Moving fast to a conclusion.  One thing I've decided from posting these chapters and gathering comments: the first several chapters are too slow, and the last chapters are too fast.  So I need to streamline the front, and expand on the back.  Also, one reason for my posting these chapters in the first place was that I wasn't too happy with the ending of the story.  It obviously leaves you hanging and opens the way for another installment in the series.  Certainly there's potential for a series, but this story needs to come to more of a conclusion than it does.  Any suggestions?

Chapter Twenty-Two

(NOT HIS REAL NAME)

It seemed to take forever, but Roy Ray finally edged his way around to the outside wall of level five--where, indeed, the vent he was looking for was still uncovered.  How lucky could he be?

            Not very, as it turned out.  For when he'd crawled through the ducts and knocked on the vent and slid down into Mr. G's cell, it was not his teacher who met him.

            It was Quentin Sharp.

            "We've been expecting you, Roy Ray," said the attorney (if in fact, he really was an attorney).  "And this time we really do have papers to sign.  Please sit down."

            When Roy Ray's feet landed on the cement floor, he felt his heart go right on through.  "What have you done with Mr. G?"

            "He's been transferred to a more secure location.  This one being too easily breached, it seems."

            Mr. G had told him to replace the vent cover.  But did he do it?  Noooo.  His heart was in the vicinity of level three by now.

            "So--"  Quentin pulled out the one chair and gestured to the one table, cleared of everything except two sheets of paper.  "If you don't mind?"

Numbly, Roy Ray moved toward the table and stared at the papers.  They seemed to be identical, with a heading in such fancy script he could barely make it out: Deed of Ownership: Transferal of Spiritual Property, followed by three paragraphs, each beginning with "Whereas . . ."

"Just a formality," Quentin said, picking up a silver pen.

"I'm not signing anything!"
           

"We beg to differ," Quentin differed.

Stall, Roy Ray thought.  But not too long, with Katarina and Shirley and Spargo on the roof.  "Did . . . . did Mr. G sign one of these?"

"No.  And he lost a great deal by it."

"Like what?"

Quentin flipped the silver pen and caught it, barely moving his hand.  "His wings, dear boy."

Roy Ray felt the blood leaving his head.  "No!"

"Yes.  Did you ever see them?  Did he ever show you?  Ever wonder why he kept that jacket on at all times?  One reason: it had stretched and worn to his peculiar physique.  The hunchback is no sham; we've discovered that once the wings are removed, the muscles that held them in place begin to atrophy; the chest pulls in, the back pulls up.  A flaw in the design, obviously."

"You mean, you did that to him?"

Quentin sighed impatiently and glanced at his watch.  "He did that to himself.  But we've verified the process through experimentation.  We know exactly how it will affect you.  Now let's get this over with; we have an appointment in half an hour."

At a mere touch on the shoulder from the manicured finger, Roy chucked his butt in the chair.  His thoughts were whirling madly: Mr. G did it to himself?  Flew too high fell too hard?  Icarus, crashing and burning--We know how it will affect you-- "Did you make the others sign this too?"

"What others?" Mr. Sharp asked--sharply.

"Uh . . . the other avials.  Mr. G told me.  He trained them.  Gunther, and Steve and Shirley, and--"

"They are no concern of yours.  Here's the pen."

So: whatever supernatural powers he had, Quentin didn't know everything.  He didn't know about Roy Ray's communication with Delphi, or that there was a breakout in progress.  He didn't even see the hidden transmitter.  Hadn't Mr. G said something about being limited?  Oh yeah--They are powerful but limited.  "What if I just said no?"

"We would advise you not to."  Quentin's pellet-eyes bulged.

Then the man himself bulged. 

His perfectly-tailored, pearl-gray suit came alive, rumpling like cords and flowing like water until it hung in weedy gray-green strands.  At the same time, the face heaved up, all the features clenched in the middle.  Roy Ray briefly saw Quentin Sharp, like a face in a bus window speeding by, before the skin turned gray and dry.  The nose lengthened to a muzzle and the eyes tilted and the lips spread to reveal pointed teeth.  It looked like a concrete lion except that pieces of it kept splintering off.  That wasn't the worst part, though.

