Free The Orphan Army by Jonathan Maberry

thought. It was how it must feel to have someone think you did something really bad—like betrayed a friend—but it not be true.
    He wished he could speak to her again. To understand what she meant and to set her straight.
    Lizabeth wandered past him. She seemed to be spending her time looking at the ground around the junk. Milo shrugged. In his view, girls as a species were strange. Lizabeth a little more so.
    â€œHey, Milo,” called Shark, “look at this.”
    Milo, moody and conflicted, went over.
    â€œThis is wrong,” said Shark, pointing to several pieces of debris. “Look at the breaks.”
    Milo did. Their teachers had taught them about impact, ratios of mass and momentum, variations in resistance depending on surface density, angle of impact, and the rest of the science. He understood the physics of it, the math. They all did. Every good scavenger had to.
    Which was why he saw at once what Shark thought was wrong. Lizabeth joined them.
    Shark knelt by one large piece. “I think this is a Bug drop-ship,” he said. He brushed at the soot to reveal the signature patchwork metalwork. Then he pointed to the fractures in the metal from where it had crumpled. Most of the fractures were dark with soot, but there were plenty that gleamed as bright as polished silver in the sunlight.
    â€œIt’s not burned,” said Lizabeth.
    â€œNo,” agreed Shark. “And that doesn’t make sense. This whole place was on fire. Look at the grass and trees. The grass was wet. You can see it. A lot of these saplings would have smoked really bad. So how come only some of the breaks are covered in soot?”
    No one had an answer.
    â€œIt almost looks,” said Shark slowly, “like this stuff was busted up after the crash. After the fires went out.”
    â€œAfter?” asked Lizabeth.
    â€œHas to be. Unless someone came and polished these breaks.”
    â€œNo way,” said Milo.
    â€œI know what happened,” said Lizabeth.
    They looked at her.
    â€œWhat?” asked Milo.
    â€œI think someone came and stomped all over it. After the fire, I mean.”
    Shark chortled. “They’d have to have some pretty darn big feet.”
    â€œI know. Round feet, too.”
    Shark blinked. “Um . . . what?”
    â€œLook,” she said, and touched the ground. There were indeed several large, roundish dents in the dirt. Several similar marks were punched into the twisted metal. “They’re all over the field. Something came in and stomped everything.”
    â€œThat could be anything,” said Shark. “It doesn’t even look like a footprint.”
    â€œLooks like an elephant footprint,” mused Lizabeth.
    â€œLizzie, there aren’t any elephants in Louisiana,” said Shark with great patience.
    â€œAren’t any wolves, either,” said Milo dryly.
    â€œYou know what I mean. We’d have heard an elephant.”
    â€œNo, we wouldn’t,” said Lizabeth. “No one was out here when it crashed.”
    Shark didn’t know how to respond to that. He looked at Milo for help, but Milo held his hands up in a “you’re on your own” gesture. He was enjoying this.
    Lizabeth bent and spread her fingers over one of the dents. It was as big as a dinner plate and easily dwarfed her little hand. “Something had to do it, right?”
    â€œYeah, but—”
    â€œMaybe an elephant escaped from a circus or a zoo during the invasion.”
    â€œSure, but—”
    â€œIt could be living out here.”
    Milo and Shark exchanged a look and then shrugged.
    â€œMust have been one angry elephant,” remarked Shark. “He stomped the heck out of this stuff. It’s all junk now. Maybe we should ask Barnaby about it.”
    â€œBarnaby’s a poophead,” said Lizabeth softly.
    â€œHe is, in fact, a poophead,” agreed Milo.
    â€œPoophead or not—and, believe me,