' to tell, really. Ye know, I was… educated. So I handled it on me own."
"Well," Max II said thoughtfully, "when I was hitting puberty, I was in a big tube and they just played me the subliminal encoded imagery telling me what that entailed. So all of your stories can suck it."
"I seem to recall mine came… well, I don' know, but for sure a long time before Jax's did," Falon said provocatively.
"Well, I go' these firs'," Jax replied, waving her boobs around. "So I'd say we even out."
"I learned to walk firs'," Falon retorted.
"I learned to fly firs'," Jax said triumphantly.
"I spoke in sen'ences long before you did," Falon said. "And I could read before you, I learned maths before you…"
"Oh, drop all that petty stuff, Falon," Jax said with a wide smile. "We bofe know dat I'm irrevocably the more adul' one, because I fucked Gazzy firs'."
At this point, everyone's attention was breathlessly on the twins. Jax maintained her triumphant smirk, but Falon looked dead serious… and enraged.
"And dat gives you some sor' of leverage?" Falon said coldly.
"Uh, yeah."
"Izzat so?" Falon hissed. "Well, I've go' sour news for you, Jax. It doesn' ma'er if 'e did you firs', because 'e liked me… more."
Jax laughed. "Oh, you can' possibly know dat."
"You were dere wiv me, Jax. You 'eard 'im. You were normal. I was fabulous."
"Where do you ge' such garbage?" Jax cackled. "Once 'e was done wiv me, it was jus', 'Oh, now I 'ave to do the uver one?' You're old news, Fals. Old news."
Falon leaned in, her face hard as stone. "I was a tremendous lover," she said. "You'll never be anyfing but just a one-time shag."
"I bet I could do Gazzy again righ' now," Jax countered.
There were two loud popping sounds, and Jax clutched her ears in agony. Blood started pouring from between her fingers.
"Wha' 'appened?" Falon demanded.
"That would be me," Angel said. "Me, showing great restraint from what I wanted to do. If you value your lives, you should leave now and stop thinking about my brother."
Jax looked at Angel, then back to Falon. "Why didn' you pop 'er ears?"
"Because, she was actually thinking about… just because!" Angel snapped. "But nevertheless, I think you should both leave… now."
Both of the twins left… way too rapidly to have been in control of their own limbs.
All eyes went to Gazzy, to see what he thought of this. There was no sign of any emotion in his face.
"You want us to get rid of them, Gaz?" I asked.
"No," he said. "We need them."
"Come on, you know I hate double standards. When a girl gets molested, nobody expects her to continue to hang out with the guys who did it. The opposite should apply as well."
Gazzy was silent for a moment. "Iggy, tell us about your little music project," he finally said.
"Uh… okay," Iggy said.
One by one, he played every key on the board. When he finished, there was silence for a moment.
"Wow," Nudge said. "Did… did everyone feel that?"
"Play something, mate," Sean said quietly.
Instantly, Iggy began playing. A powerful piece of score from some movie… holy crap. He must have known how to play before! But I've known him his whole life, he's never even touched a piano… how, then? How did he do this?
"Wow," I breathed when he finished. "How did you do that? I… I want to make music, too!"
Iggy passed the keyboard to me. "You can do it, Max. You've heard what note each key plays… you can play anything. 'Cause we're birds, baby."
I tapped a few random keys just to make sure I was comfortable… then I began playing. It was amazing… I didn't need to concentrate at all! It just flowed out of me…
"What… what is that you're playing?" Fang said quietly.
"My… my own composition that I wrote just now," I replied. "This is unbelievable…"
"Voice of the soul, innit?" Iggy said, leaning back.
A tear flowed from my eye.
"Max?" Fang said, surprised.
"I love this music," I whispered. "And I love all of you."
Airy hugged me. "Mommy?" she said.
"Yeah, baby?"
"I think it's time for us to go."
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Okay, I figure this chapter begs a big question… and the answer is, I'm a dude. Why, then, the detailed girl talk? Well, I just saw it as the natural conversational course that the young women of the flock would take. Another question might be: how? Well, I read a lot of chick books, I hang around with gals and listen to what they say to each other—it's at the point where understanding women and who they are and what they want comes fairly easily to me. Unfortunately, it seems that no woman will ever, ever want me no matter what, but at least I get some writing material out of it.
