The Blau family were in for a shock. They had recently returned from visiting New Jersey in the dead of winter, just so Elizabeth could explain to Rosa the difference between seeing snow in a photograph and actually being in snow, when they woke up one morning to a vast winter wonderland.

“Look!” shouted Rosa flying into her parents’ bedroom and bouncing on their bed which was something she had been told many times not to do, “look daddy, mummy, look outside. The beach is gone.”

It was those last four words that shook her parents out of their deep slumber, believing that while they were asleep a giant tsunami had hit North Topsail Beach and washed all the sand out to sea, on its way to Africa. They screamed and jumped out of their bed. Rosa didn’t know her excitement would cause her parents to panic. She tried to make the best of it.

“It’s not Tuesday!” Rosa announced as she walked into the kitchen where Julia was busy preparing dinner.

“I know that, Rosa. I can read.”

“Then why are we having tacos?”

Julia laughed. “Just because it’s Thursday doesn’t mean we can’t have tacos.”

“Yes, it does. We are only allowed to have tacos on Tuesday. That’s why when they invented the calendar they made it Taco Tuesday. You’re not allowed to have tacos on any other day.” “Ha, you’re wrong,” replied Julia, busily cutting up tomatoes and onions for the salsa. “But that doesn’t mean you have to have some of it. You can just have the meat without the taco.”

“What’s the meat?”

“Chicken,” replied Julia knowing that would upset her sister, and it did.

Rosa yawned.

“Time to go to bed young lady?” asked George who closed the book he was reading to her. Rosa yawned again and lay her head on her father’s shoulder.

“Yes daddy, I think so. I feel very tired.”

“Well, you’ve had a very busy day, haven’t you?”

Rosa nodded and closed her eyes. “Yes daddy, but you know what the best part of the day was?”

George smiled. He had an idea, but he had to ask. “What was the best part of the day?”

“Right now, daddy, when you read me a chapter from Little Women. The book is much better than the movie though.”

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” shouted Rosa as she flew from bedroom to bedroom waking up everyone. And as the occupants groaned Rosa pulled the curtains aside. She then flew into the living room and opened those curtains as well because the occupant of that room, Elizabeth, was asleep on the couch. She groaned the most and tried though unsuccessfully, to pull the quilt back over herself. “Wake up! Wake up!” Rosa continued to shout and Elizabeth who had fallen asleep on the couch after drinking too much the prior evening, had been allowed to stay the night, instead of having an overly eager Jeremy walk her home. They didn’t trust Jeremy to take Elizabeth home without a detour down by the beach and the water’s edge. Jeremy was crestfallen when he was booted out of the house, even though he had unsuccessfully tried to plead his case.

“Whose idea was this anyway?” asked a shivering Julia.

“Rosa’s!” shouted everyone except of course, Rosa. The Blau family stood on a snow covered Atlantic City boardwalk.

“Yes Rosa, why did you make us come here in the middle of January?” Timmy being the skinniest of the lot tried to hide behind his father, the most corpulent of the lot, but failed miserably. Elizabeth, who had agreed to tag along in the hope of teaching Rosa a lesson about photographs of snow and actually being in the middle of the snow, watched Jeremy begin to move sideways closer to her.

“I can keep you warm,” he whispered to Elizabeth who lashed out with her wing sending him flying through the snow and ending up on the beach. “This is just like home!” he replied grinning from ear to ear. “You need to do that more often.” He looked at a fuming and shivering Elizabeth.

“What’s that doing on the table?” asked Sybil, her voice climbing as she pointed to a round glass container.

“What’s what doing on the table?” replied George pretending not to notice the small glass container in the centre of the table.

“That!” Sybil emphasised pointing even more determinedly with her wing.

“Oh, that,” replied George hoping he could come up with an answer which would placate his wife. However, after scanning all his brain cells and finding he couldn’t, he defaulted to the truth. “Ha,” he began, “you have to ask Rosa, she put it there.”

“Why would Rosa put that there?” she asked this time hoping George would finally tire of going around in circles and illuminate her.

“It’s cream cheese,” he replied looking quickly around the room for his youngest daughter, but she wasn’t there.

“Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” shouted both Julia for whom that was unusual and Rosa for whom that was standard, as they ran through the front door of their nest, bypassing George’s open wings and throwing their school bags in the direction of the far wall closest to the kitchen, where Sybil stood to avoid any collateral damage from Rosa flying into her father’s arms. But on that day, it was different.

Both Julia and Rosa came in together, though they finished school at different times, thus completely changing the order of business. George felt dejected. He lowered his wings and turned to follow his daughters’ progress into the nest. He wasn’t yet caught up in their exuberance. “Guess what?” shouted Rosa who was the least out of breath and began the conversation with her trademark question.

