11
You know what the best feeling in the world is? Flying through the sky at about 11:00 at night. It's totally black and the only time I can see my flock is if they fly in front of the moon. We can be totally hidden, but we can see perfectly thanks to our night vision. It's also one of the only times it's actually peaceful, which might have been why I was day dreaming about it.
In reality, it is about two in the afternoon and it's anything but peaceful. As always it's Butterfly talking about something random, and Cloud her telling to shut it. Those two are at each other constantly and they always come to me to solve their conflicts. Which I have to do, me being the leader and all.
Okay, I suppose now is as good a time as any to explain things. First of all, just to clear things up, I've never done anything like this, so forgive me if it's horrible. Please, just try and understand what I'm trying to tell you. All right, my flock is made up of me (Feather), I'm 14, Cloud, who's 10, and Butterfly, who's 8. It's a small group, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Now, about the whole flying thing, yes, we do have wings, and yes, we can fly. We were experimented on and ended up 97 human and 3 bird. It's amazing that any of us can even think and that the only bird part of us is the wings. Apparently, we weren't supposed to survive past, like, two years old, and if we did we were supposed to have feathers and bird feet, or something like that. But, we obviously made it past two, and we look completely normal, except for, you know, the wings.
So anyway, we're flying over Virginia when Cloud starts complaining that she's hungry. Then, of course, Butterfly starts too. After a while I just couldn't take it.
"Okay! We'll stop somewhere! Just stop complaining!" I say irritably. Their cheers don't help anything either. "All right, when we land, we have to be super quiet and try to blend."
"Yeah, okay, whatever," Cloud says. "Oh, can we go to McDonalds? I want ice cream, and French fries, and pie, and…" I can tell that most of what I had said had gone in one ear and out the other.
Finally we spot a town that, thank goodness, has a McDonalds. Gracefully we land, pulling in our wings and covering them with our jackets. I spot the MickeyD's and motion the other two over.
"Alright, there's the McDonalds. Remember, try to BLEND!" We walk in, me trying to be casual, acting like, "Wings, me? Ha, that's funny!"
"OMG, this is like heaven!" Butterfly murmurs as she looks around excitedly.
"I know! There's like, real people, eating real food that they paid for with real money!" Cloud squeals. Which reminds me; we have no way to pay for this.
"Cloud, what else would it be? Fake people, eating fake food, and paying with fake money?" I ask sarcastically. She narrows her eyes at me.
"Okay guys, we came here to eat, and that's all," I say. We get in line and start looking over the menu board.
"Hello, and welcome to McDonalds. May I help you?" the person at the register says sweetly.
"Um, yeah, I'd like the double cheeseburger, a medium French fry, and a medium chocolate shake."
"And I want that six piece chicken nugget thing, with a small fry, and a small soda."
"I'd like a salad with ranch dressing, small fries, and a small drink, please." Butterfly smiles angelically up at the cashier.
"Okay, the total comes to 27.73."
"Um, just a second." Come on Feather, think fast! You've got two hungry girls depending on you. I thought. What are you going to do?
"Um, excuse me miss, but you need to pay now, or no food." The cashier doesn't sound so sweet anymore.
"I'll pay for them." A teenage boy and a younger girl walk up to the register. He hands her some money, thanks her, and walks away. It wasn't until they start heading toward us that I start to panic.
"Umm, th-thanks for paying for us," I mumble.
"Oh, no problem. I'm Matt, and this is my little sister, Angel," the girl, who looks to be about Cloud's age, smiles and waves shyly. "Sorry, Angel really doesn't talk much."
"It's okay. Oh, and I'm…" as I am about to introduce myself, Matt interrupts me.
"You're Feather, I know. And you're Cloud, and you're Butterfly," my jaw drops briefly. I quickly shut it again.
"How, how do you know that?" I am completely baffled, something that doesn't happen very often.
Matt looks around and then whispers, "Grab your food and follow me." Strangely, I decide to trust him, so we take our food and leave.
We start walking towards the woods. The three of us are eating our wonderful, delicious food. (As you can see, we really don't get out much.) I'm so lost in the food that I almost don't notice that we stopped.
"Where are we?" as I speak I look around and realize we're in a cave of sorts.
"Well, it's a cave, and it's, umm, well, it's kind of our house," Matt whispers, embarrassed that we have to see this.
