sun's up, a little after twelve
make breakfast for myself, leave the work for someone else

It was a difficult time to be Ángela. Both of her parents had been drafted into helping look for the leader of the gods, who had selfishly gone missing. Tsi’s total incompetence for being where he was supposed to be meant that Ángela was now without both of her parents for a whole day. This was, without a doubt, the worst experience of her life.

Daddy had been helping look for Tsi for the last month, so Ángie had had more time with her mother lately. That had been bad enough (two parents was always the ideal; she would take one at a pinch, but not for an extended period of time), until daddy came home one day and said that he’d been made the new temporary leader of the gods. Ángie hadn’t seen the problem with that at the time, but daddy did. He’d decided that this was such a dire state of affairs that he was now going to spend all his time trying to find Tsi so that he didn’t have to be a leader anymore – and mummy had decided to help him. Uncle Zed and Auntie Rana were helping with the search-and-rescue mission too, so Ángie was stuck in the castle on her own.

“Angelaaaa!” Her baby-sitter called, a few metres away. Anita was the niece of Helena, the woman who cleaned their apartment in the castle once a day. “Aaaaangela! Where are you?”

She sounded worried, but not yet panicked. Anita was about twenty and very… rough-looking. Her black pixie cut had dyed blue tips, and she wore stupidly baggy jeans and a military camouflage tank top. Her arms, which she’d lifted to cup her hands to her mouth to carry her call further, were covered in tattoos. She used the English pronunciation of Ángie’s name, An-jel-ah, instead of the Spanish pronunciation her parents used, An-khel-ah.

The precocious four year-old held her position, grimly squatting in an overgrown flowerbed behind a rose bush. She was wearing a pretty green dress which had a satisfying camouflage effect amongst the shrubbery, and as long as she didn’t move Anita wouldn’t be able to see her. Although Anita had only baby-sat her once before, she was pretty wise to Ángie’s tricks, but even she had fallen for the young girl’s big, tearful eyes when the latter had complained that all she wanted was a little walk around the castle grounds. One little walk. Anita had agreed to that, in spite of the fact that Ángie’s parents had ordered her not to let Ángie leave the apartment. All the young demigod had needed then was a two-second distraction in the form of Anita’s friends hailing her so that she could make her escape.

“She can’t have gone far.” Those friends were saying to the baby-sitter now, who was biting her lower lip with worry. “Come on, we’ll help you look.”

Ángela smoothed her dress, allowing herself a little smirk of satisfaction. She’d wait until they’d scattered in different directions, then she’d bolt for the castle and hunt down Uncle Arthur. If she couldn’t have her parents, then uncle was the next best thing.

Ángela
progeny of the warbird and the sun-god