Chapter 8

Sam threw down her chips. She jumped up and twisted the security camera round so it faced the wall.

"Let's get out of here, before a Controller sees that footage!" she yelled. "Morph – geese – now!"

We morphed back to goose and swan at top speed. Multiple morphing and demorphing in a short space of time like we were doing is exhausting. Each morph feels like you've just sprinted a hundred meters. You're not hanging, but you want to wait a while before you give it another go. But unfortunately for us, we didn't have that wait.

"Come on, guys, you're doing great," Sam encouraged us. "Mags – don't worry about making it look pretty, just do it!"

Luckily, although morphing wears you out, it also releases a burst of adrenaline into your body (or the equivalent for whatever animal you're becoming). So a little shot of the 'rush-drug' gave me the burst of strength I need to complete my morph and get in the air.

--Guys, lets get going!-- shouted Sam. She was already fully goose, flapping her great grey wings and taking off into the air. Philip and I were right behind her.

--Maggie!-- called Philip! --Hurry up!--

--I'm so tired!-- gasped Maggie, struggling to take off.

--Just get in the air!-- yelled Philip impatiently.

--But…--

--Philip, yelling at her is not going to do any good,-- scolded Samantha. --You're ok, Maggie, you can do this. Wait til you have a bit of lift under your wings, then flap, hard. Use the swan's mind. She knows how to fly.--

Suddenly, Maggie stretched her wings out fully and stuck her neck out straight. She caught a tiny uplift of air, rose swiftly, and joined us in the sky. We flapped away, away from the cameras, in search of the motorway yet again.

--You did great, Maggie,-- said Sam, beaming. Then, raising her voice and addressing us all, she said,

--If any of us get into difficulties, or gets left behind, we help them, ok? We don't leave anyone, and we don't get in a temper if one of us can't do something immediately. Ok?--

--Absolutely,-- I said.

--Yeah, yeah,-- replied Philip haughtily. He could tell the speech was aimed at him, and was feeling bad, because once upon a time he would have been able to do what Sam had just done.

We flapped up higher into the darkening sky, desperate to loose any Controllers before they found us and started looking for a group of four animals. I was beginning to think we should have morphed owls, rather than geese, as they had better eyesight in poor light and were better at hovering than geese. But Sam obviously planned for us to continue with the next stage of our journey immediately.

--Right, guys," said Sam. "Two things. Firstly, we need to find the M5. If we follow this, it will lead us nearly all of the way to Cardiff. Philip, can you guide us on that task, please?--

--Sure thing,-- he replied, having cheered up a little now that Sam was showing him some respect.

--Secondly,-- Sam continued, --we have to accept that fact that we might have just been seen. --So we have to start being extra careful to act like real birds. No more swooping suddenly out of formation to read the road signs. We fly down gradually, incase anyone is watching us. And, we keep a look out for helicopters or light aircraft that could be Controllers.--

We followed the M5 south, a mile above the tail-back of traffic on the ground. It actually took us a while to figure out which road was the M5, as we'd flown over a dreadfully complicated junction during which some motorway or another met a load of other roads. From the air, it was an incredible sight. The whole junction looked like a big, tangled mess of roads, railways, and even a canal.

--Spaghetti Junction,-- Philip had said.

--What?-- I had said.

--Junction 6 of the M6,-- Philip had explained. --One big fat mess of motorways, 'A' roads and slip roads. Brum's sprawling concrete jungle. A strangely amazing feat of human engineering.--

--Fascinating,-- I had said sarcastically. --Just looks like a big bag of worms to me, put there to confuse humanity and geese alike. Where's this M5, or whatever it is we're meant to be following?--

It turned out that the M5 was nowhere near this junction over which we were flying, and Philip had led us in completely the wrong direction. I would have snorted at him if I'd had a human mouth, but eventually had to make to with a mutter of,

--Philip, you muppet.--

Philip eventually located this motorway and we flapped our way through the air, following it south, hopefully out of sight of any Controllers. I tell you, people complain about not having decent directions when they're driving, but I have to say now, that it's more difficult following roads when you're flying!

--What a wild goose chase,-- I laughed. Boom Boom! Flawless makes another excellent bad joke!

We carried on swimming. Hehe, just kidding. We're all still flying. I'm just getting bored with starting every other sentence with 'we flew on…' The whole thing was becoming rather boring, for me at least. It's not that the flying in itself was boring. It was just that it was flying in the same manner, at the same speed, in the same direction. Like driving a Ferrari at top speed, but for miles on end in a straight line. I have to say, it does take the fun out of the whole thing a bit. Philip was probably enjoying the safe, solid, predictable flight. I would have much preferred to be in my falcon morph, where I could at least have some fun performing my Top Gun fighter pilot manoeuvres.