Flying is…it's flying. There's just no other way to describe it. But it wasn't guided or controlled flying like the jet. The seagull was like a living kite, allowing the strong gusts of wind to push it in one direction.

I had to actually force myself towards the road. Fortunately, there's one thing that the seagull's brain had in common with the turkey: food.

There's a McDonalds near my house. Although the land and road was different from this angle, the garbage was the same. I hovered over the parking lot and just kind of "hung out". I'm not sure I've ever loitered outside of McDonalds before, but somehow I doubted the watch dog parenting groups in this town would have this situation in mind.

French fry! There was the unmistakable golden tint of a French fry lying on the ground near the Dumpster. Over by a van, a mother sat beside her small daughter with the back door slid open. They must have been getting ready for a long road trip to be out this early. But the only thing on the gull's mind right then was the piece of hash brown that the little girl dropped.

Another seagull landed on the parking lot a few feet from the car. Whoa! That food is mine dammit! I landed as close to the gull as possible and cawed, loudly. It took notice, but only jumped back to the curb.

The little girl pointed at and said something unintelligible.

"Those are seagulls," the mom said. "I think they want your hash brown."

In response, the little girl threw another piece of it closer. I flared my wings, daring the other gull to make a move as I fluttered towards the food. It was like yesterday morning all over again.

The little girl laughed as I picked up the hash brown and swallowed it. There was no real taste that I could recognize. I could feel the warmth and the crushed potato was rough against my throat, but it went down.

Out of the corner of my eye, a familiar car pulled into parking lot and got in line for the drive-in. I pressed the seagull's instincts out of the way and took to the air. On top of the Golden Arches sign, I had a good view of Dad's car. The Yeerk must have figured out that Dad is nothing without at least three cups of coffee in the morning.

He likes his sausage Mcmuffin too, Yeerk I thought, angrily. And when I get through with you, they're going to add slug to the menu.

When he was on the road again, I tried to keep up. But, man flying is hard.

It turns out seagulls aren't distance fliers at all. After about half a mile the flapping was getting exhausting and when the wind blew, the gull didn't ride on it so much as give in to it. It's strange how I thought of that as the good part of flying at first.

At one point the wind blew me way over by the high school. I turned my head to keep the car in sight and that only created more problems as my head acted like a rudder. Finally I lost complete track of the car.

Great. I mentally kicked myself.

I tried to make it back to Main Street. I knew the road Dad took to get to work, but I had no idea if that was where he was going. And I didn't know how long I had been in morph, so I knew I'd have to find somewhere to land or I was going to be a seagull for the rest of my life.

There were students and teachers milling about on the high school campus. But the roof was pleasantly free of people, so I landed above the Career Development center. The beauty part of a small town like this is that there are no buildings near the school. It's mostly just fields, trees and side streets. There's the Veteran's Home and a soccer field across the street from the school, but I took cover behind a roof access shed and no one would see me from there.

Morphing out was exhausting, so I sat down and took a moment to think. If I didn't know where the yeerk was going, there was no point in trying to find the car. So I tried to put myself in Dad's shoes. What would be the best way to find out where he was going?

Then I remembered his cell phone. It's amazing how those little things tend to escape you.

As I re-morphed, I tried to remember where the most private payphones were. I needed a place where I could make a call to Dad's phone without being seen by someone I knew. Or worse, someone he knew.

In the end I followed the flood wall. Wind from the river kept me a float and if I adjusted my wings slightly, I could keep from being blown off course. When I was close I banked to the left and followed the street and the houses until I saw a Dumpster behind a red brick building. The glass and other bits of garbage near the butcher shop gave me pause as I landed on the pavement.

That's right, I thought. No shoes.

Oh well. There was a space between the dumpster and river bank. There were houses on the other side of the river, but trees and large bushes protected me from view as I de-morphed. The wetsuit protected me from getting scratched by stray branches and as I grew in size, I had to remember not to move from behind the Dumpster until the morph was complete.

Then the oddity of seeing a kid in a black wetsuit on the neighbor to the outskirts of town during a school day struck me as…well, odd. It was bound to strike someone else that way too.

On the ground and fully de-morphed, I felt unbelievably exposed. Plus the transition from being up there, in the sky, and suddenly being earthbound…it felt like just getting out of the water after swimming for an hour, with gravity at my body and clothes.

Then there was the trek across the small parking space behind the butcher shop, which is exposed to a busy road near an intersection…and the building where the town's superintendant works is about half a mile down this road. Wow, I planned this out well.

"Ouch!" I had to bite my tongue as a shard of glass dug into my bare foot.

Gripping the Dumpster for balance I lifted the now bloodied foot up and pulled the glass out.

