Disclaimer (of magic)
Iggy: You own practically nothing in this chapter.
Me: Not true! I own the plot.
Iggy: Yeah but you don't own James Patterson, Sherlock Holmes, Jo Nesbø, Anne MacCaffery, Rick Riordan, Mary Shelley, The Count of Monte Cristo, Dracula, or any other books or authors mentioned in this chapter.
Me: If I don't own you then how did I get you here?
Iggy: Kidnapping my dear Watson, kidnapping.
Me: …
Iggy: Enjoy this chapter and call the police. I need help.
Max POV
'…And now, my dear Watson, we have had some weeks of severe work, and for one evening, I think, we may return our thoughts into more pleasant channels. I have a box for 'Les Huguenots.' Have you heard the De Reszkes? Might I trouble you then to be ready in half an hour, and we can stop at Marcini's for a little dinner on the way?'
I sighed audibly after rereading Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles for the umpteenth time. Closing my eyes I took another deep breathe in and slowly let it go before reopening my eyes. Setting the already torn, bent, and dog tagged to death book gently on the ground I picked up The Valley of Fear and proceeded to open up that book.
Oh right…manners. This world would be better off without them, couldn't we just walk around with name tags saying 'Hello! My name is:' and you could fill in Slim Shady in your best graffiti handwriting? But since the world's greatest scientists haven't announced that this would be best for the community yet, I'll just have to stick to plan A.
My name is Maximum Martinez. I'm a seventeen year old girl just about to graduate high school and go into the field of neurosurgery, which is a brain and spine doctor. The main reason for that is the fact that I really want to poke someone's brain. Anyways, I'm a book-aholic. Anne MacCaffery, Rick Riorden, Jo Nesbø, Mary Shelley, Arthur Conan Doyle, Andrew Dumas. You name it, I've probably read it. Oh right, best keep to the script and not delve any deeper into my book life. I have long, layered blonde slash brown hair, tan skin, some freckles on my face, and brown eyes. I'm also very tall. As in, I tower over most people my age and some older than me.
We -meaning me, my mom, my dad, and my little sister- live in Great Falls, Montana and all that good stuff. My dad is Jeb Batchleder, a 46 year old man with sandy blonde hair, blue eyes, and a pale complexion from being inside a lot. My mother, Valencia Martinez, is 44 and has wavy chocolate brown hair and eyes along with tan skin and a Spanish background. My little sister is fifteen. Her name is Ella and she looks like a spitting image of my mom, except younger and with one of her eyes a blue color like my dads.
My dad works for some science company called Ride&Gunther-Hagen. You'd have to be living under a rock not to know about them. They created the first locked up room to ever reach 0 Kelvin and even proved that all molecular motion froze. Yeah, it's awesome.
One thing about my school life, I've never actually gone to school in the Great Falls Public School area -not counting elementary-. I actually went to a prep school called Shattuck-St. Mary's in Faribault, Minnesota. I'm on my certain level of genius thanks to that school. We won first in the country Science Bowl and Science Olympiad. Along with competing with my original state of Montana's Math Counts team. Even though we lost to them, it was fun.
Right, present moment of books reading. It was a Wednesday, if you went to a public school, still part of the school year, I had gotten out a week ago and had come home six days ago. Yay, give me a golden star for explaining something absolutely worthless to you!
I knew that I would have to get ready soon, put on the retched dress, brush my hair, floss my teeth, trim my nails and put on a pair of suitable shoes. It ended up that tonight we -mainly my dad- had a dinner meeting with one of the co-owners of Ride&Gunther-Hagen. I believe it was the Ride portion, but what do I know?
It took forever for my mom and dad to 'convince' me to wear that dress. I absolutely hate dresses, they restrict my space. Also when I was in kindergarten I was wearing a dress and going across the monkey bars. Apparently some little ass-hat boy saw my underwear and reported to the entire playground about my 'pink poopy undies', they were not poopy.
Yes, all because of some little incident in kindergarten, I now had an irrational fear of dresses. And blenders, but that's a story for some other time.
I finally pulled myself up and trudged over to my dresser where the death contraption of visible undergarments awaited me. I dragged my feet since my room was right over the kitchen and I wanted to make my parents know how much I suffer having to wear this.
It was a -kill me now- floral dress. It had a mixture of pink, purple, and blue flowers on a white background. The 'belt' part of it was about three or four ribs up and very tight. After the brown leather belt was a bunch of ruffles that finally ended about an inch above my knees. The worst part? It was strapless. Me being the nearly flat breasted girl I am, I had a very hard time trying to get this dress to stay up, even with the belt as tight as it could go.
