Hey-o! This is Lesley at your service. All right, so I absolutely love love LOVE Maximum Ride, and I decided it'd be pretty cool to go on and write a fic. So, basically, it's my particular version of the sixth book (going along with the plot posted by JP himself)… So, yeah… here I go…! …Now… Kidding. Okay, now.

Disclaimer: I, LesFace of , do not own the series Maximum Ride by James Patterson, although I SO wish I did.

Chapter One.

Max POV

"Motherfucking!" I glanced over at Iggy - who had been the one to speak - with my best "eat shit and die" expression, but, of course, it was inevitably lost upon him and his stupid blindness. Glancing off to the side of the kitchen where Angel – who should not have heard that (man, I was gonna get his ass later for that) – sat munching on her seventh bit of bacon, I saw a breif smile steal across her heart-shaped face, ringlets of blonde hanging on either side. She saw my expression and gave a giggle. It's not like I haven't heard you say it before, Max. she informed me in my mind, like super awesome mind reader slash crazy-scary little girls can do.

Hmmph. Well, wasn't I a great parental figure? Letting my gaze roll back over to Iggy, I smirked as he grabbed his toe and bounced up and down on the ground in pain, holding in a string of profanities. Hey, just because we were bird kids, didn't mean we didn't stub our toes like everyone else. In fact, we tended to do it a tad more. I figured it was a flaw the whitecoats at the School had engrained in us for kicks. Ha. Ha.

"I think you'll live, Ig." I told him with a snort, moving from my position at the bottom of the stairs to fully enter the kitchen and grab a spot at the table. My sunstreaked brown hair was in a tangle, and I was sporting a simple T-shirt and some shorts. What could I say? I'd just woken up.

A platter of freshly baked cookies that smelled like heaven greeted my nostrils as I sat, accompanied by a mound of pancakes meant to be scooped onto your plate. Like a ninja, I went straight for the cookies.

My hand was swiftly slapped away, and I scowled. Forgot to tell you. We'd recently taken up residence at my mother's house with my sister (well, half-sister, she's minus the wings.) Ella. It was a between gigs sort of thing. Ever since all the crap events in Hawaii way back when (i.e. my mom getting kidnapped, my realization that I loved Fang, learning I could talk to fish, and all of that fun stuff.) we'd been sort of a walking-talking commercial for the Coalition to Stop the Madness (the CSM) where my mom – Dr. Valencia Martinez – was basically head chairman. We'd stopped all of the winged air shows, however, that had once supported the organization. Too much of a risk after the last whirlpool of disaster we'd landed in (shootings, exploding pizzas, and sea monsters (yes, I know it's weird)). But, that didn't mean we still didn't have a truckload of crap to do. Public speaking, interviews... Talking to annoying people drained the life out of me. But, it was for a cause, I guess.

And so, it was my mother's hand that had slapped me away.

"They're too hot. Wait for them to cool." she told me with a smile. Sometimes I figured she actually liked seeing my pain.

I glared up at her, feeling mistreated, for it seemed my premature poaching of cookies was apparently more drastic than Iggy's cussing? I decided she must not have heard him. Or maybe she'd lost patience with the whole "enforcing not swearing" parent thing with us. It seemed likely. We swore like sailors (well, except the younger lot unless they wanted to get their butts whooped, but sometimes they slipped up too). That's what growing up without a real parent will do to you.

"So," said my mother suddenly in a tone that required eye contact, and I looked up after realizing I'd been staring needily at the platter for the past couple of minutes. Iggy snorted, but he too looked up. So did Angel… And simultaneously, Fang, Gazzy, Nudge, Ella, and Total seemed to appear out of nowhere. I wasn't sure if they'd been sleeping and had all woken up at the same time or if they'd been in the room, and I'd been too blinded by the cookies to notice.

I looked them over subtly, but then my gaze settled on Fang's chiseled features. His long hair fell into his dark, obscure eyes the way I liked… Catching my gaze, he looked over at me with one of those crooked half smiles that made me shiver. I looked away when I felt a flush coming to my cheeks. Keep it cool, Max. We'd decided to keep things… more or less casual. I wasn't exactly sure where we stood. Like, things had come so easy in Hawaii, but somewhere along the trip back… I dunno. We were in uncharted territory. Somewhere between the closest of friends and a… relationship. Oh my God. I had to fight the urge to slam my head into the table. Relationships + Max = No bueno.

"I was contacted by some advocates of the CSM." My mother said, kick starting me back into reality. I looked around and realized Fang had returned his attention to her as well as the rest of the flock. "And… well, this is so exciting…" she murmured, and I willed her to get on with it, daring a droplet of excitement to plop into my brain. "We have enough funds to finally go on a trip. A foreign trip. To inform people of the CSM and to do our part to encourage the halt in the demolition of nature in other countries. We're going to Africa."

Well, as you can imagine, stunned silence ensued. I sort of just stared at my mom like she way crazy. Africa? Us? In Africa? Helping people? Wow… I just… Wow.

Several seconds of quiet passed before Iggy got up in a haste, stubbed his toe again, swore, then stared at my mother in that blind way of his (it freaked me out sometimes, I admit) with an astounded expression. "Are you serious, Mama Bear?" he asked, and I saw my mother frown. She hated it when he called her that.

"Yes. Perfectly."

More silence… And then, everyone went crazy. Iggy and Ella ran upstairs at the same time, shouting over their shoulders that they were going to get packed even though they had no idea when we were going. Angel, Gazzy, Nudge, and Total got stuck in the threshold to the kitchen and squirmed and shouted at each other. Fang stood up, straightened his shirt like he wasn't completely shocked, and headed in the opposite direction where his stuff was bundled up in the living room (my mom's house wasn't amazingly huge, and we'd had to make ourselves comfortable somehow).

That just left me and my mother staring at each other.

"You are serious, right?"

"If I wasn't, it'd be the best practical joke ever, wouldn't it?"

"So, like a five star hotel with hot tubs and sweet punch drinks named after jungles and rivers and crap?" I asked with my eyebrow arched.

My mother actually snorted at me. "More like crowded camps full of missionaries near the most desolate regions of the continent where poverty has strucken hardest."

"…Oh." I promptly grabbed a couple cookies and shoved them into my mouth. Chocolate melted on my tongue. My mother stared at me blankly with my cheeks full of hot cookie. My eyes watered the tiniest bit because they were burning my mouth. "The cookies… they help with the coping." I told her, basically spraying crumbs all over the front of her blouse.

Okay, so yeah XD. Do you like it so far? You should because I do o.o… Anyways, R&R! Please, review if you like it. I always pull out more chapters when I've got reviews, haha!