Have you ever wished you could fly? Soar above the clouds so high, until the people below look like ants? Alex and Elli had that dream too, until one day, that dream, became reality.

(Alex P.O.V)

I sat impatiently by the phone, waiting for it to ring. I had just got off of school, and Elli promised to call me the second she got inside her house. Ring! Ring! I grabbed the phone and answered "HIII!" probably breaking Elli's dad's eardrums.

"Hi…" she answered warily.

"Are you still coming over tonight?"

"You know, you asked me that on the bus before you got off. The answer is still yes!"

"I know! I'm just excited! I can't believe your cousin got a copy of Maximum Ride before it's even in theaters!"

"We both pulled a few strings."

"EEE!!!" I screamed, probably scaring my mom in the other room.

"Alex? Calm down. You're giving me, and my dad, a headache."

"Ok, calm." I tried to stop my hyperventilating before Elli called the cops. "Hey, El? I gotta go, mom is giving me the "clean the dishwasher before I kill you" look."

"Ok, I'll talk to you later."

I walked to the kitchen to unload the dishwasher. I hate doing it, but my mom pays me, and I really need money to buy the new MR book.

After finishing the dishwasher, I grabbed the phone and my laptop and ran upstairs, hoping to read some Fanfiction before Elli got here. I went immediately to the Maximum Ride section, first checking on my story, to see if any new reviews came in. I saw at least 10 new ones, and some Flames that I automatically deleted. I saw a few people asking me if they could be in the story, so I got on and messaged them back, asking what kind of person they would want to be.

My story was about a girl who escaped from the school, and found her mom, but the flock shows up 2 years later, and her whole school finds out she is a flying bird kid. Anyway, I was in the middle of writing my second response when I heard the door open. "Hi Elli!" I shouted before closing the laptop and running downstairs. Elli came over so often that we said she could just come in when she came. She didn't say anything when I approached, instead holding up a blank DVD. "Oh! My! GOSH!" I practically screamed in her ear. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's put it in!"

We proceeded with watching the movie. Laughing when Nudge made Iggy's ear bleed, crying (well, just me, not Elli) when Fang got hurt, and getting mad when Ari stole Celeste. We were about to hit the play button again when mom walked into my room. "Ok, girls, time for bed. It's already past midnight." Shocked, we both looked at the clock. Sure enough, it said 12:24 in big red letters. "Ok, mom, we'll go to bed in a minute" Sighing, mom closed the door. We waited until we heard her get back into bed, then we started getting the bed for Elli set up.

"Hey, Elli, give me a second, I forgot to brush my teeth."

"Ok, I'll finish up here"

Closing the door behind me, I hurried toward the bathroom, trying not to wake mom. I came back to my room to find Elli sitting by my window, an excited expression on her face. "Come here." She whispered, beckoning me towards the window. "Look," she said as I sat next to her. "A shooting star!"

We both closed our eyes, making a wish. I wish...for wings. Wings to fly, like Max and the flock. I want to have wings, to be free. To be able to soar in the sky... I opened my eyes to find that the star had already passed from our line of vision. Looking over towards Elli, I saw that her eyes were open too. "What did you wish for?" She asked me in a whisper so low I could barely hear. "Wings." I said, a bit sheepish. She looked at me with a startled expression. "Me too!" She exclaimed, nearly shouting.

"Shh!!" I said to her, putting a finger to my lips in the universal "be quiet" sign. She nodded, and said in a lower voice, "Sorry."

"I wonder if we will get wings…" I joked. No matter how much I wanted wings, I knew it was impossible.

"I hope!" She said, in the same joking tone as I was using.

"Oh well, we better get to sleep." I yawned, beginning to feel tired for the first time that night.

"Yeah." She agreed, climbing into her own bed.

"Night, El"

"Night, Al"

I woke up earlier than usual the next morning. Looking over to Elli's bed, I saw that she was still--oddly enough--asleep. I rolled out of bed, going over to the mirror. My shoulders felt stiff, so I rolled them in an attempt to loosen up the muscles. I leaned over, looking for a pair of jeans to wear. Unsuccessful, I looked up again…and nearly screamed. Because there, barely visible over my shoulder, was the unmistakable shape of a wing. Rolling up my over shirt (I had a cami on underneath!) I turned around to look at my back in the mirror.