The head swelled up and bubbled over, like strawberry jam cooking on Aunt Agnes's stove.  But each bubble popped a shiny snake, the pinkish-gray color of raw chicken, surrounding the creature's face like the lion's mane.  As the boy watched in horror, one serpent outgrew the rest and looped itself around the stony neck and gazed at him, flickering a ribbony tongue.  "To repeat, we would advise you not to.  You're out of your league, Roy Ray."

The sandpapery voice didn't seem to come from anywhere.

The boy thought his own head might explode.  "Who are you?"

The serpent--or chief snake--unlooped itself.  A shard of stone slid off the lion's neck, revealing raw flesh beneath.  While he was staring at that, the main snake reared up in front of him: a flat head with slanted silver eyes hard as BBs, its scalloped mouth turned up at the corners in a frozen smile.  Words streamed out on breath that smelled like a sewer.  "Our name is Leeegion . . ."

Roy Ray felt like he'd been turned to stone, too--on the outside.  Inside he was screaming like a teenage girl in a slasher flick as the snakehead darted out of his line of sight.  Right in front of him--how had he come so close?--pieces of lip flaked off the creature's stony face, exposing the roots of its gray teeth.  The mouth had never spoken but it was busily reconstructing itself again.  Meanwhile--oh, boy--another snake curled around from the back of the head and wafted near to take a look at him.  A cold wind ruffled his feathers. ". . . becaussssse we are many."

Both snakeheads hovered in front of him, one lower than the other.  He felt his right ear burn, saw the flick of a tongue, heard two voices he could barely tell apart.

"Those are pretty wings you have,"

"but of course you know they aren't real."

"Ye . . . Yeah, they are," Roy Ray stammered, though it took great effort and sounded lame.

"Nononono."  One of the heads shook hypnotically back and forth.  "They're an illussssion."  Its breath turned icy and Roy Ray felt his wings freeze and shatter.

"You're just an ordinary boy.  A scruffy--"

"lazy--"

"nose-picking--"

"earwax-gathering--"

"gross-out human being--"

"junior variety."

An eye crumbled away in the lion's stone head.  In the black socket, a quivering lump of dirty-white jelly began to pulse and swell . . .

"But . . ."  Roy Ray felt something he'd never felt before: heavy.  His lips felt like boulders that the words crept out from under.  "But . . . I can fly."  He seemed to have memories of flying, though even he had to admit it was pretty unlikely.

"Are you ssssssure?"

"May I remind you that you're afraid of heights?"

"How sensible is that, a winged boy who fears heights?"

"Now that's a design flaw.  Or else--an illusssssion."

They must be right, Roy Ray silently agreed.  How could something as weighty as himself ever get off the ground?  As though to confirm the stern fact of gravity, something drifted from the ceiling overhead, down down down--right in front of his nose.  The serpent eyes flickered, breaking their hold on him.  For a few seconds he saw the object all the way down to the floor.

It was a feather.  A spindly, sad feather twisted in an odd spirally shape.  He'd seen one like it, but couldn't remember . . . Where?  Who?  "Hsssst!" 

The snake eyes commanded his attention again, but when he looked up, Roy Ray felt his head clear a little.      

"How do you know I'm afraid of heights?"
           

The long bodies intertwined and the heads gazed at him.  "What don't we know, little man?"

Wait a minute, he thought.  There was something they didn't know, but he couldn't recall it now.  Trying to concentrate, he stared at the wall over the table, and was distracted by the creature's shadow.  It didn't match up.  Parts of it faded in and out: first he saw more snakes than it had; then he saw less.  Something about a disappearing presence turned over in his memory . . . and a spot on the playground that felt unnaturally cold . . . and another place--

"The water tower!" he burst out.  "You were on the water tower!  That's how you know!"  Bill was there.  And Bill found some feathers--

The snakes in the shadow spiked in alarm, while on the creature itself they flattened for a second.  Then its most recent eye turned stony while the tip of its nose remade itself.  "We can be anywhere, sssssilly boy."

"You're lying!  About all kinds of things!  And I won't sign your stupid paper!
           

