So, as anyone who has read my previous story, Anything But Average, would know, this is my new story: Georgia's Brother. I threw around quite a few plot lines for this story, and eventually went with this one. I even cast a vote, but it was a tie. So, I went with the one story that had a lot of good points from reviewers.

It's deep, but then again, so were the other plots. It was a choice of either: Iggy becoming blind, which was my first choice, Fang have an addiction to crack/alcohol (which I decided not to even put in a vote number, for)a, or Max being sexually abused. Don't steal those ideas! I might still act on the one about Iggy! I'm thinking I could co-write it with a good friend of mine. I find that not enough stories are about Max's friends having problems, and her having to deal with it.

But I decided that this one was the way to go for me.

I hope you guys like the first installment! :)

Read on, and please review!

Disclaimer: James Patterson owns Maximum Ride.

By the way, this isn't about Max being sexually abused. Way overdone.

"Hey, Georgia," I said, picking her up as I walked in the door. I slid my bag over my shoulder and wrapped my other arm around the little black haired beauty I was holding. I hugged her tight, and then set her down in the living room. I checked my watch. I was right on time. 2:30.

"Hi Max! Are we going to do something fun today?" Georgia said, pushing a lock of her hair out of her brown eyes. I smiled.

"Don't we always?" I said.

"Yes…" she said, and laughed.

I looked around. The house was a bit of a mess, and she looked really energetic today. I'd have to give her some health food. The dishes weren't done, either, and there was a basket of laundry. Mrs. Worthers must've had an early morning.

I had a mental list of what needed to be done, so I set to work.

"Hey, Georgia, honey, you wanna watch a movie?" I asked her. I sat down on the blue couch with the basket of laundry. I looked at Georgia and she sat next to me.

"Can we watch Pocahontas?" she asked me, her gorgeous eyes wide. My heart swelled. I was so lucky to be able to baby sit such a sweet little girl.

"Of course."

I went to the movie shelf and found the VHS version. I stuffed it in the tape player and fast-forwarded through all the commercials. Once it was set to go, I swept up Georgia and set her down in the middle of the couch. She giggled as I tickled her, and when I stopped, she immediately started to sing along with the men boarding Ratcliffe's ship. It's safe to make the assumption that we watched this movie a lot.

I sat down a few feet away from her, on the couch, humming along out of tune as I folded Georgia's brother's laundry. Out of all the times I've done laundry at this house, most times it was his. He never seemed to do his own chores.

Once I was done with that, I brought the basket with all of his folded laundry up to his room. I set it outside his door on the ground. Georgia's brother was at practice right now. He stayed after school everyday for hours with different events. He played soccer in the fall, he did basketball in the winter, and lacrosse in the spring. On top of that, he had math team and homework club.

I certainly wouldn't be able to handle all of that on my schedule. But, I'm thankful that he can, because that means I get to swoop in while Georgia's family is away at school and work and take care of her. I stay until nine o'clock most nights. I don't mind most of the time, but I do miss being able to hang out with my friends. JJ and Sam always hang out on nights that I can't, and when I can hangout, they're busy. Figures.

Well, I guess that's not a problem anymore, I thought as I picked up the dishes from all around the house. I set them in the sink and started to wash them with warm, soapy water. My mom wanted to move closer to her work in Kokas, so we decided to move two towns closer. Actually, we were moving in a few streets away from the Worthers. She heard it was a great neighborhood, probably much better than our current one. We lived with drug addicts a few houses away.

I checked the clock and realized it had only been forty-five minutes since I started working. The dishes were all done now, and I set to cleaning up the rest of the house. I went into the cleaning closet and grabbed the broom, the swiffer, and the duster.

Once I'd put all of Georgia's toys and Mr. Worthers' books away, I started in on the floors. It took twenty minutes to finish them, and once I was done I set Georgia down at the table for her snack. She'd finished the movie five minutes before I was done, and was waiting patiently at the table for me to finish up.

