Author's Note: There's a lot of British place names in this chapter. For those of you who aren't British (or are, but have a worse metal map than Ferdie), and want to know what the guys are talking about here, I suggest you have a quick look at an online map of the British Isles. There's loads around on Google and Yahoo.

Chapter 5

"I still don't see why we can't just get the train," I said grumpily.

"Ferdie, we're not getting the train!" said Sam. "It would probably be swarming with Controllers!"

"Plus," said Philip, a knowing look in his eyes, "You're no good with trains, are you, Flawless? You have no idea how they work. Remember that time you had go to London? You missed the train – and then ordered the station master to get you another one!"

Maggie burst out laughing. I rolled my eyes. "Come on," I said, "It wasn't like-"

But Philip carried on, nevertheless. "And, not to mention all that fuss about the Tube. Listen to this, Sam. He got on the Circle Line and went round and round in circles for two hours! He didn't even realise when he went past both his destination, and the station he got on at, twice!"

Ok. This was very true. I have no idea how to use public transport. Most of the time, if I want to go somewhere, I'll ride there on horseback, cross country. For trips further-a-field, I'll call up my dad's chauffeur and get driven there. Am I spoilt? Yes. Do I know how to live in the real world? No.

"Well, luckily for you, Ferdie," said Sam, trying to force back a smirk, "we're not going to be travelling by train. Or, like I said earlier, any type of human transport. We stick to morphing." She crouched down on one knee, and began to draw a map in the dirt and dust on the roof with her finger.

"This is what we do," she said. "Right. First things first. This is a map of Britain."

I peered at the 'map'. It looked like a picture of an egg with tail.

"Myself, and Ferdie," she said sarcastically, "have planned out our route. It wasn't easy, but we got there in the end. This, here," she said, placing a stone on the map, is Leeds, where we are. We have to get all the waaaay to here…" she placed another stone on the left hand side edge of the map, "to Cardiff. We find the way by following the motorways. We follow the M62, I think it is, to Manchester. Then, we go south, and follow the M6 to Birmingham." She drew a long line down the left hand side of the map. "Finally, we follow the M5 south-west to Cardiff. It shouldn't be difficult. We'll be birds, so no messing about in traffic jams. Our eyesight should be good enough to read the road signs. The motorways are pretty much straight lines, so it's a fairly efficient way of getting there"

"Ok, said Philip, nodding, his officer training pointing out to him the right questions to ask, "and which morphs do we use? Geese, hawks, owls or crows?"

"Well I thought that we should morph geese to do the long stretches and then hawks to do the shorter ones. Crows aren't meant for long distance flying, and Maggie doesn't have one anyway. Geese can travel at about 40 to 50 miles an hour, and hawks about 25 miles an hours, so I suggest that we go hawk for the first bit to Manchester, or owls when it gets dark. Then do a full, two hour stretch to Birmingham as goose, demorph, and do that again to Cardiff. It will take us between five and six hours in all, so we should try and get some sleep once we're in Cardiff. The next morning, we'll set off again. Cardiff's basically on the coast, so we can then decide if we want to carry on going over land across Wales, or get straight in the water there and then."

"How far is it?" asked Maggie.

"Well, I can't be totally sure without a map, but it's two-hundred miles from London to Leeds, and Cardiff is quite a few miles west than London, so I'd say about two hundred and thirty miles."

"Well, that's hardly anything, is it?" I scoffed. "We could make that in less than a day!" Less, if we took the train, I added to myself, but then withdraw it. Flying would be a lot more fun than any type of transport human beings had to offer.

"Flawless, you muppet," retorted Philip. "That's only to Cardiff. Don't forget the five thousand and seventy miles across the Pond and America."

"Oh yeah," I said, feeling my cheeks go red with embarrassment.

"Well, we still haven't figured out how we're going to eat," I said.

Sam sucked in her breath sharply. I suddenly remembered – that topic had caused a rather heated argument between Philip and Sam a few hours ago.

"Well," she said, rather reluctantly. "If the worse comes to the worst, we'll just have to do a Philip and grab what we can."

"Nick it, you mean?" I asked.

She nodded. "We have to eat, and none of us have any money on us. Just remember, when we're being chased down the street with rolls in our hands like urchins, just think 'this roll will save mankind from parasitic aliens'." She looked at Philip expectantly, for support.

"Quite. We need to eat? We eat."

"Good, well that's settled then. I suggest that we climb down the escape hatch to the street, try and grab something to eat now before we all starve, then come back up here, morph to raptors, and take off. Philip," she added. "Since you're the only one who has any sense of direction out of all of us, could you guide us?"

"Can do," replied Philip efficiently. "Don't forget, guys, when we're birds, we don't want to fly too close to one another, or it would look suspicious. Just close enough for us to still communicate via thought-speak. And Maggie, since you have a very rare bird of prey morph, you're more likely to attract attention, so it would be a good idea for you too fly higher and further out than the rest of us."

"Good thinking," said Sam. "Try not to attract too much attention – that applies to when we're in human form as well," she added, looking at me, grinning. "Right. Let's go for it."