Because there was a limited amount of personnel at IOTH, putting out the fire took several hours and most of the island’s inhabitants were up until dawn. The children, of course, did all they could to help. When the fire was finally put out, the arson investigator could find no evidence of criminal activity. The groundskeeper checked all electric outlets daily to make sure they were safe for the children to plug in computers, lamps, and other devices necessary for education. Nothing was amiss. The fire was dubbed an ‘act of God’.

　　“Trudy, you’re sure you saw nothing?”

　　Trudy shook her head with so much force her feathered ears flopped into her face. A few of the tiny black strands had fallen out on her seventh and topmost feather. It was a minor detail none of the staff would notice, but Trudy felt it. She was shaking, and the medics at the scene passed it off as fear of seeing fire for the first time instead of severe pain.

　　“You told me you were outside taking a walk. Children aren’t allowed out of their dormitories after midnight, I thought I made that perfectly clear,” Dean Sing scolded. It was still much too early for any normal human being to be awake and the dean hadn't had her coffee. She was far more grumpy than normal.

　　Trudy nodded. “I’m sorry, dean Sing,” she whimpered. “I missed daddy.”

　　Behind dean Sing stood Trudy’s father, Allek.

　 　“A lot of your friends miss their parents too, Trudy, but they still have to stay in their beds. You can’t keep using the fact that your father lives on the island as an excuse to keep acting up. Now, let me check your temperature.”

　　Trudy panicked. She was burning up, and not from the recently extinguished flames. She ran over to Allek and clung to his leg, screaming “no!!”

　　“Oh brother...” dean Sing sighed. “Allek, please, she can’t be given privilege. The other kids aren’t given any, so‒”

　 　A professor in full firefighting gear approached dean Sing and asked her to step aside for a chat about the damages. Trudy smirked; she was never going to be found out.

　　***

　　Kathulla and David, the strange-looking children who really did cause the dormitory fire, began to frequent the angel kids’ dormitories after they felt they could trust Trudy not to snitch, not that a soul would believe her.

　　After many visits and many mishaps, including the toppling of a palm tree, the cutting of a cable and near collapse of the bridge between the dormitories and the school, and the disappearance of some playground equipment, Trudy had been accepted into their circle of friendship. Kathulla and David began to bring along another friend of theirs, a seemingly older boy named Perry, during their nightly visits.

　　Even though Caspio had warned her repeatedly to stay away from these dangerous children—the children that had pervaded his dreams and caused him to require constant medical attention, Trudy couldn't help but be fascinated by how different these new friends were. She was starting to lose interest in relationships with the angel children, anyway.

　　When the other angel kids began to notice Trudy acting oddly, they told dean Sing about their suspicions. The dean installed security cameras inside and out of the dormitories to monitor Trudy’s goings out. David, who could levitate, took them down. Fortunately for him, he did not show up on the cameras, which meant the staff ultimately blamed rodents and birds for the disturbance of the cameras and lack of footage.

　　“Trudy, how come none of the other kids wanna talk to us?” Kathulla asked one night while lying in the grass outside of the dormitories with her three friends. “Merrily isn’t my friend anymore. I’m not saying I care, because I don’t, but it’s kind of weird. I’m also kind of getting bored of these guys.”

　　“Hey!” David protested. He sat up and scowled at Kathulla.

　　“Merrily’s scared,” Trudy said, continuing to keep her glance up at the stars. “She thinks...you’ll get her in trouble.”

　　“That’s the point,” Kathulla said, rolling her sand colored eyes. “You dumb angel kids don’t know how fun it is to get in trouble. I’ve never done anything but get in trouble and do you see me in time out?”

　　Trudy did not respond.

　　“Exactly.”

　 　“Guys,” Perry said, “why don’t we go down to the shore. It’s getting really hard to breathe up here. Besides, I wanna show Trudy something.” He was grinning, probably about the nasty plots going on in his head.

　 　Trudy sat up and stared at the older boy. “I can’t go. It’ll hurt.” She ran her index finger up her ear feathers, which were losing more strands every day she spent hanging out with her new naughty trio of friends.

　　“Not anymore it won’t,” Perry said. He pulled the Crayola green beanie he was sporting down over his pointed ears. “You’re too far gone. We can all sense it.”

　　The angel girl didn’t understand. “Gone?”

　　“Yeah, you’re a sinner. Like me and Davy and Kath. Sinners can descend into the depths of Hell without getting burned.”

