Prologue

The mother ran and ran as far as she could. She had to get food for her young one! She could feel her feet getting laden, but she knew she had to go on. Her creation she had brought into the world had to live on.

She felt her chest screaming for air. Her mind was battling with her body. No grubs in this one. She realized she didn’t recognize the area anymore. Oh, no… If she didn’t recognize the area anymore, that meant… she felt the barrier sucking her in.

Chapter One

Kimi fluffed her brown feathers and waited for her mother to come home. She was achingly hungry, but still she waited. Finally, her hunger won over her. She knew she shouldn’t get out of the nest, but she wanted fooooood! She smelled with the nostrils at the end of her beak for grubs and detected one worming its way around the root of her tree, right outside her burrow. Gotcha! But the wriggling grub got out of her grasp. Bad grub!

Suddenly, she spotted a worm and snatched it up. This time, she was successful. Kimi hoped that was enough to sustain her hunger. Then, she sensed footsteps crashing towards her with her bristles on her mouth. Featherless! Kimi froze in terror.

“See, in the night it’s so beautiful here.”

She saw a bigger featherless speak to a smaller featherless, holding their longer wings that didn’t even look like wings. Then, the smaller one let go.

“Umm… you go on Mom. I’ll stay here for a sec,” the smaller one said.

They both had the long feathery strands on top of their heads running down (which indicated that both were female). For both of them, the color of the strands was light yellow. The kiwi wasn’t used to seeing in the dark, so it could see color.

Kimi was frozen now too, not in terror, but in curiosity. The bigger featherless nodded her head and left. The smaller one squatted down.

“Hey, little one. Are you lost?” it said.

Kimi wasn’t sure who the featherless was talking to, but she squawked in return. The featherless smiled.

“I’m Maddie. What’s your name?”

Kimi did not know what to do, so she sat and stared.

“You seem lost.”

Kimi turned around and shook her tushie. Maddie laughed.

“You are one silly little bird,” she said. “My mom would kill me if she saw me taking you… but otherwise you’re going to die… ” She frowned.

Kimi shook her tushie again. It seemed to make her laugh. She did. Then, she scooped Kimi up and into a slit in her thing she wore over her. The slit turned out to be very comfortable. In it was also a green fruit with a brown cover. Kimi was still very hungry, for the worm had not satisfied her hunger. She dug her beak into the green fruit. It was delicious. By the time the featherless was reaching in to scoop her out, she had finished the fruit. “Hey! You finished my kiwi!” Maddie said. Kimi burped.

Chapter Two

Kimi was in Maddie’s room. She seemed to be fretting about something. Kimi could not understand what. She couldn’t understand human language (okay, maybe a bit), so when Maddie talked to her she was very confuddled. “How am I going to get you on the plane?” Maddie looked worried. Huh? The pwane sounded weird. But it looked scary to Maddie. “I guess I’ll just have to put you in my pocket,” Maddie said. “In fact, let’s practice now.” Maddie scooped her up into one of her slits in her cover she was wearing. Ohhhh, so the slits were called pokets. Kimi nestled in and slept. An hour later, which seemed like a minute to Kimi, Maddie reached inside her pocket and lifted her out. She had a smile on her face. “That was really good! We might even survive the metal detectors!” She was so happy that she was dancing. Kimi tried to imitate her moves and ended up flat on her back. Maddie laughed and then froze, for she heard a voice calling her.

“Maddie, it’s time to go to bed! You have a flight to New York tomorrow!” Maddie quickly shoved Kimi under a pillow.

Maddie said, “Yes, Mom!” and left the room. Kimi crawled out from under the pillow and found an unused napkin. She nestled in and slept (again).

Chapter Three

Kimi woke up in the poket. Maddie felt very tense, and Kimi did not know why. Maddie reached her wing in (which Kimi later learned were called hands) the poket, and Kimi nuzzled against it. Then, she felt some sort of metal probing around Maddie’s clothing. What? Why is Maddie letting herself be probed by metal? This was not right. Kimi went as far as she could next to Maddie’s body to avoid getting probed. She successfully did not get probed. Yay. And she fell asleep. Again.

After she woke up, Kimi realized that she was in the air. She didn’t know how, she just knew. She could feel it, even though she couldn’t see the blue of the sky through her slit. Ahem. Poket. She could see a gray cushion with a bar. Maddie was sitting on most of the gray cushion. She took Kimi out for a little bit though, where no one could see her.

“Wait until you get to New York City,” she said. “You’re going to love it!”

The city? If this was the city, Kimi did not like it. Though it was pretty cool that the city was in the air. Kimi snuggled against Maddie’s shirt. Maddie smiled. Suddenly, a bright

looking featherless came down the aisle rolling a big square stone. Maddie shoved Kimi in her poket. The bright featherless asked Maddie something, and Maddie replied. Soon Maddie had a cup of yellowish, fizzy water in front of her.

“Thanks for the ginger ale.”

Jinjer ail? What were all these new words? Kimi was very tired of these — these words. Or so she thought, until Maddie leaned over and said to the big featherless — who she originally saw when she first met Maddie.

“It’s not so bad to be on the plane after all, Mom.”

There it is again! Pwane! So they were in the pwane, huh? Not so bad, for a pwane! And the big featherless was Maddie’s mother? She hadn’t seen her own mother in quite a while. Her heart ached for her. She had never returned from her food expedition. What if she got snatched by a predator? And she couldn’t fly away from it! Kimi then made up her mind that she was going to learn to fly. It didn’t matter how. And, plus, she was with humans now. Her mother told her they could do almost anything, right? Much more than a kiwi could do. (Her mother also told her to stay away from them, but that wasn’t important… right?)

Chapter Four

They were finally off the plane and in the… city. They were on something which Kimi learned was a kar. She was back in Maddie’s slit. The city seemed pretty gray. She squawked to let Maddie know.

“What was that?” Maddie’s mother exclaimed.

“What?” inquired Maddie.

“That squawk!” her mother cried.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Maddie looked utterly confused.

“Oh, well. I must be hearing things.” Kimi was amazed. Maddie was a very good actor! She also resolved not to make any more sounds. Soon they came to a big stone slab that was shaped in a rectangular prism. Maddie’s mother sighed. “Home, again.”

Home??? This slab was not home. In fact, Kimi wondered if she’d ever go home again.