Chapter 388: Sondarm Christian School Visit; Outside

Saturday, July 21, 2007 (Continued) and a little looking ahead.

Getting everyone outside wasn't easy as our security had to do a lot of running around and clearing of a large enough area for us. They were reluctant to start doing that, so the angel had to pull rank on them.

Once that had been carried out and we were gathered outside the front of the hall, I called for the first ten volunteers who had parental permission for a flight. The change of venue made the parents cautious all over again. I guess they feared the Guardian Angel would 'run off' with their kids. It was an accurate fear, as there were a few girls that I'd like to abscond with.

Ten kids had parents who trusted God, so they were the test pilots for today. Unlike inside, where ten people had stood together on a single floating platform, I was going to fly these kids individually, on cut-down flying sleds so they could feel the wind much better. No one knew that, so the test pilots were in for a HUGE and delightful surprise.

I had to keep my physical eyes open so I could carry on with ordinary conversations during the flights, so I only had one sight blob available to coordinate the flying. I'd park it about four hundred feet to one side and two hundred feet up so it would see the entire volume of space I'd be flying the kids around in. Obviously I didn't want to crash kids into each other, but having only one sight blob so far away wasn't nearly as restrictive as you might think, thanks to two things: First, I know exactly where all my NP effects are, so where each kid would be. Second, I was EXTREMELY experienced at flying things around, so I was superb at judging time, distance, velocity and acceleration; including just from the input I was getting by knowing where my NP locations were. I would've preferred to have had several more sight blobs, and in their absence I'd be a little more cautious, but I would still be giving the fliers a FANTASTIC time. I could've done the whole thing without sight if I'd needed to, but it was better to have it so I'd know if any of the kids were upset, were vomiting, or other issues like that.

I grasped the ten test pilots gently and lifted them a few inches to put flying sleds beneath them. I 'strapped' them reasonably firmly to their sleds with bands over their shoulders, waists and thighs, similar to what I do for myself, although when I strapped the girl test pilots, I modified the straps to do an even better job of holding their legs together and their skirts from billowing out, to stop outraging the Christians by giving them a momentary glimpse of panties. And then the ten kids TOOK OFF, individually and in ten different directions, to everyone's amazement.

By the time the crowd had reacted in fear, it was obvious that there was no need for that emotion, as the kids were already zooming, swooping, looping, screaming and laughing all over the sky - "all over" within five hundred feet of me, and with all the extreme maneuvers occurring to the one side of the crowd in case anyone vomited. The crowd was gobsmacked at the spectacle.

The crowd watched with awe, with my family and I doing the same thing for a while. Early in each flight I zoomed every kid into a low-level pass within twenty four feet of me, and from time to time thereafter, so I could check they were emotionally fine. They were VERY fine! They were the ones that'd begged their parents to be test pilots, so they were very thrilled thrill seekers.

I enjoyed looking at the wet-blanket protestors. Good luck on them EVER getting a future Mark Anderson & Guardian Angel appearance canceled.

I turned to one of my neighbors, who was staring at the kids with her mouth wide open, asking her, "So, anything interesting happen to you today?"

"Haha. That's my son Josh in the blue shirt. He's having the time of his life. Thank you VERY much for this."

"I'm not the one to thank. I can toss a little kid a few feet in the air, so this is WAY out of my league. This is all the angel's doing."

I'd asked for ten kids in the first group to make it easier to get things going. I gave them five minutes of flight, landed them all, and thereafter took intakes of twenty, adults and kids in whatever order they volunteered. As each group landed, they'd rush around trying to tell everybody what it'd been like. The kids were so excited that most of them were unable to express how excited they were, but they sure could SMILE!

While the flights were happening, my family and I wandered through the crowd chatting to everyone, with me collecting the names of beautiful girls, especially the ones that flirted with me. The flights were a WILD SUCCESS, especially the "wild" part, and especially the "success" part too. People were ECSTATICALLY blown away from the experience. "The MOST AMAZING experience of my life," was a frequently heard comment from an adult; the Kids being too busy saying, "Can I PLEEEEZE have another turn?"

