Chapter 1 of I Hate Wonder Woman

(A/N: sorry if there's a load of Brit slang and it sounds like rubbish.:) I just love using it, and there's some I use anyways all the time like 'the loo' or 'rubbish' or 'bloody' or 'couch'. Yes couch is British. I'm part Brit and I've been there and o read some British books, and I'd recommend looking up some of the slang; it's rather funny, such as 'bollox'. So yes, a lot o' Brit slang for now. Also, I just got back from late night Japanese candy thing with my brother. Aka: I went into his room and we ate some of his Japanese candy that a friend gave him. He shared a lot to, God Bless His Soul. It was the dogs bollox! Look it up. And also, sorry if Fang is a wee bit out of character in his anger in the first part, but I needed to show just how much he hated the idea of Max coming. READ AND REVIEW, please!)

FANG POV

"Gosh, Mom!" I cried in total, utter annoyance. "Why the hell are you doing this?"

"Macy did it and she said it was fun." My mom replied smally.

"So you're letting a complete stranger, possibly a terrorist, live with us?" I groaned. This sucked. This really sucked. Out of all the stupid charity or 'world experience' things my mom could have done this time, she HAD to choose this one.

"Max is not a terrorist!" My sister Angel cried defensively.

"Yeah, Fang, don't be such a you-know-what. Do they even have terrorists where she's from?" Shouted Nudge, my only non-biological sibling.

"The thing has a name?" I half screamed in exasperation.

"Nudge, they probably have terrorists everywhere. Even England. And Nicholas," My mom started, and I could tell that she was getting mad because she called me Nicholas instead of Fang. "Max is not a thing. She is an exchange student. You hardly ever speak, so shut up. This talk is over."

This sucked. If you hadn't picked it up, we were getting an exchange student. A flipping exchange student. For a whole nine months. (Next Monday, January third, until September 13th. And she would graduate here. Blec.) I didn't get why mom had applied for one anyways; this house was FULL. We had six people already here! There was mom, me, my fraternal (is that the right word?) twin, James or Iggy, there was my sister, Nudge a.k.a. Monique and Zeyphr (what was mom thinking?) who you could call Gazzy, there's a reason and finally Angel. Our ages are as follows, in order, so remember them well. Mom: ? Iggy and I: 17. Nudge: 14 Gazzy:11 (and a half, as I am forced to add) Angel:9. I mentioned that Nudge was the only non-biological sibling, and it's true. When she was two and Iggy and I were five, her mother, an old friend of my mom's, and her husband died, leaving Nudge an orphan. Since she had no one to go to, my mother, being the person she is, just had to take her in. Nudge is obviously adopted, as she looks nothing like us. We all look quite alike in our family. Blue eyes, blonde hair, fair skin. Except for me. Even though we share the same facial features, I took more after our mother, with black hair, olive skin and incredibly dark blue eyes. The eyes are my only original trait. I have no idea where they came from. Back to Nudge, who has mocha skin, kind of curly brown hair and brown eyes. When she was eleven, she just asked my mom, "Mom, I know I am adopted. Where am I from?" Just like that. Anyways, we told her from South Africa, which is part true. Nudge originally from South Africa, but she lived in a small Caribbean island that I can almost guarantee you've never heard of, called Nevis, part if St. Kitts and Nevis. It's really nice, from what I remember of it. I went there only once when I was five, to go get Nudge. I don't really know why we don't tell her about Nevis, but I don't bring it up.

I stormed up to Iggy's room, which was now my room, because I had to give it up for -you guessed it, the new exchange student, whose name I didn't completely know. All I knew was that her name was Max, and yes, I said HER. This thing wasn't even here yet, and I already hated her. Oh well, I better enjoy my last five days before the British Invasion.

...

...

The five days before SHE came were frustrating. As said before, I had to move out of my room. My lovely, Fang-like room, with its black walls and black and white bedding, with band posters on the wall and my laptop and everything. Even my secret stash of...ahem, stuffed animals. And Iggy wasn't all too happy about it. We both had to share a room, and I had to leave mine because, well, to be blunt, an explosion was less likely to happen whilst moving my stuff rather than Iggy's. Why must we worry about that? Sadly, because I live with two pyromaniacs, Iggy and Gazzy. I swear, you could lock those two in a padded room with nothing but a teabag, a lemon and a piece of yarn and I bet they could make something explode. Anyways, Iggy's walls were all green, which wasn't as bad a Angel's room (It looked like a Pepto Bismol factory exploded in it. Sickening, I know.) but still lacked the comfort of my black walls, so I covered my half of the room with band posters and sketches and online pictures. Anything to hide the green, much to Iggy's disdain.