Elizabeth May Hicks was born into a financially comfortable Jewish family in Cirencester, Gloucestershire, in England, 10 years after the beginning of the last century.

Her father made his money by buying and selling cloth throughout the country. He travelled a great deal leaving his wife, Janet, at home to take care of their four children, 3 boys and Elizabeth being the only girl. Needless to say, Elizabeth grew up as a tomboy, but that was until she met a boy much to her liking, but not to her parents because he wasn’t Jewish. It was when she bumped into Rupert at her school as a teenager that she began to wear her hair longer and to the amusement of her parents, discovered what it was to wear a dress.

“What should we feed them?”

“Matzo ball soup!”

“Pastrami on rye with mustard!”

“Spaghetti and meatballs!”

The suggestions stopped immediately, “spaghetti and meatballs?” Everyone except Rosa asked in unison as they looked at her as if she had two heads.

“Why would you make that suggestion?” asked Sybil, “it’s not the slightest bit Jewish.”

And soon Virginia was fast asleep.

Bruce wasn’t quite sure what to do. On one hand he enjoyed Virginia laying on his chest fast asleep and yet on the other hand, he knew he couldn’t take her back. Her leaving and returning three times had taken a great toll on Bruce, not just mentally, but also physically. Each time she left he fell a little deeper into depression. His work suffered. The people in his business noticed the change in his mannerisms. He didn’t like the way he felt. He didn’t like the way he looked. That was being felt across his entire office. Bruce was known as a sharp dresser. He always wore the most expensive clothing. His ties were of the best fabrics and the knots were perfect, but now it seemed as if that pride had disappeared.

It was another beautiful early morning in Shangri-La. Rosa was outside this time on the deck sitting on her father’s lounge chair, looking out over the Atlantic Ocean desperately wondering why she couldn’t see Africa.

The sun was out and even though it was just above the horizon, its warmth could be felt and the cloudless sky bode well for the upcoming day. As usual, Rosa’s aunt Elizabeth, was out on the sand stretching her wings as far as they would go with her legs folded beneath her body in a most awkward manner.

The sliding door opened but Rosa didn’t look up to see who it was, she knew it was her mother.

Bruce took a deep breath. He knew it was now or never. He had to begin the conversation which would eventually lead to a different outcome from the past. As difficult as it would be, and he knew that in his heart of hearts he didn’t really want to do it, but he knew he had to. Virginia’s hands were still resting on his. She apparently hadn’t either noticed the difference in or ignored the difference but in the past he would have pulled her closer or held her hands tighter, but he hadn’t this time.

He squeezed his eyes closed. Virginia was still looking at him sadly. He pulled his hands away from hers, though she kept hers exactly where they were. “You can stay here tonight, but unfortunately….

“I know,” she interrupted him sadly, “you don’t need to say anything more. I know I’ve overstayed my welcome.”

Every morning when Rosa awoke, she looked out of her bedroom window and saw a lonely figure sitting cross legged with her wings outstretched, gazing towards the rising sun, and knew all was well in the world.

Rosa smiled as she sat there in her pink pyjamas with little kittens all over it, a late Chanukah gift from Melody, who at that moment was stretched out under the nest still fast asleep. She watched her aunt, who she didn’t care much for, doing her hatha yoga stretches before flying off to her law office to spend the rest of the day threatening to sue companies who don’t comply with her warped reading of the world.

“You should join me some time,” Elizabeth said while she sat alone outside her nest after work making sure Jeremey didn’t come by. Rosa scrunched up her beak and rolled her eyes at her aunt’s suggestion.

“I don’t want to be a pretzel,” she replied not stopping but continuing her walk home in the company of her bodyguard, Melody. Elizabeth didn’t push the subject. She was always afraid that she may one day overstep her bounds and Rosa would send Melody after her and that would be the end of the slip and fall attorney. Rosa though never had any such thought and Melody she knew, even though she didn’t care for Elizabeth, would not comply feeling that the order wouldn’t be lawful or necessary, something she had overheard the Marines at Camp Lejeune discuss while walking on the beach with their little Marines in tow.

There was a knock on the door. Bruce, who had returned from work that evening later than usual, had finished dinner and then sat on the couch with his eyes closed, his head titled backwards as his mind wandered over the day’s events.

The weather was horrible. The heavens had opened. The skies were angry and dark. Streaks of lightening lit up the night as thunder rolled aimlessly around the sky. Bruce was thinking of what to do for the hour or so before he made his way upstairs to bed and say goodbye to a tough day at work.

