Ending ELE (ELE Series) (11 page)

I wake up with a start as I hear my name. “
Wello
!
Wello
,
wake
up
!” I’m groggy and try to fall back asleep.

“
Just a few more minutes,” I mumble, half-asleep.

“
Wello,” the little, insistent voice bellows again. “It’s my birday! I’m five years old, Wello, look!”

I
peek out of one of my eyes and see Sabby’s hand proudly displaying five fingers. “I’m a whole hand old, Wello!”

Claire giggles under her breath.
I lick my lips and try to will my eyes to open.

“
Time to get up,” Carrie says. “I bought you till nine.”

I groan and rub my eyes.
Everyone shuffles around me, trying to come to. We only had a few hours of sleep but I guess it’s better than nothing. I sit up and yawn big, stretching my arms to the ceiling. I would kill for a few more hours.

Sabby grabs my hand and pulls me to standing so fast I almost lose my balance.
“Geeze boy, I forget how strong you are…”

Sabby flashes me a big smile as he pulls everyone else to a standing position, sleeping or not.
He grabs Connor’s hand while he is still sleeping and manages to get him to a standing position before he falls flat on his face. I nearly pee my pants from laughing so hard. Connor fails to find the humor in it all.

Sabby
pulls me by the hand to the large window that overlooks the yard. “Lookie, Willow! It’s so much fun!”

I lean down and pick up Sebastian.
“Sabby, did you just say Willow?”

He grins.
“Yep, cause today I’m a big boy.”

I get a little teary
-eyed. “Can you do me a favor, Sabby?” He nods his head. “Can you still call me Wello? Even though you’re big, I like that name. It’s kind of special to me.”

He contemplates this for a moment and then nods.
“K, W-E-L-L-O,” he says, long and drawn out. He bursts out laughing like it’s the funniest thing in the world. I set him down on the ground and he’s off running again. I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen him so happy and boisterous.

C
arrie calls us in from the other room. “Time to eat!”

I bite my
lip, worried that Sabby is going to miss his yearly breakfast from our mom. When I get into the kitchen though, he’s already parked on top of a stool, devouring pancakes with little sprinkles.

I
’m suddenly completely at awe. How on earth did Carrie pull this off? I turn and find her doing dishes at the sink. “Hey Carrie, where on earth did you get sprinkles?” I’m literally blown away.

She smiles at me.
“I made them.” She says this like it’s the most natural thing in the world. She turns the water off and dries her hands. “Your dad told me yesterday about his traditional birthday pancakes with sprinkles. So, I just put some sugar and water together with a bit of food coloring I found in the pantry and voilà.”

I shake my head and then wrap her in my arms.
She returns the hug. “Thank you,” I whisper to her. “You don’t know how much this means to our family.” And I mean it.

Lillie
is the first to get done eating and hops down from her stool. She’s playing with a small doll, one she must have found somewhere in the house. She makes it hop and jump from the couch, to the coffee table, and so on until she gets to the large, picturesque windows. I watch her as I take a bite of my pancake, noticing just how sweet and carefree she is.

Connor pokes me in the ribs with his fork
. “Now you know where she gets her good looks from,” he says slyly.

I roll my eyes.
“Yeah, sure,” I tease. I look back at Lillie, who has since dropped the doll. The doll lies on the floor in an awkward position, as Lillie is plastered to the glass.

“
Sabby, Sabby,” she says excitedly. “Sabby, come here, lookie! You have to see this!” She takes turns dancing around the living room and then plastering her little face back to the window.

Sebastian hops off the stool and
goes running over. It cracks me up how kids are either running or sleeping. There’s no in between. Sebastian joins Lillie by the window. He looks back towards us, to the window, back to us, and then bellows out the most excited scream you’ve ever heard. Soon they are both screaming, dancing, and begging to go outside and play.

Sebastian comes over to where I
’m sitting, grabs my hand, and guides me over to look. As if I hadn’t seen it before, I play along and act surprised by the forts. They do look even cooler in the daylight. The sunlight has broken through some of the clouds and shines off them, giving them a shimmery, ethereal quality.

Before long, Sebastian has managed to get everyone out of their seats and looking out the windows.
We all join in, jumping around and yelling in excitement. Even my dad is being silly for Sabby’s sake.

Connor
’s voice can be heard over everyone else’s. “Oh my gosh! Forts!”

Sabby makes a b-line for his stuff and starts getting his coat
, gloves, and hat on. He manages to get his galoshes on the wrong feet, which makes me giggle. We all rush to our things to get our snow gear out. Sebastian stands at the window, jumping up and down while we finish getting geared up. He wastes no time opening the door and running outside. Carrie comes up behind Sebastian and begins tying a blue ribbon around his head.

“
What you do that for, Ms. Carrie? I not a girl!”

Carrie giggles.
“No Sebastian, you’re not. But how else are you going to be able to tell whose team you’re on?”

Sabby
’s face scrunches up while he contemplates this. Then he smiles. “Ms. Carrie, you so smart!”

We break off into two
almost-even teams, blue and red. Tying the ribbons to our head, we run to our appointed forts. Tony grabs Sebastian’s hand and leads him to the middle of the fort area. He kneels down and talks with Sabby for a moment and we all wait. Then the two of them stand up. Sebastian is sporting a very cocky grin, which makes me worry what the two of them were discussing. Tony calls out the instructions for the game. “The game is: Capture the Flag. The goal is to—capture the flag. So, since it’s Sebastian’s birthday, I’ve decided to let him call the rules—so here they are. Rule number one, have fun. Rule number two, if you have any questions, refer back to rule number one.” He looks around at all of us and I wait for him to say something else.

