B23C13 - Helicopter Grab

The cop car took off. In a second we'd pass the cab. No! A sudden turn, and the cab and police car were separating at a rapid clip. Too fast for us to keep our wings open. We were moving at fifty, maybe sixty miles an hour. We closed our wings and hunkered down as close to the bar as we could crouch. I tucked my head low and kept my tail feathers tightly closed.

Now we were just alongside the airport. Another jet, a smaller one this time, was readying for takeoff. But before it gathered speed, something much smaller rose from the tarmac.

A helicopter.

The helicopter lifted off and headed at right angles to us. It was going the same direction as the cab.

<I have another really bad idea,> I said.

<No.>

<I'm doing it!> I yelled.

<How do I do it?> Rachel screamed.

<Time it! Release. Just a little tail for lift, barely open your wings, use your head to turn!>

<When?>

<NOW!>

I released my grip. I opened my tail feathers and cocked them ever so slightly upward. So little wing that my wings might as well have been tail fins of a rocket.

And a good thing, too, because I was a rocket.

I blew through the air like a feather missile, catching just enough lift, turning with only a slight movement of my head . . .

I shot up beneath the helicopter, swerved to match its direction, rolled over on my back, opened my talons, and . . .

<Ooowwww!> I took the jolt as my talons closed around the strut of the landing skid.

Rachel was just behind me. She turned and opened her talons, but she hadn't prepared for the severe downdraft of wind from the helicopter's rotors.

A miss!

Rachel's talons missed their mark, and she wasn't going to get another shot.

<I'll see you later!> I yelled to her.

<Not much later,> she laughed. <Take a look. The cab pulled in down there.>

I had pulled off a completely impossible move. For absolutely no reason.

<It was still way cool,> Rachel said. But she laughed some more as I released my hard-won grip on the helicopter and floated in embarrassment toward the dirt field where the cab was now disgorging Aria.