He opened his eyes slowly when he heard the knock again, but then quickly closed them when he felt it was his mind playing tricks on him. Nobody would be out in such weather. He heard the knock again. This time it was short sharp rap and very distinct. After a second of thought, he jumped up and peered through one of the side panels of the front door. He could see in the outside lights a petite figure standing there drenched. He thought no more of it other than it must be a stranded motorist and opened the door. The least he could do was to offer them some shelter. It was Virginia!

“There’s a noise in your voice that will pop my head off!” said Timmy trying to keep his voice down when Rosa, who had completely recovered from her cold, decided to go into Timmy’s room to ask him how he was feeling.

Timmy had come down with an even stronger bout of the flu than had gripped Rosa. This was the second day he lay in bed not able to gather the strength to do something as simple as read. That was very unlike Timmy. He was known as the book worm of the family. He rarely joined in games played on the beach with his best friend Max. He would rather stay indoors curled up on the couch reading the Torah or a detective novel, Sherlock Holmes being his favourite.

‘A train passes here at 95 miles an hour at these times, whether you’re on the tracks or not.’ And then there was a list of times. Derek read the sign with some amusement and then as a secondary thought, checked his watch. It was 3.20pm. He looked up at the sign again and noticed that the closest time was 3.30pm.

I wonder if these times are accurate, he asked himself and then was startled by a voice from the car behind him. He turned.

“Dad, dad, aren’t you going to come back?” It was his 12-year-old son, Jeremey. He smiled and waved to his car which had not only his son in it, but his 10-year-old daughter, Agnes and his wife, Jennifer. He looked back at the sign and then returned to the car. He got into the driver’s seat, closed the door and looked at his wife. She wasn’t looking at him but instead into the distance, way beyond the railway crossing.

“It’s 3.20pm,” he began,

“3.21,” his wife corrected him.

“Namaste Mrs Wilson, hello, good morning!”

Mrs Wilson who was sitting at her desk busily marking some papers while waiting for her 12 o’clock class to arrive, pushed her reading glasses lower down her nose and looked at the students walking in. She smiled when she saw Rosa Blau with her usual large grin on her face, carrying what looked like a scrap book under her wing walk into the classroom and plonk herself on a chair.

Mrs Wilson waited for the rest of the class to take their seats before saying anything. She then carefully put her red pen down and got up from her chair. She walked over to the white board, picked up a dry erase marker and pointed at Rosa. “Good afternoon, everyone!” That caused Rosa to giggle slightly and cover her beak in embarrassment.

Each day after he finishes school, Pradeep Saxena goes straight home where he gives his mother a quick kiss on her cheek, pats his dog Lucy and then runs upstairs to begin his homework.

His sister Rita, always complained to their mother that Pradeep never came to say hi to her. “Ma!” she would say, “it’s as if I don’t exist in this world.”

Pradeep’s mother would assure Rita that she did indeed exist, and that Pradeep was on a mission when he got home. To that point, their mother would take Rita by the hand and walk her reluctantly into Pradeep’s room, where they found him hard at work tackling a maths problem. She would clear her throat pretentiously, causing Pradeep to roll his eyes and turn to face them.

“Ma!” he would say, “I have to finish my work before I can leave to go down to the station and every second counts.”

“Why are you dressed like that?”

“Where did you get that outfit?”

“We aren’t going to a Halloween party, Timmy!”
“You don’t look like a Sandpiper anymore, you look like a Penguin!”
Hearing all those comments from his family made Timmy sad. “I thought,” he replied glumly, “that because we are going out to dinner somewhere where we have never been before, with people we have never met before, that I should dress up.”

“Where did you get the costume?” Sybil wasn’t sure if she was amused or annoyed.

“Mum, this isn’t not a costume. It’s a tuxedo!”
“Sorry Timmy. Where did you get the tuxedo from?”
“The thrift store.”“The one at Dad’s synagogue?”
“Yes. Benne was there and he was helping Carole, and I told him what we were doing and where we were going. So, he suggested that if I wanted to make a great impression, then I should get this tuxedo.”

Jeremy pushed open the door, the bell sounded. Two men sitting against the back wall both reading the same kind of magazines looked up, looked at each other and went back to their pastime. Jeremy felt uncomfortable. He wasn’t sure what to do next, so he remained standing there.

A couple of excruciating and painful minutes later, the slightly older one of the two men looked up but didn’t say word. Jeremy did. “I need a haircut please.” The two men looked at each shrugged their shoulders and went back to their magazines. Must be new editions, thought Jeremy, obviously more important than business. He remained standing waiting for one of them to reply.

Finally, the slightly younger of the two said, “did you read the sign on the glass?”