Mom promised me that I could have the guest room that she was building in the basement that wasn't going to be completed until March. Grr. This all stunk. Everything was going fine until I learned about this stupid broad moving in. And she probably wasn't even pretty. She probably was pasty skinned with mousy, permed brown hair and giant front teeth. And she probably was a huge nerd who would spend all her time studying. Either that or she was totally butch. I mean, what girl goes by the name of Max? I probably would have much less of a problem she was from somewhere where the girls were smoking, like Colombia or Switzerland. And now I sounded like Iggy.

All too soon, it was Judgement Day.

"Fang, there's an emergency at the clinic." My mom explained. She's a veterinarian at a animal clinic, so sometimes there are emergencies and she has to rush in like an ER surgeon. I sent her a look telling her to get to the point. She continued. "Anyways, I'm going to be there for an hour and half, so I'll be back in time for dinner. I need you to pick up Max from the airport. Her plane arrives in half an hour, but she'll be at least that long getting out too, so you don't need to leave for forty or so minutes."

I groaned loudly. "Why do I have to pick up this stupid euro trash monster!" Okay, usually I wasn't this immature, but I was really riled up about having a random foreign chick living with us.

My mom looked fully appalled, and gave me a glare. It wasn't as good as my all powerful death glare, but it was still cold. "I cannot believe you! Your behaviour has been so sordid the past few days. You better stop it right this instant or you will have no cookies for three whole weeks! And do you even know what euro trash is?"

"Uh... No." I muttered regrettably. And the cookie punishment may sound beyond silly, but it is the most effective and used form of discipline in our house. My mom made the best cookies you would ever eat. It was the type of thing that you could sell your soul for. As soon as one of those chocolate chip circles of heaven entered your mouth all your problems momentarily melted away. The best part about it? Mom made two double batches a week. Yes, twice a week, that's 54 delicious discs of nirvana or 9 for each of us, twice a week, making 18 cookies a week. Luckily we didn't get fat, but even if we did, it would be worth it for each bite, a perfectly balanced mix of crunchy cornflakes cereal (don't tell anyone, it's one of her secrets), sweet sugar, semi-sweet chocolate and the hints of salt and vanilla. And yet another reason to hate Max; she ruined our cookie ratio, our perfect cookie ratio.

No, there was no way in h-e-double-french-fries that I would let me get my cookies taken away, so I shut up and nodded.

"Glad to see you conform, Sweetie." Mom joked as she rushed out the door.

Well this was just great. Really dandy. Super.

Oh yes, I was definitely looking forward to this. If you couldn't practically feel the sarcasm there crushing your brain, stop reading now, because there is no hope for anyone who didn't notice the sarcasm. Really. Go practice flipping hamburgers, for (s) he who cannot see sarcasm is doomed. DOOMED, I SAY!

Twenty minutes later, I was begrudgingly making my way to my black (of course) 1977 Chevy Impala, considering not picking her up and saying she never arrived. I ran my fingers against the car's paint, trying to ignore more bad thoughts. Sweet car, I think. I even got the engine changed to be more energy efficient. Well, it's Iggy's too. Suddenly I heard a ringing noise from inside the house, our phone.

"Hello?" I spat into phone, in a foul mood.

"'Allo!" Came a female voice that seemed to have a... British accent. Let the doom begin. "Is this the Martinez residence?"

"Yes." I grunted into the phone, wanting to, more than anything, slam the evil phone into its cradle. Instead, I counted the amount of floorboards on the hardwood floors in our front hallway.

"This is Max. The exchange student?" She said, more asking than stating, as if she had flown across the world by mistake. Which I wish would have happened.

"I can tell by your increasingly annoying accent." I said flatly.

"I'm going to ignore that. Any roads, I was going to inform you that I'll be taking a cab to your house, instead and I need your address."

I considered the possibility of giving her a fake Address and having her dumped at some random house in Calgary, but my mom would find out and I would probably never have a cookie again, so I quickly told her my address and hung up.

I paced around the front hall angrily. I did not want her here at all. Not one iota. And I wanted her to know that. In fact, I was going to make it painfully obvious that I didn't want her here. I was going to make her time here suck so that she didn't want to come back!

I calmed myself down. 'Fang,' I told myself. 'This isn't like you. Calm down. Just because you don't want her here doesn't mean you have to go out of your way to make her miserable.' Which was right. I didn't have to go out of my way to do that. That was something someone else might do, not me.

