A/N: Hello, everyone! IT'S SUMMER! (For me it is, at least.) You all know what that means…more updates!

For Nudge, I tried to make some secrets seem as if she was talking to you, which means some secrets could seem a little odd. I hope that they turned out right and not too terribly out there. So – enjoy the secrets of Nudge!

One: Silence. That was all that she ever heard. There was no wind, no distant thuds or clinks. There was only the silence, always. It pressed on her ears, filled her brain, suffocated her.

Silence. Nudge couldn't stand the silence.

She tapped her fingers against the edge of the crate, trying to create something for her ears to hear. She had to convince herself that she wasn't going deaf. She longed to hear human voices, even if it meant that she was going off for one of those horrible experiments they made her do. There was no window, so she couldn't even attempt to amuse herself by staring outside.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap – tap – tap.

She started singing to herself quietly, trying again to fill the silence of her solitary room. She didn't know any songs, so she made one up, mostly made up of nonsense words and random tunes. It still didn't satisfy her, so she sang louder and louder until finally, a man banged open the door.

"Quiet in there! Why the hell are you singing? Shut up!" And with that, he slammed the door shut again.

Nudge curled up tighter in a corner of her cage, her limbs cramped and sore from being in the same position all the time. The silence was back.

Two: It wasn't until she was three or four that she was finally moved to a room with other experiments. She'd never been happier in her short life. She had thought that she would go crazy with the endless silence. Here, they were allowed to talk in whispers, which she took advantage of gladly. The other three in the room – two boys and a girl – put up with her talking most of the time, but other times the blond boy poked her and rolled his eyes to make her be quiet.

She didn't really mind. It was okay as long as they let her talk. She'd never have to deal with the silence again if she could talk.

Three: Family is her favorite word, and, trust her on this, she's full of words. Family is what she sees when she looks out of her cage window and sees a flock of birds surging by. Family is what she thinks of when she imagines a normal life, one where she is free from the School and has parents and friends. Family is what she knows everyone has, even the evil whitecoats. Family, to her, is the most important thing in the world. She can't imagine what would happen to people without family, because:

Family is what she feels a part of when she looks around at the rest of her flock, and she can't imagine not being a part of that.

Four: She's not sure why she relates more to Angel than Max. Max is closer to her in age and maturity then Angel, and Nudge can have fun and joke with Max, too, but Angel has just always been her best friend out of her family. Maybe it's because Max has always had Fang. For whatever reason, it's Angel that she talks to most, the person that she goes to when she's learned something that's especially funny or unusual. Plus, Angel understands the girly side of Nudge, but Max would wrinkle her nose and go away to do something more boyish, like…who knows, maybe she'd go climb a tree or something. Not that that's bad. Nudge doesn't know for sure what else.

She's getting off topic. Anyway, she and Angel just click in a way that she doesn't do with the rest of the flock. Sometimes they call themselves 'mental twins' because they definitely don't look anything alike, but they think the same way. Well, most of the time they do.

Five: Fang has always kind of scared her. Don't get her wrong, she trusts him and she loves him like a brother and everything, but gosh, look at the guy! The combination of black and – well – just Fang himself is pretty intimidating. Especially when he's mad. When he's mad, his eyes get all dark and you don't even need expression on his face to be able to tell he's mad, you can feel the anger just rolling off him in waves.

That's why when they fight Erasers or Flyboys; Nudge always stays a little away from Fang. She's always had this little nagging suspicion that an Eraser or a Flyboy will duck and one of Fang's mega hard punches will hit her instead. Seriously – can we say ow? She'd be out cold for practically a week. Not to mention that then Max would be mad at Fang for not paying attention and then things would be all awkward. Maybe she'd still be knocked out for that part and she'd miss the awkwardness. If she was lucky, anyway.

Six: There is one thing that she's sure Max doesn't know about her, and it's the only thing that she doesn't ever want Max to find out. If Max ever did find out, then Nudge better find a good way to disappear for a while until Max cooled off enough not to absolutely kill her.

