Maximum Ride: The Angel Experiment

53

I swallowed hard, my muscles tightening. I put my hand on Gazzy's shoulder. "Shhh. Shhhh."

The jerk in the gray car's eyes bugged out, and the next thing we knew, he had stomped on his gas pedal. His car leaped forward.

Ari laughed like a maniac, and the black pickup peeled out too, spraying gravel. Five heartbeats later we could barely hear the roar of two engines racing down the road.

"He gets around," Fang said quietly.

"Was Ari's hair green?" I asked, confused.

"Yep," Nudge said, unusually brief.

The five of us looked at one another - well, not Iggy, so much - then at the ATM.

It was beeping quietly. We glanced around. There were people inside the stores, but the machine faced away from them. Without saying a word, we dropped low and slipped across the parking lot.

None of us had ever used one of these. For some strange reason, the mad scientists at the School had neglected to set up bank accounts and trust funds for us.

Fortunately the machine was designed to be used by idiots.

Do you want another transaction? it asked in orange letters.

"Get cash," Fang advised unnecessarily.

"You think?" I said snidely.

"Hurry," the Gasman said.

I hit the withdrawal button.

Please enter the amount you wish to withdraw.

I hesitated. "Sixty dollars?" That would buy a lot of food, right?

"He was a total jerk," said Fang. "Take him for all he's got."

I grinned. "You are evil. I like that." I worked my way through the account balances, and we all stared and whistled.

"Oh, yeah, oh, yeah," Nudge sang, doing a little dance. "We're ri-ich, we're gonna buy a ca-ar, oh, yeah."

You might not know this, but ATMs have a built-in limit of how much dough they're willing to give you at one time. So our plans to buy our own country crumbled. However, it was willing to give me two hundred dollars.

Once we punched in our access code again, for security purposes.

"Oh, no," I groaned. "Did anyone see it?"

"I heard it," Iggy said slowly.

"I think if we put in the wrong code more than twice, the whole thing shuts down and swallows the card," said Fang.

"can you do it?" I asked Iggy.

"Um. I'll try . . ." Iggy hesitantly put his hand over the keypad. His sensitive fingers oriented themselves to the keys.

"It's okay, Ig," said Fang. "Just give it your best shot."

Sometimes the Fangster is incredibly supportive, just not with me.

Iggy punched in five numbers, and we all held our breath.

Access denied. Please check your PIN and try again.

"Try again," I said tensely. "You've got the best ears on the planet."

Once again, Iggy's pale hand hovered over the keyboard. He concentrated and punched in five numbers.

Nothing. My heart sank down into my stomach.

Then the machine started whirring, and soon a stack of twenties shot out.

"Yes!" said Fang, punching the air. "Freaks rule."

"Grab it and go!" I said and Nudge began pulling out bills and stuffing them into her pockets. We were turning to run when the machine beeped again.

Thank you for your business. Please take your card.

"Okay, thank you," I said, grabbing the card. Then we ran back to the woods. Well we ran and flew.