All of a sudden, I heard a car pull up. Crap! I hadn't asked when she'd arrive. That couldn't be her, could it? I looked at the clock. An hour had passed, so it was most likely her. I walked up to the front door and heard a voice.

"Thanks for helping with my bags!" She said, and then became slightly quieter. "I haven't been to Canada in yonks. Never been here in particular, but Calgary seems really nice."

I whipped open the door only seconds before she rang the bell. In fact, she stood there for a second with her index finger hovering over the bell before the surprise registered and she jumped slightly. "Gor blimey! You scared me! I'm Max, the exchange student!" She stuck out her hand and I glared at it, then her.

She wasn't butt ugly as expected. In fact, I couldn't admit it to myself, but she was rather really attractive. She had mid-back length slightly wavy blonde/brown hair, more on the brown side, but not mousy brown that was sun-streaked (and possible chemically, as for the one blue highlight.). She had really beautiful brown doe eyes and was tall and thin but not too thin. And when I say tall I mean it. Max was at least 5'8" but was probably more like 5'9". I myself was 5'11" 6' feet, and I was only a few inches taller than her. Mox or Max-Or-Whatever-I-Don't-Care was wearing an interesting outfit. Underneath her dark grey bomber jacket with the fur lined hood was navy tee that went down to mid-thigh with an image of a cartoon character I didn't know on it. She also had on a pair of very dark grey ripped skinny jeans and get this- black combat boots. She didn't really look Goth, though. Or butch or nerdy like I thought, just really individual. And grudgingly, I had to admit that I approved of her outfit.

"I know this is the right house, I have the address, so are you going to stare all day or say something?" She snapped. Her accent sounded so funny but so cute.

Ignore that I ever said that.

I glared at her again, but all of a sudden I heard the noise of a stampede. Four people -Angel, Gazzy, Nudge and Iggy, of course- all thumped down the stairs at once and ran to the door, roughly shoving me out of the way.

"Are you Max?" "Welcome!" "Come on in; we've been waiting all week." and "Ignore Fang, he's a bit of an arse." were all said at the same time, and I had no idea of who said what. In a blur of motion though, Max's large backpack and suitcase were sitting by the front door and Max was sitting on the sofa, about to be hit with a bombardment of questions from my family.

"How was the flight?" "You're Max?" "Is Max short for Maxine?" "How's England?" "Do you have an accent?" "Do you like the house?" "Do you have a boyfriend?" Once again, I had no idea on who said what, except that Iggy had asked about the boyfriend thing. That definitely was an Iggy thing to do.

Max had on a nervous grin and looked slightly uncomfortable. I knew that I should have helped her, but I kind of liked seeing her squirm. Let's just say that when I don't like someone, I have a mild sadist side. "Uhhh..." Max started. Just at that moment, my mom burst in the door.

"Is she here yet?" She said excitedly. There was some squealing and whatnot at the front door, and I leaned over to Max and whispered to her that it wasn't usually this chaotic. She gave a small nod.

Finally, everyone had managed so compose themselves enough to all cram themselves onto the love seat, facing Max who was on the sofa. "I can move if you'd like..." Mumbled Max. Everyone began to chatter MORE.

"Ohmigawsh! She DOES have an accent!" Squealed Nudge in a voice high enough to make a puppy pee.

"You won't be able to say anything without them spazzing. Sorry." I told her from my spot on the end table.

She gave me a grateful grin, when I remembered that I hated her and looked away.

"Sorry, Max. We're all just quite excited to see you." My mom explained, grinning widely.

"It's all good; everything seems to be so brill." Max assured her.

"Okay, well then how are you? How was the flight?" Mom asked.

"It was a smite long for me, but I'm used to it, thank you. May I call you Mrs. Martinez?" Max asked.

"Call me Valencia, if you wish," My mother said. "Heck, you could even call me Mom if you want to."

"Maybe I will. I haven't had a mum since before I was born." She said cheerfully. Why was she been chipper while talking about her dead mom? How is it possible that her mom was dead before she was born? Flaabbering giblocks, this chick was crazeee! Said a voice inside my head. It definitely did not sound like my usual conscience, more like a ghetto conscience. I bet it was her stupid accent doing this.

She obviously saw our looks and launched into my explanation. "I don't mind talking about it. See, I was just in mum's belly when she went to the hospital for an eight month check-up. Sadly a vein in her brain burst all of a sudden and she died. No one knows why that happened, but her timing was dandy. They whipped me out of there and hooked me into an incubator. So technically, she's been dead since before I was born!"

