“The receptionist looked us over, then went back to typing something incredibly urgent—like her résumé́ for another job.”

“If your going to look back on something and laugh about it, you might as well laugh about it now.”

“So, Angel?" I said, looking over at her. She was gliding through the night, her eight-foot wings looking like a dove's. "Have you picked up anything from Anne, about anything? Anything off?"Not really." Angel thought. "From what I can tell, she does work for the FBI. She does care about us and wants us to be happy. She thinks the boys are slobs. I'm blind," Iggy said irritably. "How am I supposed to make everything all tidy?"Yeah, because you're so handicapped," I said sarcastically. "Like- you can't build bombs or cook or win at Monopoly. You can't tell us apart by the feel of our skin or feathers.”

“Max!' Nudge cried, rushing over to hug me. Her thin arms gripped me tight, and I hugged her back, scratching her wings where they joined her shoulders, the way she liked. 'We were so worried—I didn’t know what had happened to you, and we didn’t know what to do, and Fang said we going to eat rats, and—''Okay, okay. Everything’s okay,' I told her. I met Fang’s eyes over her shoulder and mouthed rats? silently. A flicker of a grin crossed his lips and then was gone.”

“Q: You'er presented with a smooth-faced, eight-foot-high wooden wall. Your objective? Get over it. To, like, save comrades or something. How to accomplish this?A: Take a running start, brace one foot against the wall, throw one hand to the top, try to hang on long enough for a comrade to either grab your hand at the top or for another comrade to push your butt up from below. It takes team work!BKA (bird kid answer): Or you could just, like, fly over it.”

“Look, we're trying to explore other options to your retirement," the whitecoat said. "You might be useful to us in other ways."Because we're not that useful dead,"Nudge said thoughtfully.No," I agreed. "Well, maybe as doorstops."The whitecat made an "eew" expression.Or those things in a parking lot that show where the cars should stop," suggested Iggy. He closed his eyes and went stiff, to demonstrate what it would look like. Also an option.”

“I can talk to fish!" Angel said happily, water dripping off her long, skinny body. "Ask one over for dinner," Fang said, joining us.”