"Max, Max! Are you looking, look, look!" Angel shrieked, nearly causing me to drop out of the sky from pure exhaustion.

Rubbing at my eyes for a moment I stifled a yawn, these past few nights I hadn't gotten any sleep, none of us had. But being the leader, I'm the one who has to suck it up and deal, while hoping that one of the younger ones will give in before you do.

Believe it or not, it works.

"Max!" It was Angel, again. It was completely unlike her to be acting this way, normally Nudge was the over excited, way too perky one, to such a point that we all developed almost a reflex to deal with her extra energy. Just pretend to be interested and gently encourage her until she reaches a point of exhaustion. She's never really caught on.

It's the only way to handle Nudge; believe me, we've searched numerous times for a button, switch, anything to turn her off, with no success.

I finally looked over at Angel to see her sticking one leg awkwardly in the air when she flew, a wide grin across her face. My eyes flickered down, and there it was; the nearly rotting laces of her grubby sneaker were tied together in a knot.

I couldn't help but let her contagious grin spread onto mine, let's face it. Angel isn't exactly a normal kid, none of us are, but for her to have the normal accomplishment of learning how to tie her shoe was a pretty big deal.

At least a pretty big deal for the proud six year old, so God knows why I was just as pleased as she was.

"Wow, Angel, that's awesome!" I encouraged as I edged as close as I could get to her without bumping wings. Even if I could care less about whatever made her happy, it was my duty to boost her confidence, no matter what.

Nudge learned how to talk with her lips tightly shut, nice Nudge! I mean, maybe it would be more useful to stop talking altogether, but if you want to be a ventriloquist, go for it! Iggy broke his lock-picking record by nine seconds, no way Iggy! Although it doesn't seem that picking locks will get you far in life, what do I know?

I guess one of the few good things the white coats must have messed with is my instincts; apparently I'm over-protective of these kids sometimes. But then again, I would hate to give them that much credit.

"Thanks," Angel replied shyly, letting her tied shoe finally fall back beside her untied one, her usual personality returning before disappearing as fast as it had came, "So does this mean I can get new shoes?"

Fang shot me a knowing look.

"You promised!" She insisted, letting her wings beat a little faster to keep up with me. I love Angel and everything, but I swear if I had promised her a bath or something necessary, she'd forget about it within a minute. But then when I promise her a new pair of shoes if she learned how to tie them, she wouldn't let me forget it if her life depended on it.

Figures.

"Um, yeah, I guess it does," I replied, shaking some loose hair out of my face, glancing over towards Fang out of the corner of my eye. If Angel wasn't so dang adorable, maybe I wouldn't have these problems in the first place. We could barely afford food, let alone shelter, how was I supposed to buy her a new pair of shoes?

Squinting over Fang's shoulder I ignored the look he was shooting me as I watched the Gasman flying upside down? Well this was something.

Meeting his gaze, his red face lit up with a smile. Wait- red face? Furrowing my brow I paused before letting out a small snicker as I realized all the blood must be rushing to his head, hence his bright red face.

"Uh, Gazzy? I don't know if that's the best idea-" I started, but was instantly cut off as he awkwardly attempted to make his way over to me, waving his arms with difficulty.

"No, watch me, pronto! Look," His usually tough expression softened as his entire face scrunched down in concentration as he began to tie his shoe. Oh. I knew where this was going, nowhere good of course.

Not wanting to get his hopes up I cleared my throat, this whole thing was getting out of control,

"I can tie my shoes upside down! Does that mean I get new ones?" The Gasman blurted out, his body nearly quivering from excitement. I mean, I guess you can't blame the kid. Looking down at his shoes I let a sigh escape my lips, they had once been white, a long time ago. Or at least it looked that way.

Little kids are so persuading, in their own way, but I knew eventually the bar had to be slammed down, and right now seemed like a fine time to do so.

"Look, Gazzy-"

Once again I was cut off, this time by a high, falsetto voice I didn't recognize. Recognizing a hint of Eraser I froze, quickly wheeling around to see only my flock, but Iggy was biting back laughter as he tied his black combat boot with ease.

"Oh my God, Max, Max, Max!" He exclaimed as he clamped his hands together in a girly way, his voice still two or three octaves higher than it should be, "Oh my God, so Max, I can tie my shoes and I'm freaking blind. A get a new pair, right?"

Normally I wouldn't mind Iggy's let's-make-everything-a-hell-lot-harder-for-Max sense of humor, but at the moment I had enough lines to set down without him interrupting.

Just because he's blind gives him no reason to purposely not understand things, if anything, it should make it easier due to his enhanced senses.

"Yeah, c'mon Max," Fang added impassively, a faint trace of a smirk creeping up onto his face as he watched my jaw tighten, "We all should get new sneakers, not just Angel!"

You would expect Fang, who's only younger than me by what, three months, to understand the slight dilemma I was facing. You would expect him to be mature about it, and to tell the little kids to settle down. You would expect he would make even the slightest effort to make it easier for me, but then again, I guess you can't expect that much of a fourteen year old guy.

I folded my arms, flashing Fang an irritatingly sweet smile.

"Look, you guys know I'd love to buy you all new shoes, but it's pretty obvious we can't afford it. The only way it would work is if I, um, let's say robbed a shoe store, and I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be the best idea, when we're supposed to be lying low?"

Fang opened his mouth to be obnoxious but I managed to stop him before he got started, "I mean hey, that's just me. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe we should try to stick out."

Silence, amen.

I was thankful for a whole two seconds before I realized something was wrong with this picture. I know- peace and quiet, two things that really creep me out. Even when all of us are silent, practically dead from exhaustion, Nudge was always-

Nudge!

Doing a quick 360 I spotted her, far behind the pack. Letting out a soft sigh I shot instinctively towards her, how come I hadn't noticed how quiet she was being before? And wait, why was she being so quiet to begin with?

"Hey Nudge, sweetie," I started slowly, dropping down to her speed as I eyed her facial expression, "What's up? Everything alright?"

I'm going to make a statement here, it's possible a normal ten year old girl would be a pain in the you-know-what, actually I'm sure a normal ten year old would be like that. I already have an eight year old who I can easily perform such tasks; imagining him at ten years makes me feel disoriented. But not only him, there a thirteen year old too. And a fourteen year old! Wow, did I just named all the males in my flock? There's no way that was on purpose, right?

Back to the point, although most of the time Nudge is complaining about hunger, pain is a different thing. For one, we're two times stronger than a full grown man, so forget about us acting like the tall, lanky kids we look like. Normal viruses and everything have never really affected us much, it's either got to be in our DNA, or we're just plain freaking amazing.

I say amazing, but I was still thinking over her next comment as I made mine.

"I guess, my stomach hurts. Like badly, I'm not sure what it is.""

At that exact moment, my own stomach growled, I time these things perfectly.

"Maybe you need to eat a little something? Look, we'll go find a small place to settle down at for awhile, I'm sure you just need some energy."

After informing the flock, we began our descend.

Hey- didn't I tell you that the hunger technique works? Just wait for the little kids to break down.