I’d never met an angel before, but I ran into one tonight. She didn’t look too happy about it.

“What is a small human doing on the street at night?” she said. Her face looked scary for an angel.

“Running away,” I said in a tough voice to show her I meant it.

“From whom?”

“My family.”

“They hurt you?” That’s when her wings started buzzing. They had gears and wires instead of feathers, but that’s how I knew she was an angel, the wings.

“No. They treat me like a little kid.”

She bent over. “You are very small.”

Before I could tell her I was not, she shoved me behind her, and a big, mean looking angel appeared. He had big bug wings started saying she shouldn’t hang out with humans, and she wasn’t a real fate, or fae, or fat, or something. She got really mad, and her wings buzzed.

Then my parents came with flashlights and yelled my name. The mean angel disappeared, and the other got in my face. “Will those humans hurt you?”

“No. But they make me eat gross stuff and say it’s good for me. And make me take a bath. And hug and kiss me like a little kid.”

“They like you?”

“They have to. They’re my parents.”

“Mine don’t,” she said and shoved me into the beam of light. Mom and Dad ran up and hugged me, and I tried to tell them about the angel, but she was gone.