Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

Oh, my God, I was so freaking nuts.

“Okay, people,” the bus driver said over the PA system. “ Fifty-eighth Street! This is where the fun is!”

Startled, I looked at Fang, then started hustling everyone out the back door of the bus. We stepped into the sunlight. The bus pulled noisily away, leaving us choking on its exhaust. We were at the bottom of Central Park.

“What-” I began, then my eyes widened as I saw a large glass-fronted building across the street. Behind its glass were an enormous teddy bear, a huge wooden soldier, and a fifteen-foot-tall ballerina up on one pointed toe.

The sign said AFO Schmidt.

The world’s most amazing toy store.

Well, okay.

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We poor, underprivileged, pathetic bird kids had never been in a toy store.

And AFO Schmidt is where kids think they’ve died and gone to heaven. Right inside the front door was a huge two-story clock covered with moving figures. The song “It’s a Small World” was playing loudly, but I figured that was to keep out the riffraff.

I had no idea why we were here. It seemed too much to hope for that somehow this little romp was getting us closer to finding the Institute, but I made the executive decision to see where it took us.

A life-size stuffed giraffe surrounded by other life-size stuffed animals led the way to the whole stuffed-animal area, which was practically as big as our old house.

I looked down at Gazzy and Angel to see them staring, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, at too many fabulous toys to even comprehend.

“Iggy,” the Gasman said, “there’s a whole room of Lego and Bionicle.”

“Go with them,” I told Fang. “And let’s keep an eye out for each other, okay?”

He nodded and followed the boys into the Lego room, while I trailed after Angel and Nudge, who were picking up one stuffed animal after another.

“Oh, my gosh,” Nudge was saying, holding a small stuffed tiger. “Oh, Max, isn’t he the cutest thing? Oh, his name is Samson.”

I dutifully agreed that he was in fact the cutest thing and kept glancing around for either an Eraser or some kind of clue my Voice might point me to.

“Max?” Angel tugged on my sleeve. I turned to her, and she held up a small stuffed bear. It was dressed as an angel, with a white gown and little wings on its back. A tiny gold wire halo floated above its head.

Angel’s eyes were pleading with me. I checked its price tag. The pleasure of owning this small stuffed bear could be hers for only forty-nine dollars.

“I’m so sorry, Angel,” I said, bending down to her eye level. “But this bear is forty-nine dollars. We’re almost out of money-I don’t have anywhere near that. I’m really sorry. I wish I could get it for you. I know it’s an angel, just like you.” I stroked her hair and handed her the bear back.

“But I want it,” Angel snapped at me, which was completely out of character for her.

“I said no. That’s it, kiddo.”

I wandered a few feet away, still within eyeshot of the girls, to look at a “‘mystical” display. There were Magic 8 Balls, and when you shook them, an answer would float to the surface of a little window. I shook one. “Very likely” was its prediction. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to ask it a question.

There was a game called Cabalah!, a Gypsy Fortuneteller game, and the old favorite: a Ouija board. I breathed out, my hands in my pockets, and looked around the store. Maybe we should sleep here tonight.

Out of the corner of my eye, I detected a slight movement, and my raptor gaze locked on it. It was the little Ouija doohickey, the thing that “spirits” are supposed to guide across the board, pointing to certain letters, but everyone knows it’s really the kids doing it.

This one was moving with nothing touching it.

I looked around: No one was near. Angel was almost twenty feet away, not looking at it, still holding the angel bear. I waved my hand over it-there were no wires. It had touched the 5 and then the A. I lifted the game board and held it up, in case it was being moved by a magnet underneath. The pointer reached the V and headed toward the E.

Save.

I put the board back down as if it were red-hot.

The small black triangle paused on the T, then moved to the H. Then the E.

The.

It slid very slowly toward the W, and I frowned. It moved up and over to the O, and my jaw clenched. By the time it reached the R, I was ready to throw the board across the store. Grimly, I watched as it finished. The L The D. The M, the A, the X.

Save the world, Max.

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“ Fang!”

He whirled, saw my face, and instantly tapped Iggy’s and the Gasman’s hands. They joined me and Nudge under the huge clock.

“Let’s get out of here,” I muttered. “A Ouija board just told me to save the world.”

“Gosh, you’re, like, famous,” said the Gasman, clearly not feeling the ominous dread that I was.

“Where’s Angel?” Fang asked.

I reached out for her and grabbed air. My head whipped around, and I rushed back to the stuffed-animal section. Already, panic was flooding my senses-it had been barely more than a week since she’d been kidnapped…

I skidded to a stop by a life-size chimpanzee hanging from a display. In front of me, Angel was talking to an older woman. I’d never seen an Eraser that old, so my heartbeat ticked down a couple notches.

Angel looked sad, and she held up the angel bear to show the woman.

“What’s she up…” Fang began.

The woman hesitated, then said something I couldn’t hear. Angel’s face lit up, and she nodded eagerly.

“Someone’s buying something for Angel,” Iggy said quietly.

Angel knew we were watching her, but she was refusing to meet our eyes. The five of us followed them to the checkout counter, and I watched in disbelief as the woman, seeming a bit bemused, took out her wallet and paid for Angel’s bear. Angel was practically jumping up and down with happiness. She bounced on her heels, clutching the bear to her chest, and I heard her say “Thank you” about a thousand times.

Then, still looking slightly confused, the woman smiled, nodded, and left the store.

We swarmed around our youngest family member.

“What was that about?” I asked. “Why did that woman buy you that bear? That thing cost forty-nine dollars!”

“What did you say to her?” Iggy demanded. “No one’s buying us stuff.”

“Nothing,” Angel said, holding her bear tightly. “I just asked that lady if she would buy me this bear, ‘cause I really, really wanted it and I didn’t have enough money.”

I started shepherding everyone out the front door before Angel asked someone to buy her the life-size giraffe.

Outside, the sun was bright overhead, and it was time for lunch. Time to get us back on track.

“So you just asked a stranger to buy you an expensive toy, and she did?” I asked Angel.

Angel nodded, smoothing her bear’s fur down around its ears. “Yeah. I just asked her to buy it for me. You know, with my mind.”