Myoga said as he closed the door to his adopted granddaughter's room.
The Next Morning
Kagome woke up to the sound and smell of bacon, ham, and eggs cooking in the kitchen. Kagome sprung out of bed with so much enthusiasm because she no longer had to be quiet when waking up, just in case. Kagome made her bed as fast as her little 10 year old hanyou legs could carry her, got dressed in a pair of dark blue jeans and a dark blue shirt. Today was her birthday but she was so excited to see her new friends today that she forgot. She ran a brush quickly through her hair and skipped three steps at a time just to get down stairs faster. If her grandparents knew that she was hanyou, she would have jumped down the middle of the stairs to get down EVEN faster. She finally made it to the kitchen to see her grandmother busy cooking and her grandfather sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. She stopped at the kitchen door.
"Good morning!" Kagome skipped to her seat. She was hungry.
"Good morning Kagome! How did ye sleep?"
"Just wonderful. I can't wait to see my friends today."
"Oh, well surly you haven't forgotten what day it is Kagome." Myoga said as he looked over the top of his newspaper at her.
"Of course I didn't forget. Today is….." She paused to see the date on the newspaper. "April 2nd. And you thought I forgot. HA."
"You merely read the date off the newspaper. What else is happening today?" Myoga asked as he folded his newspaper and reached under the table for something.
"I have no idea. Would you mind telling me?"
"Today is ye birthday ye silly girl. How could one forget something of this nature? Ye are now 11 years old today! Happy Birthday sweet heart!" Kaede said as she placed Kagome's favorite foods in front of her. The eggs made up the eyes with a dot of ketchup in the middle, the ham was cut up to look like a nose and part of it went to the mouth to make up the tongue and the bacon was made up to look like a mouth ganging open in a sort of grin. She was having a face for breakfast.
"Thank you. I did forget. This looks so cool… I almost don't want to eat it." Kagome laughed. Just then her grandfather handed her a beautifully wrapped gift. It was a little box. No bigger than a jewelry box… in fact it was a jewelry box with a ribbon tied around it. Kagome took the ribbon off and opened it to find a few pieces of jewelry in it. There was a little diamond necklace, 4 rings of various colors, and 6 pairs of ear rings. "Wow. This is beautiful. Thank you."
"Well, we just think that as 11 years old, you should have 11 pieces of jewelry. One for each year. On your next birthday, you'll get something else. It's a tradition that we had started with each other." Myoga said as he gave his granddaughter a huge smile.
"It's true. Ye are to be entered into this family properly. With every tradition we have ye will have.
"Wait… my ears aren't pierced."
"We know. Souta said that we didn't have pierced ears and that your didn't like the thought of having a needle dug into your ear so these particular ear rings are magnetic. You can look beautiful without sticking yourself."
"Thanks grandma and grandpa." Kagome then looked at the clock. It was already 11:30. "Wow… were did the time go? I had best be off. Don't want to be late for my first meeting with my new friends. I'll see you guys later." Kagome said as she ran around the table to hug and kiss her grandparents on the cheeks. Then she ran to her room to place the new jewelry box on her bed side table. Then she ran down the stairs and out the door.
Once in view of the park, Kagome reached behind her neck and took off the pendent. She felt the slight pull of the change. Kagome looked for the big tree they were talking about when she heard laughter. It hit her memory like a ton of bricks. She looked around for the source of the laughter. That's when she saw them and she ran to hide behind a tree.
"I know that she has to be here somewhere. I mean how far can one little girl get? I knew Souta had another family member somewhere. I smelled her in the building yesterday when we took care of him. I smelled her all over the house."
"I know what you mean. If only we found her yesterday. Boss wouldn't be quite so pissed with us." Pause. "Do you smell that? She's here… In the park."
"Yeah. Let's spread out." Both men went different directions to look for her. Kagome jumped into the tree. She couldn't be found. She started crying. She never even felt the branch shake.
"Found you, girly." Kagome nearly jumped out of her skin and off the branch when she turned around as slowly as possible.
