In the middle of the night I wake up, but my legs don't. I tense, wondering what woke me. I hear an owl in a tree going "Hoo, hoo." I relax a little and get up to stretch my legs. The truck's in a parking lot next to a nice little park, and I think I'll walk around for awhile.
"It's me, Bilbo," I say, "Try to be quiet, 'kay? Don't need to wake everyone." By the silouette, I can tell it's one of the twins. She crawls out of the truck, as limber as a cat.
"Where ya goin'?" she asks.
"Just for a walk," I say, "come with if you want." She follows silently. Definitely Alina. She slips her hand into mine. When we hear a rustle in the bushes, she tightens her grip. I feel her start.
"It's okay," I say, "It's just the wind."
"I don't like the dark," she says, more to herself than to me, "I get scared often. I wish I was brave like Mitch."
"Everyone gets scared sometimes," I say.
"Not Mitch," she says.
"Even Mitch get scared," I say, "Every once in awhile. She's just better at hiding it."
"No," Alina says, "Not Mitch." She looks up at me with those wide, trusting eyes, and that olive toned skin that hasn't experienced the trials of zits. She squares those tiny shoulders, which don't yet know the weight of the world, and says, "Mitch isn't scared of anything. Nothing can stop her." It hits me like a semi how young she really was. How little she understood about the trials she'd been thrust into. She still looked at Mitch like she was some sort of super hero, who could conquer anything. I tried to remember a time when I looked up to a person that way. I couldn't. By the time I was her age, I was a sad little kid who'd just been chased out of the only life I'd ever really known. The life of foster care. Anyone who had the potential of seeming omniscient to me had already disappeared.
"Alina," Aya calls quietly, "Is that you?"
"Yeah," Alina says, "Me and Bilbo."
"My name's not-" I sigh, "Never mind." Aya skips to Alina's side. Aya smiles widely, and Alina smiles back softly. Aya challenges Alina to a race, and they set off, running between bushes at break-neck speeds. Aya is faster than Alina at first, though Aya runs out of her burst of speed and has to slow down quicker, where as Alina seems to be able to run at the same speed indefinitely. Alina runs like a shadow, quiet, barely disturbing a leaf. Aya runs like a race car, plowing along, leaving the grass ruffled and the wind swirling behind her. When Aya gets bored, I race Alina, letting her win a few times, though I'm normally in the lead.
At some point the rest of the gang joins us. Silas nabs some water guns from someone's porch and fills them up in a little fountain in the middle of the park. We split up into teams, boys against girls. Aya has to fill her's up a dozen times for every time Alina does, she's constantly firing her's. Alina's more careful, taking time to aim. But once she does aim, her shot is spot on. Mitch can aim faster than a lightning flash. Before you know she's even seen you, you'll find yourself being besieged by her watergun. Silas is an expert at maneuvering. One minute, you won't know where he is, the next, he'll be dumping buckets of water on you. Charlie is hesitant at first, but once he gets in his stride, he's a fairly decent shot.
By the time we've finished, we're all drenched and laughing our heads off. We all collapse onto and around a park bench and watch the sun rise. Alina leans her head on my leg, and Charlie rests his head on my shoulder. The sun tinges the clouds pink, the rest of the sky as orange as a bad fake-tan. The grass seems greener than grass has a right to seem, the morning more peaceful than a morning has a right to feel. The sight made me feel comfortable and lazy. But, deep down, I have this odd feeling that something bad is going to happen today. The thought is so foreign to the setting, so alien to my mind at this point in time, that I push it away without really analyzing it. If we're all together, we'll be fine, I try to convince myself, as long as we're all together.
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