A saliva drip from a flickering tongue shot out and lashed Roy Ray's left arm to his chest.  At the same time, the other snakehead loosed a similar thread that lassoed the silver pen.  The pen flipped through the air and landed in his right hand, while the cold thread wove between his fingers and curved them to the pen.  "Yessss you will."    

The thread was strong as wire; Roy Ray could barely see it but felt it cutting in to him as he struggled to free himself.  Hopeless--the pen was dragging his right hand toward the paper and he couldn't pull away.  This wasn't fair!  They could have at least tried to bribe him.  He shouldn't be forced to sign away his soul, should he?  That was the kind of thing people could choose, couldn't they?

Maybe not.  He seemed powerless to move any part of his body freely except the fingers of his left hand, which had closed on something solid.  The transmitter!  Except it wouldn't help him much.              But wait . . . he'd been using it as a transmitter so often lately he'd forgotten it was also a cigarette lighter.

From setting fires behind the hardware store, he knew how to use a lighter.  Fumbling around the falcon's head, he found the little lever that struck the flint.  Phusssh!  He set his teeth against the pain and directed the little flame away from his chest.

Those weren't flame-retardant pajamas he was wearing; the lighter flame burned right through.  And what happened next was even better.

With a sizzle, the thread across his chest popped apart and came alive, glowing like neon.  His freed hand brought the lighter flame down on the other thread, causing it to jerk and glow like an electrocuted earthworm.  Two sparks traveled up each line like the fuses on two sticks of dynamite, with the same result: as each spark reached its source, the snake heads swelled up and exploded.

A roar filled his ears.  The creature was mad. 

But so was he! Pain reminded him that he was not a dang illusion.  Nor was his teacher, or his wings. 

He bounced up and flapped harder than he'd ever flapped, creating a snow of down.  The force of wind raised that twisted feather off the floor, and Roy Ray snatched it.  Taken by surprise, the monster whipped its blinded snakes wildly, looking for him.  Roy Ray leapt for the exhaust vent overhead and squirmed through.  Then he couldn't help glancing down, where a shocking sight met his eyes.

Gray-pink scales bulged in the vent opening like a dragon trying to squeeze through.  Maybe the monster had shape-shifted up before remembering it were in a cell the size of a kitchen pantry.  Now it seemed stuck in transition--precious time for him.

Roy Ray scraped himself up in the ducts, and knocked his knees repeatedly on the outside ladder while climbing toward to the roof.  The transmitter started buzzing him halfway.  It tickled, but he kept climbing until he tumbled over the rim with one hand.  Grabbing the device with the other, he clicked on.  "Yeah?"

A low rumble, then a loud crack boomed in his ear.  "Roy Ray!  Some big-time weather's on the way.  I may have to run for it--"

"NO!"  One-handed, he began climbing the dome.  "We're ready!  Stick to your post!  We're all ready.  You have to say when!"

"I'm not hearing when!  There's supposed to be some kind of opening you can get through, but you'll have to watch for it.  And it won't be open for long--"  Lightning crackled so dramatically he could feel it over the transmitter.  "Oh, boy.  Did I ever tell you I'm scared of thunderstorms?"

"No, you're not.  That's an illusion."  He was gaining the top of the dome, where the girls were--only it wasn't just girls anymore. 

Nkane had decided to join them.  And Gunther. 

At the sight of the latter Roy Ray's heart flipped in warning: This guy is trouble.  "I'll check back in a couple of minutes.  Over and out."  Admittedly, Gunther didn't look like trouble at the moment, lying face down with wings spread like the rest.  They resembled a gathering of moths.  As he glided toward them on his fingertips, Spargo jumped up with happy cries.

"Down!" Gunther commanded.

"It's about time," Shirley said.  Her eyes were red and her voice came out snuffly.  "Who did you go to get?"

"He's not coming," Roy Ray said shortly.  "Everybody roll over."

With a scuffle and rustle they tucked their wings behind their backs and rolled, like stuffed quail on a barbecue grill.  Roy Ray flattened on his primaries, anxiously peering up at the cavern ceiling, searching for a gap among the stalactites.  "Is this everybody?" he asked.

