"Seven-thirty?" cried Elsa. "In the morning? Just for a few hours in the park? Sounds suspicious if you ask me."
"It'll be cooler," reasoned Jared. "It gets too hot to play soccer in the afternoon. Then, we won't get sunburned." Elsa brought her forefinger and thumb to rest on her chin.
"And we'll put our breakfast dishes away," I offered. Please, please, please, I though. Say yes! Say yes!
"Well, all right," sighed Elsa. But come home in time for lunch, or your excursions will be put to a stop! Now, go eat dinner. It's lasagna tonight, and James and John made a salad--" We hurried to the table, actually three tables put together. Fifteen chairs metal chairs surrounded the tables, decorated with white tablecloths and set with utensils, plates, and cups.
All plastic, of course(ceramic was too expensive).

After dinner, I escaped with Jared to the den. It was frigid and cool, so I shut the tiny windows that peeked out into a vast expanse of blue and black, sprinkled with a dusting of stars. The old window closed with a gut-wrenching squeak.
I winced.
"Hello, Sam. Hi, Jared," called out two identical voices, slightly deep, like a spoon skimming water. James and John. Of course.
"What now?" said Jared. "Looking for someone to play a trick on?" John shook his head seriously.
"No, we're just looking for players to play Wink."
"Which is...?"
So they both explained the game of cards. First, the cards are dealt out, one to each player, and the player who gets the "queen" card tries to wink at another player.
When the player sees the queen wink, he/she says,"I'm dead," and puts down their card. An "unwinked" player that finds out who the queen is can announce it and therefore win the game.
"That's all there is to it," stated James. "Couldn't be simpler."
"Who else is playing?" I asked.
"Rachel, Samantha, Derek, and Laura." I rolled my eyes.
"Okay."

John dealt out the cards. He said,"Reveal," and I saw a queen in my hands. I almost shouted, I was so surprised. Kind of strange, for the first time...
I concentrated at Jared, sitting across from me.
He looked up.
I winked, furtively.
"I know who it is!" squealed Samantha. "It's...Sam!" I grumbled. John shuffled the cards and dealt them. Queen again! This time I tried Rachel, but her frizzy hair blocked all means of communication.
Then I tried James. He concentrated on the red-backed card in his hands. Almost to the point of shouting, I looked at Derek. He glanced at me. Stealing the chance, I winked.
Still looking at me, he said,
"I'm dead." The idiot. Again Samantha caught me. That little...
John must have shuffled the cards and dealt them at least twenty times, and twenty times I got the queen and Samantha caught me.
I was about to ask whether or not he shuffled correctly when Elsa came in and yelled,
"Lights out."
I filed off to the bedroom, shaking my head.
Fallie snorted beside me.

