Chapter 2: The Bird
As the girls headed up the last stretch of pathway to the concert area, Sakura's thoughts went back to the little toad. He really looked surprised that he couldn't demonstrate his fine croak for us. And he hopped away so quickly, almost as if he were embarrassed. Oh well, thought Sakura, maybe he'll be better by the time the concert is over and will let us hear his croak on the way home.
As they stepped out from under the canopy of trees into the concert area both Sakura and Tomoyo stopped in their tracks.
"Hooooooooeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee," they breathed in unison. Penguin Park had been transformed into a magical fairyland. The trees were covered with twinkling white lights and it looked as if some stars had fallen from the sky and gotten tangled in the branches. All of the chairs and lightpoles and wooden slats from the stage were covered with living vines dotted with flowers of every imaginable color. Sakura's eyes widened further still when she realized that real birds and butterflies were dancing from vine to vine and flitting amongst the branches of the star-filled trees.
"Oh Tomoyo!" Sakura exclaimed. "It's just exactly like the vines on my shirt! How did you know?"
Tomoyo smiled impishly at her friend, "Oh, I have my ways, don't you know?"
As they neared the stage Tomoyo's grip on her friend's arm tightened. "Don't look yet, but over there near the left side of the stage, isn't that a certain someone from our school that I see?"
Sakura slowly turned her head and pretended to admire the decorations. Her lips clamped into a thin line and she quickly swung her head the other way when she caught a glimpse of Li Syaoran sitting where Tomoyo was pointing. "Well, we can just sit at the other side of the stage," said Sakura as she started pulling her friend toward the opposite pathway.
Tomoyo grinned broadly, "Oh no we can't 'cause look who's sitting right beside him."
Sakura inched her head around again to see Rika, Naoko, Chiharu, and Takashi all settled in the seats beside Li Syaoran. Even worse, Touya and Y-y-yuki were just behind him. Well, Sakura thought, I can just sit in the seat that is farthest away, right next to Takashi.
As the girls headed down toward the group Sakura whispered, "Tomoyo, is it just me, or do you notice anything strange about all of this?"
Tomoyo looked around briefly and then nodded her head until her dark curls bounced. "Yes Sakura. You're right. There's definitely something wrong, but I can't figure out what it is."
Just then one of the little songbirds flew up above the girls' heads and then settled neatly down onto the sleeve of Sakura's new shirt.
"Look," Tomoyo whispered, "he likes the flowers on your outfit too."
The songbird ruffled his feathers and tilted his head sideways to get a better look at the girls. They must have looked okay because his eyes suddenly brightened, and he opened up his beak as if to sing… but nothing came out. The tiny bird hopped from foot to foot and opened his beak wider and wider… but still nothing came out. The poor little thing took one last look at Sakura before flying away into one of the nearby trees. Sakura could have sworn that he wore the same startled look as the toad she had seen earlier that night. Sakura suddenly realized what had been bothering her. With all of these songbirds around there should have been a lot of different melodies in the air, but there were none. In fact, the park seemed much quieter than usual in spite of the crowd.
Just then a tiny head popped out of her backpack and said, "I sure hope your band sings better than that bird."