"The hummers, they come out twice," Katarina told him.  "But they change their minds."

"Steve would have decided to come," Shirl said bitterly, "except Gunther closed the hatch, and now it won't open again."

"He had time," Gunther said.  "He's ensnared by the red-haired twins."

Roy Ray was thinking his eyes might burn out if he looked any harder.  Where was that opening Delphi told him about?

"Steve's just lazy," Shirley sniffed.  "Always has been."

"What is it we are looking for?" Nkame asked.

"A gap.  Some kind of opening.  In the ceiling."  Any time now, he told the powers that be.  Like right now would be good.  "There should be some daylight."

After a long pause, Nkame asked, "What is daylight?"

Roy Ray barely stopped himself from groaning--then he felt a touch on his forehead, cold and precise.  He reached up and his fingers came away wet.  Was it seepage from the roof of the cave, or a raindrop?

He felt another one.

Nkame asked, "Why is this water falling on us?"

Roy Ray whipped out the transmitter and clicked it on.  "Hey!"

"That was more than a couple of minutes!"  The howling wind in the background couldn't quite cover the panic in Delphi's voice.

"I know; sorry.   Listen, do you happen to know where we are?"

"Yeah, didn't I tell you?!  You're only about a hundred miles from home!  I told your Aunt Flavia, and she got word to your dad, and he's on his way!  I let Flavia do it so everybody will think she got it from the aliens!  Nobody knows about the radio!"

"Good work!" he said approvingly, as another raindrop landed on his nose.  If he was only about a hundred miles away, this might be the same storm, and that explained why he couldn't see daylight--there wasn't any.  The clouds were too heavy, which might have been bad, except that they would keep the daylight sensors from going off, and that was good.  With Quentin temporarily disabled and no tinhead alert, he was beginning to think they might make it, once he saw--

"Is that the gap?" Nkame pointed up at the stony ceiling, where a crack of gray had appeared.  It might have been a little lighter than the other cracks.  Roy Ray closed his eyes for a count of three, then opened them.  An outline of blue showed very distinctly in the charcoal-colored stone.

"That's it!!  Nkame, keep your eyes on that spot and lead the way.  Once you get up there, follow the light--you might have to go through a tunnel but it shouldn't be long.  Everybody: go single file, don't crowd and don't look down.  Fast as you can, now go go go!"

Nkame curled himself up and leapt into the air.  It would have been a beautiful sight, except that the alarm went off as soon as he cleared the roof.  Shirley pulled Katarina up, tossed Spargo after them (knowing he'd chase the cat), then launched herself.  Gunther set off right after.

Roy Ray took a breath, sprang to his feet and felt himself sliding down to the edge of the can, where his heels caught on the rim and almost catapulted him over.  At the sight of empty space below him, heaviness crushed him like a bag of rocks.  Two balconies full of tinheads sliding out from the side didn't help either, especially when they aimed their fryguns at the escaping avials.

He could hear voices and the yapping of a dog, but another voice was closer--in fact, it seemed to be in his own head, an insinuating, hissing voice.

The wings are an illusion.

You can't really fly.

He shut his eyes tight, and when he opened them it wasn't his vision but his hearing that sharpened.  And instead of Quentin's voice it was Mr. G's:

"Everybody can fly.  But you have the privilege and burden of flying visibly.  Now quit fooling about and do it, hey?"

Training tells.  He backed up, took a breath and ran for all he was worth.  At the edge of the building, he leapt.  His wings opened as he sailed over the startled guards, drawing their fire.  He made a wide loop for momentum, then sped toward the gap, stroking harder and faster than ever in his life.  Blue threads of flame bounced off the walls, sirens blared, voices screamed--but he was almost there, just a few seconds away--

WHOMP!

He'd been tackled in mid-air.  Now he was tumbling slowly, end over end, with Bat Boy.

Chapter Twenty-Three

WHAT NOW?

The pressure on his chest was so great Roy Ray could feel his air sacs collapsing.  He managed to pull an arm loose and jab a thumb under Bat Boy's armpit, which made him slip.  But then Gyorgi grabbed on again at the knees.  The two of them turned over in the air like a baton, wings frantically beating on opposite ends. 

