While he drove, Uncle Robert complained to Aunt Poppy. He liked to complain about things: people at work, Nathan, the council, Nathan, the bank and Nathan were just a few of his favorite things to complain about. This morning, it was airplanes.

'...flying and roaring along like maniacs, the young hoodlums,' he said, as a plane flew over them. 'I had a dream about a fairy,' said Nathan, remembering suddenly. 'It was flying.' Uncle Robert nearly crashed into the car in front. He turned right around in his seat and yelled at Nathan, his face like a gigantic beetroot with a moustache, 'FAIRIES DON'T EXIST!'

Alicia and Persephone giggled loudly.

'I know they don't,' said Nathan. 'It was only a dream.'

But he wished he hadn't said anything. If there was one thing the DeLaces hated even more than his asking questions, it was his talking about anything acting in a way it shouldn't, no matter if it was in a dream or even a cartoon – they seemed to think he might get dangerous ideas. It was a very sunny Saturday and the zoo was crowded with families.

The DeLaces bought Alicia and Persephone large chocolate ice-creams at the entrance and then, because the smiling lady in the van had asked Nathan what he wanted before they could hurry him away, they bought him a cheap lemon popsicle. It wasn't bad either, Nathan thought, licking it as they watched a gorilla scratching its head. Nathan had the best morning he'd had in a long time.

He was careful to walk a little way apart from the DeLaces so that Alicia and Persephone, who were starting to get bored with the animals by lunch-time, wouldn't fall back on their favorite hobby of hitting him. They ate in the zoo restaurant and when Alicia had a tantrum because her sundae wasn't big enough, Uncle Robert bought her another one and Nathan was allowed to finish the first. Nathan felt, afterwards, that he should have known it was all too good to last.

After lunch they went to the bird house. Alicia and Persephone wanted to see the biggest, rarest birds. Alicia quickly found the largest bird in the place. It was asleep. Alicia stood her head pushed against the walls of the enclosure, staring at the bird.

"Daddy, make it move" she whined. Uncle Robert tapped on the wall but nothing happened.

"Try again" she ordered. He did so, and still nothing happened.

"Boring" she said and walked away.

Nathan took her place and looked at the bird. He would not be surprised if it had died of boredom, having no company outside of visitors tapping at the walls all day. At least Nathan could visit the rest of the DeLace's house, the bird couldn't go anywhere else.

The bird suddenly opened it's eyes and slowly raised it's head to stare at Nathan. It then winked.

Nathan stared at it. Then he quickly looked to see if anyone was watching him. Nobody was. He looked back at the bird and winked back.

The bird pointed it's beak at Uncle Robert and Alicia, and Nathan thought he heard it say "I get that all the time"

"I know" Nathan mumbled through the wall, not knowing if the bird could understand him. "It must be really annoying"

The bird nodded.

A very loud sound came from behind Nathan.

"ALICIA, MR. DELACE. COME HERE. YOU WON'T BELIEVE WHAT THIS BIRD IS DOING" said Persephone.

Alicia ran over as fast as she could.

"Out of the way" she said to Nathan, punching him. Caught by surprise, Nathan fell over.

Alicia and Persephone were leaning on the walls, when suddenly, something inexplicable happened. The walls of the enclosure had vanished. The bird started flying out, scaring nearby people.

As the bird flew by him, Nathan thought he heard it say "thanks"

The keeper of the bird enclosure was in shock. "Where did the walls go" he kept saying.

The zoo owner made Aunt Poppy a cup of coffee while he apologized repeatedly.

Even though the bird had only passed by them as far as Nathan could tell, on the way home Alicia and Persephone were going on about how the bird had pecked them in their guts. Worst of all though, was Persephone saying "You were talking to it, weren't you Nathan?"

Uncle Robert waited until Persephone had left to lecture Nathan. He was so mad he could hardly speak. He did manage to say 'Go…cupboard…stay…no meals" before he sat down on the couch and Aunt Poppy had to get him a large beer.

Nathan lay in his dark cupboard much later, wishing he had a watch. He didn't know what time it was and he couldn't be sure the DeLaces were asleep yet. Until they were, he couldn't risk sneaking to the kitchen for some food. He'd lived with the DeLaces almost ten years, ten miserable years, as long as he could remember, ever since he'd been a baby and his parents had died in that car crash. He couldn't remember being in the car when his parents had died. Sometimes, when he strained his memory during long hours in his cupboard, he came up with a strange vision: a blinding flash of blue light and a burning pain on his forehead. This, he supposed, was the crash, though he couldn't imagine where all the blue light came from. He couldn't remember his parents at all. His aunt and uncle never spoke about them, and of course he was forbidden to ask questions. There were no photographs of them in the house. When he had been younger, Nathan had dreamed and dreamed of some unknown relation coming to take him away, but it had never happened; the DeLaces were his only family. Yet sometimes he thought (or maybe hoped) that strangers in the street seemed to know him. Very strange strangers they were, too. A tiny man in a violet top hat had bowed to him once while out shopping with Aunt Poppy and Alicia. After asking Harry furiously if he knew the man, Aunt Poppy had rushed them out of the shop without buying anything. A wild-looking old woman dressed all in green had waved merrily at him once on a bus. A bald man in a very long purple coat had actually shaken his hand in the street the other day and then walked away without a word. The weirdest thing about all these people was the way they seemed to vanish the second Nathan tried to get a closer look. At school, Nathan had no one. Everybody knew that Alicia's group of girls hated that odd Nathan Torrance in his baggy old clothes and broken glasses, and nobody liked to disagree with Alicia's group of girls.