　　“That Hell stuff is lame,” David said, standing up. “We’ve been friends for a while, and she doesn’t even know what we are.”

Perry sighed at David’s need to provide some random angel girl full disclosure. David sat next to Trudy, perfectly the same height at the crowns of their heads, and began to tell her a story.

　　“We’ve been here a really long time. You know that kid Clauss with that glowstick colored hair? We were here when he was little. We’re not born like you were. I mean...we probably weren’t.”

　 　“He’s saying he’s a creepy old man trapped in a little kid’s body and he wants to be your new best friend,” Kathulla said, a devious grin on her face.

　　“No,” David shot back at Kathulla, his golden eyes glowing fiercely, “I’m just saying we’re very old, but we don’t look like it. It’s the same with the natives here on the island. Oh, and the humans can’t see us, unless they’re asleep. And some of us have special powers,” he motioned toward his two friends, “for example, I can fly, Kath can make fire, and Per-”

　　“I’ll show her when we get downhill,” Perry interrupted.

　　David gave Perry a look that read ‘oh really?’ then continued to tell Trudy about what exactly he and his two friends were. “I can make myself look really scary, it’s pretty cool.” He flashed his sharp canines to her and his golden eyes glinted like a preying cat's in the moonlight. “I would show you but then you’d probably cry like a little bitch and wake up the entire building.” He felt very proud of himself and chuckled at his prowess. “Don’t worry though, I can only do that if I get into your nightmares,” he held his tiny hands up like claws, “like I’m doin’ to that Caspio kid. He’s never gonna sleep again. I can’t believe he ruined my first attempt at murder.”

　　A tiny thought entered Trudy’s mind. She remembered something her mother had told her while she was waiting to return to earth. Something about avoiding evildoers at all costs. Murder seemed pretty evil to her. She hadn’t been murdered by these people, though, so she was in good company, right? She knew David couldn’t seriously be the one that had caused Caspio weeks of sleep deprivation. That person was a demon, and David was a very sweet boy.

　　“You were trying to murder her?” Perry asked, raising one thick black eyebrow at his younger comrade. “I thought you just had a crush on her.”

　　“Shut up, Perry.” David edged slightly away from Trudy. “Love is stupid. Plus, that’s dumb and I don’t wanna die,” he grumbled.

　 　Kathulla picked up from where David paused his explanation. “Turns out a lot of the humans’ religious books have lists of what’s good and what’s evil. If we do something good, we end up like Perry. Old, in pain, eventually human. I kinda wish we knew which things were good and which were evil, cause then I could avoid doin' all the good stuff, but it's been so long since we've gotten any divine instruction about it, most of us forgot which is which, so we all get stung even if we don't notice we're doing something good. We also get it if we’re brought to the mountains or a place like this. I mean, even right now it hurts to breathe.”

　　“We spied on some really fucked up experiment Dr. Branch was doing on your ‘brethren’, and it turns out, get this,” Perry added, holding his hands up, “for you guys it’s the exact opposite. If you go downhill, your stuff goes away.”

　 　David tugged on Trudy’s ear feathers playfully. “He means these things. Same thing if you’re a jackass to other people. But there’s an in-between too, don't you worry. If you do only so much you get ‘gone’.” Trudy seemed confused still, so David made up a comparison. “Okay, so, pretend you’re a secret agent.” Kathulla and Perry made moans of protest at David’s rambling, but he told them both to shut up and continued. “And you’re trying to get through the border of Yugoslavia or something, and you need your papers. No, pretend you need the password to get to Yugoslavia. Okay, so you got the password - that means you did enough sins that you can travel down the mountain like Clauss can, but you're still you, an angel kid - and you’re in Yugoslavia now, and you can do all this cool secret agent stuff like snipe the president or return sensitive information to your people back here in the States. Cool stuff, huh? Well pretend all your friends sleeping in the dorms are secret agents too, but they don’t have the password and they try to get through the customs. Basically the cops find them and shoot them - like, if they haven't sinned at all yet and they try to come down the mountain, they lose all their feathers and turn human. Sucks for them, I guess, but that’s kind of how it is for them if they don’t have the password. You,” he poked his index finger into Trudy’s shoulder, “do have the password. Clauss has it too, and Merrily would also have it if she wasn’t such a scaredy-cat. I mean, you’re totally a sinner and now you can go back and forth between Yugoslavia and the United States—er, the mountain and the beach, without pain. Me, Kath and Perry are all kinda like that too, except for pretend we’re the secret agents from the Yugoslavian side. Pretend like Perry sucks at being a secret agent and he got shot a couple times. In the face, cause he’s a big, ugly loser. But he lives to fight another day!”

