I don't own Maximum Ride, duh.
I know it is after Thanksgiving, but I thought this would be a cute story idea.
Max's POV
"Iggy," I screamed as he almost dropped the pan of noodles. A wad of potatoes hit me in the back of the head, and Gazzy was laughing his head off. Fang was no where to be seen. Nudge and Angel were making pumpkin pie and making a ginormous mess all over the counters I just cleaned. Total was complaining about how he was mad he couldn't eat at the table with the rest of us. To top off the chaos of this complete disaster the smoke alarms went off, and the turkey that was in the oven started to smoke. As if matters could not get any worse my mom and Ella were going to be here in an hour.
Now you are probably thinking, how did I get talked into preparing a Thanksgiving feast? Well, I would like to know that same answer. All I remember is this.
Flashback
"Max, Max, Max," Angel and Nudge came running in shouting my name with excitement. I knew that this was going to end with them asking me something and I would say no and they would give me the bambi eyes and I would try and resist and I would just end up giving in, in the end, but not this time. I prepared myself
"What, What, What," I asked imitating them.
"We were thinking, since Ms. Martinez got us this house and we are so thankful for it and stuff, and Thanksgiving is coming up, can we please, please, please, please, please, please, please have a big Thanksgiving dinner with lots of food and all of us sitting around the table and being happy that we have each other," Nudge pleaded, lacing her fingers together and crouching down.
I wanted to say no. This house plus cooking a big extravagant dinner was not a good idea. We only had one cook and that was Iggy, and I didn't want to make him cook the whole thing by himself. I knew that if I helped cooking someone would surly get food poising.
"I don't think that is a good idea. Iggy is the only one that can cook, and I know that I can't cook, so I wouldn't be able to help. Making Iggy cook the whole dinner doesn't seem right. I'm sorry I just don't think that we should do that," I let them down gently. I didn't want to break their hearts. They seemed to have this wonderful vision of us, with one thing going totally perfect and all of us happy and together.
"Aw, please Max, please," Angel begged giving me the bambi eyes, with Nudge helping her out. I had to be strong and resist.
"I...I…I just don't think," I stuttered .
"Well, I think it's a great idea," I felt a presence appear behind me. A chill ran down my spine and goose bumps crawled up my arms.
"Fang, you really need to stop doing that," I grunted aggravated. I hated it when he did that. It always freaked me out. One of these days I would go into attack mode and he would end up with his butt kicked.
"Doing what," he said in his deep voice with a smooth sly smile.
"You know what. I swear one of these days your going to sneak up on me and you will end up flat on your butt," I warned him playfully pointing my finger at him.
"Anyway, Max I really think that it would be a cool idea to invite your mom and Ella over for Thanksgiving. We can all help, and you don't even need to cook. You could set the table or something. Iggy won't mind," Fang pointed out that how that this would be a great idea for us all to do. It must have been the longest speech I had ever heard him say. I could not believe that he was Nudge and Angel's side. I guess if Fang thought it was a pretty sweet idea, it couldn't be all that bad.
"I won't mind what?" Iggy asked with his mouth full and a sandwich in hand walking in to the living room from the kitchen.
"Cooking a big dinner for Thanksgiving, and we can invite Ms. Martinez and Ella over," Angel blurted out.
"Hm…really that sounds fun. I could cook this really delicious cranberry sauce. Sure I will cook dinner," Iggy agreed. It seemed like everyone was agreeing to this Thanksgiving dinner. Just then Gazzy walked in.
"Oh, are we going to have a Thanksgiving dinner?" Gazzy asked with joy filling in his crystal blue eyes as he went to go stand beside his little sister. Everyone was looking at me waiting for me to answer. Anticipation filled the room.
"Oh, fine, we can have a Thanksgiving dinner. Let me go call mom and Ella," I let out a stressed out sigh. I walked of the room to go call mom. I picked up the phone and dialed her number. It rang a few times.
"Hello?" my mom's sweet motherly voice asked.
"Hey mom, I, the flock, was wondering if you would like to come up here for Thanksgiving dinner," I asked her. A few breaths pasted.
"Oh that sounds great me and Ella will definitely be there. It was just going to be the two of us before, so yeah we would love to come," she accepted our invitation to come for dinner.
"Yay, everyone will be so happy that you are going to come," I said half fake enthusiasm and half real enthusiasm.
