BIRDCRAZY: YEEE! OMG, I haven't updated inlike two months. HP IS OUT BABY! Dude, that's so weird, there was this pop-up ad about "Harry Potter Perfume" and "Harry Potter Cologne" It's like, HELLO! Why am I getting these pop-ups!

P.U.: Who are you kidding? Cologne would work wonderfully with you!

BIRDCRAZY: WHAT! SAY THAT AGAIN YOU FAT, LAZY, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING MACAW? I'll beat you up, that's what!

:uses all her willpower to make P.U. vanish:

P.U.: NOOO, I'M MELting…..!

Birdcrazy: Heheheh, serves that little Koo-koo head right!

Their Mysterious Background

A younger Tina slammed open the door with force.

"WILL! Time to go! Are you done with your stuff?" she asked. Then she gasped in mock horror, her hand flying to cover her mouth. She gave Will the shame stick and pulled his ear to get him up and out of his embarrassment.

"OWW! I'm sorry! I was done… so I just wanted to play…" he whined. It was five years before they would work at that fateful bookshop. Tina was oblivious to his feeble excuses and apologies, and lunged for the thing that Will was obsessing over… the Pac-Man game that someone had let him borrow. No matter what Tina did to force out the truth about where he got it, he would never say who had let him "borrow" it.

"I'll let you go this time," Tina lectured, shaking her head in disapproval. "But only because we gotta go, Mom must be coming back soon!" She threw on a thin, battered jacket over her slender body, while getting ready to run home. Will was ready to go too, and they started to run. Will suddenly stopped, took the Pac-Man off the table, and sprinted back towards his sister.

"What was that all about! You might have lost me!" she panted with worry in her voice. "If something else happens because of that silly little game with a circle eating dots, I'll make sure that I take that game back to the poor boy you took it from, and make you apologize, weep, and beg on the floor for his mercy!"

Will's face was covered in shame and guilt like a sticky cream, but he tried to hide it from is eagle-eyed sister, though he knew it was futile. His sister felt much more settled and content knowing that her brother knew to regret and be ashamed. Tina's face softened and split into a lovely grin while she pulled at Will's hand, and slowed down to a steady walk.

"I think we'll make it in time," she said, and Will's deflated-balloon face inflated again. Tina looked at the wonderful scenery, the chirping birds, the fresh spring leaves… every life that rested in the world was special. Life… was complicated and intricate, but in the end it came to be what you saw everyday.

"Holy CRUD! Is that the time!" Will cried, sneaking a peek at his sister's watch. "We're DOOMED! MOM'S GONNA CREAM US! Oh, I just hope I don't end up in any old cream that goes on some old, batty hag's face! She's going to start asking questions about where we were!"

Tina saw the time too, and even on her mom's more tired days, she managed to come home before 6 o'clock. "We can already see our yard though! C'mon, bear with me here!"

"BUT WE CAN ALWAYS SEE OUR YARD! EVEN AN HOUR AGO! EVEN FROM LILY'S PLACE!" Will screamed in a full-on panic, tripping and hyperventilating, his eyes wide and threatening to make tears flood out of the lids.

"Don't say Lily's name like that! Mom might hear us!" Tina said in a state of utter paranoia and panic also, dashing near the speed of light, holding on to her brother in death grip and dragging him along. She skidded to a stop and fell on the back door to save her energy, and fumbled for keys to open the house, hearing mom's car pulling up in the driveway…

Tina and Will had been straggling on the streets, shunned out of their homes by their mom. Their mom was thin and pale, with a dangerously frail body. She was overworked and exhausted, working two different jobs on many days of the week. Her hands were worn and scruffed up, her face wrinkled and frowning, sprinkled with what were remnants of a once beautiful complexion. It wasn't that she didn't love her two children, but she was near fed up with her life, and didn't have the patience to deal with them, nor enough money.

A motherly-looking lady with a bright smile that would break down anyone's rough exterior was walking home from a trip to the park, holding a wild sparrow in her hand dotingly. Her name was sewn into her jacket, saying "Lily", and she let the sparrow hop onto her completely shaved head. She looked at the two groaning kids.

"Whadda you staring at, you bald poop?" Tina said aggressively. She was hungry and cranky, and had never heard of "manners". Her younger brother clung to his sister. Lily smiled sincerely and left the sparrow on its way.

"You some kinda animal witch?" Tina said, fascinated and interested. Her face was no longer in pain and sneering, but thin and curious.

"No, no, you just have to know the animals, maybe speak a little, and they will come to you," she said pleasantly.

"I woulda taken that bird and used its feathers for toys," Will piped. The strange, bald lady looked at them, obviously a bit disturbed and concerned. They worried that they had trodden to far into the lady's kindness, and that she would throw them away like their mother for the street urchins they were. But the lady's face was serene, and simply explained,

"Every life is special, and is to be respected with kindness and understanding,"

"So you pity us, is that what you're saying!" Tina snarled aggressively, realizing what she thought the lady had implied.

"No, I wish to help you." She stared with deep eyes that seemed to look through everything and then immediately understand. Lily taught them many things, about life, how to live through it, the effects and impacts one has. She taught them how to be a monk, and even how to defend theirselves, teaching them martial and how to be nimble and learn the psychology of your opponent. They grew up to be not only clever, but understanding of a life. With that, she knew the keys to one's mind, and with it came to power to persuade and "deprogram", or the power to make someone forget. Yes, they learned a great deal of things from Lily.

One day Will asked why there had to be problems in life. All Lily had to say to that was "You will understand only through self-realization," and gently left it at that. Masterfully, she steered the topic away to a different query.

Tina and Will jammed themselves into the room before the bell rang impatiently. Tina ran for the front door, clutching her heart and telling it to settle down. She cracked open the door and opened it before her mom got into a fit. Today, she was drunk and it was a wonder she made it home. But the only difference was she looked sorrowful, but calm, as though the answers to all her problems were answered. She kissed Tina with a frail smile, swaying and giving off a foul stench of alcohol.

"Where's Eun Chi?" she whispered softly in a slurred tone. Then, she lost her balance and nearly crashed into the floor if Tina hadn't picked her up.

"Oh… thank you dear," she said softly. Will came rushing by.

"Ma, we have to get you on the bed! You are sick!" Will said, guiding her to the bedroom.

"Oh, no, I'll be fine…" she croaked. Their mom smiled in a most uncharacteristically way.

"Mom, are you alright?" Tina asked.

"Yes, yes,"

"Are you going batty in the head?" Will said blatantly, though the traces of worry still lined his forehead.

"Yes, yes, whatever you say," she said, obviously not listening and flapping them away feebly. She gave them a last kiss, the last they'd ever get from their mom. As Tina got her into the bedroom and checked her mom's pulse, she noticed how faint and odd the pulse felt. Once their mom was settled nicely in the bed, she ran the neighbor's house for the phone to call 9-1-1, as their house didn't have a phone. Will also figured out what was wrong, and they wept their hearts out, watching their mom, only thirty-five or so, fade away. When the ambulance came, it was too late, and Tina and Will watched them carry her away in a red-and-white ambulance, blaring like a cry if panic, trying to save what was already lost.

Will was angry, furious, and terribly forlorn. He wondered miserably why problems came in the way of everything that was important to him in life. After many days, though, he felt the screaming kid inside of him mellow out, and watched his mother's funeral with a new enlightenment. It was like Yin and Yang, dark and light.

No matter how sad, how horrible, and how wretched problems were, life wasn't life without problems.

END

Birdcrazy: That wasn't a very happy chapter… but, I thought you needed an insight on Will and Tina's past.