I grabbed some carrots and celery out of the fridge and sliced them up. She loved celery, but I was trying to get her used to eating carrots.

"They're good for my eyes," she said and sighed. I laughed, and sat down across from her, watching to make sure she ate all of them.

"That's right." I said. She bit into one and cringed. I tried getting her mind off the carrots. "Hey Georgia, did you know I'm moving really close to you in a few weeks?" I said.

"Yay!" Georgia screamed. Grinning, she shoved the rest of a carrot in her mouth. "Are we going to be neighbors?" she asked.

I nodded. "In a way," I said. She crunched on another carrot with glee.

"I'm so happy!"

I grinned. All of her carrots were gone now. Inside, I triumphantly raised my fist.

"Alright, you done?" I said, motioning to her plate. She nodded, and then stuck out her tongue for me to see. "Good job! Now, what time is it?"

She looked at the clock and scrunched up her cute little five-year-old nose. "It's…. four o'clock."

"Good job, but you know that's not what I meant," I said, giving her the look. She pouted for a minute.

"But I hate cleaning my room!" she said.

"Me too, but we all have to do it. Otherwise we'd smell gross!" I said, and ran to tickle her in the chair. I bent down and she shied away as I tickled her. She'd tried not to laugh for a few seconds, but then grinned.

"Race you to my room!" she yelled, running away from me. I laughed, and raced her up there. I let her beat me by quite a few feet, just so she would feel better about having to clean her room.

"Beat ya," she taunted, crossing her arms over her chest. I smiled.

"You did, you beat me. You beat the unbeatable Mackenzie Strider! I can't believe it! Oh no! I'm dying of shame, cough, cough, help me!" I said, dramatically flinging a hand to my forehead and sinking to the ground. I stuck out my tongue for good measure. Georgia gasped.

"Oh no! She's dead!" She threw her little body over me and slapped my face a few times. I revived myself, and sat up coughing.

"You saved me!" I said in false awe. "Thank you! Thank you!"

"Ahem."

I heard Georgia's brother behind me.

"Oh, hey, Fang. You're home early," I said, standing up and pulling down my shirt. I laughed to myself on the inside. I moved my unruly blond hair behind my ear.

"Yeah, club was cancelled. You can go, if you want," he said, moving into the room to hug Georgia with a hello. She grinned up at her big brother, and I smiled. I could tell he was a great brother.

"Yeah, alright, I'll just finish up cleaning her room with her, then I'll be on my way out."

He nodded and moved out of the room and down the hall with his black leather jacket slung over his shoulder. He opened the door to his room and picked up the basket of laundry. I turned to Georgia.

"Do you have to leave?" she said. I nodded.

"But first, let's fast tidy your room! Quick! Quick!"

I set my car keys on the table in the entryway and grabbed an apple from the bowl. Munching on the apple, I made my way upstairs to my bedroom. There were boxes everywhere in the house, and I tried not to focus on them.

I wasn't overly sad about leaving the house. I didn't really have a deep attachment to it, but I would miss all the people I'd be leaving behind. Sam and JJ were some of my closer friends, and I think I'd even miss a few teachers. Well, bothering them, anyways. I don't think I'd miss the teachers themselves, but some of them were a lot of fun to harass.

I stepped over a big box to get to my bed. I flopped down and let out a breath of air. I would definitely call this one of the more busy days of babysitting. I closed my eyes for a few minutes, and when I woke up it was seven thirty.

I shot out of bed and ran down stairs, almost tripping over a box that was labeled kitchenware. I think I heard a few crashes within the box….

"Mackenzie, what was that?" I heard my mom's boyfriend yell.

"Uh… Nothing!" I said. I walked into the kitchen. It was completely bare except for a few boxes and two plates set out with dinner on them. I smiled. "Hey, Aaron," I said. "How was work?"

Aaron sighed. "It was long." He ran a hand through his graying hair.

"Oh yeah?"

"Mm. How was school?" he said. We both sat down at our places at the dinner table and grabbed our forks.