There, folded up against my back, was a pair of wings.

"Alex…" I heard Elli mumble, just waking up. She rubbed her eyes and looked at me more clearly, seeing the horrified expression on my face. "Alex? What's wrong? You look like a deer caught in the headlights!" She stood up, looking at me with a worried expression on her face. I snapped out of it enough to mumble,

"Elli…can you, turn around?"

"What? Why?"

"Just do it."

"Nike." She quipped, grinning. I gave her a look.

"I'm serious." She shrugged, and turned around.

"Now, lift up your sweater." (Again, WEARING A CAMI!)

"Um...I didn't know you were like that…" I rolled my eyes. "Elli."

"Ok, ok. Jeezum, no need to get so defensive…"

I didn't answer her. Because, there, on her back too, were a pair of folded up wings.

(Elli P.O.V)

I stood there impatiently, wondering why Alex looked so freaked out. "What is it Alex? Tell me!" I almost shouted, nearly waking up her mom. She seemed to snap out of it enough to look at me with nervous eyes and say, "Elli, don't freak out, ok?"

"Just tell me!"

"We have wings"

I stood there for a moment, thinking she was kidding and was a really good actress, but then I caught sight of my back in the mirror, and there, looking absolutely gorgeous, were a pair of gold and white wings. "Awesome!" I screamed, starting to jump up and down. Alex told me to shut up and I did, still silently jumping.

(Alex P.O.V.)

I watched in silent amusement as Elli freaked out about the wings. I assumed she was really excited…

"Well, I guess we should check this out" I rolled my shoulders a little, like earlier. Sure enough, my wings unfurled a little. I rolled my shoulders a little more, and they extended fully. I could tell they were almost 14 feet across, and they were a smoky gray, with some white patches. Elli tried the same thing, and her bright gold and white wings extended as well. We both looked at them, still slightly shocked. I slowly reached over and gently stroked the primaries of my wings. Concentrating hard, I focused on flapping them a little. I heard a gentle swishing sound behind me, and I looked to my back to see my wings gently flapping back and forth. I tried flapping them more, but was stopped by Elli,

"Uh, Alex, I don't think you want to hit your head on the ceiling…" I realized she was right, my ceiling was only 10 feet, and I was already 5' 3. I nodded and said,

"Maybe we should go over to the field and try."

"Let's go!" she agreed readily, already grabbing her clothes and heading towards the bathroom.

After we got dressed and cut our shirts to let our wings out, I stopped by my mom's room, cracking the door open. I looked inside and whispered "Mom?"

"Yeah, honey?"

"Elli and I are going over to the field for a bit, we'll be back later."

"Uh, ok? Just be careful"

"We will", I said, closing the door. I motioned to Elli, trying to be as silent as possible--which, by the way, became much easier suddenly. We left the house through the front door, grabbing some apples from the kitchen first.

We ran across the field located from across my house, heading to the woods behind it. We found a clearing in the woods where no one would see us, and carefully unfurled our wings. Looking over at Elli, I asked her, "Well, do you want to go first, or should I?"

"Let's both go!"

"Ok… If I fall and die…don't touch my stuff." I said, beginning to flap my wings. I ran for a few steps, trying to get up momentum, then, I leapt into the air, flapping my wings frantically, then falling to the ground 5 feet below. I looked up and saw that the same thing had happened to Elli. She was rolling around laughing, while also holding her side in pain. "What's so funny?"

"I saw…Dorky…trip…and fall…on his face!" she gasped between giggles. Something about this confused me, though. Dorky (who's real name was Joe) didn't live that close to here.

"Doesn't Dorky live a couple blocks down? That's impossible to see." She shrugged.

"Obviously not. I know it was him. Maybe we got super beastly eyesight."

"Yeah, maybe…" I trailed off. But I think she was right. My house was pretty far away from here and I could see it in perfect detail. Then I spotted Dorky lying face down in the mud and I burst out laughing. After a couple of seconds Elli stopped and stared at my wings, apparently transfixed. "What?" I asked, looking over. I immediately saw what shocked her. Instead of seeing the dark gray feathers that had been there before, I saw bright yellow. As I watched, they slowly drained back to their normal color.