Everyone sat in an astonished silence. I think we were all not only speechless by this, but thoughtless too.

"You said you were used to flying?" Gazzy piped up.

"Yes. I travel a lot with my dad's job. I've lived in a load of different places." She answered, visibly warming up.

"Where?" Angel asked. "I want to know!"

"Until now, I guess, I traveled a load with my father's business. I was 'born' in London, England and lived there for a year. Then I lived in Australia for a year. After that, I moved to Greece and was there until I was three and an half. Then I spent ten months in Brazil, my first memory being there. From just older than four to five and a half I was I South Africa-"

"I was born there!" Nudge interrupted.

"Cool," Max told her. "Really. After South Africa, I was in Kenya for around six months, until shortly after I turned six. Six until seven and a half was Jamaica. From seven and an half to almost nine I was going between Mexico and Belize . Then, I spent two and an half months in England. Then until ten, I was in Zurich, Switzerland. I visited England for two months after. From then until twelve, one of the longest times I've been anywhere, I was in Japan. I had a short, six month stay in Marseille, France. From twelve to thirteen and nine months, I was in Seoul, South Korea. From Seoul, I spent almost three months in England, and then moved to Canada, where I lived in St. Johns, Newfoundland then to Vancouver. I was there until I was fifteen, where I picked up my taste in music and my citizenship. After two months in India I was back in jolly old England. Until now." Max blushed at the end and I can tell she didn't like talking this much.

"Oh... Where do you have citizenships to?" Iggy prodded.

"Me?" Ma asked, as if there was anyone else here to ask. "Um... Canada, which is why I don't need a visa, Japan, England, Greece, South Africa and Jamaica. Basically, anywhere we stayed for a year and a half or more, I got a citizenship. Kind of a reward for experiencing the world so much, kind of a way of saying 'Well, I like it enough here to go back again.' I really don't know why, but I just have a citizenship."

"Sick. What languages do you speak?" Angel asked, leaning in, enraptured.

"Fluently, only English and French. And sign language, but that doesn't count. I have a good grasp on Spanish, Japanese and Korean. I still speak a wee bit of Swahili, German and Hindi. Mostly though, I use the other languages besides English to cuss people out." Max laughed, and so did everyone else, except for me.

Everyone leaned forward, completely engrossed, because Max was being a show off. It went on like this for a while. Q: What did she do as hobbies all over the world? A: She loves martial arts and got her black belt in Karate and Jujitsu and a highish ranking belt in Judo. As well, she is quite talented at drums, guitar, piano and violin. She reads and writes a lot, because she had lots of time on the road. Max loves to paint and draw all of the lovely places she visits and also takes many pictures as an amateur photographer. As well, Miss Perfect is a talented swimmer and surfer. Q: Is there anything she can't do? (I would've thought nothing, judging by the way she was going on). A: Cook and appreciate Justin Bieber. According to her, the only thing she can cook is eggs. Gosh, she's just a regular Wonder Woman wasn't she? I was beginning to hate Wonder Woman even more for being so

"Please, enough about me. May I ask about you?" Max finally told them, looking frazzled.

"First," My mom said "We need to know about you. Like the facts. We still don't know that much stats wise."

Max sighed, and was looking tired. I almost felt sorry for her. She must be jet lagged and had been answering questions for over an hour. "I'm Maximum Ride by name, but call me Max. I'm 17, eighteen Jamuary 28th. I like the colours black, silver, purple, blue and yellow. Now I know your names, but not who's who and what you like."

"I'm Valencia. I'm their mom and I won't tell you my age. I'm famous for my chocolate chip cookies, and you'll soon see why. I wish that I could stay, but I need to get dinner ready." Mom said quickly and excused herself and skipped, yes skipped, to the kitchen."

"I'm Angel!" Angel cried over excitedly. I glared at her, but she ignored it, her golden curls flying about as she bounced at the same time she talked. "I'm nine. I like the colour pink."

Nudge cleared her throat. "I'm Nudge. I'm 14 and I can talk up a storm, so I'll shut up now."

"I'm Iggy. I'm 17 and so is Fang. He's my twin. I like blue and green, he likes, well, black. I'm not too bad, but he's a right bloody bastard-son of a bi-" Iggy explained in a mock (and terrible) British accent, before my mom told him to watch his language from the kitchen. "You get the point though." Iggy continued. "Don't mind him."