"Ok, hey, honey I got to go, I have another call coming in. probably, an animal emergency," she said goodbye and hung up. I let out another exasperated sigh, I just knew something was going to go terribly wrong.
End of flashback
That brings us back to the present. It looks like my natural instinct was correct. How were we going to pull this off? We could not cook a whole turkey in one hour. I went over to open the oven, and quickly pulled out the totally black turkey.
I smacked my hand over my face. The house was a mess, we had a burnt turkey, and half of bowl of mashed potatoes. We only had a whole pot of noodles and green bean casserole. That was no where near enough food, for six bird kids, my mom, and Ella.
"Iggy, this is a disaster," I raised my voice. I was so close to screaming.
"You think," he gave me a sarcastic comment back.
"What are we going to do?" I asked. This was so crazy. I had no idea what we were going to do.
'I don't know, I guess we can go pick up some food up somewhere," he suggested. It actually wasn't that bad of an idea. I could go Boston Market and go pick up a turkey there.
"Yeah that's a good idea, thanks Iggy, you stay here and finish up," I said calming down a little. Ugh! Where was Fang. I hadn't seen him all day. Even, though he was the one that said everyone would help. Well, he was coming with me to pick up this turkey no matter what.
"FANG!" I screamed up the steps.
"WHAT?" he screamed back down.
"GET DOWN HERE! NOW," I shouted in my I'm-serious-get-you-butt-down-here-now, voice. He came down the steps jumping the last four.
"What? Whoa what in the world happened, did Gazzy set off a bomb?" He asked when he saw the kitchen.
"No, this is what happens when we have a big Thanksgiving dinner. We need to pick up another turkey before my mom gets here because the other one got burnt," I sighed really aggravated.
" Oh," he breathed. I through his jacket at him and we left. We flew down to the town, since we lived up in the mountains.
"Where are we going to find a fully cooked turkey on Thanksgiving Day at three o'clock," Fang asked, making the whole situation sound a whole heck of a lot worse.
"Not helping," I sighed, deeply.
"I thought we would try Boston Market first," I added.
"That sounds like a good idea," Fang stated sounding a little happier like he actually had some hope. We walked down the street until we got to Boston Market. We walked in and not a soul was there, but the cashier, who didn't look happy to be working on Thanksgiving.
"Hi, can we pick up the two of the Thanksgiving feasts specials," I asked politely to the cashier. He had dark blue eyes, almost indigo, and longish black hair like Fang's.
"Sorry lady, we ran out of turkey about an hour ago, but we have ham if you want that," he winked at me.
"No thank you," I said backing away a little. The guy was about seventeen. It was kind of creepy, I was only fifteen, but I did look older than I really was.
"Oh come on, there has to be something you like, on and off the menu," he smile seductively, grabbing my hand.
"No that's ok," I said jerking my hand back. I was going to punch this guy out it he tried anything else. Suddenly, I felt Fang's hand slip around my waist. It felt warm and right. I didn't want him to let me go. Wait, stop it Max, no you cannot think of your best friend that way, it's not right.
"Come on babe, lets go somewhere else," Fang gave a death glare at the cashier and it looked like the he about pissed his pants.
We walked out of there with Fang's hand still around my waist. I loved the way he had pretended to claim I was his, I just wished he really meant and wasn't just pretending. He was like my older brother. I had to remember that he didn't feel those types of feelings for me.
"Uh…thanks for um…doing that for me," I said awkwardly looking down at the ground.
"No problem," Fang replied not looking at me. It was silent between us for a few moments. We didn't look at one another, or even try to make eye contact. Could you say awkward?
"Ok so how much time do we have left until your mom comes over?" Fang asked abruptly.
"Only twenty-five minutes. We have time to go check one more place," I cried out shocked. Stress started to over power me. I began to hyperventilate. We only had twenty-five minutes to get dinner clean up the kitchen and have everything in complete order for the perfect Thanksgiving. This was so not going to happen. Nudge and Angel would be so disappointed. They really wanted a thanksgiving with people that cared about each other and not just pretended to care, like Anne.
"Max, take a deep breath, we will go over to Bob Evens and pick up that dinner special that feeds up to eight people we can get two of those," he said calmly. Not one hint of stress was in his voice or on his face.
"Ok," I inhaled and exhaled. "Let's go."
We hurried over to Bob Evens two block down the street. I burst through the doors. Only a few people were there eating dinner. I walked up over to the order counter.
"Hi, can we have two of the turkey dinner specials," I asked pleadingly. I was hoping that they would have turkey.
