Again there was a pause while the government people waited for us to jump up and down with excitement over the idea of going to school.School was, of course, an unfortunate word choice on their part.

“To what end?” My voice was clear, no wavering.

“Excuse me?” The younger woman looked at me.

“What would you guys get out of it?” I asked. “Besides the sheer joy of helping us fulfill our potential.”

“We would get to study you, frankly,” said a tall, lean man who, I kid you not, looked just like Bill Nye the Science Guy. “You’re like nothing we’ve ever seen before. The idea that human children can actually fly is mind-blowing. While you’re at the school, we could study you, understand the physical changes that enable you to fly.”

“To what end?” I asked again. “So that you can make more of us?”

The man looked genuinely surprised. “No,” he said. “Just to… understand.”

I decided I liked him. Too bad he was one of Them.

“Okay, say you get to study us,” I said agreeably. “Somehow you get us to believe that it wouldn’t be acomplete nightmare for us to be hooked up to sensors while we run on treadmills, or to hold our own in wind tunnels while you film us flying. Then what?”

Silence.

9

AN OLDER MAN with the collar stars of a general spoke next. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, whatelse? ” I said. “You study us; you get the warmfuzzies from helping us with all that potential we have lying around. What else do you want from us?”

The general’s blue eyes were cold and intelligent in a ruddy, grandfatherly face.

“What makes you think there would be something else?” he asked.