Giving up after a while I hoisted the dress up and marched off to my bathroom of wonders. While some girl's bathrooms may look like a total disaster, mine is the polar opposite. I may or may not have a slight case of OCD as well. My mouthwash, toothpaste, toothbrush, and floss were all sitting up on the wall in a little corner. Soap was in a Snoopy soap dish, and towels were hung up. My hairbrush and hair ties were set neatly in a drawer and some washcloths were set next to them.
Reaching into my magical drawer of hairbrushes, I grabbed the paddle brush -the only brush I owned- and began brushing out my hair. My hair is multilayered and the way I had it cut gave it an almost feathery feeling, it rarely ever strings up like it used to do before I got it cut this was. I hastily washed my face and began to tend to my dental needs. Brush, floss and rinse. I had braces that I also had to clean, yeah, braces. They aren't big chunky contraptions that cause me to have my mouth open at all times. They were small turquoise metal links that only made my lips bulge out slightly.
Running out of the bathroom of wonders, I grabbed a random pair of socks and yanked them on my feet. Then I put on my shoes -as most people do-. These weren't just any shoes though, these were my shoes. They were old and brown and slightly dusty. They weren't exactly hiking boots but they also weren't combat boots. They didn't really have a heel, maybe a centimeter, and were very comfortable. I had been through everything with these babies.
I flung myself out my door and started clomping down the hall. That's my favorite part about these boots, I can make them go clomp, clomp, clomp, clomp really loudly. And it drives my parents bonkers, which makes it ten thousand times better. As I made my slow journey down the hall I couldn't help but vainly check my reflection in the full length mirror that hung on Ella's open door. Even though I would never say it out loud, I actually didn't look half that bad, still, you didn't hear it from me.
I continued to clomp around. I clomped heavily down the stairs than clomped along the hall to the kitchen, before flinging myself dramatically into my seat at the table.
"Kill me now!" I sighed dramatically, swishing my head back in my chair. My parents rolled their eyes and Ella squealed with delight.
"Oh Max! You look so cute! You should really wear dresses more often!"
"I'm only wearing this because I have discovered spandex shorts can go under dresses since kindergarten."
Ella joined my parents in the act of eye rolling this time.
"Let's just go, okay? Maybe they will have good food and free apple juice." I said with fake enthusiasm.
"Alright, bring something to entertain yourself during dinner. It's probably just going to be a bunch of grown up stuff." My mom said, shooing Ella and I up to grab whatever we needed from our rooms.
Ella looked really pretty. She had a strapless baby blue dress that tightened up around the same place mine required a belt. Underneath it was very poofy and went down to her knees. She had her hair curled and then pulled back into a high pony tail held by a big pink bow. On her feet she had the treacherous contraption called 'high heels'. I shudder at the thought if wearing those.
I reached my room and immediately grabbed Dracula by Bram Stoker. I know what you're thinking -or maybe you aren't, I don't know, I'm not a mind reader- 'why aren't you reading that Valley of Fear book?' Well, my dear Watson, I'm not reading it because when my parents say 'grown up stuff' it usually concerns chatting about Ella and I or talking about new breakthroughs in science, and since I am practically a grown up, I deserve to eavesdrop while I read. To tell the truth, I never really got that into Dracula, so I could easily act like I was reading and really just listen in on whatever they are saying.
When I walked out of my room, Ella was there with her phone clutched tightly in her hands, her eyes glued on the screen as her thumbs flew around rapidly. I rolled my eyes and gave her a donozo in the back of the head. She flew forward before regaining her balance -even though I didn't even hit her that hard- and turning around to glare at me.
"Come on text-aholic, we need to go now." I stated as I began to clomp down the stairs.
"Can you not clomp? It's really annoying and loud." Ella asked as she followed behind me, her heels clicking down the stairs like a teacher coming down the hallway.
"Can you not click? It sounds like someone is clicking a pen." I answered, imitating her voice. Our voices were a lot alike, mine was just a tiny bit deeper, not like my voice sounded like a man's, more like if you matched our voices with notes on the piano, hers would be like a note or two above mine.
We continued the playful bickering all the way down the stair before we reached the front door where our parents were waiting.
Mom had on a dark purple velvet dress that had sleeves down to her elbows and the skirt went down to the end of her knees. She had on black heels and her hair was straightened. She also had an emerald jewel swinging around on her necklace.
Dad had on a white work shirt and a blue tie, he also had on khaki business pants and some brown leather business shoes. His hair was greased back and he had his glasses perched on his nose.
"Dad, it looks like you're going to work. Not a dinner party." I remarked as I looked over what he was wearing.