It'll heal when I morph back, it'll heal when I morph back, it'll- I kept that mantra going in my head until I got to the sidewalk. Then I felt even more exposed as a car drove to the intersection and stopped at the red light. The payphone I was looking for was located right on the corner, in front of the shop, where anyone coming off Main Street, or coming in from Woodford, or any of the employees at that building where the superintendant works could see me at any given moment.

Oh and I didn't have any change on me to use the payphone. Dad's cell phone was not a toll free number.

As I stood there, wondering just how much of a threat I was presenting to the Yeerks at this moment the back door of the butcher shop opened. A man, probably about forty and wearing a greasy apron stepped out, presumably to smoke a cigarette. He took one look at me and his jaw dropped.

"Are you okay?" He asked. He noticed my foot. "What happened to you?"

"I…uh…,"

Somehow he wasn't impressed by my brilliant response. But he did see the trail of blood I was leaving.

"Come on in here," he said. Before I could protest he came over and started kicking the glass out of my way. He then helped me into the shop and made me sit on the stool next to the cutting table. The floor was surprisingly clean considering the table was covered in blood and there were all kinds of meat hanging from hooks. "Jeez kid, what are you doing out here? Is this some kind of hazing ritual they have you doing?"

I wasn't sure who they were supposed to be. I'm guessing he thought I was part of some school swim team or something. Although at that point I wasn't sure I had the right to be guessing anything, since I had largely guessed that this was going to work out.

The guy was nice enough. He took out the first aid kit and went to work cleaning the cut on my foot.

"Thank you," I muttered.

"Hey, no problem," he said. "I did all kinds of crazy stuff when I was your age. Are you on the swim team?"

"Yeah," I said, simply. "We were at the rec center doing laps. They…made me walk back to campus barefoot.

The guy snorted. I winced as he wiped the blood away with gauze.

"These initiations get pretty grizzly every year. One of these days someone's going to get killed." He took a closer look at the foot before placing a bandage over it and wrapping it in about a foot of gauze. When he was satisfied that he said, "You're going to have to get this looked at. Do you want to call your parents and tell them what happened?"

Dad, I was found barefoot in a parking lot because I was trying to find out where the Yeerk in your head was taking you. No, no, I was following you from the air. Yup, I can morph into stuff, isn't that cool?

Of course that might have been a smarter plan than trying to call him from a payphone. It did give me an idea though.

"I think my dad might be at work," I said. "Can I use your phone to call him?"

"Of course, sit tight."

The guy left the room. For a second I considered trying to bolt, but I wasn't going anywhere dressed like this. I couldn't morph that fast and anyway; this shop was in my hometown. It was only a matter of time before I ran into this guy again.

Frick! This had to the worse planned mission in history.

"Here you go."

The guy brought the cordless headset to me and stood off to the side. Suddenly a thought crossed my mind. As I took the phone, I marveled at how inspiration can strike at the most inappropriate of times as opposed to the minutes when it would have been far more helpful.

"Listen," I said, holding out my hand. "Thank you for understanding and everything."

"Not a problem." The man held his hand out.

I took it and concentrated. Sure enough he started to zone out. Cautiously I glanced out at the main store and I could see a customer lingering near the shelves. Presumably there was a cashier at the front of the store, but I didn't have much time.

I dialed the main office of Dad's newspaper. The secretary answered on the third ring.

"Yes, is Mark - there?" I asked.

"I'm sorry, he's in Shaftsbury right now," she replied.

"Oh, is that where he is?" I said, trying to sound surprised. "I was actually supposed to meet him for an interview, but I didn't know he'd be there all ready."

"Yeah. He stopped by the office earlier and then he headed up to the church to meet with Father Mosely."

Shaftsbury is a small town with only a handful of churches. It wouldn't be a challenge to find Dad's car now. I hit the end button and placed the phone on the table. Then I lead the butcher to the door, continuing to acquire him as I morphed back to seagull.

Bing!

Someone wanted service at the counter. Dammit.

The morphing trance stopped as I was halfway to seagull.

"What the hell?"The butcher jumped back.

"Yu-hur," my voice petered off as my larynx disappeared.

I am your guardian spirit, I said.

"My what?"

Bing! Bing!

"Hey, George, are you back there?"

George just glared at me, stunned as I finished the morph. I had to get going, but I couldn't leave him like this.

You have cured me in a time of need, I went on, making my thought voice as ethereal and mystical sounding as possible. I thank you and I will reward you with advice. Stop smoking and exercise more and your business will boom!

Before George could say anything, I hopped out of the still open door and flew away. I don't know if he bought my story. But hopefully the acquiring trance had him in enough of a haze that he'd write me off as a strong hit of whatever was in the cigarettes he's been smoking. And maybe that little pep talk I gave would push him in a positive direction and I'd get a little karma.

Because on my own, like this, I knew I wasn't going to last much longer.