There'd been eight hundred people at the meeting, which had been the maximum capacity of the school's hall. At 240 flights per hour, I'll be here for about three hours, depending on how many flightless chickens there are. It'll be worth the time investment as this is both a major PR coup and a great leap forward in my being able to fly myself and my loved ones around.

Allowing repeat flights was obviously not practical, but I'm fortunate to have a superb memory and was easily able to recognize people trying to get a second turn. I also had to reject new arrivals. The first to try that were some of the protestors - whom I rejected with pleasure - then others who'd been summoned by cellphone. Within half an hour there were hundreds of visitors eager to get a turn but I'd told our security guards to refuse requests from people outside the cordoned off area that contained the people who'd been inside the hall. Some of the visitors REALLY wanted a flight but it simply wasn't practical. They didn't cause any real problem as we had plenty of security here. Our guards had the job of creating a line of would-be joyriders who were waiting their turn and that was done in the middle of our area, so dozens of yards away from any outsiders. When one group ended its flight, I inspected the line with a sight blob, then the first twenty valid people shot up into the air, leaving any wanting-a-second-ride cheaters behind.

The frustrated cheaters often tried to protest, but there was no one to protest to, our security guards not being overly sympathetic and having no way of influencing the angel's choices. Anyone who came to me to complain I simply told, "It's nothing to do with me. It's the Guardian Angel who is doing the flights." The presence of so many happy people and TV cameras stopped the complainers making too much of a nuisance out of themselves. Another easily avoided group of annoying people were the many hundreds of protestors or spectators who wanted to express their religious views and were determined that I, my family and the TV cameras should all receive the benefit of their 'wisdom'. My family refused to go near any of those people, so they only got to prattle pointlessly at the cameras.

I did have a small issue with kids coming to me who were here without a parent. Most were able to get a parent on a phone, but some were not able to and were distraught at the thought of missing out. I told them to wait while I thought about it. I waited about an hour so it was very well established that this was nothing more than a safe and thrilling experience of a lifetime for everyone, then after one flight landed and the noise level had reduced, I called loudly for everyone's attention and explained, "Lots of kids are coming to me asking for flights when they don't have a parent here to vouch for them. Obviously it isn't a safety issue because the angel is from God, but I think it specified that the kids had to have parental approval because it didn't want to usurp their authority. Can I ask for a show of hands from PARENTS ONLY, for who thinks it would be okay for the angel to give rides to kids who don't have a parent here?"

It was close enough to unanimous, except for a few people had been too busy in their own conversations to hear what I'd said, or had been too Christian to understand the concept of democracy - it's an unnatural process for most Christians because it involves people making up their own minds.

I added, "Not that I EVER did this in my youth, but sometimes kids have been known to tell fibs to get what they want. It's possible that there are kids whose parents have refused permission, and they might lie to me about not having any parents here. Please put your hands up any parents who don't want their children to have a turn?"

Horrifically, there were nearly two dozen such families. Thank God I didn't have parents like that. I got them to identify their kids to make sure the angel would know them. I couldn't see them directly myself because the crowd was too large, but after they'd put their hands up I used a sight blob to get a clear look at them. Then the flights resumed.

I was asked about gentle flights, which was easily solved by making two lines. It resulted in people trying to get one flight from each line, but that never worked.

The TV people that had already been here had already frantically chased after me for interviews and flights of their own. Their interest had been low key inside the hall, but they'd nearly wet themselves once the flights started. To their requests for flights, I said, "Excellent idea. You probably have to stand in the line with everyone else and wait your turn because I imagine that angels are very fair creatures."

