Iggy Master of Disguise

Fang was looking and feeling a lot better after he got cleaned up and bandaged up. I'd never heard him talk so much.

"You sound like Nudge," I complained.

"No I don't, I'm just saying-"

"If Iggy was here his ears would be on fire."

"Then maybe that'll help him find us even though you don't care enough to look for him!" Fang practically yelled.

I was stunned.

"I care a lot about Iggy and the rest of the Flock," I said defensively, because it was true.

"Then why don't you act like it?" Fang retorted.

I hunched over and glared at him. He didn't know nothing about being a great leader. Fangzy had also never been so defensive…protective…. I don't know, he'd never taken a side like this, against me, before with such vehemence (I love that word). "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

"At least try to find them, they can't take care of themselves," Fang said loudly.

Fang must have hit his head a little harder than I thought…

"Whatever." was all I said though. I looked into the licking flames that were cooking our dinner and keeping us warm. Newt had caught a rabbit and three squirrels. I was starting to wonder if, should the need arise, the flock would eat birds. Are we cannibals every time we eat chicken? I shuddered.

"They aren't that bad, nice and plump," Newt said grinning.

That isn't really the issue right now Newt, we're talking about bird-kid ethics. This is my life, thinking about whether it should be a crime for the Flock to eat chicken. I watched Newt skin the unlucky rabbit and squirrels. I couldn't imagine what Angel would say if she was here, she liked cute furry things so much. I sighed resting my forehead on the heel of my hand.

"You know you have to find them," Fang said cracking a small smile. "You'll never forgive yourself if you don't."

Curse you Fang and your stupid insights.

"After dinner then," I said caving.

My baby, motormouth, little dude, and blindy, they were my family and I had to find them. Chuck burst out of the trees carrying an armful of limp weedy looking plants. Maybe I wouldn't wait for dinner.

"That's poison ivy you stupid shank, and now it's all over the food. We can't eat it now. Go take that and throw it as far from here as you can, unless you find some shank that deserves it thrown on him more." Newt screamed snapping me out of my reverie.

Chuck daintily picked up the weeds and meat and tramped out of the clearing. I tried not to breathe as he passed me because when Jeb taught us about wilderness survival he had stressed what would happen if you inhaled poison ivy, and it wasn't pretty. When Chuck came back his arms, neck, and face was covered in red rashes. He looked miserable.

Oh please if Iggy's out there wandering like an aimless idiot let him not wander into poison ivy, I prayed.

Well it would be a small loss.

Ah, there it is the voice in my head that is a chronic pessimist.

Thank you Voice I feel so much better, I thought in a fake cheerful voice, if that's possible. And you know what? You really need a name. How about Bobby? Jake? Matt? Shut up? I think that's it, now I can tell you to be quiet at the same time I say hello.

Bugging the Voice was entertainment at the very least even though I paid for it in annoying Confucius-like comments that were supposed to help me save the world. There's a reason they call it confusing 'cause that's what Confucius was and that's what the voice is.

Allies can be your worst enemies, Max. It warned in that helpful way it had.

I believe we learned that lesson with Jeb.

This is serious business, Max, just remember what I said.

The voice piped down and suddenly I realized Newt was staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"You were kind of zoning out, I was bloody worried about you."

Yay, Newt is worried about me, I can feel our relationship deepening. I only wished the rest of the Flock was here, so we could decide if eating chicken was cannibalism or not. Fang gave me a meaningful look.

"Okay, I'm going. I'm leaving. I outta here," I stood up stretched out my wings and took off. Honestly it's been to long since I've done that. Staying grounded with Fang was really playing on my mood. Fangzy really needed to get this practically dying thing under control.

I soared higher and higher on a column of warm air trying to figure out where to start this search. I was pretty sure yelling their names as loud as I could wasn't a winning strategy and scouring the whole forest wasn't practical either, especially considering it was surrounded by an ocean, a mountain, and my goodness was that a dessert? This could take a while. Let's think strategy here Max, think, think…. I decided I would start with the woods and spiral in, that way if anyone was coming outward I wouldn't miss them. I dived lower and started circling in towards the center. I wanted to go warp speed, but in the spirit of searching I had to keep at a pretty leisurely pace. Woods, woods, fallen tree, woods, woods, cliff, crater that look like it had been carved out of the ground by a bomb, yikes, tree, tree, bunny, bunny-hang on a second!

Crater that looked like a bomb hole-Iggy!

I spread my wings slowing my descent then hit the ground running. I hadn't allowed for enough space and I had to windmill my arms at the edge of Iggs crater to keep from falling in. As soon as I caught my balance I checked the perimeter: woods and birdsong-great. After circling the crater once I crouched down to examine the edge closely. Nothing unusual, which is kind of odd considering my whole life has been anything but.

I picked my way down the edge of the hole-suddenly I saw something that made me cover my face with my arms and almost puke. After I worked up enough courage to look my suspicions were confirmed: Eraser bones (thank goodness) caught half-way through a morph by the looks of it. So that's what a human wolf skull would look like on the evolutionary chart. I wondered if I could get enough Erasers together to get a complete set and try to pass it off as new evolutionary evidence to some stuffy scientists. The thought made my chuckle.

Suddenly a small shard of bright green plastic caught my eye, it was pointy and part of it was wedged into the side of the crater. I know what you're thinking, but plastic means that this hole wasn't made by an Eraser falling out of the sky, and if you don't think that could make a crater you ain't never seen an Eraser. I yanked it out of the dirt and brushed it off. I felt like yelling Iggy's name, which would have made this a shorter search-while I put us in extreme danger of course. I couldn't resist whispering his name though.

"Iggy?"

"Wha?" I heard the muffled reply and immediately spun around looking for my blind kid.

"Here." I frantically looked around. Finally I decided he must be in the air, but just as I spread my wings to take flight Iggy's head popped out of the rough gravely side of the crater.

"Max?"

"Oh my gosh Iggy," I ran over to give him a hug and slammed into a wall of dirt. "I fell, after I tried to hug you," I narrated for Iggy. "I guess I underestimated you, not only have you managed not to die by falling off of a mountain, you're also a master of disguise."

Iggy's sightless eyes glared at me, "Why thank you, and I'm may be blind but I still wing it as good as the rest of you, you know!" Iggy's wings shot out of the dirt sending gravel and dirt scattering down to the bottom of the crater. They framed his face perfectly making him look like he was walking through a wall or something.

"Yeah Iggs, I know." I took a minute to admire Iggy's handiwork, which I must say was very impressive. "Let's go, Fang's waiting for us."

"Fang's with you? Where? Fang?"

"He's not here now."

"What about Angel? Nudge? Gazzy?" Iggy turned his sightless eyes looking around the perimeter hopefully, searching for some sign that the rest of the flock was out there.

"Fang's back at camp, and I've seen Gasman, Angel, and Nudge, but there not with me now."

Iggy's face fell, but like my good bird kid he exploded the rest of the way out of his hiding spot and lifted off with me.