"Sure thing that will be up for you in about forty minutes," the lady behind the counter said. Forty minutes, we didn't have forty minutes. I told her never mind and left with Fang trailing behind me.
"Fang this is a catastrophe. What are we going to do? Angel and Nudge were looking forward to this; I would hate to break their heart. All they wanted was the most perfect Thanksgiving, all of us sitting around the table, eating a great big dinner and being with each other," I felt as if I was about to cry. Tears were burning in the back of my eyes. I was trying my best to stay calm and swallow the painful lump in the back of my throat. I didn't, I couldn't cry in front of Fang. I wanted him to see me as a strong cool and collected leader, but I was failing miserably.
"It's ok Max, the flock loves you and yeah that vivid vision Angel and Nudge have in their head sounds perfect and wonderful, but all they want is to be with the flock. They don't really care if that stuff happens, they just really want to be with you," Fang explained wrapping his strong arms around my shoulders and pulling me into his chest. Since when had he become Mr. Shrink? I buried my head into his chest and inhaled his fresh, just-stepped-out-of-the-shower smell.
I didn't cry, and the urge to cry had gone away. I didn't want to untangle myself from Fang's arms, but we had to get back to the house. I untangled myself regretfully and looked into Fang's eyes.
"Thank you, that made me feel a hundred percent better," I thanked him. His eyes were dark and they held a strange emotion, one that I had never seen in his eyes before. I actually hardly saw any emotions in his eyes. Still, I could make almost any other emotion out, but this one I couldn't tell, was I sadness, need, love? I couldn't tell.
"You're welcome," he mumbled, but still looking into my eyes. He was closing in on me. I felt my cheeks burn from the closeness. I could kiss him right this minute, but I was afraid to I didn't want to ruin our friendship. But, he kept closing the space between us and I decided I would help him. He wanted to kiss me, and I wanted to kiss him, why wait?
Our lips met and I felt a powerful explosion of pure emotions implode within me. I couldn't describe the love that I felt during that kiss. I was on cloud nine and I never wanted to come back down again. The kiss broke because we both needed air.
"Whoa," we both breathed. That was pretty much the only word in the human language that could describe that kiss.
"We better get going my mom and Ella will be there in…TEN MINUTES!" I began to freak out we had to get up to the house now. Fang and I ran towards the trees to where no one could see us and we took off into the sky. We poured on as much speed as we could. Well, I kept Fang's fast pace. The icy wind hit my cheeks.
We got up to the house in five minutes. Fang and I walked inside. I ran to the kitchen only to find it in worse condition than it had been when I left.
"Iggy, why is the kitchen in more of a disaster than it had been I had left?" I asked shaking with rage.
"It is? Whoops, did you get the turkey?" he asked like it was nothing.
"No and mom and Ella will be here in…" I was cut off by a knock at the door.
"Crap they are here. What are we going to do? Is the table set?" I asked starting to pace up and down the kitchen.
"Yeah, why?" Iggy lifted up an eye brow.
"Good, put the food that we have on the table and we will just keep everyone out of the kitchen," I said as I ran to answer the door.
"Hey, mom, come in. I'm sorry, but we don't have any turkey. I kind of burnt it," I admitted, taking a sudden interest in my shoes.
"Oh, I thought that might happen, I made a turkey," she laughed. I felt relived that she wasn't mad or upset that we didn't have turkey. I smiled and invited Ella and her inside. We walked into the dinning room. The table was still set from when I had set it before everything went completely wrong. Iggy had all the food sitting on the table; he had even made a new batch of potatoes. I took the turkey from my mom and placed it on to the middle of the table. We all stood around in a circle around the table.
"Ok everyone lets say thanks," I announced. Fang grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight. He looked at me and I knew that he was thankful that we had kissed and that we were all together.
"Dear lord, I would like to say thank you for everything. Thank you for my flock and my mom and Ella, thank you for helping us get through this total mess earlier today, and thanks for all this food. Amen," I said the prayer with passion. The rest of flock said amen.
We sat down and began to fill our plates up. It looked as if Nudge and Angel's vision had really happened. We were all sitting around the table eating a big Thanksgiving feast, and thankful that we were together.
"You know Angel, Nudge, this had to be one of the best ideas ever," I laughed happily, letting all my stress melt away as we ate together.
Please review and tell me what you thought. I know its past Thanksgiving, but I didn't have time to post this until today. Please please please review!