“QUICK! UP!” FANG SHOUTED, just as the first bullets strafed the air around me with ominous hisses.

I angled myself upward, only to see the shiny silver underbelly of one of the CSM planes, now flying right above us. It was pressing downward – the rough landing strip was maybe a quarter mile away.

“Drop back!” I yelled. We all went vertical as the planes continued to come down practically on our heads. To escape from the bullets, we’d had to fly up right under them. The engines were way too close – the noise was deafening.

“Watch it!” I yelled, as one plane’s landing gear almost hit Iggy. “Drop down! Drop down!” Bullets are bad, but getting smushed by landing gear, toasted by jet engine exhaust, or sucked into the front of an engine were all much less fixable.

I could now make out the sun-browned faces of the men on… oh, geez, were those camels? The men continued to aim their rifles at us, and I felt a bullet actually whiz by my hair. In about half a second, my brain processed the following thoughts lightning fast:

1) A bullet hitting the fuel tank on a plane: not a good situation.

2) Slowing down not good: slow + bird kids = drop like rocks.

3) Speeding up not good: fast bird kids + faster planes = getting flattened.

4) The only choice was to go on the offensive.

Fortunately, I’m very comfortable with being offensive – at least on the not-infrequent occasions when someone’s trying to gun down my flock.

“Dive!” I shouted. “Knock ’em down!”

I tucked my wings flat against my back and began to race groundward like a rocket. At this speed, these shooters would need radar and a heat tracer to land a bullet on me. I could actually see the whites of their eyes now, which were widening in surprise.

“Hai-yah!” I screamed – just for fun, really – as I swung my feet down and came to a screeching halt by smashing my heels right into a rider’s back. He flew off the camel, rifle pinwheeling through the air, and felt the joy of being airborne himself for about three seconds before he landed right in front of his pal’s camel.

“Get the rest!” I ordered the flock. “Free the beasts!”

There were about ten of these armed riders – no match for six hot, angry bird kids. We were used to dodging bullets; these guys were not used to aiming at fast-moving flying mutants. And the bonuses of being aloft are infinite: Snatching a rifle from the grip of a maniacal shooter isn’t as hard as you might think when you’re coming from above and behind.

Iggy flew in sideways and smacked one guy right off his camel, and Gazzy folded his wings around another’s face, causing him to panic and fall. I grabbed a gun and used it like a baseball bat, neatly clipping one guy in the gut, knocking him right off his ride. unfortunately, I didn’t rise in time.

Which meant that for the first time in bird kid history, I got plowed into by a panicky galloping camel – with no sense of humor. Its head hit me in the stomach, and I flipped over its neck, landing hard on the saddle.

“Awesome move, Max!” I heard Nudge call from somewhere behind me. Wasn’t she busy helping to take these guys out?

My Indiana Jones moment lasted about a second before I was lurched off the beast. Just as my feet hit the sand, I managed to grab a rein and hang on for dear life.

My wings were useless – there was no room to stretch them out – and my ankles were literally sanded raw before I was able to pull myself up hand over hand and eventually clamber back onto the saddle.

“Whoa, Nelly!” I croaked, gagging on dust. I gripped the saddle with my knees and pulled back on the reins.

This camel did not speak English, apparently. It stretched its neck and ran faster.

“Up and away, Max!” Fang yelled.

I dropped the reins, popped to my feet on top the saddle, and jumped hard, snapping out my wings. And just like that, I became lighter than air, stronger than steel… and faster than a speeding camel.

I watched it race off, terrified, toward the nearest village. Someone was about to inherit a traumatized camel.

This mission was off to a good start.

“OKAY, FLOCK,” I SAID, finishing wrapping up my bleeding ankles. “So who’s ready to start saving the world, one person at a time? Say aye!”

“Aye!” Nudge cheered and took a last swig of water. Just twenty minutes earlier we’d landed in front of the astonished locals. The others, still worn out from the camel crusade, chimed in a little more sluggishly. Except Fang, who gave me a strong and silent thumbs-up.

Patrick Rooney III, our CSM contact, led us to our assigned area. I hadn’t seen a refugee camp before. It was basically acres and acres of tattered tents and mud huts. Two larger tents were being set up for donated medical supplies and food. Nudge and Iggy were set to unpacking crates and sorting materials, Fang to helping set up medical exam stations, which were basically plastic crates with curtains around them.

Gazzy and Angel were, essentially, the entertainment – their pale blond hair and blue eyes were causing a commotion among the refugee kids. Not to mention the wings. Some of the youngest kids were running around, their arms outstretched and flapping, their smiles huge with delight.

Not that there was much to be delighted about. The six of us, the flock, had seen some hard times. We’d eaten out of Dumpsters and trapped small mammals for dinner. I’d eaten my share of rat-b-cue. But these people had nothing. I mean, really nothing. Most were skinnier than us lean ’n’-mean bird kids.

“People are going to be coming through here, getting vaccinated against hep B, tetanus, mumps, whatever,” the nurse, a guy named Roger, explained. “The grown-ups may be suspicious and unsure; a lot of the kids will be crying.”

Okay. I could handle that. I knew being Mother Teresa wasn’t gonna be easy.

“Here are some sacks of rice – they weigh sixty pounds each, so get someone to help you move them.” That wouldn’t be necessary – one of the few advantages to being genetically engineered in a lab. “The adults each get two cups of raw rice.” He handed me a measuring cup. “Give the kids these fruit roll-ups. They’ve never seen them before, so you might have to explain that they’re food. Do you speak French?”

“Nooo.” Just another one of those pesky gaps in my education. “I don’t speak African either.”

Roger smiled. “There are thousands of dialects in Africa – Chad alone has two hundred distinct linguistic groups. But Arabic and French are the official languages of Chad – France used to own Chad.”

I frowned. “Own it? They’re not even connected.”

“The way England used to own America,” Roger explained.

“Oh.” I felt really dumb, which is not a common feeling for me, I assure you.

A few minutes later, Fang was by my side, and we were handing out two cups of raw rice per person. It was all I could do not to just give them everything I could get my hands on. Fang and I kept meeting eyes.

“It reminds me of – so long ago – before Jeb sprung us out of the dog crates…” My throat caught, and Fang nodded. He knew it was a painful memory.

But it wasn’t the memory that was getting me. It was seeing so many people looking like… like they were still waiting to be let out of their dog crates. Despite everything we’d been through – some of it the stuff of nightmares – we were still way better off than the people here.

I was a little dazed by the time Angel strode up to us, leading a small girl by the hand.

“Hi,” said Angel, her face still caked with dust and grit. Her blond curly hair stood out around her head like a halo – which was a bit misleading in her case. “This is Jeanne. Jeanne, this is Max and Fang.”

Angel had that look that made me brace myself and prepare to explain that we could not adopt this sweet little girl. We’d already adopted two dogs (Total and Akila, now back in the States with my mom, Dr. Valencia Martinez, in Arizona). But this Jeanne was so adorable, I was almost afraid I’d just say what the hey.