“Hey guys.” I whispered to my friends, Brittany and Emily, in class one afternoon.
“Rhia, Brittany, and Emily please go to the timeout room.” Our teacher told us. Guess she heard us talking.
“OK” I said as we gathered our stuff. We walked out of our classroom and down the hall to the timeout room. We’d have to stay here until five.
At five our teacher came in and told us to go home. We walked out of the school together and went our separate ways.
I was running, jumping, and flapping my arms like wings when, “AAARRGGH!” It felt like my brain was exploding and I passed out on the side of the road.
I woke up lying on my stomach in the grass near the road. There was a pain between my shoulder blades so I reached back to rub it and felt something there. I looked back to see that I had wings, I was a lot skinnier and lighter too.
I got a running start unfurling my wings and jumping up into the sky, flapping my wings to stay up. I flew all the way home.
Once I got home I went into my bedroom and saw that I wasn’t here alone. Angel, Gazzy, and Total were on my bed and Max, Fang, Iggy, and Nudge were on the floor looking at me, on full alert.
I told them that I was an avian-human hybrid too and that I wanted to come with them on their quest to save the world from Itex.
They huddled together to discuss this. I heard, “Too many to feed….could help us…. Might be a spy…. Not picking up anything evil.”
“Who are you and who created you?” Max questioned.
“I’m Rhia and I’m twelve. I don’t know who created me. The vet that lives here found me in the forest and took me in. I was walking home from school, got a major headache, and passed out. When I woke up I had wings and bird bones.” I answered.
“OK, you can come with us.” Max finally told me.
“Cool, thanks. You can have anything here you want.” I said.
“Let’s get ready to go.” Said Fang, finally speaking.
I packed two extra pairs of clothes and my hair brush. We all put food that wouldn’t go bad and wasn’t too heavy into our packs. When we were ready we walked out the back door. Flyboys were coming towards us.
“Up and away guys.” Max yelled over the drone of the flyboys.
We took off, unfurling our wings and jumping straight up into the air. Max was in front and we all followed her, heading north and north west.
As we flew I introduce my self to the flock and told them what I knew about Itex.
We stopped in a forest somewhere in Louisiana to eat and rest. We all ate a cereal bar and some candy and rested for about ten minutes. Then we took off again.
CHAPTER 2
We landed at the edge of Dr.Martinez’s yard still in the trees. Dr.Martinez, her daughter Ella, and Max’s dad Jeb were looking into the trees. We walked out and said hi to them.
“And who might this be?” Dr.Martinez asked, beaming at me.
“Hi, my name’s Rhia.” I said, shaking her hand.
“Nice to meet you Rhia.” Dr.Martinez said.
“Yeah.” Ella agreed.
“Well, come in, come in.” Dr.Martinez said ushering us inside the house.
I smelled homemade food. We all sat down to eat at the dining room table. Good thing they had lots of it ‘cause we were starving.
After dinner we all hung around watching TV and talking. Then Dr.Martinez walked in and told us she had some information for us.
“Here are some papers Jeb found before he left the school. It has information about your parents and just general things, names and stuff like that. Even you Rhia.” Dr.Martinez told us handing us all some papers.
That night we all gathered in the girls’ room to read the papers. Even Ella came in.
“Hey, cool. My parents’ names, my name, even my birthday. Wow, it has some stuff from the school too.” Gazzy said and all of us agreed ‘cause we all had the same.
We all tapped fists andwent to bed. Fang, Iggy, and Gazzy were in one the smaller spare bedroom. Max, Nudge, Angel, and I were in the larger one ‘cause it has two beds.
In the morning we had eggs, pancakes, bacon, biscuits, waffles, sausage, omelets, orange juice, and milk. It was great. After breakfast I told everyone about myself and how I met the flock.
We ordered pizzas and breadsticks for lunch. Guess what, we each got our own pizzas. It was totally awesome. Too bad we have to leave soon.
We left soon after lunch and headed north towards Canada and Alaska to try and find Itex headquarters there. We flew for a few hours and stopped for dinner at a McDonald’s. We had gotten money from Jeb and Dr.Martinez.
“I want a large 10-piece nugget meal, an Oreo mcflurry, and an apple pie.” I told the cashier.
She looked at me like I was crazy but rang it up anyway. I gave her the money and moved over so everyone else could order. Max and Fang ordered the same thing. Nudge, Angel and Total, and I had the same thing. Iggy and Gazzy ate the same thing.
We stopped for the night in a state park in Washington. We tapped our fists and found trees to sleep in.
I looked around. I was laying on my stomach on a branch above Fang, who was writing in his blog. Max was on the other side of the tree across from me in the crook of a branch. Nudge was curled up in a crook of a large branch. Angel was across from her curled up around Total. Iggy was flopped over a branchnext to Gazzy. Ang Gazzy found a hole carved from lightning and was tucked inside it.
Fang took first watch but I was too excited to sleep so I read his blog from the branch above him. Nudge and I took second watch. Max took last watch.
