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“What are you doing little one?”

“Colouring in a Junior Ranger colouring book, mummy.”

“Oh, I see. Where did you get that from?”

Rosa stopped and looked up at her mother with a crayon in her hand. “We had a Park Ranger come to school today and she talked about all the things there are to see and do in a national park.” Rosa smiled at her mother and then blurted out the sentence Sybil never thought she would hear from one of her children. “Can we go camping one day mummy in a national park?”

Sybil nearly dropped her ice cream bowl. George smiled and looked up from the newspaper he was reading. Julia let out a sharp laugh, while Timmy giggled and Brenda remained fast asleep in her cot in Rosa’s room. “That’s a great idea!” Julia picked up on what Rosa had mentioned. “Yes, mama, let’s go camping and I can make dinner on a campfire.”

“And I can roast marshmallows on a campfire,” added Rosa getting overly excited.

One Sunday morning before anyone else in the house had stirred, Rosa woke up and instead as she usually did jump out of bed and begin her day in earnest, she instead lay in bed for a while looking up at the ceiling and then over at the little cot close to her bed and smiled as she saw Brenda laying on her stomach fast sleep.

She smiled for a second and then said quietly, “you know what God, I love my little sister. At first, when my mummy told me she was having another chick, my heart was broken. I knew I would no longer be the youngest in my family and that there would be someone younger than me. But you know what God, it’s all because of you that my little heart is overjoyed with love. You changed my heart. You made me look at life differently nowadays. I can no longer be the brat my brother Timmy tells me I am. I have to be a role model for Brenda. I don’t want her to grow up and be a brat like me. She can be a JAP though just like me, but not a brat. And God while we are talking, you are listening to me, aren’t you? I thought so. So I will continue. Please make my sister Julia stop talking with a strange accent. She thinks that she should wear clothes that make her look like Dolly Parton and my mother, oh well she’s just doing the best she thinks for us little ones. But please can you while she’s asleep come to her like a dream and tell her to stop being bossy and be more like my daddy.”

The alarm sounded. Rosa opened her eyes slowly and smiled. The sun was shining through her window, warming up her bedroom nicely. She looked over at the cot where her baby sister, Brenda, was sleeping on her stomach and took a deep breath letting it out slowly. She then threw off her sheet, sat up, abruptly clapped her wings and shouted, “Today will be a great day! I am a gift from God!”

Brenda jumped, turned over and groaned, but smiled when she saw her sister sitting up in bed. But then their bedroom door opened. An out of breath Sybil poked her head around the corner and first looked at Brenda and then at Rosa. “What was that noise?” she asked. “Nothing,” replied Rosa, believing what she had said out loudly wasn’t noise, but words of inspiration which would alter her day.

“What happened to you? You look like you were in the war.” A question directed to Max when Julia, Timmy and he came out of Chaim’s Jewish Deli walking into the bright, warm sunshine, and had as suggested by Chaim turned left to the taxi stand.

“Well kind of,” replied Max, whose normally pristine feathers were somewhat ruffled.

“Oy vey!” replied one of the two crows standing next to an old dilapidated looking car with the word, ‘TAXI,’ scratched into the paint.

“What happened, tell us?” asked the seemingly more aggressive of the two crows.

“I had a fight with a few seagulls,” he replied, “it was nothing.”

“Nothing!” repeated the other crow, “I know about nothing, and that’s not nothing. That’s pretty serious stuff.”

“And believe me, he knows about serious stuff,” added the first crow. “Moshe here was in the Israeli Special Forces. He knows about nothing.”

“Hi daddy! I have a present for you,” said Rosa as she walked through the front door of the nest, dropping her book bag and handing her father an envelope, instead of allowing him to wrap his large wings around her. Rosa then continued walking towards the kitchen. At first, George was a little alarmed at his second eldest daughter’s behaviour. But instead of asking her to come back, he watched to see if she would hug her mother instead, which would mark a giant change in her behaviour. However, she waved to her mother and continued into the kitchen where Julia was waiting for her with a snack she had prepared. Rice Krispy Pie. George finally had to say something as this behaviour was so uncharacteristic of Rosa, and so he called her back. Rosa sighed as she was looking forward to a slice of Rice Krispy Pie and turned around, walked out of the kitchen and stood by her mother. Sybil of course was delighted with this change in Rosa, misreading it as she normally did.

I stood in front of the door. I read the sign above it for the third time. Sam’s Computer Repair Shop. It just didn’t look like any computer service store I’d ever been to. The plate glass windows on either side of the door were blacked out. I hesitated to open the door. I wasn’t afraid of what I might in there. It was just that I had a peculiar feeling. I couldn’t put it into words though. Maybe it was just that whenever I have wanted to get my computer fixed or updated or something I couldn’t handle technologically, I went to a place called Alphatech Computer Sales and Service, and guess what, it looked like a computer repair shop. This place didn’t. When I peered through the glass door it seemed dark inside and even though it’s located on a busy main street, it looked as if it should be in a back alley in a not so nice part of town. But this was where I was told to go by a friend who swore by the place.