“Unwrapping” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

“Unwrapping” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

This story come from the anthology “Firebirds Rising” edited by Sharyn November.

This is one of those stories that I read and decide to just go with it.  Not sure exactly where the story is taking me and what direction I’m heading in.

It follows a young girl, Brenna, and her friend, Nadia.  There is a Halloween dance at school that night and Nadia is keeping her costume a secret.  After they dress up Brenna in her mummy costume, it’s time for Nadia’s big unvailing.

This story talks a lot of friendship and what friendship means.  It delves into how friends become friends and to a certain extent different levels of friendship.  Brenna becomes Nadia’s best friend because she is different, and unique.  Brenna listens to what people, or Nadia, have to say.  She genuinely listens and gives honest answers.

I think that people in general have friends of different levels and this story does a good job talking about the relationship between friends.  People seek out someone they can trust and someone they know they can count on when the time comes.  Nadia gives the prime example of this during the story.  She knows she can trust Brenna and proves it by giving her a secret that no one else know about her.

Nadia turns out to be a dimensional being, or possibly a demon.  It isn’t exactly clear, but what is known is that Nadia decides she know Brenna well enough to trust her with her most precious secret.  Brenna knowing that this is quite a secret among friends isn’t quite sure what to do.  So she does what friends do and goes with the flow.  Doesn’t let her “new” friend phase her and they just go about their day like any other day.

I like this story because I think it talks about the true nature of friendship.  True friends stick by each other come hell or high water.  This is demonstrated very well during the story.  The writing was good and flowed smoothly.