Free Whales on Stilts! by M.T. Anderson Page B

with them.
    Of course, the manatees weren’t on stilts but wore small helipacks. The sound of those little helicopter blades chuddering in the summer air was overwhelming. It takes a lot to lift a manatee. You couldn’t hear anything but the sound of them flying in their swarms while people honked their horns or ran for cover, weeping like babies.
    I had a friend who had also lived through a starfish attack, and during the manatee assault he pretty near fell apart. We were hiding in the frozen-food aisle of the Third Avenue Halt ’n’ Buy. The manatees were buzzing around the parking lot just outside. My friend screamed and began to jump up and down on boxes of Mrs. Paul’s Fish Sticks.

    We all have our ways of dealing with stress.
    When Lily’s father panicked, he really panicked. He was trying to coax her and her mother to go down to their “bomb shelter.” The “bomb shelter” had been set up by a couple that had lived in the house in the 1960s.
    â€œCome on!” said her dad. “We’ll take the radio!” He stuffed his arms with magazines and cushions. “We can hear about what happens.” He disappeared around the corner. “I’m going to grab some shirts!”
    â€œHoney,” said Lily’s mother, “I’m not going down there.”
    â€œYou’ll be safe! You’ll be safe down there! Come on!”
    â€œAll that’s down there is the Ping-Pong table. How will the Ping-Pong table keep us safe?”
    â€œWe can play Ping-Pong until this whole thing blows over. And eat canned food.”
    â€œI’m not eating the canned food. The canned food expired during the Cold War.”
    â€œWell, Lily, will you—”
    Lily’s dad skidded back into the room. Her dad and mom looked around.
    â€œLily?” they said. “Lily?”
    But Lily was gone.

Lily was not in the living room because she had darted out the front door. She was already riding her bike down to Smogascoggin Bay. Everything was crazy down there. People flew past in their cars, usually 1950s cars, escaping. The whales had walked right through a vintage car rally. People fled past Lily. Many of the cars had fins, and were pink or green, and women in head scarves drove them, pointing backward and going, “AIEEEEE!”
    Swaying above them all, outlined against the fresh morning sky, were the ominous shapes of the whales. They towered thirty feet high, their eyes glowing. They had spread their flukes.They drooled from their wet baleen. They bared their teeth (those that had them).
    Lily stopped on her bike and stood for a second at the crest of a hill. She stared with horror at the scene of destruction in the valley before her.
    The huge mammals had stomped through the center of town. Behind them, down near the bay, was the business district of Pelt, the streets rucked like rugs with whale stilt prints. On the site of the Abandoned Warehouse was a giant pyramid-shaped antenna. Lily could just barely see the radio waves spreading out from it in circular ripples.
    The whales did whatever the radio tower commanded. They stepped on used car dealerships and a putt-putt golf course.
    The town was behind them; they were heading across the pasturelands of outermost Pelt. They burned down trees in a trice with their laser-beam eyes. They stalked in rows through the countryside.
    The cows were panicked. People in farmhouses screamed from their windows. Families were in Ford trucks, banging past Lily on dirt roads. Dogs barked crazily.
    Lily stood, one foot on the ground, one on the pedal of her bike, calculating.... The whales weren’t headed her way.
    They were headed for Decentville....
Why there?
she asked herself. And then she realized— right past Decentville was the state capital.
    Lily could only imagine what would happen if they reached the capital. They could take the whole state senate captive. They could hold the governor for ransom. Who