A/N: Can you say rewrites?! Oh, yes-- most definitely. I'd love it if I got some feedback since I made a ton of changes (for the better!) And by the way, I'm super sorry for not posting in forever. I hope you can forgive me because personally, I think the wait was worth it ;) **This is pre MR5!
loveyou, Liv.
Disclaimer: As much as I want to be a famous and successful author, I'm not; Read: I'm not James Patterson.
Technically, my whole life has been one bad day after another. Today, though, might win a very high spot on my list of "The Ten Worst Suck-Fests That I Have Ever Been Subject To." Of course, I can't even count the years and years of torture and pain and suffering in a dog crate at the School--You know, just normal stuff like that. That's a story for a different time . . . Back to today.
I'd bet my favorite Liam Rooney CD that you can't imagine what one of my bad days is actually like, because it would be your worst nightmare. Anyone's worst nightmare. Today was so horrible and embarrassing that I don't even know where to begin.
I guess I could start by telling you my name; It's Maximum Ride, Max, for short. Since we're getting to know each other, I should probably tell you that I'm fourteen years old, yet the farthest thing from your average fourteen year old girl there could be.
Actually, not to brag, I'm kind of amazing.
If I was even close to ordinary you'd think my bad day must be along the lines of breaking a nail or getting grounded by my dad. Something that's similarly nice compared to my reality.
So really all of your theories are wrong, even if I can't read your mind. That's Angel's "talent." Reading minds, I mean, but now I'm just getting ahead of myself. Why are you so far from the truth, even if I havebroken a nail and quite a few other things many times over?
It just might have something to do with the fact that 1.) I don't even really have a dad, not one that counts anyways, and 2.) I'll never really be "grounded" because of my wings.
Wings as in the things on birds except mine are nine times bigger than the average parrot. Thirteen feet across, give or take a few inches. The best part of having wings besides never needing a Halloween costume again? I can actually fly. There's most definitely a reason people wish that they could: It's amazing.
As far as I know I'm the first, but not the only, successful human-avian hybrid in the world-- I'm only 98 percent human. That other two percent has had a huge impact, let me tell you. Two percent avian DNA equates to being freakishly tall at 5'8", freakishly lightweight at barely one hundred pounds, and not to mention my "talents." Flying at supersonic speeds, anyone? Oh, and if the wings weren't weird enough, there's the whole voice inside of my head thing.
If you can forget about your thoughts of me being a total and complete nutcase for a few seconds, I can explain.
There's six of us bird-kids-- Me, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, the Gasman, and Angel. They're my flock, and to tell you the truth, I don't know what I'd do without them.
Fang's my right-hand man. He's fourteen, like me, but a couple of months younger. Ig is fourteen too but younger than me and Fang by a few months. The three of us are practically ancient compared to the rest of our flock. The next oldest in our freaky little mutant group is Nudge, who's eleven and then Gazzy who's eight. Angel, my baby, is only six. Don't let her age fool you though-- I'm pretty sure that if she had to she could kick your butt into next week. Gazzy and Angel are the only blood relatives in the flock, but the flock is my family.
But what about Fang? Cue an involuntary, dumb-looking grin on my face. That's what tends to happen when I think about him. Sometimes I make an even bigger fool of myself when I stare at him while smiling that dumb-looking grin.
It is really difficult to figure out how I feel about him, because I know that sometimes he doesn't feel like just part of my family. He feels like a part of me.
"Earth to Max!" Angel shouts at me. I immediately blush, mainly due to that dumb smile of mine, and open my eyes. Angel just gives me a confused look. I must have been day-dreaming again, but in my defense, flying is really relaxing.
"I just wanted to know--"
Nudge cuts her off, "When are we getting food? 'Cause we haven't eaten in forever! I mean, we've been flying for how long? Like four hours straight? Or is it going on five? I'm so hungry! And I heard that McDonald's has some new chicken sandwich thing and it sounded really good. It has pickles on it! You know how much Iggy likes pickles. Hmm, did you ever wonder how pickles are made? I wonder--"
Her voice was cut off by Fang's hand, thankfully. I couldn't figure out what amazed me more, that she said all of that in one breath or that we'd been flying for that long and I hadn't even noticed. I'm starting to think that I'm losing touch with reality.
Before I even had a chance to say that we could land soon, Total, our talking dog, glided up to me. Yeah, as if flying kids weren't weird enough. Total had grown wings and could fly with us now for a couple of minutes.
Long story short, Angel "acquired" him at the Institute in New York. Then, while we were helping out some research scientists in Antarctica, he had fallen in love with a malamute named Akila who was currently resting in Iggy's arms.
