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Nudge was bored. Extremely bored. Like, kill me know kind of bored. "Angel's waiting for us. I mean, she's like everyone's little sister." I know Nudge. Why must you remind me of the fact that I can't even take care of my own family?

Shifting a little on the rocky ground, she brushed off the layers of dust that had collected on her legs and clothes. We were really going to need a bath soon…maybe there was a lake nearby?

"At night, when we're supposed to be asleep, me and Angel talk and tell jokes and stuff." Ah-ha! I knew there was a reason why they were always the last ones up! They were up talking all night! That would also explain why me and Max were the first ones up…we had no one to talk to in our rooms. "I mean, am I going to have to sleep in that room alone, whenever we get home? Max has to come back. She wouldn't let Angel go, right?" What? How could Nudge think that? Max would never leave us!

"No," I reassured her. "She won't let Angel go. Look—you see how that big hawk, the one with the dark stripe on its shoulders—you see how he seems to move one wing faster than the other when he banks? It makes his back really tight and smooth. We should try it." I was fascinated by their flying styles…they seemed to glide through the air, seamlessly and effortlessly…that was something we had never mastered. I told Max we should learn to fly from a bird, but did she listen to me? Nope. She thought learning from a human who had no experience flying, and, in fact, only learned how to teach us by watching birds, was the way to do it. Why not just cut the middle man? Max wouldn't hear of it…I think she just wanted Jeb to feel "needed."

Anyways, Nudge was staring at me speechless. Whoa I need to do this more often! I finally figured out a way to shut her up!

After a few minutes, she regained her voice. Studying the bird I had pointed out, she replied, "Yeah, I see what you mean." I was too excited to wait for her to catch up. As soon as I heard that she got what I was saying, I leapt up and jumped off the cliff, unfurling my majestic wings with a loud snap. Joining the other hawks, I carefully studied their wings. It looked like they were just moving one slightly faster than the other; not enough to cause a massive spiral, but fast enough to result in a sharp turn.

Elated, I tried it out. This is great! Oh man, Max will be so jealous when she sees this! I bet I could beat her in so many races now! In my excitement, I swooped back to the cave, eager to call out to Max and show her. Then, I remembered where I was and why: Max wasn't here. She went to rescue that little girl.

To cover my mistake, I called out to Nudge. "Come on! Try it! You'll fly better!" And feel great! It was so easy to just forget up here…forget about our situation and just live. Nudge sighed and joined me. I quickly demonstrated the move to her, but I was eagerly watching the birds to pick up new techniques. Nudge got the wing thing extremely quick, then decided to go bug the hawks and test their tolerance of her. I almost called her back, but none of them looked like they were about to raise an alarm.

Hmm maybe they think we're part of their flock. As much as I loved watching these birds, I did wish that Max would hurry her butt up and get here. I was worrying, so I knew Nudge was. And, as I have mentioned before, I'm not good with emotions. I really didn't need Nudge to break down on me…of course, the chances of her doing that were like .0000000000000000009%, if that. We didn't cry; we were fighters.

After a while, our wings started to tire. I figured it wasn't the brightest idea to fly 'til we dropped, so we flew back to the cave. With our wings fanned out around us, it was almost peaceful. All the birds were feeding and grooming, and everyone was happy; well, except us. Just thinking about Max out there made my stomach drop. What if she was hurt? No one could help her; correction: as stubborn as Max was, she wouldn't ask for help. She would try to fly out here injured, fall, and die.

Nudge sniffed, and I wondered if I had somehow actually said my thoughts out loud. It was best to keep Nudge hopeful. Me, well I just went with the flow.

"What?" I inquired.

Nudge quickly whipped her eyes as the tears appeared. "These birds. Like, these dumb hawks have more of a mom than I ever had. The parents are taking care of the little ones. No one ever did that for me. Well, besides Max. But she's not a mom." And here's the emotional part I predicted would not come…

I understood where she was coming from though…heck, I had thought about that earlier. But it's something that couldn't be helped. It wasn't fair, but I had learned to get over it a long time ago. And Max tried her best; sometimes I wondered if she really did think of the little ones as her kids.

"Yeah, I get it." I tried to keep the emotion from leaking into my voice. Disregarding her eyes on me, I peered out the cave entrance. The sun was melting into the horizon in a pool of golden pink.

It was then that I realized the downside to sleeping in a cave with birds. Of course, there was the poop, but another thing was the birds would not stay quiet! I honestly did not know how the heck we were supposed to get sleep with those rambunctious birds. I mean, come on! How hard is it to stay quiet? Just as I was about to silently kill every last bird that was making a noise, they shut up. Maybe they felt the presence of my threat…in any case, we both were glad that they had decided to go to sleep.

Moving closer to Nudge, I help out my fist for our ritual bedtime fist stack. Nudge stared at it, and then put hers on top. It felt strangely light without the rest of the Flock. We always did this before we slept…except, now that I thought of it, last night when we had Max. I was surprised Max had forgotten about it. She was the one who would wake everyone else up just to stack our fists. I put my right fist on top of our fists, and Nudge followed.

"Night." She was being extremely careful not to wake the hawks up. Then she curled up against the wall.

"Night, Nudge." I whispered back, rejoicing in the thought of a new day…that one couldn't get any worse than today's was.

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