O,” I SAID, APPALLED. “No — that can’t be true. I’m not ready!”

“I don’t care if you’re ready or not.” Gazzy’s voice, irritated, crept into my consciousness. “Don’t forget this was your idea.”

My eyes blinked open fast, and I almost leaped into a sitting position. I stared at Gazzy, confused, afraid to look around and see Dylan lounging somewhere, a knowing smile on his face,

Oh, jeez. I’d fallen asleep on the couch. Good lord, my subconscious was doing another number on me. I frowned. At least I hoped it was my subconscious.

“Coming,” I groaned, getting up off the couch. We were on day three of our homeschooling program, and so far it felt like I was stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits of higher education. So today we were going to try to get out and “spread our wings,” so to speak. On a field trip.

Forty-five minutes later we were reducing altitude, getting ready to land in a park in the closest big city to our house. (I can’t reveal more about the locale for privacy reasons, you understand.)

“Why can’t we go to the NASCAR track?” Gazzy whined. “I think there’s a lot more that we could learn there.”

Fang nodded. “Gotta agree with Gazzy on that one. Physics. Geometry. Marketing, Advertising. Sociology.”

“You’re just lucky I’m not sending you guys to the zoo. You’ll take the art museum and love it.”

“I just don’t get what bird kids need to know about art,” Iggy said grumpily. Okay, so Iggy had a good reason to be complaining, what with not being able to see art and all.

“Well, I don’t either, to tell you the truth. That’s the whole point. There’s a reason that people flock to look at a bunch of useless things sitting in a building. We’re going to find out what it is.”

We landed in a grassy clearing away from the walking paths, then sauntered over to the nearby art institute. “Aren’t you afraid someone might find us here?” Nudge asked, looking warily at the school buses pulling up to the parking lot.

“I think an art museum is the last place in the world you’d look to find a bird kid.”

The reason? We’d never been to one. Didn’t seem like the place to head for survival. Now that I was actually in one, I saw that I’d been way off base.

Clean bathrooms. Cafeteria. Dozens of deserted corners, galleries, hallways, and back stairs where you could hide for hours, maybe even days. Outdoor courtyards for flying exercise. Huge mega-galleries with two-story-high ceilings that would be great for indoor flying. In an emergency, weapons would be available in the hall of medieval armor. The educational center had computers and books, and the gift shop had cool stuff for the younger kids — puzzles, games, arts and crafts …

Fang interrupted my reverie. “So what’s the plan?”

“Stay in pairs,” I directed. “Nudge and Angel, Gazzy and Iggy —”

“And Fang and Max,” Iggy finished in a mocking singsongy voice.

I ignored him. “Meet back here at the ticket desk in an hour and a half. And come with answers to these questions.” I pulled out a piece of paper I’d jotted notes on earlier in the day. “Okay. Each of you should tell us something you learned about history, about yourself, and about one or more of us.”

The flock looked at me blankly.

“We only have an hour and a half to practically discover, like, the meaning of life?” Fang asked.

“Why not? We’ve had to do harder stuff to survive,” I pointed out. “And besides — you never know. Someday we might have only a few seconds to figure out the meaning of life.”