You see, Iggy and Gazzy weren't the only ones who helped blow up that Mickey Mouse clock.

Yeah, you caught her.

It had been Iggy who had cornered her two days before The Incident. She'd been carrying the finished – for once – laundry to Max's room when he'd put a hand over her mouth and yanked her into his room, causing shirts and socks to go flying. "Nudge," he'd whispered, pulling her into his closet, "We need your help. Gazzy and I need something to blow up. We wanna test this timer theory we have, and we need something that's small, portable, and is preferably a clock. Ours won't work since they're digital. What other clocks are there?"

She frowned. "Why won't digital work?"

He sighed and rolled his eyes, a sign that he was annoyed. "They just won't, okay? This is urgent. Do you know or not?"

"Well," she started, "there's Fang's clock. You know, the one Jeb brought back for him from that carnival?" But Iggy was already shaking his head.

"No good," he told her. "I asked him and he said flat out no. Then he shut the door in my face. Some good he is."

Then Nudge's face lit up. "Max's clock! You know, the Mickey Mouse one? I bet she won't even notice it's gone cause she always keeps it under that one pillow, you know the striped one, since the ticking is so loud at night and it drives her crazy and she can't go to sleep. And she has her watch to tell time, anyway. So all you'd have to do is sneak into her room and nick the clock and she won't even notice! We can get her a new one anyway. Can't we?"

Iggy blinked a couple times, and then an evil smirk slid over his face. "Nudge, you are the best sister I could ever have! Who would have thought that you'd be such a criminal mastermind?" He rubbed his hands together. "This is gonna be great…I've gotta tell the Gasman. Thanks, Nudge!" He gave her a quick hug and sprinted out of the room.

So obviously, she had felt guilty when Max was wondering where her clock was. Apparently, something had been missing when she tried to fall asleep that night, and she'd figured out that her clock was missing. Iggy had glared at her when Max was yelling, but amazingly, he hadn't ratted her out.

Her secret was safe.

Seven: She tried, once, on a dare from Gazzy, not to talk for a whole day. She only lasted for an hour.

He had laughed and said that she had proved him right – she couldn't go for a day without talking. She had laughed along with him, but she didn't tell him the real reason why she had begun to speak again. The ultimatum not to speak had reminded her too much of the School, where welts were ripped into her cheek if she spoke at the wrong time or if she said the wrong thing. The silence in her head brought back memories of a two year old Nudge, all by herself in a cold, dark room, unable to speak, scared to move…

And so she spoke.

Eight: If there's one thing that she wants, even more than wanting a family related to her by blood, it's some one to love her that isn't required to. Family doesn't really count for that….they have to love you, because they're family. If she had someone like a boyfriend that liked her for her, not because he was related to her, that would be the most amazing thing in the world. She'd feel special and like she was on top of the world, just like she imagines that Max feels like when she's with Fang. She wishes that someone could love her as much as Fang loves Max.

Nine: Okay, so she's not positive that Max and Fang like each other, but she's pretty sure. For one thing, Max kissed Fang on the beach. But that might have been because she was afraid that he was going to die. That was kind of weird, actually. Then there's just the fact that they're so in tune with each other, all the time. Like how she imagines a mom and dad would be, only better. They always know what the other is feeling, and she can see how Fang glances at her every once in a while, just to make sure she's okay. It's so sweet. And whenever Fang gets hurt (which seems to be a lot lately) Max goes so pale she looks almost dead. She hopes that when they finally figure it out, they'll make sure to tell the rest of the flock.

She might be eleven, but she's not so stupid that she can't see what's going on between Max and Fang.

Ten: Her favorite place to be of all the places she's ever been is definitely the beach. There's not really a specific one, it just has to be a beach. Swimming is so much fun, and she feels even lighter than she does when she flies in the water. Everything is just so relaxing – the sun, the water and the sound of the surf.

And the best thing?

It chases away the silence.

A/N: I'm not sure how I feel about this one. I hope you guys liked it!

By the way, you guys can have input on which character I do next! Review, and then check out the poll on my profile!