My mom said I would only be the new girl for a day and then I would just be a normal student, but I knew that would never be the case. I would always be looked at as the new girl. It had been two days since I moved to Washington to live with my mom and my sister Ella . I moved here from New York where I used to live with my dad until….. Never mind.

"Come on Max. Up and at 'Em. You don't want to be late for school, do you?" My mom called up the stairs to my room.

"Yes I do!" I called back down to her.

"I don't care, let's go! Hurry up." She called, with the scent of her world famous chocolate chip cookies rafting up to me.

"Is that?"

"Yep it sure is cookies. You can have some if you get your butt down here in the next twenty minutes." She said. "Don't make me send Ella up there to get you up"

"I'm up, I'm up!" I said hastily flopping out of bed. I knew if she sent Ella to get me up, I would be scrubbing make-up off my face for the next two weeks. I rubbed any trace of sleep out of my eyes in my bathroom, and quickly drew a brush through my dark caramel brown hair and threw on a dark blue tank top and a grey zip up sweatshirt, dark skinny jeans and my old black converse.

I took the stairs two at a time to get to the cookies. Everyone was sitting around the kitchen table eating pancakes, so I stuffed two cookies in my mouth and grabbed my backpack and car keys and was out the door. I was just at the end of the driveway when I remembered something. Ella, of course I couldn't go to school without her. I beeped the horn twice and she came running out.

"You ready for your first day?" she asked as she slid into my dark blue Camry.

"Sure, lets just get this over with right?"

"Oh Max, so very pessimistic. I'm so sure everyone will love you. How could they not?" she asked.

"Easily" was all I said before I turned the radio on. It was another five minutes of driving in the wet sloppy rain until we pulled into the local public high school.

"Alright, lets do this thing" I said cooly. Inside I was all but dying from nerves. "Where should I go?" I asked.

"Up to the office, ask to see the principal." She said.

"Got it thank you." I said as I grabbed my transcripts and my schedule and bag and was set to go to see the principal. I walked up to the front doors and looked around for the office which was conveniently located…. right in front of me. I pushed the heavy doors open and walked in. There was a lady behind the desk who looked rather dissatisfied with her job.

"Hello, what can I do for you today?" she asked in a bored monotone.

"Um, I need to see Principal Wilkinson?" I asked.

"He'll be right with you, take a seat there" she said pointing to a hard plastic chair in the corner or the room next to another door. Why thank you for your hospitality and comfortable seating. I thought snidely. I sat there impatiently for about a half an hour before the door opened and a boy walked out. He looked my age and had jet black shaggy hair that fell just a little over his eyes. He was wearing a completely black ensemble and had a grim expression on his face. He attempted to walk out but the lady at the desk stopped him.

"Hold on there Mr. Parker. I have a job for you. Just sit there" she said. He just rolled his dark midnight eyes and sat in the seat next to me. "You can go in now Ms. Ride" she said, and pointed to the door next to me.

"Thanks" I muttered before walking into the office. Behind yet another desk was yet another old bored looking adult. If you hadn't already guessed, I don't like adults.

"Well hello there, you must be Ms. Maximum Ride. The transfer student from…." He looked down to check his notes, like people hadn't already been talking about my coming for a few weeks now. "Ah, New York, how exciting."

"Only for tourist." I said casually.

"Err…yes. Okay, here is your schedule, locker number, and map" he said handing me a big stack of papers. "Just get these slips signed by your teachers and bring them back at the end of the day. I'm so glad you chose to join the Trojan team." He said referring to the team mascot. As if I really had a choice…yeah right.

"Thank you" I said as I walked out the door. I looked at the map and tried as hard as I could to relate the classroom numbers the small little square ones on the map. Homeroom was French, then Math, Science, History, Creative Writing, and Performance.

"Oh, Ms. Ride-

"Please, it's Max" I said.

"Okay….Max, why don't you have Mr. Parker take you to your classes." She said with a smirk on her face as she looked at him, like they shared an inside joke that I had no idea about.

"I was going to offer any way" he said coolly. And the smile almost fell off her face. "Let me see your schedule," he said as he held the door open for me. I handed it to him and his eyebrows knit together in confusion. "We have identical schedules." He said.

"Well then I really hope I don't hate you." I said jokingly. He just laughed. "What's your name?" I asked.

"Nicolas Parker… call me Fang. Everyone else does."

"Interesting name"

"I'm an interesting person" he said. "Where did you come from?" he asked as we turned into another hallway full of lockers.

"New York" I said. "I just moved here to live with my mom and my sister Ella, uh…Ella Martinez, do you know her?"

"Yup, she's dating my brother" he said like it was no big deal.

"She never told me she had a boyfriend. She talked about this guy…I forget his name-

"Iggy"

"Yea, that's it. But I thought she was telling me everything" I said. He just shrugged. Man of many words.