Be Careful What You Wish For

Chapter 2: Stories


—four years later:

"Skye, tell me a story," a seven-year-old little girl whined.

"Alright, Sparrow." I told her as cleared the ground of dead leaves in the place where I was going to sit. We had been flying for most of the day and I wanted to rest. This morning we had left the coast in Maryland and now we were in a forest somewhere in Pennsylvania.

"But first I am going to patch up the holes in our clothes. Go look through your bag for any torn clothing," I told her while looking in my bag for my little sewing kit I had borrowed.

"Okay," Sparrow replied as she pulled out a pair of jeans and a shirt from her bag and tossed them to me.

"Thank you very much. Now, while I am fixing our clothes you can practice your reading," I said as I found my sewing kit and started to mend a hole in her shirt.

"We don't have any books to read," she told me in a very smug voice.

"Oh, yeah. I remember now, you so conveniently lost the only book we did have," I teased her.

"That was an accident," she quietly said even though she was smiling. Sparrow wasn't very good at lying.

"Sure, it was an accident, but since we no longer have a book to read you can read the labels on the packages of food," was my smart reply. I always saved the paper food labels and wrappings because they were good for starting fires.

"Fine," she snapped defeated.

Sparrow pulled two can labels out of her bag, cleared a space on the ground next to me and started reading the labels. Even though Sparrow was only seven-years-old she knew how to read very well. She was quite smart for her age. For the next half hour Sparrow read and I stitched up holes in our clothes.

Our clothes didn't have many holes in them, but it did take an hour to sew them all up. Sewing wasn't hard, just time consuming. And before I knew it the sky was dark.

"Okay Sparrow time for bed," I told her while I neatly folded our repaired clothing.

"Do I have to?" she whined.

"Yep," I said cheerfully. "Here put these clothes back in your bag, please," I told her as I handed her the fixed clothes.

While we both put our clothes away and got ready for bed, Sparrow was complaining about how she hated reading labels because of all the funky words that were used like fructose and sucrose.

"Oh, quit complaining, you were the one who lost the book," I reminded her sternly as I laid down on the ground. "Okay, good night Sparrow, sweet dreams," I gently whispered to her.

"I'm not tired and you promised me a story." Sparrow whined again.

"Sparrow, go to sleep, I'm tired, we've been flying all day." I said in what I hoped was a commanding voice. "And after an hour you got tired and I had to carry you, and you are heavy." I told her sleepily.

"I'm sorry." She pouted.

"I know. Come here, I'll tell you a story." I said to her, holing my arms out to her, from my seated position on the ground.

"Yay!" Sparrow squealed, crawling over to me. "Tell me the story about how you found me." She said as she sat down on my lap.

"I already told you that one, at least a hundred times." I exaggerated.

"Tell me again, please." The little girl whispered.

"Alright, but straight to sleep afterwards, no excuses." I said.

"Fine." She agreed.

"When I found you, a little more than three years ago, it was cold and raining. It had been a year since I left home. A long, hard year of knowing that my parents most likely knew that I had run away. I hated hurting them. But running was better than being kicked out because of what I had become. I hated that almost as much as I hated stealing food and money and sleeping in ally ways or some other uncomfortable place. But I ……" I started.

"What about when you found me." She interrupted.

"Hush, I am getting there. Let me finish." I reprimanded.

"Anyways, I was wandering around at night in some city in Oregon looking for a safe place to sleep, when I saw an old abandoned warehouse building. It was perfect, all of the windows were boarded up and the doors were locked. I used my claws to cut through the boards over the windows and climbed through. Once inside I looked around. The building was full of junk. There were empty crates, trash, dust, and spider webs everywhere. Then I heard a snuffling noise and I realized I wasn't alone." I said in my best storytelling voice.

"What was it? Was it me?" she questioned getting excited.

"Hush, listen and I will tell you."

I continued, "I was silent as I listened to where the sound was coming from, and then followed the noise to the source. The source of the noise was behind some of the broken crates. It was a cute little girl who looked to be 4-years old. She had pale skin and bright blue eyes. But the strange thing was that out of her back grew a pair of small brown, feathery bird wings."

"Oh, Oh, I can finish the story. The little girl was me and I didn't have a or anything so you called me Sparrow and you took care of me and taught me how to read and fly and, and……" she said happily, forgetting to breath.

"Yes Sparrow that's right. Now please go to sleep. We have to find a store to borrow some food from tomorrow and it's late." I told her as she slid off of my lap and onto the ground beside me.

"Oh, okay. Good night Skye, love you." She whispered.

"Night little Sparrow, love you too." I smiled at her.