Flight Day!

Charlie is sleeping now so I get to sneak out the wind and practise flying like a BOSS!

*

“So! I have a big uhm for you,” I say as I bounce onto Charlie’s bed for a good morning hello.

She opens her eyes. “I don’t hear sirens. I’ll take this as not being a worrying uhm?”

I grin like a jayboss at that. “Nope! But but but I went flying last night, and I was mostly with birds and hiding like a boss only I think people saw me?”

“Jay. You hide your nature better than anything else. You can be invisible if you want to.”

It’s not invisible, but I’m smart as a Jay and not about to correct Charlie before at least two cups of coffee!

”But there were fireworks all around me. I can’t see, but I could hear them really well,” I explain.

Charlie groans. “That was for Memorial Day. Not because you were flying.”

“Oh.”

“I imagine it was very Jaysome flying,” she says, poking me on the nose with a finger. “But if people set off fireworks every time you did something awesome, there wouldn’t be any fireworks in the world in under a week.”

“Oh! That makes sense,” and I give Charlie a huge hug and head out the door to get her morning coffee.

*

“Jay,” Charlie says. “Quick question: how big we’re some of those fireworks last night?”

“Pretty loud! So I guess they were big?”

“Because the local paper has a report of a fighter jet shooting at a ufo. The base is, of course, confirming nothing.”

“I might have played tag with birds and got a little carried away?”

“A little.”

“But I was definitely identified so I wasn’t a ufo,” I say proudly.

“You … were identified.”

“I thought the pilot might be more okay if he could see me.”

“You thought a flying boy would make sense to them?”

“Well, more than an invisible shape moving within a flock of birds?”

“Of course. Because doing that is very subtle.”

“Yup!”

And I don’t even know what Charlie would say to that because some bad bindings snag at us and the coffee shop has full of gas and Official People with guns.

And Charlie passes our really fast so I fake it as well because she’s my friend and this is definitely the kind of adventure you rescue friends from!

*

I’m being even quieter than a jay when government people try and search us. Because Charlie is still all sleeping and I might learn Stutf

*

Okay! I’m figuring stuff out like a Boss! Because! the government people have a psychic guy who is all twitchy, and he sensed Charlie was all kinds of nifty but not me at all. But Charlie still hasn’t woke up from the drugs they gave her and unbinding drugs from humans is pretty complicated so I’m waiting and they’re worried and I might be getting a little cross!

*

“She still isn’t awake? Shit. What about the boy?”

“He’s sleeping,” the psychic the government people employ says in his nasal whine and

"Hi,“ I say, jumping to my feet and unbinding the ropes and chains they put on me. The cell door opens as I grin. Some of them don’t like it when I grin, even like a Jay! because they begin shooting at me. I’m tough and I unbind guns and make them fall apart even as a few bullets leave small bruises on my skin.

"I want Charlie to be woken up now,” I explain, and the psychic does some mental thing that doesn’t hurt at all. And I’m getting all kinds of cross, so I grin like a Jaysaurus and some of the men with guns run away. “I can count higher than ten but I’m not going to because Charlie is my friend and –."

"What are you?” the psychic whispers.

"A Jay. And you didn’t sense me cuz I’m all Jaysome!“

"What?”

"I just said, and anyway,“ I begin, but some people don’t want to make friends at all because my bindings with Charlie go all funny as the psychic tries something. And Charlie is hurt and I’m all kinds of mad do I roar like a Jaysaurus with a huge "Rowr,” and the psychic screams and falls, every binding inside him breaking down.

His brains are all kinds of mushy as they leak out of his ears but it doesn’t feel like an oops at all.

I poke the god inside Charlie awake and we try to wake her up but the military people are getting all kinds of unfriendly so I have to unbind parts of tanks and everything before I sneak us away.

I ask the internet how to hot-wire and drive a car and we totally escape. I might have kinda taken the car sideways from the world a little, but it doesn’t crush either of us to death and the screaming of dying metal wakes Charlie up nice and fast. She doesn’t ask a single question, not for a whole hour. But I am grounded for FOUR days from flying!

*

Charlie says we’re all adventured out for a few days!

So I’m going to do a sleeping tonight and not fly at all.

NIGHT EVERYONE :D

*

I woke up and it wasn’t an adventure but! Charlie was woke up by a very sad god she knew and she’s trying to explain human politics to her Uncle Sam and I didn’t know Charlie had an uncle who was a god and politics is lots of weird bindings that don’t make any sense at all.

So I leave them to a talking and head out to make some new friends :)