Finally, Gazzy introduced himself, moving a bit of his blonde hair from his light blue eyes. "And I'm Gazzy, called that for a reason."

"And a stinky one at that!" Iggy piped in.

"Anyways, I'm eleven and I'm really good at making things explode and so is Iggy. I'm going to be in the army one day." Gazzy told Max proudly.

Max leaned forwards and grinned. "Maybe I'll see you there, Gazzy."

Nudges eyes widened, and I rolled mine. Really? Her in the army? Pshhh. I could tell just by looking at her that she was an individual type person who didn't exactly conform to rules. "Yup!" Max replied. "I'm thinking of being a medical technician. Save lives and help protect. I don't really like following the rules all that much, though." She gave Gazzy a small salute, which he happily returned. For a small second, Max's eyes clouded over, then were clear again with a small shake of her head.

Then they decided that it was imperative that we ALL gave her show of her room, then and there. "This is your room." Nudge started, and I nearly flinched. Here comes the Nudge channel. "I can totally tell that Fang thinks that I'm going to give you what we call the 'Nudge Channel' which is when I talk a lot, I guess, but it's more of rambling. But don't worry, because I totally won't do the Nudge channel so that I don't scare you off which is so bad because I don't want to have you hate me and OH SHI-"

I clamped my hand over Nudge's mouth and Max chuckled. "Do you know where the loo is? Sorry, of course you know where the loo is. Can you show me?" Max mumbled shyly.

I wondered what was so embarrassing about asking where the 'loo' was. We didn't even have a 'loo'... "Sorry," I said coolly. "We don't have a 'loo'".

Max looked slightly horrified for a second before laughing. She had such a nice laugh... Did I say that? I mean bloody annoying. Crap! Her stupid Brit talk was getting to me. I needed a nap..."You don't have a loo?" She asked, smirking. "Where do you use a toilet? The loo is the same as the washroom or toilet or whatever you call it."

Oh. I felt like a doofus. I should have known by context!

"You don't just feel like a doofus. You are one." Iggy piped up. I smacked him upside the head.

Damn it, I must have said that out loud!

"Yes, you did say that out loud." Angel snickered.

Crap what is with me?

"I don't know what is with you, but it's certainly not a girl!" Laughed Gazzy. With that, everyone started to laugh heavily.

...

...

I sat, glaring as Max shovelled noodles into her mouth. Much to my misfortune, I was sitting beside her. Mom had burned dinner, so she asked Max what she wanted to order after several dozen apologies. Much to our luck, Max said she wanted Chinese food. Much not to my luck, mom decided that because I was showing and 'obvious disrespect, dislike and dishospitabiliy' (yes she added dis- as a prefix, just so it would sound better) to our guest that I could not order any delicious, mouth-watering noodles and spring rolls. Lucky Wonder Woman, she had TWO boxes of noodles and spring rolls, and man, could she eat. I was seriously wondering why she wasn't as fat as Garfield.

Wonder Woman seemed to have slowed down a bit and noticed me glaring at her and my measly piece of toast. What can I say- I hated cooking. "Do you want my other box of noodles?" Max asked, grinning. I could tell that even though it looked sweet, there was a 'yeah, I'm glaring back' part of her smile, one that only I seemed to have detected. "I haven't touched the other box."

I glared at her once again, though more mild, as my family was bow watching. I sent Wonder Woman a 'I don't want your crap' look and hesitated. I really didn't want her stuff, but I was hungry, she had my favourite noodles and I sure as hell wasn't going to eat the toast, so I forcefully snatched the box out of her hands. For good measure, I also yanked the chopsticks she was using, noodles included, from her only seconds short from being eaten.

...

... Later that night, after some formalities, after Max had been shown her room and after everyone had gone to bed, I snuck out into the hallway. I moved slowly across the wooden floor, staying near the light green, photo plastered walls. I had managed to creep across everyone's doors except for Max's and was about to make my way down the stairs when Wonder Woman's door opened and Max crept out. And I ran into her, sending her over the top stair.

On instinct, I reached out and grabbed her wrist and the railing, saving her from tumbling down the long, wooden stairs head first. "Thanks," She mumbled, then looked up. "Oh, wait. It's you, Mr. Rude. Never mind."

She stood up and turned to walk down the stairs. I still had her wrist, and I sent her my worst death glare. She didn't flinch, and just gazed coolly at me.

"Don't make me give you my death glare, Skittles." She warned me. "My death glare is a million times worse and I don't want to have to use it." Max proceeded to pry my fingers off my wrist and walked downstairs.

Oh, this was war.