AN: this is my first Fanfiction, but don't hold that against me. Just a quick little glimpse into a day in the life of Max back when she lived at the School in a dog crate.
Just Another Day at School
For ten years old, I was surprisingly good at composing myself. But today, I broke.
In my defense, the day started out as crap and got progressively worse. What do you expect when you're waken up from a short, shallow sleep to be poked and prodded at? You'd think I'd be used to it by now, but as it stood, I wasn't.
And no, they couldn't just plop me back in my dog crate and let me sleep after that. No. Instead, they thought it'd be fun to take a long elaborate scan of my brain, involving loud beeps and clicks pounding at my ears for what had to be hours. Ah, how joyful.
Then they decided to intensely study my wings. And by that I mean practically torture me to measure my feathers. I'm pretty sure there are easier ways of doing that.
Finally, they had to test some chemicals on me to see if I had an allergic reaction. Which, golly gee, it turned out I did. So when the exiled me back to my crate all swollen eyed and sniffly, the Flock took it upon themselves to laugh at me and joke in ways only kids living in dog crates can.
But still, that's not what made me snap. What made me snap was when Iggy returned from his testing…
And he couldn't see a thing.
Looks like someone was having a worse day then me.
I took one of the celery sticks they'd given me for dinner and chucked it across the room with horrible, untrained aim. The whitecoat dodged with ease.
Clutching the bars of my crate, I rocked and rocked, trying to hurl my cage off of wherever it was placed and at the stupid whitecoat, with me still inside it. But, duh, Max, that wasn't going to work. It was bolted down.
"You stupid, stupid, horrible animal!" I bellowed savagely. I've got to say, I was a pretty scary ten-year old. At least, I hoped. "Look what you've done!"
"Someone get it under control!" The whitecoat cried. I took whatever would fit between my crate's bars and whipped it at him. Take that, I thought as a pencil connected with his face.
But he couldn't just take it like a man. He had to summon his friend, who approached me with a needle in hand…
I screamed and thrashed and jerked and jostled, but she'd already got that stupid needle in my arm, and now…everything else…was fading…away…
When I woke up, everyone else was asleep. That's why it was okay for me t cry quietly to myself, just for a little bit.
I'd been sniffling for a few minutes when I realized I was not, in fact, the only one awake. Turning to my left, I saw Fang's dark, solemn eyes studying me silently. He saw me looking at him but continued to stare. I blinked a few times, composing myself, and took a deep breath.
"What?" I hissed. He looked me dead in the eye, then slowly shuffled to the edge of his cage, which was right next to mine.
With typical Fang-like fashion, he didn't respond with words. Instead, he poked his scrawny little hand through the bars of his cage. Hesitantly, I stuck my hand out to meet his. He'd already seen me cry, so what the heck?
"It's okay Max," he murmured. I glanced at Iggy, who could never glance at me again. His now-blind eyes were closed, but even in his sleep the edges of his mouth were turned down.
Fang's heart was in the right place, but he was wrong. It was never okay with us bird-kids, never would be. We were created specifically so that our lives would never be particularly okay.
So in the long run, today was just another day here at School.