“
Wait,” I say aloud. “You’re telling me that there are
no
rules? That it’s an all-bets-are-off snowball fight?” I’m exasperated! With everyone’s abilities, there’s no telling what might happen.

Of
course, Tony has read my thoughts and says aloud, “Correct. There are
no
rules.” He cocks me a smile and leans down to tell Sebastian something in his ear. Whatever it was must have been funny because Sabby giggles and then looks at me. My face heats up as everyone stares at me. I’ve decided to accept the fact that I am officially screwed. He’s got an invisible girl, a super boy, a girl who can move anything with her mind, and to top it off, Tony can do all of the above.
Great!

“
You have thirty seconds to get to your forts before we start. The time starts…. now!”

We waste no time getting into our groups.
I have my dad, Connor, Lillie, and Alec on my team. We put our heads together for a very quick planning meeting.

“
Needless to say, we’re up the creek, unless you’ve got some brilliant idea, Willow,” Connor says.

I think for a moment
, realizing they’re asking me to take the lead. I try to think it over really fast. We have one more than they do but we also don’t have the most useful power wielders on our team. My dad can use his gift of vision to perhaps see their moves in advance. That is, if he can get it to work that way. Connor can walk through walls, which may prove to be useful. Alec can heal, but I’m not sure how that would really help us. He’s smart though. Lillie can feel other’s emotions. I have no idea how to make that work in our favor. “Okay, we need a steady supply of ammunition. Dad, can you handle snowball-making duty and watching the flag?”

He nods his head and shrugs his shoulders.
“Yeah, sure. I can do that.”

I smile and nod my head.
“Good, Lillie, can you use your adorable cuteness to walk around and act like you’re not doing anything? We need you to be our secret weapon. If you are able to walk close, but not too close, to their forts, to hear about any plans they’ve have, that would help huge.”

Lillie
pulls the doll she was playing with earlier out of her pocket. “I’ve got this,” she says while smiling sweetly. Something tells me that Lillie might be a lot more tenacious than her innocent appearance lets off. She skips out in to the open with her doll and looks every bit like a little girl who’s not interested in this game.

“
Connor and Alec, how do you feel about being the enforcers? Connor, you can stay near the fort and help my dad protect the flag. Alec, you can come along with me and we can try to steal their flag.”

“
On it!” Connor and Alec say at the same time while doing some kind of macho handshake.

A whistle blows and fake battle cries erupt in the air.

“Let’s do this!” I call. My dad and Connor both drop to start forming snowballs. My dad already has a good-sized pile ready for us that he made while I was divvying out tasks. Alec and I grab as many as we can fit in our arms and start running. I turn us both invisible and Alec struggles to keep ahold of me to stay invisible, while holding onto the lot of snowballs.

We
peek around the corner and I see Claire and Marya working their way stealthily across the battlefield. Claire is helping Marya stay invisible, but of course, I can see the two of them. I dart my eyes around, looking for Tony, knowing that only he can see through our invisibility. I don’t catch sight of him.

The first snowball is launched towards our fort by Claire. It looks like it came out of nowhere but it
’s aimed directly for Connor. It hits the intended target smack dead in the face.

From where I
stand, I can see the surprise in his expression. He knows exactly who’s responsible for it too. “Thanks a lot, babe!” he calls out, waving his hand in the air, pieces of snowball dripping from his hair. I can read his intentions from the emotions coming from him. So I wait to see it unfold.

Claire remains invisible but giggles
nonetheless. That’s all Connor needs to make a good estimate of her coordinates. He pulls two snowballs out from behind his back and chucks them down at her. The first one misses and the other hits her in the shoulder.

She throws her hands on her hips, which brings Marya into full view.
“I thought you loved me!” she pouts jokingly.

Taking advantage of the
moment, Marya starts concentrating on the flag. I watch as it shakes back and forth a little and begins to levitate up from the fort.

“
Dad!” I call out, giving away our position. A spraying of snowballs comes toward me from around the corner of the other team’s fort. By the sting that they leave, I know they are coming from my little brother. I take cover behind a tree.

I look over at my fort just in time to see my dad grab ahold of the flag to keep it from flying away. I smile. Alec leaves my side and runs towards
Marya, who is still trying hard to make the flag move, even if it means moving my father with it. She doesn’t see Alec until it’s too late. He tackles her playfully to the ground. They both laugh and try to shove snow at each other.

Claire makes a run for our fort and I go for her fort. I still don
’t know where Tony is and I’m a little nervous about getting any closer to my little brother. If I thought that it hurt to be pinged by snowballs from a distance, imagine how much it would hurt up close. Too bad there isn’t a Major League anymore because Sabby would be an all-star pitcher.

I see my brother
’s curls from around the corner of the fort and I dodge in time to miss the curve ball he sends my way. A flash of red hair tells me that Lillie is coming up from behind him. All of a sudden, my brother erupts into a ferocious round of the giggles. He starts laughing so hard that he drops the snowballs in his hands and falls to the snow-cushioned ground. He starts rolling back and forth laughing.

I can
’t help but laugh at the incredulousness of it. What in the world is
that
funny? I see Lillie standing behind him. An intense look of concentration is on her face. She obviously didn’t say or do anything funny. Her eyes look blacker than ever as she stares down at my brother. It creeps me out a bit but I don’t sense any maliciousness coming from her.
What on earth?
I wonder.

I tune into my brother
’s emotions long enough to realize what’s going on. She’s forcing these feelings on him. I never thought of humor as an emotion, but it is one. She is filling him with humor and cheerfulness to the point that he can’t stop laughing. I smile and shake my head in awe. This girl might just be a lot stronger than any of us could have imagined.