When the reporters and cameramen came back to complain that the angel wouldn't give any of them a flight, I just shrugged and said, "I wonder why it wouldn't do that." There was very little "wonder" involved, as I consider media people to be very "unwonderful" individually and even worse collectively. I didn't give them rides simply because I disliked them. As a small additional reason, they are meant to report on the news, not be part of it. Their not getting flights would result in today's event getting slightly less enthusiastic media coverage than it would have otherwise, but it was going to get fantastic coverage anyway so I didn't care. It even proved to be helpful for me when one of the reporters asked me, "Please ask the angel to give us flights."

"Sure," I agreed. I looked up and said loudly to the empty air, "Please give the media people flights."

^-- Nothing happened for a few seconds, so I suggested to the dummies, "You probably have to join the line again."

As it turned out, that didn't help. The subsequent discussion gave me plenty of opportunity to point out that the angel made its own decisions and wasn't under my command even when I agreed that giving the reporters and cameramen flights was an excellent idea.

The reporters had to be content with interviewing me, and that was bad enough. The trouble was that they were excited without having any intelligent way of expressing to it. Their gushing was repetitive and annoying. I gave them five minutes of my polite best, then I told them, "I've got a lot of other people to talk with and you're repeating questions that have already been asked at least once inside the hall or out here, so I've got a new rule for you: any of you that ask me a question I know you've already heard, I'll become deaf to you for the rest of the day. Now carry on." Five minutes later I was fully deaf and couldn't hear any questions, so I wandered off to make sure I hadn't missed any pretty girls.

The first news-chopper arrived over the scene - fortunately at least 500 feet over it - about thirty minutes after the outdoor flights started, with several more choppers arriving over the next hour. I was very pleased with what they were seeing. My family and I were wandering around at ground level chatting to various people unconcernedly, while above us were kids and adults zooming around. I would appear to be totally unconnected as I wasn't even looking up most of the time.

Nevaeh had her flight about one and half hours into the process. Her brother and father were in the line with her, and I wandered in their general direction just before their flight started, pretending not to notice her.

Nevaeh was excited and couldn't help saying, "Mark! Mark! Hello!"

I looked at her blankly for a moment, then said, "Ahh, yours was one of the pictures I bought. I remember how to spell your name but not how to pronounce it. How does it go again?"

"Nevaeh," she pronounced carefully for me, by now taking my hint to be careful.

"Nevaeh?" I ventured. She nodded. "Good. My apologies for not remembering it." It was important that her family believe that I had no interest in her. "I liked both of your paintings. Are you old enough to be in one of the teams that Mom's going put to work?"

"I'm in 11th grade next school year. I'll be trying to get in. There's a lot of competition though. Mrs. Simmons" (the Art teacher) "says that ten people is the limit and I think there'll be more than twenty trying to get in. Even more after this," indicating the current FAR-better-than-Disneyland ride.

"I like your work but I won't be able to influence Mom's decision. That's going to depend on what she thinks of your portfolio." I would've said more, but the angel didn't let me, snatching Nevaeh away because the next flights had started.

The Principal was VERY happy. The day was turning out fantastically and he was swept up in the excitement of it. I'd never seen a happy Principal before, let alone an ecstatic one, and it was good to see how proud he was of his school.

People started asking me, "Where's the angel?", or, "Can we see the angel?"

I answered, "I'm sure it doesn't want to appear in case it causes a panic. A lot of people are very scared of it."

Each time this issue came up, the people I was talking to were increasingly confident that it was okay for the angel to appear. One such discussion caught on, resulting in everyone around me calling on me to get the angel to appear. The current flight of twenty was a gentle one and therefore much quieter, so I didn't have to wait for them to land to address everyone. I got the crowd's attention and put the question. The majority agreed that they wanted the angel to appear. There were some nervous people who'd rather it didn't, but those that wanted it to appear were very vocal.

I agreed, and said to the sky, "Angel, if you haven't appeared because you don't want to cause a panic, everyone says it's okay now so could you appear please?"

