Thank you for the feedback to the first chapter! Your feedback keeps me going!
Suddenly the doors of the parlor opened and Emma and Olive entered.
"Where are the others?" Enoch asked hoping the younger ones wouldn't storm in in the next couple of seconds.
"We told them to wait outside. They didn't like it at all as you can imagine. They are very worried." Olive answered.
"And so are we" Emma added. "What is wrong with her? What happened to her?"
Enoch shrugged and shook his head. "There are many possibilities. The world outside is dangerous. Maybe she had an unpleasant encounter with a hollow?"
Olive and Emma didn't look convinced. To be honest Enoch didn't believe this version himself either. A hollow would have probably killed their headmistress even though she was the most fierce lady on the planet. The three looked at Miss Peregrine as if they were expecting her to explain what had happened but of course she couldn't. The bird was shaking slightly as if she was cold. The pillow underneath her had already red blood stains although she had barely lain there for more than a couple of minutes. Olive grabbed a small blanket from a tiny cupboard and wrapped it around the injured bird.
"What are we going to do?" Olive asked helplessly. Her face showed exactly how desperate she felt without Miss Peregrine to guide their actions.
"We are going to help her of course! We will look after her and soon she will be well enough to turn back into a human and tell us what to do!" Emma answered as if it was the easiest and most obvious thing in the world. Only that it wasn't.
"Oh really? Did I miss out on your graduation as a doctor? If you know so well what to do, be my guest, go ahead! What are you waiting for?" Enoch asked slightly annoyed and rolled his eyes. Sometimes he did not understand Emma's way of thinking.
"Well, it's better than what you were obviously planning. Sitting around and doing nothing will do her no good either!" Emma answered angrily. Her eyes shone with suppressed anger and her hands were balled together in fists.
"I was not going to do that! I was going to think about what to do rationally. I, in contrast to you, do not act impulsively without thinking straight! You could hurt her more with your irresponsible-"
"Quiet, both of you!" Olive interrupted them in a stern voice that was very unlike her. Enoch and Emma looked at her with big eyes. "Look, what your stupid fighting is doing to her!"
Emma and Enoch now looked at the bird again. She was shaking more violently now cooing quietly as if to stop them from fighting.
"Enoch is right, Emma. We have to think about what to do first and we mustn't fight. Miss P is probably scared too. We have to show her that we have everything under control" Olive said. Enoch and Emma looked at her in disbelieve. They had nothing under control. But then they got it. For calming Miss P they didn't necessarily need to have everything under control. It was enough that she believed so.
Olive went down on her knees so that she was eye to eye with Miss Peregrine. Without applying any pressure Olive carefully lifted the blanket and let her index finger run down her soft belly careful not go against the direction of growth of her feathers. "Everything is going to be alright, Miss P. You can trust us, we have everything under control." Miss P slowly bent her neck and rubbed her head against Olive's hand.
"First of all, we have to clean those cuts. I will get what we need" Enoch said and stood up. He looked at Emma expecting her to disagree but she nodded.
"Please hurry" was the only thing that Emma said. Enoch nodded and quickly left the parlor. But he didn't expect to be almost suffocated by nine pairs of arms wrapping around him and basically a million questions to be thrown at his head.