Next morning, I had to shake Jared twice to wake him. He yawned and stretched, then we tried to stay awake long enough to eat breakfast. I washed dishes, then we were off.
If you've ever been friends with someone and were unfortunate enough to run slower than them, I feel for you. Jared was like a bullet, skinny legs pumping like pistons.
When we got to the park, a mile away, I was in a sweat and he didn't even pant.
We spotted Helen at a crumbled picnic table, littered with bird feces. I wrinkled my nose and sat down delicately.
"I was wondering when you'd finally show up," snapped Helen bossily. She stretched out the word "finally."
"We left at seven'o'clock!" Jared shot back. I rolled my eyes.
"Well, what have you got to tell us?" Helen crossed her arms.
"First, you prove to me that one of might be one of Them."
"How can we do that when we haven't the slightest idea who They are!" Her brow furrowed.
I frowned back.
"Helen, I don't know how the heck you figured all this out in that little head of yours," said Jared,"but I think..." I looked at him peculiarly. "...I think you ought to know..." He reluctantly unzippered his navy blue jacket, his favorite one. Bright yellow painted lines raced up the side of the jacket sleeves. Then he slid one short-sleeved arm out of it.
Helen gasped.
"You--I don't--why--that's impossible--" Helen stuttered stupidly. Jared frowned.
"So now you know." He slid his arm back into the jacket and zipped it up to his throat. "Now tell us." Helen licked her lips, uncrossed her arms, and began.
"Well...I...okay, I'll start with me. I was not born here. Not in this city, not in this country, not in this continent. Not in this world. I was born in a world separated from yours by a barrier."
She licked her lips again.
"Naturally, all barriers have peepholes, cracks, crevices. And naturally, people discover them. My people, people from my world, knew of this. So they sent children--children like me, orphans--to find out about this other world of yours. There is one crack, the biggest in the entire barrier, that sits not far from here. We call it the Gate. But more children, more orphans, come through. More and more. Because of the turmoil inside, it is the only way to escape."
"Escape what?" She frowned impatiently at the interruption.
"I was getting to that," she snapped, and began again. "In my world, a wicked sorceress reigns. My people and countless others, they strive to escape her rules and regulations that enslave us. Her penalty for disobedience is death."
"This sorceress, Naga by the name, controls vast armies. Hundreds. Thousands. Hundreds of thousands. But she does not know of the Gate. It is our only escape, this Gate. The orphans that cannot stay, cannot fight, they escape. Here."
She took a breath.
"I was one. My father, he owned the First Key to the gate. Twelve gates, twelve keys. Twelve provinces. My father ruled the first province. So Naga attacked him first, put the city under siege. We didn't last long, of course. The First Province is an industrial city, relying on imports and exports. It lies near the sea, but Naga had blockaded our ports. There was no escape. But Father was smart. He knew I was small and quiet. So he hung the First Key around my neck, kissed my forehead, and pushed me into the sea. I never saw him again." Helen brushed a tear from her eye.
"Wait a sec," said Jared. "He pushed you into the sea? What kind of father is that?" Helen glared at him so hard I could have sworn sparks flew from her eyes.
"Better than death," she spat. She resumed her story. "I managed to swim away, but two of her fiends caught me, in a boat they had stolen. So I stabbed one in the chest and leaped out of the boat." Her voice cracked.
My mind reeled. "You stabbed someone?"
"Not someone, something," corrected Helen. "Eventually I found a horse and escaped before anyone really noticed. But still, they burned my home. My town. My parents, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, grandparents. My horse. My father's horse. The palace. Everything, everything is gone. But I escaped to another city, Lan'lienn, and stayed there for awhile. But orphans are never welcome long. I decided that I would have a better chance here, in your world, where there are more kindred souls. So I escaped through the First Gate with the First Key."
A glistening tear slid down her cheek.
"The goblins, they are masters of pain. They inflict pain. They receive pain. They are pain. That's why I hate them. They must be stopped." She snarled.
"But I will come back. I will come back and kill them all." Her expression softened.
"And then I met you. You, who seemed different. And then I saw the feathers on..." She looked at Jared.
"Jared," he said.
"...Jared's arm. And I knew I was not alone." Jared was aghast.
"What? I didn't even know my parents. I didn't even know they were alive, or dead, or anything! What are you telling me? What is it?" Helen sighed.
"It is said that...the ones who fly, the people with feathers on their arms, it is said...that their town was the first to be burned, before Naga's rise to power. That event marked the start of her rise to control Moronia. No one survived, it is said. The avians, they lived in the rocky cliffs by the sea. Then the goblins came. They blasted the cliff to pieces, with dynamite. All that is left is a flat plane, haunted by the tortured souls, and all is heard is an eagle's cry from time to time." Helen put her head in her hands.
"I'm so sorry," she whispered. Jared was shocked. Helen continued. "But there's also a legend. It is said before Father Time retired deep into the Earth to escape the evils of the worlds, he told of a rise of Dark that would plague the land, not just in Moronia, but in other worlds as well. He said only one thing would be able to stop it. Every child was made to memorize his prophesy so that we would always have hope, and remember that there was a way out of the Dark, no matter how many times we had lost hope." Helen recited.

When the dead have risen at last,
And the Guardians rise yet again,
Then will Dark be conquered with Light
By the lost, the alone, and the avian.

I stared at the table. It sounded like a story, something Elsa would tell the littlest orphans before bed. Something strange and bizarre, but not bizarre enough for someone to be drawn into it, to make it real.
"I--I--" Jared interrupted me.
"Well, this sounds very strange to me, but I just have to ask--what's a Guardian?"
Helen nodded. "A Guardian is a being who watches over a certain person, like a guardian angel. Someone could find out who their Guardian as late in life as they want, but a Guardian is attached to a person at birth. Only people of my world have Guardians, so when my people heard of the prophecy, they thought the one in the prophecy would be of their world for sure. But we never found the avian."
"What's an avian?" asked Jared.
"Someone who flies," Helen replied.
"And by the way," she added. "But I'm not supposed to be telling you this! Any one of my people could kill me right this minute and nothing would be unfair. I am disobeying the main law! You realize what we have to do, don't you? The Hunters could come at any time. They are Dark servants of Naga. There are thirteen, and none have ever defeated them. All they wreak is chaos. You must not tell ANYONE. Eventually, they will find out and we get killed."
I nodded. "Sorry." Jared reflected me.
"Ditto." She rolled her eyes at his slang.
"No, you don't. You see, I can't just let you wander around with this knowledge. I'm in enough trouble already. No, you're coming with me. We HAVE to go to my world. Moronia. Leaving you with this knowledge is like leaving a baby with a lit match."
"Wait a second," said Jared. "We have to go with you? Man, Elsa is gonna skin us alive!"
"Pretty please," Helen pleaded. "We need your help!"
"Didn't you just say that your people were gonna kill you?" said Sam drily. "I don't think they'd be too happy if we kind of invaded your country."
A tear squeezed itself out of Helen's right eye. "But--"
"Let's just say we're really, REALLY, really sorry, but no can do," cut in Jared. "Come on Sam, we should go."
So we left her there, crying all over the poo-covered picnic table.