"Thank you" I say sweetly and then I watch as Iggy distracts her by pretending he's blind. I walk over to the cans and drinks isle and grab as many things as I can and shove them into my pockets. I walk towards the automatic doors,my pockets bulging, and I'm a step outside the door when an alarm goes off. I bolt, and run to the woods just across the parking lot. I hear people yelling after me, telling me to come back . Yeah. As if I would do that. I hear my brother Iggys footsteps behind me and we run until we are at the highway on the other side of the little patch of woods. We both kneel over,panting, and catch our breath.
If you haven't gathered by now me and my brother just robbed a gas station. Now now don't judge just yet. You don't understand why we did it. Oh I'm sorry I haven't properly introduced myself yet. I'm Maximum Ride. But call me anything but Max and you might have your throat ripped out. I guess I should tell you a little about myself huh. Well I'm 5'8ish, I have honey brown hair with blonde sun streaks, I'm extremely skinny, that's what you would expect for someone who lives in the street,more on that later,but I do have a little bit of muscle,thanks to street fighting. I don't really like talking about my past do you'll just have to pick up on that later.
I look up as we reach the bridge we live under. Home sweet home I think bitterly. Iggy and I go to our little ledge outcropping. I dump out the stuff I got, 3 bottles of soda, 5 cans of soup, and Ig dumps more stuff he took,first aid bandages, protein bars, and water bottles. We take a little bit and keep it on us a water and protein bars on us in case we ever get robbed of our stash of food. I take some bandages,food,and water. I walk around the little homeless town, handing out food and bandages where they are needed most. It's dark by the time I being making my way back to Iggy.
I sit down and Ig offers me a bag of chips from our small food pile. I take it and munch hungrily. "Thanks" I say softly. "Mmhmm". Iggy replies. I look at him, tall, skinny,pale, blue eyed and blonde. He looks nothing like me but were still siblings. I take after both our parents, mostly my mom, and he takes after our father. Or at least that's what mom told us, when we asked about him. You see, the man who left my family on our own,to fend for ourselves, I refuse to call him my dad. I only remember a little, and Iggy remembers bits and pieces. Iggy and I were 4 when he left. His name is Jeb Bachelder apparently he's blonde with blue eyes and glasses. I only remember his voice.
His voice was one of those kind that made you feel like the person you were talking to was trustworthy. He certainly wasn't. Now the only person I can trust is Iggy. And that's never going to change. Because when it comes down to it, there is really only us,and no one else. But enough mushy gushy stuff. I quickly grab my school binder and finish my homework. Yes, me and my brother still go to school. We had Margaret, another homeless woman under the bridge, sign our school papers. We learned how to forge her signature just invade something happens to her. I finish my homework And hand it to Iggy so he can copy it. That's how our system works. I do the homework one night, he does it the next. We have all our classes together. Iggy finishes up and I place all the homework back into my binder and lay down for the night. I put my head on my arm and pull a ratty towel up to me as a blanket.
MORNING MAX POV
I wake up in the morning and grab some clothes to change into. I walk up to a nearby stream and wash my face and try to wake myself up. I strip (no. bad perverts.) and almost turn into a maxsicle in the frigid morning air. I quickly pull on some ripped jeans, and no not styled that way. I slip on a Paramore t-shirt and a baggy jacket to hide the scars. More on that later. I tie up my duct taped vans, and walk back to the bridge. And meet up with Iggy. He's already dressed and holding out my school binder.
I take it from his hand and we walk the 1 1/2 miles to a bus stop in a suburb area. I look around at all the houses with longing. Iggy nudges me and nods his head in the direction of the bus stop I look and see 3 new kids. A little girl with beautiful blue eyes, blonde hair in ringlets down to her waist. She looked like an angel except for the sad eyes she possessed. I shift my gaze upwards, and see another girl. This time, she's mocha skinned with big brown eyes and talking a mile a minute, I hear her as we draw closer. And lastly, a tall, olive skinned boy, with hair that just covered his eyes in a skater boy cut. He looks up as Iggy and I slowly walk up to them. We make and eye contact and I almost gasp. Almost. His eyes are like a deep black abyss, you could lose yourself in them. I force my eyes away from his gaze and glance at Iggy.
We exchange a look that says " what?" As we finally reach the three new kids, the mocha skinned girl trails off. Iggy and I have no interest in meeting them so we stand apart from them while we wait for the bus. I watch the trio from the corner of my eye, and see the older girl whisper something to the others. Probably already making fun of us. I sigh. Just another torturer for me and Iggy. As the girl makes her way over to us, the bus pulls up.
I scramble on with Iggy behind me. We walk to the back dodging pencils and papers being thrown everywhere,some directed at us. We make it to the back and plop down into the seat we share. "Who we're they?" I ask, keeping my voice quiet. "I dunno. The older girl was pretty though." Iggy replies. I look at him in shock. "You know that you guys can't date right?" I ask him. "Why not though, Max?" " because for one, were outcasts, do you want to do that to her? And two, what happens when she wants to meet our parents, or go hang out at our house?" I reply. Iggy nods and looks out the window. I sigh and soon we are at the dreaded place called school. I call it hell. You'll figure out why real quick.