The Hidden

Chapter 4

The rest of the party went by quickly and thankfully without any freakouts from Dalia. After the meal Dalia opened up her presents all of which she had seemed pretty pleased about (mine was obviously her favorite), after that we had some cake. Everyone had had to have a a very small slice of cake because between 23 people, the small cake wasn't going to be enough for everyone to have a big piece. But nobody really cared how small of a peice they got, cake was a rare treat and no one was going to complain. Besides, as long s Dalia was ok with it than the rest of the clan was too.

After everyone had eaten the very last crumb iff of their plate, Aspen and Faye had cleared the table off.

All of the moms stayed at the table and chatted about their unruly children and such while the dads gathered to discuss the potential of building a new outhouse for each hut (currently the whole clan shared two which really wasn't the greatest thing in the world).

The younger kids like Miles, Dalia, and Iris were kicking around a round seed, playing keep away with each other. Faye, North and Cassia were trying to do one handed cartwheels for whatever reason. All of th kids 17 years and older stood in a group in their own corner of he clearing, talking and whatnot. Ash stood as far away from Thalia as he could get despite our little talk earlier.

As for Aven, Quinn and I, we of course were sitting up in one of the trees looking down on the whole scene. When we had been younger, Quinn, Aven and I had been like the three musketeers. We had been inseperable, but as we got older the whole gender difference pulled us apart a bit. We were still friends, but Quinn now tended to spend more time with other guys.

Tonight however was just like the old days: just the three of us sittng up in a tree together. From up there we had the perfect vantage point, we could see everything that was going on below. Were our parents to allow it, we certainly would have climbed up higher in the tree but unfortunately they had to be worry-warts.

"You know what would be cool? If we parachuted down from here." Quinn said, a daring grin on his face.

Aven let out a snort, "Only if you want our parents to have simultaneous heart attacks, recover and then kill us."

"What if we landed on top of our parents?" I asked, the image of me falling out of the sky and on top of my parents caused a smirk to spread across my face.

"Really Kalla?" Aven asked as she shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"I just said it'd be cool, not that'd we would do it." Quinn grumbled.

If Quinn wasn't like a brother to me, I would have found him to be pretty attractive. He had dark skin and a head of curly hair that was a dusty brown color. His eyes were a rich chocolate color and often had glint of excitement in them.

Quinn shared my craving for excitement, but whereas I sought out adventure and daring expeditions, Quinn perferred weird stuff like parachuting off of a tree. Excitement seeking was kind of the theme of our little group. We were younger it's likely we would have gone through with some pretty crazy stuff had it not been for Aven. Though Aven was an excitement seeker too, she usually drew the line before things got too out of hand.

By this time it was getting pretty dark out, all of the younger kids had been sent off to be and the table and seats had been cleared out. I couldn't see the huge watch propped outside our hut, which served as the clans one and only way of knowing the actual time, I could guess it was nearing 10:00.

"Kalla, Aven, Quinn! It's time to come down now!" I heard my dad call as he looked up at us, making a beckoning arm motion.

"Already?" Aven groaned.

I let out a sigh, "Let's just go."

After we climbed our way back down the tree and to the ground we said our goodnights then headed off to our seperate huts.

Though I hadn't realized it before when up in the tree, I was pretty tired despite my nap earlier in the day. So I quickly changed into my comfy fur pajamas, slipped into bed and in a matter of minutes was sound asleep.