"It was okay. Nothing special happened." I said. In reality, I was hit on by a strange freshman, but it wasn't really something I was going to tell my mom's boyfriend. Besides, it didn't really affect me. I'd had guys ask me out before. Heck, Sam had asked me out before, and we went on a date without my mom even knowing it at all. Besides, Aaron wasn't the kind of guy who really cared about that type of thing.

"Oh? And how was Ms. Georgia today?" he said, smiling fondly. Aaron and Georgia's dad were college buddies, and that's the main reason I got the babysitting job. He recommended me to the Worthers.

"She was good. Hyper, but I calmed her down. I cleaned the house, did the laundry, gave her a healthy snack, did the dishes..." I thought for a moment. "Oh, and I helped her clean her room. Then Fang came over early and I left," I said.

"Good. I'm glad you can help out so much," he said. I nodded, and we both took a few more bites of turkey meatloaf. "Are you friends with that boy?" he asked. I shrugged.

"Not really. I don't know him that well," I said. "He seems okay, but I don't know if we're the same kind of people, y'know?" In reality, he was quite the pretty boy. If I thought he was actually interesting as a person, I'd be all over that boy like a chocolate chip cookie with extra gooey insides. Truth is, I thought he was kind of boring, and goodie-two-shoes-ey.

"Mm. You should try befriending him. You'll be going to his school next week," he said. My eyes widened.

"Next week?!" I said. "Mom said we weren't moving for another two weeks!"

"Yes," he stuttered, "but your mother and I have been talking."

Aaron swallowed.

"And you just decided we could uproot our lives a few weeks early? I haven't even said goodbye to my friends." I said.

"I'm sorry, Mackenzie-"

"It's Max," I said, glaring at him.

"Max, we feel like doing it sooner rather than later would be more helpful," he said.

"Well, do I get a say in this?" I said, rolling my eyes.

"We've already decided, Mackenzie, I'm-"

"It's Max, Aaron," I said, shoving my chair away from the table and stomping into the living room. My stomach gurgled, so I walked back, grabbed my plate, and then headed upstairs, blushing.

"You know, I think I should get a say, since your not the only ones living here!" I yelled at the top of the stairs. I could tell he was just done.

Well, good, because I was so done. I don't get why parents don't realize that their kids have a lot in their lives, too. I hadn't even told my friends that I was moving. I sat down hard on my bed with the meatloaf in my hands. I stuffed a large bite in my mouth and chewed. Stupid parents.

Within half an hour, my mom had gotten home, and it was quarter after eight. I assumed that Aaron had filled her in, and she came up the stairs to my room.

Anne Strider was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and everytime I saw her, I forgot that I was mad at her. She was strict sometimes, but she always had that soft side that I could always wiggle it's way into me and get what it wanted. The pros of being her daughter were big, but sparse. The cons were little, but came in bunches. She was a great mom, but sometimes I wished she would just see it from my point of view.

"Mac, we have decided it would be better to move sooner, and I'm sorry that you don't see it that way, but that's the end of it," she said. She crossed her arms in front of her, and I did the same thing.

"If that's the end of it, you could have been a little more considerate in giving me a chance to say goodbye to everyone." I said.

"You are completely right, and I'm sorry we didn't tell you sooner," she said, dropping her arms and sitting down on the bed beside me. She pushed her blonde hair behind her ear and smiled with warm brown eyes. "I had asked Aaron to tell you sooner, and I assumed he had done it on Sunday, but, apparently, he 'forgot.'" she said. I smiled.

"You think he's scared of my wrath?" I said.

"We both know he's scared of women," she said. We laughed. "Come on, let's put on some good workout music, and power through the rooms we haven't packed yet. I think we still have to do the office," she said. I nodded.

"Okay."

I finished up my meatloaf and ran down to the kitchen to set the plate and fork in the sink. When I got back upstairs, we started packing.

Review please, and tell me what you think of my first chapter :) I like critiques on my plot line, or suggestions, even! Please answer the daily question, too :) It's a new thing I'm trying.