Max Martinez is having a terrible year. Her mother has decided to move across the country, and needs Max to get their car from California to Connecticut. There's just one problem; since her father died this past spring, Max hasn't been able to get behind the wheel. Insert Fang, the ninteen-year-old son of an old family-friend, who turns out to be unexpectedly cute... and dealing with some baggage of his own.
Based on "Amy and Roger's Epic Detour' by Morgan Matson. Plot credit goes completely to her.
All characters copyright to James Patterson.
Hope you enjoy it!
Also, I'm looking for someone to beta all my stories. If you are interested, and have read all my MAXIMUM RIDE fan fictions, please send me a message.
RAVEN ROCK HIGH SCHOOL
Raven Rock, CA
Student: Maxine R. Martinez
Grade: Junior
Class/Grade:
Adv. Pl. Lang/ B+
Adv. Pl. US History/A-
Adv. Pl. Environmental Science/B-
French II/B+
Adv. Show Choir/A+
Acting III/A+
Notes:
This student's academic record will be transferred to STANWICH HIGH SCHOOL, Stanwich, Connecticut. Student will be matriculation as a senior in the fall.
Absences:
1-Excused (illness)
5-Excused (Bereavement)
NETMAIL . . . the Internet with a safety net!
INBOX for Maximum Ride
From: Hildy Evans
To: Max
Subject: Will be showing house at 4
Date: June 1
Time: 10:34 a.m.
Hi, Max!
Just wanted to let you know that I'll be showing the house to some prospective buyers today at four. Just wanted to make sure you were aware of the time, so you could make arrangements to be elsewhere. As we've discussed before. we really want people to be able to imagine this as their HOME. And that's easier when it's just the Family and me going through the house.
Also, I understand you'll be joining your mother in Connecticut soon! You can feel free to lock up when you leave—I have my copy of the keys.
Thanks bunches!
Hildy
From: Mom
To: Max
Subject: The Trip
Date: June 3rd
Time: 9:22 a.m.
Attachment: Trip Route
Hi, Max,
Greetings from Connecticut! I was glad to hear your finals went well. Also glad to hear that Candid was a success. I'm sure you were great, as usual—I just wish I could have been there!
Can't believe it's been a month since I've seen you. Feels like much longer. I hope you've been on your very best behavior with your aunt. It was very nice of her to check in on you, so I hope you thanked her.
I'm sure all will go well on the drive. I expect you and Nick no later than the tenth, according to the itinerary I've mapped out for you (attached). You have reservations at the hotels listed. Pay for them, meals, and gas with your emergency credit card.
And please be safe! AAA information is in the glove compartments in case of emergency.
I know you send your brother your love. He e-mailed me—he says hi. You can't call at his facility, but he can check e-mail. It might be nice of you to write him on of these days.
Mom
TRIP ROUTE
Start: Raven Rock, California
First Night: Gallup, New Mexico
Second Night: Tulsa, Oklahoma
Third Night: Terre Haute, Indiana
Fourth Night: Akron, Ohio
End: Stanwich, Connecticut
I will then drive Nick to his father's house in Philadelphia. Please drive safe!
I was sitting on the front porch, barefoot, in shorts and a tank-top, with my hair pulled back into a messy bun, when the beige station wagon pulled up, swung around the cul-de-sac once, and stopped at the end of the driveway. I sat down my cup of water on the wood and leaned back onto my hands, watching with vague interest as the two strangers in the car conversed. The driveway was short enough that I could read the bumper-sticker: My child was a Randolph Hall's Student of the Month and my kid and my $$$ go to Colorado College.
I pulled my eyes away from the station wagon and surveyed the over grown yard. Right there, smack dab in the middle, was a real estate sign, emblazoned with Hildy Evans, and her frosted blonde hair. Welcome HOME, the sign read, then below, for sale. I had puzzled over the capitalization since the day the sign went up.
I never thought I'd see a realtor's sign on our lawn. Up until four months ago, my life had been exceedingly dull. I had lived in Raven Rock, a suburb outside LA, for my whole life. My parents were both professors at the College of the West, my mom in Veterinarian Med. and my dad in World History and Exploration.
My twin, Iggy—older by three minutes that he never let me forget—apparently got all the smart genes. He single-handedly talked his way out of a possession charge for an ounce of pot by convincing the police officer that it was a foreign herb blend called Holmestaud, and that he was actually an apprentice at the LA Culinary Institute.