He stuck his tongue out at me before opening the door for everyone and heading out to the car.
The car ride was uneventful, just the usually bicker between Ella and I on which station to go to -we had XM radio-. She was all for Hits 1, while I wanted either Alt Nation or Lithium. Just to clear up any confusion some of you dumbasses might have, yes, I mean the radio station, not Lithium the element with an atomic number of three and 5.941 being its atomic mass.
After a very long car drive of thirty minutes -these people lived all the way across town and then really deep into the country- we finally, finally, made it.
Let me tell you, their house was huge. It had to be three stories tall, and that just above the ground, they probably had a basement too. It was made of red bricks and the entrance was at least four me's high and about three meters thick. There were two room length windows on either side of the entrance and you could see a sparkling chandelier hanging from looking through the semicircle window that was perched on top of the door. This house was absolutely outstanding.
While I stood there gaping at the amazing architecture that was put into making this house, my parents and Ella had already gone up to the door and knocked politely. I quickly ran forward to where they were standing and smoothed my dress and hair as I tried to look like I wasn't just sitting around like a little kid at a candy shoppe and instead was standing up here with my family, the picture of sophisticated grace.
The door was answered shortly after by a woman with curly blonde hair that went down to her waist, pale skin, black eyes and a very short stature. She had on a green sundress and brown heeled boots that went up to her knees.
"Oh hello! I'm Amelia Ride! It's great to meet you all." She said politely. This lady seemed only about thirty.
"It's great to see you again Amelia! This is my family. My wife Valencia, and my two daughters: Eleanor, or Ella, and Maximum, or Max." Dad said, gestured to each of us in turn.
"Well, it's great to meet all of you! If you follow me, I'll lead you to the dining room, dinner is almost ready." Amelia said as she started to trot off to wherever the dining room might be. We followed behind her as she led the way to the kitchen. We passed through two other rooms that seemed to span for miles and were decked with the finest furniture you could get.
Once we finally reached the dining room I was once again amazed. It was decked with all sorts of rocks as the walls, a sleek black table along with sleek black chairs, an angelic white floor. There was also a TV and two long windows that looked out upon a small garden and further on to the river. There was a swinging door, that most likely led to the kitchen, off on the right hand wall.
Sitting at the front of the table, looking at a Cigar Monthly magazine was a man I presumed was my dad's boss. He had dark black hair, brilliant blue eyes, and olive skin. He was wearing a grey jacket over a white work shirt, along with grey work pants and black leather work shoes. He looked like he was going to work as well.
It was then that I began to turtle up. I usually wasn't a very shy girl, just around people I wasn't comfortable with or didn't know. I didn't know these people at all.
"Oh you're here!" The man said, looking up from his magazine at us. His voice seemed almost to have some sort of accent, I'm not entirely sure what kind though. "I am Doctor Marcel Ride. It's great to meet you all."
Doctor Marcel Ride then proceeded to stand up and shake all of our hands.
"Marcel, this is my wife Valencia and these are my daughters Maximum, or just Max, and Eleanor, or Ella." Dad said. I put on my best fake smile, which didn't include my teeth and didn't reach my eyes.
"It's a pleasure to meet you all!" Doctor Ride exclaimed, a genuine smile on his face.
"It's great to meet you too Doctor Ride." Ella answered back politely.
"Please, call me Marcel. My children will be out shortly, so feel free to make yourself comfortable." Doctor Ride -no wait, Marcel- said kindly before glancing at Amelia right before she scurried off to get their children.
I glanced at my parents before seating myself in one of the sleek black chairs. It wasn't exactly the most comfortable, unlike our chairs which had a woven bottom and a plush back, and I assumed that this family preferred to live in the high class world, and not the comfortable world.
After a few moments my dad and Doctor Marcel started up a conversation about the field of genetic mutations or something. Even though I would like to pay attention I was too entranced in this whole house. The furniture was not my favorite and was somewhat scarce from what I saw earlier but the whole building of the house must have taken nearly forever.
I felt something nudge my knee and looked next to me. Ella gave me a sharp look before acting out taking out a book and reading it. Was I staring or something? I smirked at her before I lifted up my book from my side and began to read it.
"3 May. Bistritz.-Left Munich at 8:35 P.M., on 1st May, arriving at Vienna early next morning; should have arrived at 6:46, but train was an hour late. Buda-Pesth seems a wonderful place, from the glimpse which I got of it from the train and the little I could walk through the streets. I feared to go very far from the station, as we had arrived late and would start as near the correct time as possible."
