Wing turned his attention to the paint station. Nosedive and Rita stood next to one another painting one another. Rita had painted war paint' on Nosedive's face, and he in turn had painted a clown face on her.

"See paint," Rita laughed merrily.

"I like paint," Nosedive chimed. "Wanna play, Wing?"

Wildwing shook his head no, laughing at the pair.

"Please, Wingy."

"Nope. I have to go back to class."

"What on Puckworld!" Mrs. Duckers exclaimed, seeing the two for the first time. "What have you two been up to?"

"Paint," Nosedive held out his paintbrush to his teacher. "I like paint."

"I can see."

"Wing wants to paint too."

"No I don't."

"Please Wingy."

"I think it's time for your brother to go back to his class, Nosedive. And it's time for you and Rita to get cleaned up."

"But I don't wanna be clean. I want to paint," Nosedive complained.

"You have a choice, be clean and eat lunch or stay here and paint with no food."

The choice was simple when Dive's stomach growled the next instant. "I'm hungry."

"Then go with Mrs. Haws and get washed up. Thank you for coming Wildwing, you may go back to class."

Wing waved goodbye to Dive as he was marched off to the bathroom. Dive had no choice but to go into the girls bathroom to get cleaned up. Mrs. Haws refused to go into the boys bathroom, though she should have washed the pair separately. Dive and Rita insisted on having a water war in the sinks as they washed off the paint from their faces.

"My face is itch," Dive told Mrs. Haws as she led he and Rita back to the kindergarten room.

"That's the paint."

"But I don't have paint on no more."

"It's the after affect."


"Why me not itchy Grammy?"

"I don't know."

The two shrugged and joined their classmates in line to go to the cafeteria. The children were marched single file to the cafeteria. Dive walked behind Rita, and had not learned his lesson on not pushing girls because he and Rita had a pushing match as they walked and waited in line. Another mother helper separated the two and made the two warring fractions sit at opposite ends of the picnic table. The distance between the two did not stop them from making faces at one another. Instead of pushing one another they would stick out their tongues at one another. As the minutes passed and the two came up with new nasty faces Dive would not help but wonder how Wildwing could have been friends with a girl. He thought Leila was nice and he really liked her, but after meeting Rita he didn't understand why girls were so weird. Girls were a life mystery. Maybe his dad knew the answer to the puzzling question. If that was so, then Dive wasn't going to spend anymore time pondering why girls existed or why they were weird. He would have rather spend his time on his lunch. The taste of mushy peanut butter and jelly sandwich was a delicacy, especially when you added potato chips, chocolate milk and jelly beans. Dive finished his sandwich and looked at his next target to devour; his cupcake.

His mother had put it in his lunch as a special treat and he always saved those special things for last. His mother said the special things should always be saved to the last and cherished till then. Dive reached for the treat when someone else suddenly lifted it off the table.

"Hey, that's mine!" Dive protested, turning around to face the thief.

"Not anymore, squirt," said a really big kid who now possessed Dive's cupcake.

Now how Dive saw it, this kid wasn't just big, he was BIG. He was tall and very portly. He wasn't necessarily fat, more like muscle bound and chunky around the edges. He wore a green muscle tee and cut off blue jeans. A black headband was tied around his fat head to keep his dark brown wavy hair out of his face, and two matching wristbands were wrapped around his wrists. The twinkle in his brown eyes was not merry with life, but with the knowledge that he could get away with stealing Nosedive's cupcake.

"Give it back, Josh!"

The big kid turned around to find Rita standing in front of him, hands on her hips and fuming mad.

"Go away twerp," Josh pushed Rita aside and walked towards the exit. Rita tried to keep her balance, but gravity is one of natures forces that one cannot run from. That and love, but that's for another story. She fell backwards and landed flat on her back. Josh laughed as she exhaled sharply. This was going to be a good day, he could tell. He opened the wrapper to the cupcake and ate the desert. Before exiting the room he threw the wrapper down the shirt of a kid seated at the end of one of the near by tables.

Dive stood, unbelieving that he had been robbed of his mother's gift. He wanted to go after the bully and beat him up, but Wing said fighting was bad and that he should never challenge the big kids. Dive heard Rita make a noise and he looked over at her. She was struggling to her feet. He helped her the rest of the way and she rubbed her read end, for the second time that day.

"You okay?" Dive asked.

"Yeah."

"Why'd you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Tell that big kid to give me back my cupcake."

"Because he's always doing that."

"How'd you know his name?"

"He's one of my big brother's. He's mean and likes to pick on small kids like me. I hate big brothers."

"My brother would never do that to me. I love my big brother and he loves me."

"He wouldn't and he does?"

"Yup. Wing loves me. I'm his special helper when it comes to math. He can't add without my help."

"Really?"

Dive nodded.

"I wish my brother's loved me."

"Wing says all big brothers love their kid brother or sister."

"Really?"

Dive nodded again.

"Oh. Wanna go play?"

"Okay."

Rita took Nosedive by his hand and drug him out to the playground to join the other children in a game of broom hockey. The time flew by and Dive was disappointed when Mrs. Thunderbeak picked him up at noon. His sour mood was short lived when Mrs. Thunderbeak announced that they were going to bake chocolate chip cookies while they waited to pick up Canard and Wildwing at three. Dive enjoyed the few hours he and Mrs. Thunderbeak shared that day. As they baked, she told Dive stories of Drake Ducain and some of Canard's most embarrassing moments. The entertainment was four stars and qualified as roll on the floor funny in Dive's book. But it was no laughing matter after the older boys had been picked up.

Normally Wing and Canard would have been conversing and laughing in the back seat on the ride home, but today the back seat was in utter silence. Mrs. Thunderbeak sent the boys to the kitchen table to their homework and gave them the cookies with some milk. The normal routine of dunking cookies before homework was substituted with solemn silence with the occasional munching of cookies. If there was a word uttered it was between Wing and Dive or a question directed at the children from Mrs. Thunderbeak.

The eeriness of the situation laid heavily on Dive. He had never seen the two boys act like this before and it scared him. It was a great relief when their mother came to pick them up. Wing returned to his normal self and set Dive's mind at ease. But what if tomorrow was like today? If it was going to be the same it meant one thing it was gong to be one LONG school year.

***

George slugged his alarm as it went off again for the fifth time that morning. Didn't the stupid thing understand that he was tired and only wanted to snooze' a few more minutes? The throbbing in George's hand, which he had used to hit the alarm, woke him up. He rolled over and looked at his clock. It took a minute for him to focus on the large digital numbers, but it was no mistaking the time. George had overslept, leaving the bare minimum to get the boys to school, minus breakfast and washing up. George was relieved to find that Wildwing had Dive ready and waiting for him. George hopped around the house throwing on his clothes, almost falling down the stairs as he pulled on his pants, and munched on a piece of toast.

"Wing, why's Daddy jumping like that?"

"He overslept. Now he has to run around to get ready for work."

"Why didn't Mommy wake him up when she woke us up?"

"She did, Dad just fakes being awake better then you do."

Dive frowned. Now that was something he needed to learn!

George grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter, bypassing the three lunch boxes sitting next them, and rushed the boys out the door.

"Dad."

"Not now Wildwing, buckle your brother up, we have to go."

"But Dad"

"Later, Wing."