Flying Too Close To The Sun

5: I knew they were from heaven

"Er, firecracker?" I questioned Nick. His hazel eyes lit up in amusment.

"Yeah, Freddie told us there was a new chick on the block, but he never said how fit she was!" I felt Freddie touch my lower back, ever so gently, as if to warn them off. O...k I'll ask him about that later. The other two, Mac and Joe, were grinning at me, like they had a secret they were hiding. I raised an eyebrow at the two of them, and then had them both copying me back. I raised my other eyebrow as well, and they started wiggling theirs at me, which made me crack up. Nick and Freddie gave me an odd look so I stopped straight away.

"Well anyway, who's this fit chick on the block?" Putting quote marks around "Fit chick". I looked around at them all, noticing they had glows, but different colours from Jeffery's. Freddie was green, Mac was blue, Joe was also blue and Nick had red. I want to know what the different colours mean. Mac spoke up first. "Sophie, you are." He was an Australian! He gave me a weird look, and I looked around at everyone else to see they were all looking at me similarly. "Did I say that out loud?" They all nodded at me. "Oops. Can you speak again though Mac, I love your accent!" His cheeks turned pink slightly, but he shook his head. I pouted at him, badly but it must have worked as he started talking again, but to Freddie. I listened carefully, just to hear his accent, but had someone elbowing me constantly in the side. I turned to them and saw it was Joe, the cute blonde.

"Hi." Well, he didn't have an Australian, but he was still cute.

"Hey. How are you settling in? I know it's hard, but Freddie is the best person to help you. He was my guide a year ago."

"So you are now..?"

"I would be 17 years old. I died at 16 like you. Can I ask or is it too soon?"

"Too soon for what?" I was puzzled. He was probably the sweetest guy I had ever met, so polite and cute. I just wanted to take him home and keep him away from everyone else. The girl who ended up with him would be very lucky indeed.

"Erm, to ask how you died?" I flinched at the word, still getting used to it. He noticed my flinch and started to apologise, but I raised my hand to stop him.

"I...I was hit by a speeding car, yesterday on my way to meet my friends." I hadn't realised my eyes had welled up. I felt Joe's thumb on my cheek, wiping away an escaped tear. I looked up through my soggy eyelashes and gave him a small smile. He wrapped his arms around me, pulling me into a warm, loving hug.

After a good few minutes of soaking his shirt silently, I looked up to see Mac and Nick were still talking to Freddie, but he was looking at me with concern on his face. I sent a reasurring smile, hopefully, across to him which seemed to do the trick. Joe smelt really nice, like syrup and oats in the morning. He smelt a lot like my brother, Daniel which made me well up again. We must have stood like that, with him embracing me and my head in his chest for about ten minutes. Eventually I pulled away, probably looking like a right muppet with a bright red face and blotchy eyes. Joe still had his hand on my back, rubbing it soothingly as only a brother could. When I nodded at him to say I was fine, he grabbed my hand and dragged me towards the other lot.

"Right, we are going to buy a gift for Sophie. Who's coming?" All of the others agreed and off we went shopping. I had no idea what they were getting me, but Joe seemed to have his mind set on something, so after traipsing round the the shopping centre for two hours, we came out empty handed and tired. Me, Nick, Mac and Freddie all flopped down on a bench outside whilst Joe was pacing, still thinking. All of a sudden he pulled me back up and started speedily walking across towards another big building, with paw prints all over it.

We got inside and Joe whispered something to the girl at the front desk, making her giggle then she showed us to a door. "Take as long as you want to look around." Not giving me any clues. We went inside and all of a sudden I understood.

There were tonnes of kennels with dogs and puppies in. All of them had wings on their backs. New born puppies with teeny tiny wings on top, making them look even more adorable than normal. I turned round to the guys, to see they were all awwing and pulling loving faces at them. Guess it wasn't just me then. I came across one kennel, with only one puppy left in it. It was the most gorgeous thing I had ever come across. It was a cocker spaniel, with this golden tuft of hair on top, giving it a quiff, and it had these two white splodges, one under its chin, the other at the end of its tail. Its face suddenly sparkled as it saw me, literally sparkled, and bounded over to the door. I put my hand though the meshing, giving its chin a tickle. I looked to find Joe or somebody, but came up with no-one, so I sat on the floor facing this puppy. I watched it as it played with all its toys and kept on coming up to me for fuss. She, as I discovered, remind me a lot of my two dogs at home, Sam and JayJay, who were always full of beans, but never fetched despite their breed's name, golden retrievers. My eyes must have started to well up again as I felt a tear drop onto my cheek. The spaniel looked up at me, then licked my cheek, making me laugh. Someone sat down beside me, putting their legs either side of mine and sent tingles along my shoulders as they started massaging them. I guessed it was Freddie, as he is the only person ever to make me feel tingly. When he stopped, I turned around to see if my guess was right, and catching his sandy blonde hair, I leaned back into him, automatically making me feel safer. The three of us sat there for an eternity, Sydney, as I had named the puppy, licking my hand every so often, me leaning back into Freddie, and Freddie gently stroking my hair, calming me from the day I've had. When my bum was becoming numb from being sat on the floor for too long, I pinched his thigh lightly to get his attention. He seemed to drift off into the land of Zog a while ago, and he jumped ever so slightly at the contact. I stifled a giggle that was about errupt from me, before getting up as gracefully as I could, then pulling him up with me.

"Where are the others?" I asked Freddie, seeing as he was most likely to know.

"They're just round the corner, looking at more dogs. Do you want this one?"

I grinned at him and nodded until my head almost fell off. He smiled back and pulled out his momza. In a flash, Mac, Joe and Nick all appeared in front of us.

"She wants this one guys." They all looked down at Sydney, and quickly the girl from earlier came to us. We sorted out all the paperwork and Joe payed for my puppy. We walked out of there with four boys, one puppy and a very happy girl. Freddie has said that we should all go back to his apartment, so that Sydney could get used to her new home. He, Nick and Mac were all talking about some game that had gone on, possibly the one he was watching last night, whilst me, Sydney and Joe were walking behind them.

I said to Joe, "I knew they were from heaven."

He pulls a face at me and replies, "What? Their bums?"

"What?! No, dogs!" Although their bottoms are quite heavenly, I wasn't going to say that.

We got back to Freddie's place and I fed Sydney with the dog food he had in his cupboards, for some reason. She settled right under my feet as I sat down on the sofa in his lounge. The boys were in the kitchen, having an argument about who was the better cook. Freddie came in the room and sat next to me, so I rested my head on his shoulder.

"Are you really that tired?"

"Yes, now shush. When you talk your body vibrates."

"Sorry miss, shan't do it again." He said with a smirk on his face.

"Good. Now wake me when dinner is ready." And I drifted off, listening to his heartbeat.