"Ummm, why don't you just live in a normal house?" Okay, I'm really not trying to be rude or anything, it's just that my stupid curiosity got the better of me.
"Because of these," and let me tell you, I had thought I was shocked before! After Matt said that both him and Angel take off their jackets and whip out, get this, wings.
Boy, are we surprised at that! Their wings overlap each other, because of the size of the cave and all, but of what we can see of them, they look awesome. Angel's are almost completely white, except for a few gray feathers underneath. And Matt's, oh wow, they are so cool. They are pitch black with silver streaks running through them.
Now, I'm not saying that theirs are any cooler than ours. Butterfly's are almost multicolored. They're mostly white, with brown, black, gray, and tan streaks. Cloud's are light gray with black under feathers. Mine are dark brown with white streaks and tan under feathers. So, all-in-all, I think we tie on wing coolness.
"Wow! OMG! I thought we were the only bird people ever! Now here you are, and here we are and WOW! Now we can, like, join together, and like, like, live together, and stuff!" Butterfly says, jumping up and down. "We will stay with them, right Feather?"
"Uh, yeah, if it's okay with them," I say, hesitantly.
"First, I want to see your wings. Then, probably," Matt demands.
"Fine," I sigh. We take off our jackets. "But you might want to stand back," with that, whoosh, three pairs of wings whip out. There are now five pairs of wings out in this little, bitty cave, and let me tell you, I'm getting very impatient. "There, is that good enough for you?" I say impatiently.
"Yeah, yeah it is. Okay, you guys can stay," Butterfly, Cloud, and even Angel start cheering. Matt and I smile at each other. Inside I'm wondering if this is such a good idea. Obviously Butterfly is happy, and Cloud and Angel seem to be getting along already. I just don't know if I'm ready to deal with two more people, especially with one of them being a boy. I mean, he seems nice and he is kind of cute, but am I really ready to handle more people?
2
It's a couple of hours later and we're all sitting around the cave.
"So, I was just wondering, how did you pay for the food back there?" I ask.
"Um, with money, what else would I use?" Matt says cautiously.
"What she means is, how did you get the money you used to pay?" Cloud explains.
"Yeah, that's exactly what I meant," I grumble.
"Umm, well, we kind of, umm, borrowed the money. From some guy we met. He saw us and asked us if we needed money. We said yes and he gave us some," Matt lies.
"You know, you really are a horrible liar. You didn't borrow that money; you stole it, didn't you?" I accuse harshly.
"Yeah," Matt says sheepishly as he hangs his head and blushes.
"Oh it's okay! We've done much worse things than that before!" Butterfly exclaims. Cloud and I turn and glare at her. Butterfly looks at us, realizes her mistake, and claps her hand over her mouth. "Whoops! I guess I wasn't supposed to say that! But c'mon guys, you know it's true," Butterfly tries to save herself.
"Yeah, it might be true, but you don't have to go and blab it all over the place!" Cloud hisses. By this time, we're all speaking in hushed tones.
"Uh, guys? We can still hear you. This cave is too small for secrets," Matt says. "Besides, since we're all living together now, there is really no need for secrets, right?"
"Yeah, that's a good idea," shy Angel speaks up for the first time. "I like us all living together, I would hate for it to be ruined by secrets." That is the longest thing I have ever heard Angel say.
"I totally agree with Angel!" Cloud exclaims. Of course, that prompts Butterfly to say, "Me two!" Soon, everyone is looking at me.
"Fine, whatever you say," I mutter. I'm so not used to sharing my role as leader.
"Good, now that that's settled, what should we do next?" Matt asks. The three girls huddle around him and soon they start playing some game I've never seen before.
"Hey Feather, do you want to come and join us?" Cloud asks. I shake my head. "Oh, c'mon! It's really fun, and easy to learn!" grumbling, I make
my way over to the circle. As we start playing the game again, I seriously start to wonder why I joined in on this stupid child's game anyway. Then I get a genius idea, let Matt take care of the entertainment, and the money, and then I will be free to make plans of how to keep hidden, and find food and places to live and more leaderish things like that. I'm so please with my idea that I keep playing with all of them, even joining in on the laughter every once in a while. Every now and again Matt glances over at me and smiles sweetly. Sometimes I can't help but smile back. The more time I spend with them, the more I start to like him and Angel. They're both so laid-back and well-behaved, unlike the two animals I've been living with.