Mom:

Mia has changed over these past months. She never comes downstairs anymore. All she wears are those wing necklaces and earrings. Right after she read the Maximum Ride books she wore a pair of Halloween costume wings on her back and refused to take them off. One night she came downstairs crying and I just thought she had had a nightmare like she sometimes does, but her eyes were all weird like they kept vibrating. Just before 4th grade she fell off the neibors trampoline and cracked her head open. There was no brain damage that we could tell from her X-ray, but she has been able to move her eyes so fast in their sockets that they look like they are vibrating.

Her hands were shakey and her face was white. Not just pale but almost white like she had just seen a ghost. She looked terrified! I was sitting at my computer doing some work for my job. She walked up to me and said in a cracked, high-pitched voice, "Mom. Mom you have to catch me. You have to cath me when I jump. I'm afar aid I'm gonba fall." She sounded so scared. I tried to calm her but she just freaked out when I touched her. She just started yelling, "No! No! Don't you see, my wings haven't come yet! I can't fly! I can't fly..."

Eventually I calmed her down enough to send her back to bed. I tried to explain to her that flying and her growing wings was not possable. She said she understood but I could tell she was lying. That night scared the shit out of me. I just hope that it doesn't get bad enough that she would do something like acculy try to fly...