I was looking the wrong way so didn't see it happen, but the angel appeared in the middle of the group of protestors, where it certainly did cause a panic. The screaming caused us all to turn to look, to see the angel hovering stationary where it'd appeared, while the screaming protestors were fleeing for their lives. The large group around me laughed, which was a good indication of their sentiments now. Even the unequipped idiots - those people who'd been very fearful earlier in the hall but had not been equipped with eggs - had calmed down a great deal by now.

When it was apparent that the Guardian Angel was going to stay immobile in the newly cleared area, I said, "I guess it'll stay there and anyone who wants to can go over there to have a close look at it. Those of you who're concerned are safe here. Having said that, if there are any pretty girls who need a comforting hug, I'll be right here." Not only had I made a thoroughly immoral joke in front of Christian parents, but they'd laughed, THAT'S how well the meeting was going!

That wasn't the only reaction either, every girl in the school suddenly felt an overwhelming need for a comforting hug. I'd created a monster. Oh no.

I'd been aloof before, so nearly all the girls had behaved themselves. Those that had flirted with me hadn't received any more than the same attention and attitude I was giving everyone, although I had made sure I'd gotten and remembered the names of the good looking ones. Extending my invitation for a hug opened the floodgates. The flood would have to behave itself in front of their parents and so many other adults, but they found ways of letting me know they were interested. And almost all of them were. Literally "almost all". Either Christian girls are INCREDIBLY loose, or it's much easier to pickup girls when:

• You're worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

• You're their peer but can hold the attention of a thousand people for hours (you'd be surprised how strongly this factor influences mid- to late-teenage girls).

• Are funny (I had been! I'd downgraded the level of refinement usually inherent in my jokes).

• Are reasonably good looking.

• Are world famous, as very strongly indicated by the several TV choppers flying overhead right now because of me.

• Have God on your side.

• The girls' parents had laughed at your hugging joke, which was an INCREDIBLY high level of sexual contact approval for Christian parents. The girls were giddy with excitement at what that implied their parents might permit after only thirty or forty more dates.

I received many hugs until I left. I lost track of how many breasts were rubbed against me (no I didn't, but writing, "I kept track of how many breasts were rubbed against me," doesn't convey the right impression. I'm especially conscious of right impressions, although left ones are good too). Nevaeh tried to be one of the breast rubbers, but I frowned at her and shook my head enough to remind her to behave herself. I'll make up for it later by letting her rub them on me twice, or even more times if I'm feeling especially apologetic.

I did not reciprocate with any of the scandalously immoral girls. I did not hug them back, did not give out my phone number, didn't ask for theirs, and I especially did not rub my breasts against their arms. There were far too many parents around and I needed them to trust me enough to send their kids to my home. That meant I had to be squeaky clean.

If a girl recited her phone number at me, I remembered it. That happens almost automatically if I pay any attention as my memory is extraordinary these days. I also made sure I had the names of the pretty girls who seemed particularly forward, because if I'm going to play around with girls, ones who make it clear that they want to play around with me are the perfect choice.

It took a few minutes for the girls to get organized, but soon they turned up with notes and stuck them into my pocket while grabbing a comfort-hug from me. I'd pull the notes out, always in a way that had them open. If they'd been folded a few times, I usually had to use NP to do some unfolding inside my pocket first. I'd apologetically pass the notes back without even looking at them, except by a quick sight blob while I did a slow blink. Thus I memorized even more numbers and some very promising offers, while the eagle-eyed parents saw me behaving like a VERY well-behaved gentleman. It had the unfortunate affect of discouraging some of the other girls from passing me notes, but no plan is perfect.

I was amused by the moral dilemma that confronted the girls over whether or not to make an "encouraging comment" on their notes. The usual "I'll do ANYTHING you want" would seem a somewhat inappropriate offer to make to a guy who lived with an angel looking over his shoulder. That'd be almost as bad as making an indecent proposition to Jesus. But not standing out from the crowd was doomed to fail too.