Soon I was just as entranced in it as I was when I first read it. Even though it was not my all time favorite, not even in the top ten, I still had to appreciate the amazing literature in it. I was snapped out of my trance by the sound of a pot being knocked over, then followed by loud laughing and talking. Then the swinging door from the kitchen swung open revealing Amelia and two kids.
The first out was a girl. She had mocha brown skin and silky brown hair that had a single white streak in it. Her eyes were a perky brown color and she had on a lacy light pink dress that went down to her elbows and ended at her knees. She also had on some lacy white flats and lacy white tights. I'm just going to take a guess and say that she likes lace. She seemed about Ella's age, around fifteen.
Following her was a boy. He had olive skin and seemed muscular. He had shaggy black hair that hung loosely over his eyes which were a dark black. He was about two to four inches taller than me. He was wearing a black long sleeved shirt that hugged his arms and some loose fit jeans that were held up by a black leather belt. He also had on black trainers. I had to admit, this dude was pretty darn handsome. He looked like the type who wouldn't listen to what their parents said. He looked to be around my age, maybe a year older.
Now, I'm not going to go into some big swoon fest of 'and time stopped completely when he walked in. He was my whole universe. He was drool worthy hot. He looked like the kind of guy who would easily break a girl's heart' or any of that crap. Sure he was handsome, but what really intrigued me about him was the fact that he looked somewhat like Edmond Dantés from The Count of Monte Cristo.
Doctor Ride cleared his throat before standing up and standing besides his children.
"This is my daughter, Monique, and my son, Nicholas." He said, slightly gesturing to the kids. Monique waved at us and smiled excitedly and Nicholas nodded his head, no emotion on his face.
"I'm Jeb Batchleder and this is my wife Valencia Martinez. These are my daughters Maximum and Eleanor Martinez." My dad introduced us to the two kids.
"You can just call me Ella and call her Max." Ella voiced out quickly after dad finished his introductions.
A ding went off from the kitchen and Amelia quickly perked up. "Monique, can you help me with the food, Nick you can just sit down."
They both nodded and Nicholas sat down while Monique pranced after her mother into the kitchen.
I glanced at Nicholas for a moment before turning my attention back to my book that was resting in my lap. I knew Ella would eventually start up a conversation with him so I wouldn't have to do anything but nod a few times and act like I knew what was going on.
Before Ella could strike up a conversation, Monique and Amelia were back carrying platters of food. There was turkey, macaroni, noodles, salad, soup and some sort of vegetables in a bowl. I looked greedily at all the food. I had a very fast metabolism and had to eat a lot of calories a day. Amelia came around and poured some water into our glasses before letting us dig in. My mouth was already watering as I caught a whiff of the food.
So as not to bore you with the dinner process, I'll just say that I tried everything. And I had seconds of everything. Of course, I also didn't speak at all. I simply nudged Ella and glanced at the food I wanted, and then she'd ask politely for it before handing it to me. That's what an awesome sister looks like.
Sadly there was no dessert after dinner -sob, cry- and so the grown ups started off into an animated whispering conversation, glancing at either Nicholas or me every once and a while. Ella and Monique, who called herself Nudge for some reason, got into their own animated conversation about fashion, celebrities and the new season of The Walking Dead. Of course, it was just Nicholas and I left sitting there quietly. He would glance up at me every once and a while but would quickly look back down at his phone. I simply did the only thing natural for a Max, I read my book.
Soon after that the table was cleared and everyone got back into their conversation, the adults were more hushed than before and I couldn't take it anymore.
"Okay, mom. Stop with the hushed conversation. I've finished my book and I want to know what you're talking about." I said impatiently. I then, of course, looked back on what I just said and my eyes widened as I covered my mouth. "Sorry, that was rude."
"Oh, Max, don't worry about it. There actually is something we need to tell you." My mom said before glancing at my dad. My parents then exchanged looks with the Rides.
"You are going to get married to Nicholas."
Wow. That was craptastic! But I like it! I guess. Next point of view will be Fang's, it'll just be his point of view on what happened. Yeah. Okay if I don't update this for a while it's probably school's fault. Freaking school, always ruining my fun. Let's see if anyone knows this song! I absolutely love it!
I'm a phoenix in the water
A fish that's learnt to fly
And I've always been a daughter
But feathers are meant for the sky.
So I'm wishing, wishing further
For the excitement to arrive
It's just I'd rather be causing the chaos
Than laying at the sharp end of this knife.
With every small disaster
I'll let the waters still
Take me away to someplace real.
It's one if my all time favorite songs by one of my all time favorite singers! Read, review, and all that good stuff!