Ravenspell Book 3: Freaky Fly Day by David Farland Page A

tried to look out the window to see the cloud ahead, but she couldn’t really see anything until the jet suddenly banked hard to the left and dove.
    Amber glimpsed the cloud. It wasn’t gray but black—as black as if it were formed of millions of bits of rock instead of ice.
    But what was weirder was the shape. It wasn’t billowy like just any cloud. There was symmetry to it, as if it were showing two sides of something. There were bulbs on top, and a narrow part that might have been a tube, and beneath it was a long tube with a moplike ending.
    Suddenly Serena shouted, “Hey, that cloud looks just like a giant housefly!”
    Millions of black dots began to move, and the cloud shifted, moving toward them, speeding to intercept them even though their pilot had changed course.
    “Those flies can’t possibly move as fast as this jet!” Ben said, leaping to Amber’s side.
    Suddenly there was a grinding noise. The jet shuddered and slowed as if it had been grasped by a giant hand. The engines stuttered to a halt.
    In the cockpit, the captain yelped in frustration.
    The enormous cloud fly loomed closer, and the moplike ending of its mouth came open.
    The cloud lunged, swallowing the jet whole.
    Ben’s dad started screaming like a girl.
    Millions of flies surrounded the jet, swarming onto the plane’s frame, grabbing onto the wings. Their droning carried even through the thick glass windows. The plane shuddered and began to alter course, veering south and east.
    “They’re hijacking the plane!” Ben warned.
    “We’re being fly-jacked?” Amber asked.
    But as soon as Ben spoke, the plane’s left wing tilted down then soared back up. The plane began to rock in midair.
    “Wait,” Ben yelled, “they’re trying to tear the wings off!”
    Butch slapped himself on the forehead. “Who would have ever thought it—having my wings torn off by a fly?”
    “Do something!” Ben’s mom screamed.
    Ben looked to Amber, and she frowned in frustration. It was too soon for her to use her powers. Still, Amber wondered if she should try.
    Lady Blackpool stood calmly upon the armrest of her chair. “Let them take us,” she warned Amber. “Don’t try to stop them. It requires great power for our enemy to stop this machine, magical energy that Belle Z. Bug will no longer have in battle! Let her waste her powers, and then I will deal with her more easily—face-to-face!”
    A fly slammed into the window above Amber and sat for a second.
    “Look at that one,” Serena shouted joyously. “It’s wearing fly-shadow and mask-era and wing wax. Have you ever seen such a beautiful bombardier fly?”
    Amber had to admit, the fly did have startlingly bright eyes and a pretty face. But then the wind caught the little bugger and whipped it away.
    The jet engines whined and surged back to life. The captain was desperately trying to escape. The plane groaned forward, trying to break from the grasp of a million flies. There were clouds of them, buzzing all around.
    Serena translated the buzzing. “Lady Blackpool, the flies are out to capture you all!”
    “Climb higher!” Ben shouted to the pilot. “Flies hate the cold. Try to climb higher!”
    Amber wasn’t sure if the pilot could hear him, but suddenly the jet throbbed and climbed, angling up. The jet engines sucked in flies by the tens of thousands and then spat out fly-burgers!
    “Gross!” Ben’s mom said.
    Butch covered her eyes with one hand. “Don’t look, darling. It will give you nightmares!”
    The plane shuddered and trembled. The flies tried to hold on, but the jet was moving too fast. Flies began to peel off the wings in layers, huge rafts of them.
    The plane rumbled, nearly free, and soared up into the sky. It raced through a cloud of flies so black that it seemed to be night outside.
    “Hooray!” the mice cried.
    “What a relief!” Serena shouted.
    But Lady Blackpool seemed to be in shock. She stood there gaping. “I don’t understand,” she said. “This is