Free Flyers by Scott Ciencin Page A

lagoon toward the open area housing Fievel’s Playland. A man in a flannel shirt ran after her.
    Manly. If he was alive, Alan could be, too! They must have dived under the water before setting off the explosion!
    But—why was Manly following the female? The other five Pteranodons flew higher and higher, the fireworks driving them away as they rocketed into the sky.
    The other five. Six, total.
    This time. The first time that they knew of.
    Suddenly, it all became clear to Eric. He understood what Manly was up to and knew he had to stop him!
    Manly knew he was risking his life as he raced after the female Pteranodon, but he no longer cared. The story was all that mattered. The bright, shining future he’d been chasing all his life was in his grasp—and he’d get it, no matter the cost.
    The adult flyer settled down, wings flapping, near a small storage shed. The door was open, just a crack. Pitiful chirps and cries drifted out.
    He’d been right. He stopped, drawing from his pockets the small bottle and the wide band of gauze he’d taken from the medical supplies.
    “There weren’t six of you,” Manly whispered. “It was seven all along. That’s why we saw six of you total, but only five at any one time. You’ve got someone wounded, and one of you was always staying with the flyer in the shed. Until dinnertime, anyway. Then you were going to bring him back something to eat.”
    The female spun on him, her great wings kicking up a breeze. She
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ed and launched herself at him.
    Manly responded with an athlete’s reflexes. He pitched the bottle right at the female’s face. It shattered and the female screamed as rubbing alcohol splattered in her eyes, blinding her. Manly snatched up a piece of debris that had fallen from the explosion in the lagoon and smacked her on the side of the head. She collapsed in a heap and he bent beside her, tying her beak closed with the gauze.
    Rising triumphantly, he opened the door to the shed and peered inside. What he saw made him grin ear to ear.
    “You are going to make me a fortune,” Manly said. “On tour, coming to your town, Manly Wilks and—”
    A tap on the shoulder made him nearly jump out of his skin. He spun so fast that he never even saw the blow that sent him reeling to the ground and into complete darkness.

CHAPTER 20

    Eric stared at the figure on the ground. “He’s out cold. How’d you do that?”
    “Ah, he’s got a glass jaw,” Amanda said, rubbing her knuckles. “They always do when they’re that pretty.”
    Eric looked inside and saw the shuddering, golden-winged flyer.
    “He might be dangerous,” Amanda cautioned.
    Eric shook his head. “He’s in too much pain. He looks like he’s been burned somehow.”

    YOUNG PTERANODON
    A sudden fluttering of wings startled the pair. Eric saw flyers coming in from every direction. One settled beside the downed female and tore off the gauze wrapped around her beak.
    The others darted toward them.
    Eric grabbed his mother’s arm and hauled her inside the shed.
    Alan climbed up a pier, water draining from his clothes. The fireworks were over. Only a small pile of rubble was left where the fireworks shed had been.
    He saw all the flyers gathering near another small shed and heard human voices. Stumbling on, he came to the shed just as shooters converged on the scene from all sides. SWAT teams. Local police. Army reservists.
    Eric and Amanda were in the shed. Manly was on the ground, the wobbly female’s hind claw on his back.
    “Don’t shoot!” Alan yelled. “There are people in the way.”
    He looked inside, where Amanda and Eric were talking. She took off the small medical pouch she had strapped on in the first-aid station.
    From within, she drew out a tube of burn cream and gently rubbed it on the wounded flyer’s wings.
    The golden flyer eyed her curiously, with no fear, and chirped happily. The anesthetic in the cream immediately took away the pain.
    “Dr. Grant, get out of the way,” the SWAT