Well, I'm writing this chapter from a school computer instead of doing a book review because I'm not in a book review writing mood. Fortunately, the substitute for my class is oblivious and thinks I am working on my book review. Obviously… no. The side effect for this obliviousness? Well, she treats the class like babies. Not fun, my readers, not fun…
Anyhoo, I have two of my fans with me, which is fairly cool. One of them is sitting right beside me, reading a book, and for some odd reason not reading what I am writing…. (she says it's cause I've not written anything yet)… Wait, this is going really off-topic. On with the story!
Well… After everyone ran away from my draft to get someone to tell Dr. Martinez that her business was useless, it took me a while to find everyone. I had no idea that they could move that fast.
I found everyone eventually, though…
Flashback….
"Here, bird-kids…" I muttered, creeping through the hotel room like I was hunting something or another, "There's a good little bird-kid… Oh, and Jeb too."
Unsurprisingly, no one came out. I must've really scared them. Scratch that- Dr. Martinez must've been scary if you told her something like her organization was useless.
Stealthily- or at least I think I was- walking down the hall, I saw a closet. Maybe someone was in there.
I opened it to find a coat hanging down. There was also a dead spider, but no bird-kids or Jeb.
"Hmm," I said, talking to myself. Then an idea came to me. Hey, if I was alone, I could raid the fridge, right?
Grinning to myself, I padded towards the kitchen. I opened the door. I screamed.
Nudge screamed from inside the fridge. It was a few minutes before we stopped freaking out. "Please, Spark," Nudge whimpered, "Don't make me talk to Dr. M. Please no."
I shrugged, said, "Sure," and shut the fridge. Nudge made a muffled sort of "Hey!" sound, but I took no notice.
Seeing as I couldn't get the chocolate ice cream (Darn), I might as well look for more bird-kids to find and scare.
I trotted towards Jeb's room. Stepping inside, it was apparently empty. I looked under the bed anyway.
I laughed. Jeb was curled up in a ball, facing away from me. He practically leaped out of his skin when he heard my cackle, knocking his head on the bottom of the bed.
Giggling manically, I began the hunt for the remaining Flock members…
End Flashback
And, well, that's the gist of what happened. The Flock had managed to cram themselves into the oddest of spots.
As you know, Nudge was in the fridge and Jeb under his bed. I found Angel on top of a very tall cabinet and shoved as close to the wall as possible. Gazzy was in a suitcase. Iggy had somehow gotten himself inside a bookcase that faced a wall with a gap of about five feet between them. Max had been found on a chair, under a desk. Dylan had climbed inside a giant potted plant.
Fang was still missing. Everyone was sitting at the table, slightly warily, as if expecting me to force them to talk to Dr. Martinez. I looked high and low, but I still didn't see Fang.
A thought dawned on me suddenly as I checked the pantry for the nth time. "Max," I started slowly, "Does Fang have any… special powers?"
"What kind of special powers?" Max replied.
I bit my lip thoughtfully. "Uh… can he turn invisible?"
"Yes. Sorry, Fang," Max apologized.
From a wall I heard, "Dang it, Max!" and Fang materialized amongst us.
I glanced at him. "Nice of you to join us mortals."
He glared at me.
Gazzy piped up with, "Spark? You aren't actually going to make us talk to Dr. Martinez, right?"
"Nope," I responded cheerfully. My stomach chose that moment to growl loudly.
We all laughed, then Jeb said, "Okay, how about we go to lunch?" It was lunchtime already?! Well, I guess that Max and Fang had arrived in the morning, then I did my monologue. Then it took me a while to find everyone.
Huh. I guess it was lunchtime.
Where did we end up going for lunch? Well, I don't know the name exactly. I wasn't bothered enough to look. I do know that it was a pizza parlor, and that we managed to get in ninja-style, therefore not getting mauled by the press.
The waiter's face as we gave our orders was priceless. You see, we people of the winged burned quite a lot of calories, so we need to eat a lot. I'm not going to say just how much pizza we ordered, I'll just say we needed half the restaurant staff to get the pizzas….
As for me? Well, I was content with a medium pizza, although the rest of the Flock, excepting Angel who also got the same size pizza as me, got larges. I ended up with an anchovy, pepperoni, and mushroom pizza with thin crust… Yum…
While I was nomming a particularly loaded with toppings piece, something caught my eye. It was a girl, with piercing blue eyes and long blond hair. She wore a black jacket tied around her shoulders. She was looking as us, the Flock.
My reaction was to do a double take. She looked familiar, somehow… Wait. I think… that was the girl that talked to me in the grocery store! That memory had almost faded by, now, no wonder I hadn't immediately recognized her.
I nudged Dylan with my elbow, seeing as he was sitting beside me. "Dylan," I mumbled, "See that girl?"
He swallowed a piece of his pizza before looking at her. He replied with, "Yes. What's so special about her?"
Huh. So he didn't recognize her either… I whispered back, "She's the one who talked to me in the grocery store a while back."
Dylan's face cleared. "Oh. Wait, why's she here?"
I shrugged. "I dunno. Why would she stalk us all the way here?"
"I don't know either." With that said, Dylan's attention returned to his pizza. I continued to watch the blond girl throughout the rest of my meal, and noticed that she seemed to be looking at Fang intently… Hmm…
She didn't do anything, although I noticed that she paid with cash and ate pizza with extra cheese and pepperoni on it… Oh gosh, now I'm sounding like the stalker.
Uh… Anyway, we went home, again having to act like ninjas so we could avoid any fatal injuries. We got into the lobby of the hotel without incident, and also into the elevator. I did not make a fool of myself on it in case you were wondering.
I was actually allowed to unlock to door this time. I opened it cheerfully, seeing as I was full of food and energy and saw something that made everyone stop in their tracks; There were Erasers in our hotel room, obviously waiting for us. And they were not the pink pencil topper kind.
And that, children, is called a cliffhanger.