Delta liked to spend time with Charlie the most because he never made fun of her.  Fox liked to insult people in clever ways by calling them by different names such as Dread-Head for Kilo and Polkadot-Face for Charlie.  Fox always called Delta Mouse-Girl or Down-there-Delta, and the other children liked to copy Fox because they thought she was funny.  But Charlie always called her by her name, or sometimes he’d shorten it and just call her Del.  She wasn’t really sure why she liked it so much when he called her Del, but it just did.

Charlie liked her most because she was always picking up bugs and naming them and making tiny houses for them to live in, and the only other one of their siblings that would play in dirt was Mikey, but that was just because he was always helping Mother plant something.  Juliett didn’t mind getting a little dirty, but as soon as they started picking up bugs she would stick out her tongue and run away.  So Charlie and Delta mostly spent their time together.

It was natural for children to form small cliques even if they were in the same family, and that’s exactly what happened.  Charlie and Delta formed a clique, Juliett, Kilo and Fox formed another, and that left Mikey, who usually spent his time with Mother anyway.  Mother had no favorite child but she definitely bonded with Mikey over their mutual love for gardening and farming. 

Mother firmly believed that these children should spend their childhoods exploring the world around them and none of them be expected to help her with any chores unless voluntary or absolutely necessary.  Often she wouldn’t see any of them until it was time for dinner, and she didn’t mind it because they always came back safe, if not for a few cuts or bruises.  She found it much more relaxing than when they were younger and required her immediate attention all the time.  Now she could tend to the garden, make campfires and expand their living arrangements.  Today she tasked them with each learning at least one new thing about the surrounding jungle and to sketch it out in their notepads.

The six children ran off into the foliage, bursting at the seams with adventure and excitement.  The cliques quickly formed.  Juliett, Kilo and Fox went in one direction and Charlie, Delta and Mikey went in another direction.  Delta had always watched a flock of four-legged creatures sprint through this part of the jungle, and she convinced Charlie to find one with her.  Mikey just kind of ran along side them, quietly making mental notes about his surroundings.

Fox, being the troublemaker that she was, convinced her team to look for the Beast.  Ever since that night with the red lightning she had been obsessed.  She had asked Mother about it several times but Fox always got the same answer, “Don’t go looking for trouble, Fox.  This is one thing you don’t need to catch.”  But oh how wrong Mother had been!  Fox needed to catch everything; her curiosity always got the better of her.  Fox would show Mother, she would catch the Beast and bring it to her.  Foxtrot knew that she was only seven years old, but that’s why she brought her siblings, because the three of them made twenty one years, and Fox was sure that would be big enough.

The only problem with Fox’s group was that they were all natural born leaders.  Fox wanted to manipulate everyone into agreeing with her, Kilo loved to rebel against the group thought and try to get all of his siblings to join him, and everyone liked to follow Juliett because she was always fun and happy to be around.  This group often found themselves arguing from sunup to sundown about what to do or who was allowed to go with them.  

Mother never understood why the cliques happened the way that they did.  She always figured that each leader would pair up with a follower, but she figured the followers were too smart to be manipulated and the leaders were too stubborn to give up arguing with each other.

Charlie, Delta and Mikey weren’t any better in terms of efficiency.  Mikey hardly spoke so he never really gave helpful ideas, and Charlie and Delta didn’t like to make decisions.  This resulted in the group staying in one place from sunup to sundown asking each other if anyone would like to do this or that.  Most of the time Mikey would get bored and go help Mother with gardening and the other two would ultimately decide to dig up the blue worms and build them little rock enclosures.

But today had a different energy.  And Delta was hoping for adventure.  She grabbed Charlie’s hand as they bolted through the jungle.

“You know what I’m talking about right?” Delta asked.

“The creatures taller than us that run really fast and have scales and twisty horns on their heads?” Charlie replied, “I see them eating berries next to the tent every so often.”

“Do you think Mother would let me keep one?” Delta asked with a smile.

“Del, she won’t let us keep worms!”

“Not even a baby one?”

Charlie shrugged his shoulders, “maybe.”

“Mother likes cute things.”

“What makes you say that?” Charlie questioned.

“She likes us, doesn’t she?” Delta responded.

Charlie smiled and turned to Mikey.  “Well, she likes Mikey, that’s for sure.  I guess we’ll have to pick one that looks like Mikey.”

This made Delta laugh, as she pictured a scaly horned creature with Mikey’s features.  The more she thought about it the more it just became disturbing.

Meanwhile, Fox was scouting the jungle for giant footprints.  “Look harder!” she yelled to the other two.  “We can’t miss tracks from a beast that big!”

Kilo shook his head.  “How do we know how big the prints are?” he asked.

Fox responded with, “Haven’t you felt the ground shake when it’s near?  Think about how big it would have to be to make the ground shake!  Come on, Dread-Head, keep looking!”

“I don’t think we’re gonna find him, Fox,” Juliett complained.

“Mother will be so proud of us when we bring her the Beast,” Fox said.  “Maybe then she won’t be so scared of it.”

“Mother isn’t scared of it!” Juliett protested.

“Yes she is,” Fox explained, “she won’t tell us anything about the Beast.  I can tell by the way she talks about it that she’s seen it before but she’s scared of it.”

“I don’t believe you, Foxtrot.” Kilo insisted.

“I don’t care,” Fox said as she threw her hair over her shoulder, “but you’re still gonna help me catch it if we see it.”

Mother sat on a blanket next to the campfire and watched the sun make its way across the sky.  She let the fresh air flow through her nostrils as she thought about the changing weather.  Every day was pretty consistent, the sun would rise, dry up the moisture from the night, and then it would rain up in the mountains and the valley would grow moist again.  The air would be sticky and hot most of the day, but no one minded it because they didn’t know any different.  

There were no such things as seasons so, consistency was very easy to depend on.  But lately the clouds became darker and it rained more in the valley than the top of the mountains.  And talk about that lightning.  It was the brightest lightning she’d ever seen, and its red coloring concerned Mother.  To be honest, it terrified her.  The storm didn’t scare her, no.  She used to love thunder and lightning when she was a child, even into adulthood.  But that was before the Beast.  And she knew that loud noises would spring its presence, so the fact that these thunderstorms seemed to be the new normal, frightened Mother.  And the thick storm clouds were rolling in quickly.  Rumbles in the distance provoked a group of flying creatures to dash away opposite the coming storm.

Mother stood up and called to the children, but they were too far to hear her.  Mother always had a calm head on her shoulders, but memories of the Beast flashed in her mind’s eye.  She needed to get her children.

Now!