WHAM! The door of the stall opened. I felt the wind whoosh past overhead. It excited the hairs on my back. My antennae quivered madly.
Danger!
I pushed off with my six legs, turned on my fly wings, and blasted up off the dirty linoleum.
"We're airborne over here," Marco reported.
"They were here, I'm telling you. Monsters! Like . . . like weird, mutated things!"
"Sir, just how many drinks did you have on your flight?"
"Tobias," I called. "Are you okay? Tobias!" There was no answer.
I zoomed crazily around, zipping past the Statue-of-Liberty-sized humans. My senses were picking up about a hundred interesting smells: rot, sweat, filth, garbage. All of which were fascinating to my fly brain.
But I still did not see Tobias.
" Tobias! Where are you? The fly brain has you. Fight it!"
"Yo, Tobias," Marco said. "Come on, get a grip. We don't have a lot of time."
"Tobias! It's me, Aximili. Reassert your individual consciousness."
"Say what?" Marco laughed. "Reassert his what?" Then there came a shaky, uncertain thought-speak voice. "Uh, hello? It's me. I mean, it's me, Tobias."
I was inscribing crazed fly circles around the bathroom. I did a quick somersault and landed upside down on the ceiling. My claws gripped tiny irregularities in the paint. And the sticky pads on my feet did the rest.
"Tobias? Where are you? Are you okay?"
"l guess I kind of lost it there for a minute."
"Well, that happens sometimes with a new morph. You know, until you get used to the animal's instincts."
"Yeah," Marco said. "But then you can "reassert your individual consciousness.""
"Tobias, where are you?"
"Well . . . it's smooth. Um, it was different when I first landed here.
It was smooth and white. Wet, though. There's dampness on the surface.
And I think there's a big lake or something below me."
"Are you right side up or what?"
"l'm sideways. I'm sideways on a smooth, damp surface I think was white.
And there's a big lake below me."
We all considered that description for a moment.
"0h, man!" Marco yelled. "Tobias, you're in a toilet!"
"Tobias, get out of there before someone flushes," I said, stifling the urge to laugh.
"L)m . . . remember how I said it was different when I first landed here? It was light. Now it's dark."
We all considered this new information for a moment.
"Uh, guh-ROSS!" Marco said, half-laughing, half-scared.
"Tobias, I think the reason it got dark is that someone sat down."
"Wait. You're saying I'm in a toilet bowl. And someone sat down. But then ... oh, man."
"Caution: falling objects," Marco said.
"What does all this mean?" Ax wondered.
"Tobias, I think for the sake of safety, and also for the sake of avoiding something way too gross to even think about, you need to get out of there."
"How? How? The exit is blocked, to say the least!"
"Try the space between the toilet seat and the porcelain."
"0h."
"Look for the light. There will be some light shining through," I said.
"Go into the light," Marco said.
"Get out of there!"
"The space! I found the space!"
"l am completely confused," Ax confessed.
"0kay, I'm out," Tobias said. "This so totally sucks. I'm starting to wish the Ellimist had never given me back my morphing powers."
"lt's the glamorous life of a superhero," Marco said.
"Speaking of glamour, we need to find the gate and get on that plane," I reminded everyone. "Rachel and Cassie are probably already there."
"l can find the door from the air currents," Tobias said.
"Yeah. Fly against the influx of air. That should get us out into the terminal. Then all we have to do is pick up the scent of that diaper and follow it to the gate."
"Hey, Tobias can lead the way," Marco said brightly. "He sort of has experience at that kind of thing."
"0h, shut up," Tobias grumbled.
"Will you explain what has been going on?" Ax asked.
"When you get older maybe," Marco said.
J. wasn't lying when I'd told Tobias that flying as a fly is cool. I mean, in some ways it's bad because you can't see very well, so you don't get to look around while you're flying.
But nothing flies like a fly. Compared to a fly, any bird is a big, lumbering, clumsy whale. Flies can fly straight up. Straight down. They can turn in less than the blink of an eye. And I'm talking a full, one-hundred-eighty-degree turn in midair, no problem. They can fly on their sides and upside down. They can do loops and figure eights. They can fly figure eights inside a small juice glass.
And unlike birds, flies can land on anything. Anything. Horizontal, vertical, rough, smooth, wet, dry, still or moving, living or not.
They are very amazing insects. Very gross, very amazing insects.
"0kay, this is cool," Tobias said. "0nce you get past the fact that your own body makes you want to throw up."
"Marco feels that way in his human body," Rachel said gleefully.
We had located Cassie and Rachel in the air near the dirty diaper.
"0ooh. Don't hurt me with the chakram of your wit, Xena," Marco said.
"Huh?"
"Chakram," Marco said, like any idiot should know the word. "lt's the metal Frisbee thing Xena throws. What, are you people cultural morons?" Marco loves to tease Rachel by calling her Xena: Warrior Princess. Which isn't a bad comparison, aside from the fact that Rachel doesn't wear a leather skirt.