39 Flying

39 Flying Peanut and Rockwell stood six metres apart facing down the slope. Little-Bit was strapped to her sister's back in a hastily painted harness and Doodle was facing forwards in a similarly sketchy papoose on Rockwell's chest. The classmates were holding on to the bottom side of a marker-pen triangle, the top point of which was connected to a large, flat, arrowhead-shaped wing. Several other thin pencil lines ran, seemingly randomly, between the

passengers and various points on the wing. Rockwell had told Peanut that they were very important for stability'. Peanut looked across. 'You ready?' 'Not really,' stammered Rockwell. He felt exactly the same way as he did the time his dad made him jump off the middle diving board at the swimming pool. 'Just trust in the physics.' 'Yes, all right, Einstein. Let's just get it over with, shall we?' Peanut was feeling more nervous than she wanted to admit. 'OK. Here we go. After three, we run as fast as we can towards the edge of the cliff and we jump off. Peanut took a deep breath. ' ONE... TWO... THREE!' Neither of them moved.

'Peanut, I don't think I can do it. My legs don't seem to be working. 'Mine are a bit shaky too.' She felt a shudder of fear that seemed to belong to someone else. Suddenly they heard a noise from further up the slope. They turned to see several silvery objects moving very quickly towards them across the snow, all of them emitting a familiar, high-pitched sound. 'Are they... men?' shouted Rockwell. 'Whatever they are,' replied Peanut, 'I think it's time we left. LET'S GO!' The two children ran as fast as they could down the hill. The huge wings felt as light as a feather one second and then as heavy as a rock the next, but the steepness of the slope was in their favour. As they approached the edge of the cliff, every

instinct Rockwell had was telling him to throw himself to the ground, but somehow he kept going. By the time they reached the edge, they were travelling at such a speed that he couldn't have stopped even if he had wanted to. And then the ground disappeared from beneath their feet. They didn't drop an inch. They just kept on moving forwards, legs still pumping furiously in the air. 'WE'RE FLYING!' Peanut laughed. 'IT WORKED!' shouted Rockwell. As they sailed over the abyss, everything suddenly felt very calm. The world opened up below them and the only sound was the quiet rush of the wind as it moved across the wings. Little-Bit looked behind them. Twelve tall, silver robots come to a stop on the clifftop above the broken bridge. They appeared to be floating about thirty centimetres above the ground and their eyes were glowing bright red. Peanut, I think those things chasing us might be...' 'RAZERs...' said Peanut. ' I think they know we're here.