The tactics employed ranged from far too much religiously inspired crap, to hearts drawn on their notes, through to explicit descriptions of exactly what the 'everything' they wanted to do with me was. Most notes just provided a name and number, which I thought was a poor choice under the circumstances, especially when they shouldn't expect me to be able to put faces to names when I read the notes later. (It was only a poor choice under the current circumstances. Normally any girl just needs to let any guy knows she's available and he'll frantically pursue her, even if he can't remember what she looks like.)

Regardless of their chosen tactic, I remembered them all, even the girls that had tried to attract me by using religious crap since the Guardian Angel made their panties very accessible. I even remembered the unattractive girls' numbers as there was no reason not to and maybe they might be useful as camouflage to throw off parental suspicions.

The people who came back from visiting the angel essentially said that it was boring. They didn't say it that way, but that's what they meant.

I replied, "I hardly ever interact with it directly myself so I don't know much about this. Maybe it's being cautious or maybe it's concentrating on flying the people safely. My best guess though, is that it simply doesn't want to interact with anyone. The other angels said that Guardian Angels are very single-minded, so guarding me is the only thing it's interested in doing. Flying people around is part of that because it's easing tensions wonderfully. It's quite possible that it thinks my safety won't be increased by it doing anything more, so it's doing nothing. Remember that this is a GUARDIAN Angel. God sent it here to guard me and that's all."

They weren't particularly happy with the answer, but they were welcome to complain to the angel if they wanted.

Dad wandered over and asked me, "What do you think of the family having a flight? Donna's busting a gut to get one."

"Yeah, she's mentioned that to me two or three thousand times already." Mom, Dad and Carol have had several flights already, mostly in the days of innocence when we used to have dawn breakfasts up on the Cascades, but Donna hadn't even known about those, so she was BEGGING for a flight today. She'd been begging ever since I explained the flying aspect of my plan. I'd agreed of course - it suited my long-term plan and Donna would never forgive me if I refused her - but I joked about her begging me now so the people around me would have reinforced the impression that these flights were unplanned. The only reason Donna hadn't already had a flight today was because I preferred the family to have ours near the end. "Let's ask Mom and Carol, and then find out whether the angel will take us."

It was a good time to discuss our flights with the females as a newly arrived TV news-crew was interviewing Donna and Carol, and I had an idea for something I wanted to do which would be good to have captured on film and hopefully broadcast.

We collected Mom first, then joined my sisters. I lied, "Sorry to interrupt. Carol, Donna; Dad suggested I ask the angel about the family having a flight too. Would that appeal to you?"

I'd tapped them twice on the head as I asked my question. By then Donna was already flying, leaping at me in excitement. Carol gave a more demure agreement.

Mom only partially acted worried, saying, "I don't want a scary flight."

I'd intended to get the reporter curious by asking the angel for our flight simply by standing where I was and asking quietly, ignoring the fact that the light blob that everyone thought was the angel was a couple of hundred feet behind me, but Mom's comment served as a good lead into making the same point, so I used it by saying, "It would've heard you say that, Mom."

I saw the reporter look to check the distant location of the angel, then turned back to me. A polite person wouldn't have intruded on our conversation, so the reporter talked into her microphone when she asked me, "Mark Anderson, how could the angel have heard your mother's comment from so far away?" Then she shoved the mic into my face.

"Because the angel will be hovering right over my head."

The reporter and camera immediately looked up, seeing nothing; just a couple dozen people flying through the air, which was no big deal by now. They both looked back at me, the reporter checking the remote Guardian Angel again.

She asked me, "It's over by the corner of the hall."

She pointed, so I glanced in the direction indicated, then looked back at her to say, "Sure. But God told it to protect me, so it'll be hovering over my head too. Don't you watch your own network's news? They've shown clips of the angel being in two places at once."

She hadn't been here long, and was nervous at the idea of the Guardian Angel hovering above her. She nervously asked, "There are two of them?"