I had just started to get leads in the school musical, and I had made out with Dylan Grey, undecided college freshman, three times. Things weren't perfect, of course—my best friend Ella had moved to Florida in January—but in retrospect, things were actually pretty wonderful. I just hadn't realized it at the time. I'd always assumed things would pretty much stay the same.
I looked out at the strange station wagon, where the two strangers inside were still talking, and realized, not for the first time, what an idiot I'd been. And there was a part of me that wondered if I'd somehow caused it by simply counting on the fact that things wouldn't change.
My mother decided to put our house on the parked almost immediately after the accident. Iggy and I were not consulted, only informed. Not that it would have done any good to ask Iggy anyways. Since it happened, he had been almost constantly high. Everyone at the funeral thought his bloodshot eyes were from crying. I knew better. Iggy had started partying on a semi-regular basis since seventh grade, but it had gotten much worse in the last year. Since the accident, sober-Iggy became a sort of mythic figure. Like the yeti or something.
My mother had decided that the solution to our problems was moving. "A fresh start," she'd informed us at dinner one night, "Somewhere without so many memories." The realtors sign had gone up three days later.
We were moving all the way to Connecticut, which was a state that I had no desire to move to. My grandmother lived there—but she had always come to visit us. But my mother had gotten a job offer at Stanwich's medicine department, and there was a high school nearby that she was sure we'd just love. The college had found a house we could rent, and when Iggy and I finished our junior year, we would all move out there, while the welcome HOME realtor sold our house here.
At least, that had been the plan. But a month after the sign had appeared on the lawn, even my mother hadn't been able to keep pretending she didn't see what was going on with Iggy. The next thing I knew, she'd pulled him out of school and enrolled him in a teen rehab facility in North Carolina. And then she'd gone straight on to Connecticut to teach some summer courses at the college and to 'get things settled.' But I think it was because she didn't want to look at me. I don't really blame her. I could barely stand to look at myself most days.
So I'd spent the last month alone in the house, except for Hildy the Realtor who always managed to bring house buyers over when I was getting out of the shower or something else equally mortifying, and my aunt, who came down occasionally from Pasadena to make sure I was feeding myself and hadn't start growing meth in the backyard or something like that. The plan was easy enough; I'd finish out the school year then head out to Connecticut. Only problem was the car.
The people in the station wagon were still talking, but it looked like they had taken off their seatbelts and were talking face-to-face. I looked at the two-car garage. My mom had already sold the little white Ford Fusion that my brother and I had been taking to school. But my mom's car, a red Jeep Liberty, was still there. My dad's car was, of course, not there. It was probably being made into scrap metal in a junkyard somewhere. My grandmother, apparently, was missing quite a few Bridge games, as my mother had been borrowing her ancient Coupe de Ville to go back and forth to work. My mother had informed me of her solution a week ago, last Friday night.
It had been the opening night of our spring musical, Annie, and for the first time after a show, nobody was waiting for me in the lobby. I'd always shrugged off my parents and Iggy quickly, accepting their grocery-store bouquets and compliments, already ready for the cast party. But after Annie, nobody was waiting for me. I took a cab home almost immediately. I wasn't even sure where the party was being held. The rest of the cast—my closest friends—were laughing and talking as I packed up my show bag quietly. I'd told them countless times that I wanted to be left alone, and they did. I learned that if you pushed people away enough, they tended to go.
I was standing in my kitchen, the heavy makeup beginning to itch and the false eyelashes beginning to irritate my eyes. "Hard-Knock Life" running through my head when the phone rang.
"Hi, Max," my mother said with a yawn when I answered the phone. "How are you?" Briefly I considered telling her the truth. But I had been lying to her for the past three months, and I had no intention of stopping now. "Fine," I answered blandly. I put some leftover pizza in the microwave and set it for thirty seconds. "So listen," Mom said, suddenly very chipper and my guard automatically went up. This was usually how she told me news that I wouldn't like. "It's about the car." And she was speaking too fast. Another dead giveaway.
"The car?" I repeated dumbly. I set the pizza on a plate to cool and tucked the phone between my shoulder and my ear to grab a glass of water.