Really after all that I've been through in the past couple of months I could believe in almost anything, even puppy love. Or say, me and Fang as Me-and-Fang. But that'll never happen in a billion years. Even if I do love him. Even if I do love him as more than a brother. I think.
"WAIT A MINUTE," screamed my subconscious. "You can't love Fang. He. Is. Our. Brother. And also, our best friend. What will happen if we break up? What about the flock?!"
Great, now I was arguing with myself. And I, in the form of my subconscious, had forced myself to banish all thoughts of Me-and-Fang. If you didn't think that was crazy the first time, go ahead and reread it.
Back in reality Total was explaining to me the pros and cons of reading those tabloid magazines you see in grocery store check outs. As if I needed one more thing to think about.
I heard Iggy grunt when he passed Akila off to Fang. Fang didn't make a sound, but I could tell with one look at his face that he was strained trying to carry the squirming Malamute that weighed almost as much as him.
I knew that for everyone it would be better to land sooner rather than later. Plus, it wouldn't take that long to walk to the McDonald's we were approaching. There's a McDonald's about every nineteen miles in America, just so you know. Cheap eats for us when we're on the run (cough, cough, pretty much our whole lives) is always a plus.
I signaled for everyone to land in the clearing somewhat behind the back of the building. After that we were basically on autopilot. We tucked in our wings and arranged our jackets so that you couldn't even tell we had them. Then we walked into the practically empty McDonald's looking as normal as possible despite a bit dirty.
"Hi, welcome to McDonald's. May I take your order?" the girl who looked around my age if not a little bit older asked me while looking at Fang. At this point I started to think of all of the ways I could rip out her long blonde hair, but decided she wasn't worth it since Fang didn't even glance in her direction.
Without even looking at the menu I began to order, "I'll have two Big-Macs, a Chicken Selects thing, a large frie, a vanilla milkshake, a large Coke, and two apple pies."
Then I moved out of the way so that Fang could order next. The cashier looked at me in disbelief.
"You can order whatever you want, lunch is on Jeb," I said to the flock with a smile and a wave of my credit card. Then I glared at the girl who was now taking Fang's order. She was starting to make me nauseous. She was also starting to make me want to punch her in the face, only for Fang's benefit of course.
Jealousss, I heard being whispered into my mind by Angel.
No. N-O. I am most certainly not jealous of other girls looking at Fang. Or Fang looking at other girls. Especially not ones like her, with her long blonde hair and all of her make-up. She looks like a Barbie doll for crying out loud. It's actually quite ridiculous and embarrassing all at the same time. Sometimes when I "talked" to Angel I really sounded more like Nudge.
Uh-huh. You are jealous! Max, sometimes I really think that you should acknowledge your feelings. It's not healthy to keep them all bottled up. Then I heard a tsk-tsk noise and sighed. I had to choose my battles and this is not one I honestly wanted to fight a six-year-old about.
The rest when by in a blur. We ate and then got back into the air continuing to fly toward Canada, more or less. That's when my mind started to drift off again.
When I think of how naïve I was just hours ago at that McDonald's, I want to scream and/or punch myself in the face. Hard.
Today ranks in as a good, solid day three on my cheery list of "The Ten Worst Suck-Fests That I Have Ever Been Subject To." If I really had to rank how crap-filled some of my days had been, number one would definitely be a tie; When Fang had left me, our flock had split in half and went our separate ways for a few days--which I might add were incredibly long and stupid days, and when Angel was kidnapped by Erasers. Erasers being the only other somewhat successful mutants created by the school.
Erasers are lupine human hybrids. Part wolf, part human, wholly evil and wholly disgusting. They were trained to hunt and kill, and for the most part their prey was us. We, the Flock, were the only other hybrids that were smart enough to be a challenge to them. Now Erasers seem to be extinct, with the defeat of Itex and all, but we never know if they'll be back. Stranger things have happened.
Day two would have to be a three-way-tie, because when so many horrible things have happened to you, its hard to rank them. After escaping from the School, Jeb Batchelder hid us from the world and acted like our father, but two years later when he disappeared we knew he would never be back. That would definitely be a Number Two. Then there's the time where my half-brother slash Eraser-gone-wrong "expired" while I watched him die. Number Two for sure. When I saw Fang stuck like glue to the Red-Haired Wonder in Virginia? Number Two, possibly Number One and a Half.
Really, days when Fang is flirting with anyone in a skirt kinda make the list.
But today, practically two of my worst nightmares already came true and I hadn't even heard from the voice yet.