Sparky panted, Tim clutching at the side of his face with hooked claws. “Not as easy as it looks,” said Sparky, shaking his head. I pulled Tim off his face, and the sloth paddled his arms and legs in the air.
“What’d you expect?” I asked. “I bet the poor guy can’t swim.”
Sparky shook his head. “Negative. He can swim fine. He just lacks the motivation.”
I shrugged. What’d he expect from a sloth?
Copters buzzed overhead, and a couple of bombs fell on the island, shooting up sand clouds like fireworks. If we were hit too many times, I worried New Texas would dissolve like the Caravan.
Dove smacked Sparky’s butt. “Get in there, already.” Sparky hurried toward the fort.
“Is he the only one that can drive?” I asked.
“Sort of.” Dove shrugged. “I drive the boats, mostly, and Bertha flies the planes. Sparky drives the island.”
“So there’s no one else who can drive this thing?”
“Well, Bertha thinks she can do everything… But trust me, you don’t wanna see her try.”
More bombs fell from overhead, and pieces of the island splintered off into the ocean. Then thunder roared—actual thunder—and it began to rain. The few flaming Caravan boats that remained flickered as the raindrops doused their fires.
The island lurched forward, and I fell to the ground. Dove threw me a hand. The look on his face told me Bertha was driving. Then I heard it: mariachi music roaring over the thunder, trumpets blaring and guitars strumming over loudspeakers. The Federal copters hovered in the air, clearly confused.
“Crap,” muttered Dove. “She snuck out one of those too?” I raised an eyebrow. “She’s been sneaking stuff out all day,” he explained. “Every time we go to the Caravan she takes as many things as she can, and paddles them back to New Texas. Did she make you take some pastries?”
“She tried.”
“Figures.”
The island’s engines groaned as we hurtled past the Federal ships. Waves crashed in our wake as the copters buzzed overhead, no longer stunned by the screaming loudspeakers, and eager to drop more bombs like lightning. Dove pulled me to the fort and up a spiral staircase.
“Control room,” he explained, his chest shaking as he fought to catch his breath.
We found Bertha reclining in a rolling chair, her fingers clacking furiously at a keyboard while she stared intently through a panoramic windshield that circled the room. Holographic widgets cluttered her vision, and Sparky stood beside her, tapping them with worried looks. Phoenix stood in the back, his brow furrowed, and Mila sat hunched in the room’s corner. The group seemed oddly casual, as if it wasn’t a big deal that Feds were circling us with guns and bombs.
Mila glanced up at us as we entered. “Kindred’s making muffins.”
Sparky snapped his head around to face her. “Chocolate chip?” he asked.
“Nah, blueberry.”
Bertha slammed her fists on the keyboard. “Damn it!”
“What’s wrong, Big Bertha?” asked Phoenix, worried.
“We’ve had frickin’ blueberry for the past two weeks, that’s what wrong!”
Sparky echoed her sentiments. “Affirmative.”
Mila rolled her eyes. “Give me a break.”
“And give me some damn chocolate chips,” added Bertha, fingers still clacking against the keyboard.
A widget blinked furiously on the screen as Sparky tapped a hand to the glass.
“What’s wrong?” said Phoenix. He’d yet to acknowledge my existence, and the promise he’d made to Vern still loomed fresh in my mind.
Sparky glanced at the screen nervously. “Uh… low gas.”
“How is that possible?”
“Er… well, you see… the thing is, actually… we were chasing the Caravan for quite a while, you know?”
“You went whale-watching again,” said Phoenix. “Didn’t you? You wasted our gas looking for whales.”
“It was all Kindred’s idea!” said Sparky. “She thought it might be nice to see them. Tim wanted to, too!”
Tim smiled and stuck out his tongue ever so slightly.
“Nice work, Slothy,” said Bertha, shaking her head.
Phoenix yanked her away from the keyboard. “I need you to go into the armory and get us the biggest guns we have. If we can’t outrun the Feds, we’re going to have to shoot them down.”
Bertha hurried down the staircase, and Phoenix pushed Sparky into the now-vacant captain’s seat. “You drive,” he said. “And figure out to how to turn off that damn music.”
“Yeah—of course!”
Phoenix turned to Mila. “Help Bertha with the guns. You too, Dove.” They raced down the stairs. He grabbed my shoulder. “You all right, Kai?”
I shook off his hand. “Peachy.”
“Not peach-y,” he said, smiling, “but blueberry.”
He might’ve had the muscles, but god, he lacked the jokes.
Bertha returned from the armory, breathless. In one hand, she held an assault rifle; in the other, three black orbs. “Bombs,” she explained.
Kindred appeared in the doorway. “Blueberries!” she called. “Blueberry muffins!”
“We don’t need blueberries right now,” said Bertha, shaking the orbs. “We need bombs.”
Kindred pursed her lips. “Oh, dear.” She offered me a muffin and whispered in my ear. “Someone didn’t get all nine hours of her beauty sleep.”
“I’M BEAUTIFUL, DAMN IT!” shouted Bertha.
Kindred hurried from the room, leaving the muffins on the table. Mila and Dove appeared in her place, bullets strapped to their chests. They tossed Phoenix a gun. “Let’s go.”
“You stay here with Sparky,” Phoenix said to me before hurrying down the staircase.
Sand flew in bursts on the beach as more bombs were dropped. I watched out the window, eating my muffin, as the four Lost Boys raised their weapons and fired at the sky. A copter burst into flames.
“Hand me a muffin,” said Sparky from the controls. I tossed him one and he swallowed it in a single bite.
A familiar voice cracked over the computer’s radio. “Captain Vern to the Lost Boys,” it said. “Lost Boys, do you read me? Over.”
Sparky pointed to a mic left of the desk, and I pressed a button on its side. “Uh, roger that,” I said. “Lost Boys here. Over.”
“You boys still in the fire? We’ve still got a couple of birds around our neck. Trying to take care of them as we speak. Over.”
Birds? Did he mean helicopters? Bad guys? What was he talking about? Birds were close enough to helicopters, so I just went with it. “Uh, yeah,” I said. “We’ve got a couple of falcons on our tail here, too.” Another copter skidded onto our shore, bursting into flames. “The falcons are on fire. Over.”
Silence on the other end. “Uh… what was that last bit?”
If this man wanted me dead, I figured I deserved to have a little fun at his expense. “Falcons on fire,” I said again. “Flames and fireworks, too. Looks like a big bad blueberry muffin, if I had to guess. Whiskey. Hotel. Alpha. Tango. Over. Do you read me, Sarge? I SAID, DO YOU READ ME, SARGE?”
Sparky covered his mouth to keep from laughing.
“Uh… come again?”
“Roger that, Vern. Base to Vern. Delta. Alpha. Kilo. Blueberry, pumpkin-pumpernickel-strudel-peach pie. Over.”
“Err… what? There must be some static, or something bad with the connection. We have no idea what you’re trying to say—”
“ALPHA, KAPPA, FALCON, FAHRENHEIT. OVER.”
“We’ve contained the threat,” Vern said, grunting—obviously tired of my charades. “They must’ve known where we were. There’s a rat, I suppose. No other way they could’ve found us in the middle of the Pacific. Maybe they caught one of our fishermen—I don’t know. We lost four of our floats. The rest are free-floating at sea. We’ll be lying low for a while now.”