　　Trudy nodded, except for she didn’t quite understand what he meant.

　 　Perry stood up. “You suck at story-telling, Dave.” And he was right: David had barely managed to explain his species to Trudy at all. Perry stuck his hand out to Trudy, who used it to pull herself to her feet. “What he’s trying to say is that I’ve done too much good in my life as a bad guy and it’s had some consequences. Mainly getting older," although his white facial markings were slightly splotched and faded, similar to angel boy Clauss's, "but I’m still a kid, just like you. And if you do too much bad in your life as a good guy, you’ll get wrinkles, ooo.”

　　“Oh...” said Trudy, sounding less than thrilled. “Do you guys want to hurt me?”

　　“Nah, like I said, Davy has a crush on you.”

　　“Shut up, Perry. It’s totally not like that. You wouldn’t be up here if you didn’t think she was the one.”

　　Trudy couldn’t help but feel like there was something very important she was missing out on. “The one what?”

　　“Only time will tell, Trudy.”

　　***

　 　David tore down the camera positioned above the school's front doors, and the group entered, needing to pass through the building to get to the road on the opposite side, which led down to the beach. Once the four children exited the school, Trudy, Kathulla and Perry got up on each other's shoulders and climbed over the tall brick wall surrounding the school's back parking lot, while David flew over.

　　“Nothing’s happening, something’s wrong!” Trudy immediately began to shout as her feet touched the asphalt outside the wall.

　　David thrust his hands over her squawking mouth and shushed her. “Duh, you idiot!” he hissed, “you won’t get burned anymore! I told you, you’re too far gone! Now stop making so much noise or you’ll alert the doctors.”

　　Trudy nodded and made a gesture as to zip her mouth shut and turned her gaze to the black road.

　　“Aw man, I’m sorry...”

　 　Trudy looked up into her friend’s face to tell him that it was okay, and that she was genetically inclined to obey anyways, but that the teachers and her father tended to be much nicer about it. However, when her eyes met his, he immediately began to cry. He bent over sideways and began to rub the tears away. “It stings!” he squealed.

　　“Apologizing, Dave? Really?” Kathulla cackled. “I didn’t think you were that stupid.”

　 　“Shut up, Kath!” David shouted. He sniffled pathetically and rubbed his nose, then glared at his female friend. It seemed he needed to constantly remind his friends to be silent about his internal struggles. “Let’s just get down to the beach.”

　　***

　　“Allek...? Are you in here? I’ve been calling you for hours, man.” Mark Chariot was searching through the faculty building for his best friend to tell him some great news. He had finally proposed to nurse Luke Smithy, and they were officially engaged. Their relationship had been going on for several years and they were ready to tie the knot.

　 　Mark poked his head into the top floor staff room, which was where he usually found Allek when he wasn’t at home. Allek had been spending extra hours in the office recently, mostly doing research on religion and other beliefs as to try to better understand the angel children. He had told Mark it made him feel better about being a parent to a supernatural being.

　　The lights were all off and only a small amount of white moonlight crept in through the blinds. Across the room, Mark saw his best friend, who he was hoping to make his best man in the very near future, asleep in his office chair. There was a glow coming from near Allek’s feet, which Mark could only assume was his new cellphone telling Allek he had several voicemails to check. There were two tall stacks of religious texts and history books on either side of his keyboard. Mark grinned; he would have to get a picture of this and text it to Allek later. He tiptoed across the room, careful to not let his lab coat snag any table corners or trashcans.

　　When he reached Allek’s chair, there was a sight to see he had never expected. The light on the floor was not from a cell phone at all; it was from a miniature reading lamp. There was a book on ancient religious practices opened to the very middle page on the floor as well. But this was not what interested Mark. Dean Liu Sing, also sound asleep, had her left arm wrapped around Allek’s leg. She was resting her head against his chair and her reading glasses were nearly falling off the edge of her nose.

　　Mark raised his eyebrow at the wonderful find. He turned off the flash on his camera and snapped a picture, then tiptoed out of the room. Once the elevator doors closed, he sent the picture to Allek with the caption ‘do people still do double weddings?’