I smiled over at Angel and Nudge. "Morning, girls," I said, as calmly as I could.
Nudge looked at me and said, "It's too early."
I laughed and said, "I know, but we have to get you up now. Otherwise, we'll never get you into bed tonight."
Angel giggled and said, "Hiya, Emerald."
"Hi yourself, Angel," I coming over and hugging the six-year-old.
Nudge grabbed onto my leg and I reached down, picking her up carefully.
"You do know you're getting a little big for this, right?" I asked Nudge.
She shrugged and I glanced at the others.
Then Iggy called, "Breakfast's ready, guys."
I grinned—thank goodness Iggy could cook the way he could.
The thing is, even though I can't cook, I can make his cooking appear. It's one of my weird quirks.
We all hurried into the kitchen and filled our plates with the scrambled eggs and fried eggs Iggy had prepared.
As I was eating, I turned to Iggy and said, "Delicious as usual, Iggy. Thanks."
"You're welcome, Emerald," he said, looking right at me.
The others were all discussing other flock stuff while I listened. I only talked if I needed to or if they couldn't agree on something.
Like what to do about Jeb's death. When he died, I told the others to hide his files so we'd wouldn't have to look at them all the time. We also set up a small memorial garden for Jeb. We visit it every single day before we start the day. It's sort of become a tradition and while we're there, we talk about all the good things Jeb had done for us.
The others looked at me and Max called, "Hey, Emerald?"
"Yes?" I replied, evenly.
"You opposed to picking strawberries today?" she asked.
"No, I'll get my hat," I joked.
Angel, Gazzy, Nudge, Iggy, Max, and I all laughed and Fang only grinned. Since I'm green, Jeb had a multi-colored—it had every color except for green in it—hat made for me so the others could find me in the middle of a green patch.