I woke up the next morning to find Erin's sleeping bag empty. I went around and checked on everyone else. Angel: snoring. Dylan and Evan: sleeping like logs. Nudge and Emma: out cold under a pile of magazines. Iggy and Eckl: crashed out on the floor in front of Iggy's computer.

But Gazzy's room only had a sleeping Gazzy. Eric was gone too.

I wandered into the kitchen and opened the cabinet. And for some reason, the box of cereal that I had bought last week was in the front. I had picked it out, remembering that Fang liked it, but no one else in the flock did. So after he left, it had gotten pushed to the back in favor of everyone else's cereal. I took it off the shelf. The twins must have liked it too, because nearly the entire box was gone. Mental note: Eric and Erin like Fang's cereal.

After finishing a few bowls of my own cereal, I headed out to look for the twins. Nudge couldn't have showed them the whole canyon system, and getting lost was sometimes dangerous, even for a bird kid.

I found them not too far from the house, by the base of a tall rock pedestal, the ground littered with various sized rocks.

Emma had said that they were psychic, but I hadn't imagined anything like this. They were lifting huge boulders with sheer mind power. Up onto the rock column, slammed into targets drawn on the canyon walls, even tag-teaming a couple of times. And except for the thunk and crash of the rocks, it was silent. They weren't talking.

Either they're mad at each other, I thought, or they're using telepathy.

Which made sense, I mean, Emma had said they were telepathic as well as telekinetic.

I watched them for awhile longer before swooping in. They were so concentrated on what they were doing that they didn't know I was there until I cleared my throat rather loudly. And I guess that I scared them, because a baseball-sized rock came hurtling at my face, only to stop inches from breaking my nose.

"Sorry Max," Erin apologized, lowering the rock slowly to the ground.

"Didn't know it was you." Eric said.

"It's okay," I assured them, "I woke up and Erin was gone, so I went and checked everyone else and you were gone too."

"We like to get up early and practice." Eric said.

"I guess you saw a lot of it." Erin said.

"Just about five minutes." I replied. "Emma told me you were psychic, but I didn't expect it to this degree."

"Oh, you think this is cool?" Eric grinned.

"Wait until you see us fly and play catch with a ball of water at the same time." Erin said.

"And Max? That question hanging around in the back of your head? Do you want us to answer it?" Eric asked.

"Of course she does, Eric, can you not see that too?"

Huh?

"Oh, now we've confused her. Sorry Max. Mind-reading." Erin explained.

Ah. "Been through that with Angel. But it tickles when she reads your mind, you know she's there. You two, I didn't even realize it."

"Practice." they say together.

"Don't teach her. I like to know when she's picking through my thoughts."

The twins laugh.

"Well, to answer your question about 'how are we identical and fraternal twins at the same time?'," Erin started, "one of the scientists at the Institute answered this for us awhile back. She said that the egg we came from was fertilized by a mutated sperm with two heads, an X and a Y. When the zygote separated like it normally does for identical twins, the sperm separated too, forming us. So we have identical DNA, except for Eric being a boy and me a girl. A one in infinity chance, they said."

"She has selective memory." Eric said, rolling his eyes. "She can remember that, but not the name of the Institute."

Erin raised her hand. "Guilty as charged."

"And as for your other question, we think it's better to show you."

"You better brace yourself, though. What makes us pass out might do worse things to you."

I sat down on the ground. "Ready."

And suddenly, the canyon was gone, replaced by a dense forest. I saw a lion asleep on a rock and a huge black bird perched on a branch above, seeming to keep watch. A pack of wolves was sneaking up on them from behind, but the lead wolf stepped on a branch, making the bird fly up and screech at its companion. The lion woke up instantly and ran in the opposite direction of the wolf pack, the bird flying just above the treetops. The chase continued until the lion reached a dead end at the top of a cliff. The bird screeched something to the lion and dove down below the edge of the cliff. The lion snarled at the wolves a few times, then spun around and jumped over the cliff after the bird.

Then, just as suddenly as it had disappeared, the canyon came back. Eric and Erin were rubbing their temples, and I felt a headache coming on myself.

"You two okay?" I asked as I stood up.

"Fine. We're used to it." they said in unison.

"Think you can fly back?"

They nodded, so I got a good run and took off towards the house with them flying port and starboard flanks.