The rooftop below swarmed with tinheads.  Blue lasers threaded the dank cavern air, needling Roy Ray's skin, piercing his wings.  A smell of singed feathers filled his nose.  He was weakening, slowly sinking, as though he and Gyorgi together were being sucked down into the big aluminum plant.

There was somebody he knew down below: a guy in khaki pants with a gray ponytail, waving and pointing while a tripod was being set up.  Some kind of barrel on it, loaded with some kind of spear--aimed right at him--

SMASH!  A meteor came hurtling out of space and socked Gyorgi on the chin.  He spun away, all six limbs splayed out.  His face flashed white, mouth stretched in the fangy scream that glared from countless front pages of Global Scoops: BAT BOY FALLS TO HIS DOOM.  Gunther seized Roy Ray by the arm and pulled him up.  And up, and up: "Hurry!  The gap closes."

Roy Ray shook his head to clear it.  They were approaching the roof of the cavern, and the crack that opened to a space only a little less dark than the one he was in.  With one last "Hurry!" Gunther let go of him and shot through the crack sideways, little room to spare.  Roy Ray followed, but only inches away he was overcome by dizziness again.  Temporarily confused about which end was up, he looked down.

Big mistake, as anyone could have told him.  The roof of the plant was maybe sixty feet below, but even farther was the hill it sat on and even farther--abysmally far, stupefyingly, gobsmackingly far, was the absolute bottom of the cavern.  Absolute bottom, where he would end up sooner or later if the air could not hold him, if his lungs gave out, if his wings were, after all, an illusion . . .

On the roof below, Mr. Sharp the Attorney had emerged, and Roy Ray thought he saw a stray snake under his cropped, blonde scalp.  Even at that distance, he could feel those demon eyes on him, the eyes that wiped out faith--

Or tried to.

A voice shouted, "Ready--Fire!"

Roy Ray thought, Oh, yeah?  Then he gave a mighty kick to his wings. 

He was halfway through the crack--a tight fit--when the net splayed out behind him.  Grasping threads caught his foot.  With a cry, he lunged forward, throwing himself headlong into open arms.  He heard Shirley's voice shouting, "Pull!" and felt his knees scraping along gravel.

I made it! He thought, just before the gap closed on his heel.

He must have blacked out for a few minutes from all the excitement, because the next things he could remember was leaning on a rock wall just inside a cave.  His pajama bottoms were in shreds and Shirley had shredded them further to make a bandage for his foot, which appeared to be a mess.  And oh yeah--it hurt.  Really bad.

"Is this what you call a rescue?" Gunther inquired.

He and Nkame squatted at the cave's entrance watching the rain come down while Shirley tightened the bandage on his foot and Katarina hugged her cat so hard its eyes bulged out.  Spargo was the only one who seemed totally happy, with a whole new world of smells in front of his nose.

Roy Ray tried to remember what was supposed to happen next.  "I think . . ." (his voice came out as an alarming croak) "my dad's on the way?"  Delphi had told him that, hadn't she?  And hadn't she told him that their location wasn't all that far from Tomahawk Chop?  They seemed to be in the mountains; about twenty feet below he could make out a piece of road curving away on a pretty steep grade.

Shirley asked, "What does a dad look like?"

He sure would be happy to see his dad again, Roy Ray thought nostalgically--even if the picture of him hauling them all back to Tomahawk Chop on his motorcycle would have made him laugh if his foot wasn't hurting so much.  A sound began threading in and out of his consciousness: the sound of a vehicle coming closer.  Up or down, four wheels or two, he couldn't say.  "Listen!"

They listened, until they could tell it was coming uphill, that it was coming fast, that its full-throated motor was gobbling miles.  When the vehicle finally came in view, Roy Ray's hopes crashed.  Not a motorcycle. 

Then he looked again, so stunned at what he saw he could barely croak the words out.  "Stop that car!  It's my dad!"

Driving a 1978 Dodge Charger, no less.

The reunion was so touching Shirley wiped her eyes and said, "I think I'm starting to remember dads."