"Yes," she said, stifling another yawn. "I've been looking at car-carrier costs, along with the cost of your plane fair," she paused, "And I'm afraid it's just not possible, with the house not being sold and the cost of your brother's… facility."
"What do you mean?" I asked slowly, then took a nervous bite of my pizza. "We can't afford both," she said quickly. "And I need the car driven out here."
The pizza was still too hot, but I swallowed it anyways and felt it burn all the way down into my stomach. "I can't drive," I said quietly, my throat constricting. "You know that I can't."
"Oh, you won't have to drive!" She was speaking a bit to cheerfully for someone who had just been yawning. "Anne's son is going to drive. He needs to come east anyway, to spend the summer with his father in Philadelphia, so it all works out."
"Anne?" I repeated, deciding to start at the beginning.
"Anne Batchelder," she said. "Or I guess Anne Walker now. I keep forgetting she changed it back after the divorce. Anyway, you know my friend Anne. The Batchelders used to live over on Lagune Bleu until the divorce, then they moved up to Santa Barbara. But you and Nick were always playing that game. What's it called? Potato? Yam?"
"Spud," I said automatically, "Who's Nick?"
She let out a long sigh, the kind designed to let me know I was trying her patience. "Anne's son." she said, "Fang Batchelder. You remember him."
"No, I don't."
"Of course you do. You just said you used to play that game."
"I remember Spud," I said slowly. I wondered, not for the first time, if conversations with my mom always had to be so difficult. "I don't remember anyone named Nick. Or Anne, for that matter."
"Well," she said, the strain in her voice obvious, "You'll have a chance to get to know him now. I've mapped out an itinerary for you two. It should take four days."
My questions about who remembered what now seemed unimportant. "Wait a second," I said, holding onto the kitchen counter for support. "You want me to spend four days in a car with someone I've never met?"
"I told you, you've met." my mother said, clearly ready to end this conversation. "And Anne said he's a lovely boy. He's doing us a big favor, so please be appreciative."
"But Mom," I started, "I…" I didn't know what was going to follow. Probably something about how much I hate being in cars now. I'd been okay taking the bus to and from school, but my cab ride home that night had made me twitchy and nervous. Plus I'd gotten used to being alone, and I liked it. the thought of spending four days in a car, with a stranger no less, made me feel like throwing a chair out a window. Or something equally violent.
"Max," she said, with another sigh. "Please don't be difficult."
Of course I wasn't going to be difficult. That was Iggy's job. I was never too difficult, and clearly, my mother was counting on that. "Okay," I said in a small voice, hoping she would hear the sheer discomfort I was feeling towards the whole situation.
"Good," she said, briskness coming back into her voice. "Once I make your hotel reservations, I'll email you the itinerary. And I ordered you a gift for the trip. It should be there before you leave." I swallowed hard, then looked down at the pizza, realizing suddenly that I had lost my appetite.
"Oh, and by the way," she added, remembering, "How was the show?"
And now the show was closed, finals were over, and at the end of the driveway was a station wagon with Nick the Spud player inside. Over the past week, I've struggled to come up with a neighborhood kid named Nick. And I had remembered a little boy, taller than the rest of us, with dark hair and tan skin, and dark, dark, dark brown eyes. He had too big ears, and I had a very distinct memory of him clutching a red kickball, yelling at Iggy and I to come out side. Iggy would probably remember him, but he wasn't exactly around to ask.
Both doors of the 'wagon opened and a woman who looked to be my mother's age—Anne, probably—got out, followed by an extremely tall and skinny guy. His back was to me as Anne opened the trunk and took out an army-style duffel and a back-pack. The guy—Nick—was at least a foot taller than her, and ducked to hug her back. Instead of saying goodbye, all he said was, "Don't be a stranger," and Anne laughed, as if she'd been expecting this. As they stepped apart, she met my gaze and smiled at me. I nodded back emotionlessly, and she got back in the car. It pulled around the cul-de-sac, and Nick stood staring after it, raising one hand in a wave.
When the wagon vanished from sight, he shouldered his bags and began walking towards the house. As soon as he turned toward me, I blinked in surprise. The sticking-out ears were gone, and the guy coming towards me was shockingly good looking. He had broad shoulders, black hair, and blacker eyes, and he was already smiling at me.
I knew in that instant that the trip had suddenly gotten a lot more complicated.
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