Nikanatedanniell

Chapter 18 The Two of Tardiness

Breakfast on the first day of the festival was as colorful as the day outside. Yellow, green, red and white dotted an egg scramble. Clear blue jelly was set out for warm brown toast. The Brecket family, minus two members, gathered around the table to enjoy it.

"Has anyone seen Niel or Nikki?" Carman asked. "Debby is concerned that Nikki has been out all night."

"She is gone," Debby said fervently. "I woke up and had a feeling and went for my ball and then remembered it was gone. I wanted to tell Nikki but her bed was made. I thought she was still looking at pictures, but she was not. I said a prayer and felt better so I went back to bed. When I woke up, her bed was still made. She is gone."

"I found the same with Niel," Lans said. "I went into his room to tell him to shut his alarm off. He was not in there and his bed did not look slept in. The pile of clean clothes I put on it was still there."

"Well," Carman began, "they know when we need to leave. I am sure they will be back in time. Let us eat."

Prayer was said, breakfast was eaten and except for two places, cleaned up when the two of tardiness arrived. Each was a strange sight and breathing heavily. Niel was attired in bath tunic, small backpack, dirt and leaves, Nikki in swimsuit cover-up, vines and more dirt. Seeing the concerned looks, Niel raised his hand and started to explain.

"We are fine. We just ran all the way from the top of the hill. That is all."

"All the way from the top of the hill?" Taet repeated. "I feel I am going to regret asking, but what were you doing up the hill, and why are you dressed like that?"

Nikki plopped onto the chair in front of one of the place settings and gulped down juice. "We had to wear something easy to slip on," she explained, "as wings get in the way of regular clothes and we did not want to stay naked after we changed back."

Niel stopped her, "Nikki, they are confused. We better start with last night."

"Oh, yeah, that would be a good idea. You go ahead."

So Niel went ahead to an increasingly amazed audience. "Last night we saw a picture of our birth mother flying and we realized that we ought to be able to fly too. We talked about it in detail, discussed the risks and decided that since it was cloudy, we could risk a short flight. We practiced changing back and forth before we left, went into the back yard and flew. We had a little problem with landing and I lost some tail feathers. I was not sure how well I could fly with missing feathers so we decided to sleep in Arch Cave and then came home as fast as we could. I hope we are not too late." He sat and ate.

Everyone but Carman spoke at once. "You flew?" "You had a tail?" "I want to see, I want to see you fly." "You slept in a cave?" "What were you thinking?" Questions kept pouring out. Debby jumped and waved her arms and shouted, "I want to fly too." Finally, Carman had enough.

"Silence," he roared. Everyone was stick still. "This day had to come. We all must realize that they are to be about their callings. They are half Páji and so the sky is their heritage. According to Nikki's dream, they need to know how to fly well. Where and how they practice is up to them. We hope they use wisdom and keep injuries to a minimum.