            "As for me, I'm starting to remember this water from the sky," Nkame said.  "Is it rain?"

            "I'm starting to remember we run for our lives," Gunther said.  "Let's stop schmalzing and make tracks."

            Five avials and a cat are a tight squeeze in a two-door Dodge, but Mr. Rappaport didn't mind.  He didn't seem to mind anything at all.

            Though eager to hear Roy Ray's story, he was even more eager to tell his own.  "So I get back from that phony tour feeling lower than ever in my whole life because I should have caught on to those #@$! Icarus people that never had a #@$! thing to do with life insurance--excuse my French, ladies.  And your mother's frantic--not that I blame her, and poor little Davy is . . . he's inconsolable, that's what."  (Roy Ray had swallowed a couple of extra-strength aspirin that took the edge off the pain, but his dad was whipping around those hairpin curves so fast that Gunther, Nkame and Shirley were sliding apart and together like an accordion on the back seat.)

            "So I'm home, not knowing what to do with myself, and I wander into the garage, and just sort of lean against the Dodge here, and all of a sudden I remember what old Ed said."  (Mr. G actually being younger than his dad, but Roy Ray was too busy fighting his stomach to bring that up.)  In fact, it's almost like he's talking to me: 'What use is a Charger that won't charge?'  'Member that?  So I looked up, and there's the battery sitting on a shelf.  What's it doing there?"  (Roy Ray could have told him of course, but didn't.) 

"I hooked it up, and got the key and started the ignition, and the motor turned over.  Once, that's all.  But I towed it down to Mike's for an oil and lube and tuneup, and now she runs like a top.  Who'd'a thunk it?  Makes you wonder if Godwit had some kind of special power, you know?  Like he put a spell on the battery or something?"  (Roy Ray perked up at the thought.  Special powers, besides those wings he lost?  Maybe.  He did come into possession of the radio somehow.  He did escape from the underground before.  And if he could do it once, maybe he could do it again!)

Mr. Rappaport affectionately patted the dashboard.  "They don't make 'em like this anymore.  Hey--Steppinwolf!"  He turned up the radio for "Born to Be Wild" so loud Roy Ray could barely hear Delphi when she buzzed him on the transmitter.

"We're out," he told her.  "On our way home."

"Great," she said.  "And say hello to Bill the Lizard."

"What?!"

"Remember when I thought somebody was stalking me?  Somebody was."

"Bill!" Roy Ray yelled into the transmitter.  "This has got nothing to do with you--stay out of it!"

Bill's voice crackled back, "Don't be so sure, Rappaport.  I've heard some very innaresting stuff over this radio--"

"Listen, Lizard: you do not want to get mixed up in this.  It's like, way outta your playground . . ."

He shouldn't have said that; Bill saw the whole world as his playground.  "Oh yeah?  We'll talk when you get back."

"Give that radio back!"  Roy Ray practically screamed it because his dad was belting out "Head out on the highway!" at the top of his lungs.

"I didn't take it!  Keep your magical mystery radio--but you know that I know.  My eye's on you, right?  Over and out, flyboy."

"They don't write 'em like that anymore," Mr. Rappaport rejoiced as they flashed by a City Limits sign.  "Anybody up for a burger?"

He ended up shelling out for thirteen of them, plus seven orders of fries and six large milkshakes.  That's when reality started to sink in.  "Do they have any place to go?" he murmured to Roy Ray, glancing discreetly at the back seat.  "I can hardly feed you, pal."

Roy Ray decided not to mention that the burger count would have been even higher if everybody hadn't been a little carsick.  In fact, Spargo was sick on the floor of the back seat, but with all the other unusual smells in the car maybe his dad wouldn't notice before Roy Ray got a chance to clean it up.

After the hit on his wallet, Mr. Rappaport was quieter, mostly just humming along to the classics for the last forty miles.  They were out of the mountains so the terrain was gentler, and the aspirin was having some effect.  Occasionally Mr. Rappaport reached out to touch Roy Ray, on the knee, on the head, under the humerous joint where he usually hated to be tickled, but this time it felt pretty nice.