"No, there's only one. The emails the other angels sent about the Guardian Angel made it clear there was only one of them being sent to me. It can be in multiple places at once is all. God is omnipresent, so why can't you accept that an angel can do a much-reduced version of the same thing?"

She didn't want to discuss her religious beliefs, instead asking, "How many places can it be in?"

"I have no idea. I didn't know it could be in two until I saw it on the news..."

#15: <When Ava was shot we created a lot of light blobs, but only the FBI might've filmed those.>

#1: <I wasn't intending to mention them. I just wanted to plant the seed that there's ALWAYS an angel guarding us.>

#All: <Agreed.>

" ... I'm just using logic to tell me that it'll ALWAYS be guarding me closely even if it's elsewhere as well. God gave it the job of guarding me and I can't imagine that it'd take its eyes off me for any reason. The other angels did say that Guardian Angels are extraordinarily single-minded. Let's put it to the test shall we." I lifted my head slightly to speak to the air above me, "When the current fliers are finished, if it's okay with you, would you please take my family and me for a flight. Go slowly with Mom please because she's getting old and cautious."

Mom laughed and gave me a hug that I returned, because that's what we do in front of cameras.

I said, "I'll get back to the people I was talking to before. Sorry to interrupt."

I walked off, as did Mom and Dad in another direction, leaving a somewhat confused reporter behind.

When the current flight ended, from wherever we were standing, my family and I shot up into the air, proving that there had indeed been a Guardian Angel hovering near us at the time of my request.

I'd been thinking about what to do during the flight. For example, use the Blinks Allowed Effect to send Donna upward fast enough to reach three thousand feet or so before her sled canceled. She'd freefall down, where I'd catch her - obviously! She'd love that, but there were too many helicopters overhead to risk it. Showing off with some family formation flying seemed trite and I couldn't think of any benefit to it either, so that was another idea scrubbed. I'd decided that this was a perfect time for the news-crews to record me learning how to control my direction like the lifeguards had. Doubtless every camera would be on us and mostly on me, so it'd be well recorded.

For the first minute of our flight, I put us through the usual individual swoops, loops, etc., with due regard to Mom's advanced age, and even faster for Donna and Dad because I sensed they loved it so much.

Then I spoke, asking the angel to let me control myself the same as the lifeguards had. No one could hear what I was saying as I was using a normal tone, but I was saying it out loud in case there were any cameras zoomed in on my face. I positioned my right fist half extended above my right shoulder, said, "Starting from now." Then I started learning how to control my flight. I was erratic, and a couple of times pulled my fist back too far causing me to brake too hard and I had trouble matching velocity with others of my family.

By the end of the five minutes, I was getting pretty good at it. In fact, I was so good that I decided to try to land myself. Landing was apparently tricky, as I made a bit of a mess out of it. Oh well, I guess I'll have to practice.

I'd only just recovered my balance when Donna came charging at me to leap into my arms to thank me. She was WILDLY excited. So much so that her leap was very unladylike - young ladies shouldn't throw their legs around men's hips like that. I caught her, letting everything Donna intended happen except using EKP to make her kiss miss my mouth and land on my cheek instead. I hugged her while she raved about how wonderful it'd been.

After about five seconds, I lifted her off while telling her, "Let's check on the others." I put her down, put my arm around her shoulders, and we walked to where Mom, Dad and Carol had landed. Donna had landed there too, but my landing had been so bad I'd missed landing with the others and had wobbled along the ground for several yards before getting down, so Donna had sprinted after me.

A reporter was even so useful as to intrude on our reunion to ask several questions, including asking me, "Why was your flight so different from the rest of your family's?"

"Archangel Michael let the lifeguards in LA control their flight by using their right hand. They described it quite well afterward and I thought I'd try to use the same system. It's trickier than I thought, especially the landing. I REALLY hope I can talk the angel into letting me keep practicing because it'd be fantastic to be able to fly wherever I wanted."