"Alex, I think you have mood wings." Elli whispered, still staring. I nodded; that did make sense.

After getting over the shock of my new power, I decided to try flying again. Knowing what to do now, I took another running start, leaping into the air yet again. This time, there was a difference. I could feel the wind catching under my wings as they worked powerfully to get me in the air. I looked around and saw Elli flying level with me. I grinned at her, and veered off towards the sod farm. She followed close behind. When we were out of the trees, I decided to try something.

"Elli! Stay here! I wanna do something!" I shouted over the wind. She nodded, and I quickly angled myself to do a dive bomb. I flew normally for a second, trying to get up speed, Then, I folded up my wings, and dived straight down.

I felt a laugh leave my lips, but I didn't hear it, seeing as I was probably going over 90 MPH. I let myself fall until I was about 50 feet from the ground, then I reopened my wings, smiling as I felt the air catch to raise me back up. Smiling, I turned to fly back to Elli, only to find that she was right behind me, smiling probably the same exact way as me. I laughed and started flying higher, realizing that we could be seen easily from here. I knew we probably didn't have anything to worry about, but I was almost as paranoid now as Max in the books. Elli must have guessed what I was thinking, because she started flying up too. I looked at my watch, and, realizing that it had almost been an hour, I shouted over the wind "Hey, Elli? We should probably land, mom will be wondering where we are."

"Ok." she said, looking as reluctant as I felt. I laughed and angled myself downward, beginning to feel hungry.

We landed behind the trees, covering our wings with our sweaters. Mom was in the kitchen making pancakes when we got back, and gave us a smile when we walked in "Hey girls! Glad you got back in time." She said, not really looking at us. She then turned to us with a plate of pancakes, then really noticed what we looked like. "Uh…Alex? Why do you guys look like you just stepped out of a wind tunnel?" She asked, making me giggle at her expression. I was kind of worried…I didn't know how she would react to the wings, so I really wasn't ready to tell her. "It's windy outside." I said nonchalantly, trying not to lie too much to her. I turned my attention to the pancakes she was placing on the counter, ravenous. "Thanks for the pancakes, mom!" I said, grabbing some plates from the cupboard, handing one to Elli.

I grabbed three pancakes from the plate, trying to ignore my mom's startled expression. "Well, don't you have an appetite!" She said, laughing. I could tell she was wondering what was up, but decided to leave it alone. Elli got the same amount, but that was normal for her. She always ate tons of food. Elli and I finished quickly, glad that our appetites didn't increase too much.

We ran up to my room, grabbing the laptop on the way. We closed and locked the door behind us, glad that mom was busy downstairs. We both unfurled our wings, still fascinated that we now had six limbs. I tried experimenting with my power more, and I found that I could control the color if I concentrated hard enough. It was harder to do more than two colors, but I could do those without too much trouble. I tried to make a rainbow once, but I couldn't do more than a couple of the colors.

Once I tried doing my face, just to see, and the result had Elli holding her sides with laughter. It was a picture of me, alright. But it was a picture that I had hoped to never see again. It was a picture taken of me when I hit puberty. My face was covered in zits, and my expression was more than comical. I don't know where it came from, but it reminded me of my expression when my mom gave me "The Talk" Who knows, maybe that's what it was.

Ok, so this is pretty much the first chapter, and I am very proud of myself! I mean, 2500 words is more than I've ever written in one chapter of a story!

Oh, and for all of you who think Alex kind of rushes into flying, I modeled the character after me, and I know that I would want to fly immediately, so that's why she's like that.

5 reviewers means another chapter! Please review and tell me what you think. Flames are accepted, but don't be too harsh. Elli is already the one who tells me how bad these are before she fixes them! :D So, anyway, the only thing left to say is…

R

E

V

I

E

W

!

(Just so you know, even though the characters are named after us, that doesn't necessarily mean they're like us. We just happen to love those names. Which aren't really ours, but that's why we use them.)