Gunther and Nkame, stuffed with good honest food, were trading what they'd started to remember from the memory joggers they saw out the window: "Trees."  "Cows--cattle?"  "Mongans.  No--Mountains."  "Over there . . . far far away.  Ice?  Cold stuff.  What is it what is it?"  "Snauf.  No . . . snow."  "Most exactly!"

Shirley was still sniffling because the main thing she remembered was leaving her brother behind.

Katarina seemed totally content, squeezed beside Roy Ray on the passenger seat.  After finishing her hamburger in a ladylike way that didn't leave mustard on her chin or crumbs in her lap, she slipped a hand in his and fell asleep with her head on his shoulder.  Yuk.

Now that the excitement was over, Roy Ray was giving a lot more thought to a question he'd asked rather often lately: What now?

Did they have any place to go?  Shirley was from the same continent at least; maybe she could just fly home.  Nkame couldn't, not if his folks still thought he was a demon.  Roy Ray could have told them something about real demons but he probably wouldn't get the chance.  Gunther didn't seem to need parents, even if he had them.  Too bad--Roy Ray couldn't shake the suspicion that the guy was trouble, even though he had smacked Bat Boy off him.  And what were the chances Bat Boy would show up again? 

Katarina shifted and the white cat made a swipe at his lap, disturbing a feather that leapt in the air: a spindly feather in a spiral shape, which he caught before the cat could bat it again.

In spite of the mauling his memory had taken, he remembered snatching the feather out of the air while beating his wings in the monster's face.  Roy Ray twirled it between his fingers.  Now he knew how Mr. G lost his wings: the gap had slammed on them.  He must have hesitated too long, or looked down at the exact wrong moment.  All he had left were stumps, with a few deformed feathers.  One of which had followed Roy Ray like a puppy wanting a home. 

He'd knew what he had to do now: find the owner, and rescue him.

"Who'd a thunk there were more kids with wings in the world?" Mr. Rappaport mused, at a pause between songs.

"Everybody has wings!" Gunther said--unexpectedly, as though the thought had just popped into his head.

"Everybody can fly," Nkame agreed, "albeit invisibly."

Shirley sniffed, "But we have . . . uh . . . the honor and responsibility of flying visibly."

"That's not right," Gunther corrected her.  "Not honor and responsibility.  Agony and ecstasy."

"Agony and ecstasy?!  No way--who told you that?"

"I think it might be 'delight and detriment,'" Nkame offered.

By now Roy Ray had turned all the way around and was staring at them.  Gradually they ceased their dispute and stared back, even poor pukey Spargo.

"We have," Roy Ray said slowly, "the privilege and burden of doing it visibly.  Right?"  They all nodded, with different degrees of certainty.  "So . . ."  What came next?  "So let's stop fooling about . . ."

"And do it!" they finished, in raggedy unison.

"Here's good old Tomahawk Chop," Mr. Rappaport said as they bumped over the railroad tracks.  "A few more blocks and we're home.  Seems like we've been gone a week, even though I left the garage just a few hours ago and--What the--?"

He slammed the brakes to keep from hitting a man who had materialized on the street outside their house.  A tall man, with stiff red hair and a long jaw and a leather bag slung over one shoulder.  A girl ran up behind him--Delphi, Roy Ray noticed, just before the man grinned broadly and raised a camera:

"Smile, everybody!"

[What I have in mind for the finale is the cover page of the Global Scoop, with photos and headlines such as these:]

BIRDMAN COLONY DISCOVERED!!  (Exclusive photos by H. L. McEnroe)

Locals say, "They're just normal kids"    

BIRD TEENS TAKE UP RESIDENCE IN ABANDONED CASTLE!  (Exclusive photos by H. L. McEnroe)

SMALL TOWN THUG WANTS TO KNOW WHY BULLIES CAN'T INCORPORATE

Claims, "We perform a useful service"

'ASK AGNES' NOW ADVISES ON PARANORMAL ISSUES (see p. 4)

BIRD BOY DAD ATTACKS PHOTOGRAPHER!  (Did we mention exclusive photos by H. L McEnroe?)

SPECIAL REPORT: ONE-THIRD OF U.N. DELEGATES ARE ALIENS!

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