BTW: no wings and max and company are 17 and juniors in high school, except Ella who is 16 and a sophomore.
Chapter 1:
"MAXIMUM RIDE!" Mom's voice yells from the kitchen as I step through the front door.
Crap. She sounds pissed. Really pissed. Way to state the obvious, Max.
The office has gotten a lot faster. Back when I first started high school, she wouldn't get the call until the next day. Probably because back then it didn't seem like such a big deal, everyone assuming it was just a phase I was going through, that everything would blow over and soon I'd fit right in. Now the call from the office was a part of my daily routine.
I hear angry, stomping footsteps, and in walks my mother. Her curly brown hair is sticking out of its ponytail in places, and her usually tan face is red with anger. The expression on her face is not her usual disapproving scowl. It is pure anger. She practically has smoke coming out of her ears.
"Hey, mom. Are you ok? You look a little red."
"Maximum! What is this?" She practically shoves the paper at me.
Confused, I take it from her, slowly reading it. When I realize what it is, I have a mini heart attack.
It's my report card. And right next to Science is a big fat D. (A/N I suck at science. It's one of my least favorite subjects. I don't know how I managed to pass it, but I did. Although, I panicked when I took the final because I didn't study and forgot my calculator. So I guessed on 80% of the questions and did all the math by hand. When I finally finished I only had like one minute left. It SUCKED!)
Well, crap.
Originally, I had thought that the school had called her. I forgot about my report card. But at least she didn't get the call. Though I'm not sure which is worse.
"Oh, I got another call from the school today, too."
#$! %^&! She did get the call! And the report card! I am dead. I am so dead.
I hand the paper back to her. She snatches it, her scowl now firmly in place. "Go do your homework. We will discuss this at dinner."
I turn to the left and run up the stairs. When I get to my room I quickly open the door, chucking my back pack in. Then I continue to Ella's room, right next to mine.I don't knock. I just walk in and flop onto her bed face down.
"Get in another fight?" I hear her say from the other side of the room.
"Mhmm," I mutter, my face buried in her pillow.
"The office called?"
"Mhmm."
I sit up, criss cross applesauce. I sigh. "Apparently report cards came today, too."
Ella's facing away from me, straightening her long brown hair from a stool in front of her mirror. I see her face through the mirror and she winces.
"Was it bad?" she asks.
I sigh. "I got a D in Science."
"Is that it?"
"I don't know. I was freaking out. I didn't look at any of my other grades, but I have no doubt that Math won't be much better."
She sets the straightener down on the edge of her dresser, unplugging it. She turns around. "So, what was the fight about this time?"
"Ugh!" I fall back onto her bed and stare up at her poppcorny white ceiling. I hear her soft footsteps and the bed sinks.
"Just Lissa being Lissa," I say. "Sam broke up with her, so she was in an especially horrible mood. And that's saying something, because I didn't think she could get much worse. She thinks she's all that and a bag of chips. (A/N love that saying) But she was extremely annoying today, to say the least. I almost snapped a couple times, but I held it together until…"
I walk through the cafeteria double doors and start to weave through tables, heading to an empty one in the far corner.
Suddenly, something bumps me from the side. I stumble to the left. I right myself and look up to see a brown haired girl in a pink sweater and black rimmed glasses clutching her lunch tray.
"Sorry," she mumbles looking down, before scurrying ahead. She doesn't get more than a few feet though, because as she's passing by the next table, which just so happens to be the populars' table, she trips over one of Lissa's strappy red heels that was sticking out in the aisle. Lissa stands up, hands on her hips, trying to intimidate the girl.
"Watch where you're going!" she snaps, scowling. Then her scowl disappears, and she laughs. It is a harsh, mean laugh. "You have tomato sauce all over."
The girl blushes and looks down. Sure enough, she landed on her lunch tray, and her sweater is covered in tomato sauce from her spaghetti. Her face is partially covered in sauce as well.
"Though I have to admit," Lissa continues. "It's an improvement." Her groupies snicker.
The girl blushes harder and I see tears start to gather in her eyes.
"Maybe you could use some tomato sauce Lissa," I say. I can't help it. It just slips out.
Lissa turns to me. "Excuse me?" She narrows her eyes at me.
The girl gets up and runs off while Lissa's distracted.
"Well, you said tomato sauce improves things. I was just thinking maybe we could use it to get rid of those horribly short skirts you're always wearing. Or that nauseatingly bright red hair." I smirk.
"Everybody loves my hair!" she shrieks, walking towards me. "And don't talk to me that way! Who do you think you are?" She pushes my shoulder on the word "you", her pink manicured nails stabbing my shoulder. "Besides," she curls her lip cruelly. "If we're going to fix anything it should be your face."
I narrow my eyes, and my hands ball into fists. "Oh, I don't know about that. You should be more concerned about your nose. It's probably broken."
She looks confused, her tiny brain trying to figure that one out.
That's when I punch her.
She cries out and stumbles back, arms pin-wheeling, slipping all over the place in her tractionless heels. She falls back, straight into the middle of the populars' lunch table. The table skids to the side slightly, but otherwise stays in place. The populars shriek and stumble away from the table. Lissa falls onto the floor, right on her butt, taking multiple lunch trays with her and splattering everyone within a 5 foot radius with nasty cafeteria spaghetti and chocolate pudding.
"… and then, of course, it turned into a massive food fight. And who do you think they blamed for starting the food fight? Moi, of course." I sigh, pulling myself into a sitting position. "So I got detention for a month for punching Lissa and for the food fight. The food fight that I didn't start!"
"She was really mad when I got home earlier. I don't know what she's going to do, but I don't think you're getting grounded this time," Ella says.
She's probably right. Normally I would have already been grounded by now.
"Max! Ella! Dinner's ready!"
Maybe it won't be so bad, I think as I get up walk out Ella's door, heading to my doom.
I sit down at the table and we eat in silence. Tense, awkward silence.
Finally, my mother speaks. "You're not grounded," she says.
"I'm… not?"
"No," she says. "I have something better."
Oh no.
"Boot camp."