Max sprung to the door as if the doorbell was her master and flung it open. In half a second, she had scanned every face in the group in front of her, deduced that the cute boy her age was adopted, and was promptly bored with them. So, she closed the door again.
But she more than likely used too much force, slamming the heavy oak on accident. At least, that's what she assumed based on the next sentence delivered by her kind and caring mother, Valencia.
"Maximum Martinez! Did you just slam the door on our guests?" As you can probably tell, she was livid, (Max noticed because the features of her face shifted slightly in small proportions.)
"Oops?"
Valencia sighed and slumped her shoulders and decided to punish her daughter while she held her attention. She would just have to make herself more interesting to the analytical, ADHD teenage girl in front of her.
"Max." She made her tone a very minescule amount higher than normal which caused Max's head to snap to her sharply. It was Change. It confused Max. "Honey, open the door and apologize to them, then lead them to the dining room." The entire time Max stared, enraptured by her constantly moving hands and changing voices. Her brain analyzed everything at lightning speed as nodded absentmindly, still shocked at Change.
She moved gracefully towards the door and twisted the round, metal door knob.
"I apologize for my actions. Follow me." Her voice was flat, no emotion. These people were boring, so she didn't see the need to provide excitement; she could be down in her basement now, but, alas, she was stuck with flat people. Well, except for the cute one.
Dark hair, different shades of black (ebony, night, charcoal), dark eyes with small flecks of gold that reflected in the light, and dark clothes (extremely dark navy blue jeans, black converse, black shirt). So monotone, yet, colorful.
He was interesting.
The boring wife (with honey blond hair, a definately shocked expression, and colbat eyes) of the boring dude spoke up in a perky, polite, boring voice that Max's 'specially trained' ears picked up on subtle traces of 'What the fuck?'.
"Hello, and what might your name be?"
Max sighed. Social interaction? Really? Today? But she wanted to be lazy today, her day! Her voice still flat, "My name might be Sylvia—"
"Oh, what a pleasant name."
"Or it might be Max. Or Joe. Or Samantha." She continued on as if she had never been interrupted.
Luckily, Valencia came in to save the poor woman from having to respond, but she definitely noticed the nasty glare the cute, adopted one shot at her. "Excuse her, please. She has a . . ." She quickly glanced at her daughter questioningly; Max gave a slight nod of consent. "She has a medical condition."
"What is it?" Cute-adopted-boy sneered. "Ass-hole-syndrome?"
His mother looked appalled, but Max quickly shot back, "No, actually. But you might want to go to a doctor for a check up."
Valencia intervened, "Again, please excuse her." To Max she Changed and said, "Do you want me to make you stay the entire time?" Her eyes followed every motion, flitting around her mother's always moving face and hands. She shook her head. Valencia stopped Changing and addressed the family, "She has severe ADHD, photographic memory, and, well, has a form of autism. She can't process emotions like us, she relies on mathematical formulas to figure it out."
Their jaws dropped and immediately Max scanned all of them in rapid fire motion, as if proving the truth.
"Come sit down at the table, I've cooked dinner and we musn't let it get cold." Numbly, they followed, surprised to see Max the enigma going about each plate and serving food, different proportions per plate. The newcomers noticed that some plates of food were missing something while other had extra.
"Perky-voiced, blond-wife. Sit here." She pointed to a vegetarian plate. "Boring dude with the engorged gut. You're here." She led him to a plate stuffed to the edge with lots of meat with a tiny serving of vegetables. "Adorable Angel. You'll be here, Sweetie." She carefully placed her in a tall chair with a plate full of sweeter things from the dinner, but not as full as her father's. "Fake serious teen. I refuse to treat you differently, just follow my voice and try not to bump into anything." Said teen with slightly formal clothes that he looked uncomfortable in, cautiously walked forward with a shell-shocked expression. (He thought she missed him entirely. And she saw he was blind!) "Fork on the right, potatoes at one-sixteen, chicken at six-nineteen. And you," she looked at Nick, "will have to sit next to me."
His plate was bare, (as was hers and her mom's.) Valencia sighed, Changed, then spoke. "Max, remember, we said that if you were going to serve some people, you had to do every bodies plates."
"But you don't like it when I set up your plate, and I serve myself last, always."
"What about him? Why so mean to him?"
"I'm not being 'mean,'" she quoted. "He has trust issues and prefers to control what he can." Max sat down.
"Max!"
"It's okay." The boring-wife piped up. "She's right." Max smirked, but otherwise did not reply.
Soon chatter filled the air, but she didn't participate. Nor did she touch her food, instead, she dipped her pointer finger in her glass and proceeded to draw on the table with water, retreating off into her own little world. Her feet tapped an irregular beat as she began to him quietly, then started to sing with a crystal clarity that vibrated thought he room. Abruptly, she pushed back her chair, shifted her beat from her toes to her fingers and walked out of the room singing a song nobody had heard of.
When her beautiful voice faded, the silence broke.
"What the heck?"
"Oh, I'm sorry. Let me go get her, she must have gotten bored, I'll be right back." She went to move as if to get up, but the guest women stopped her.
"Please, it's fine . . ."
Valencia smacked her forehead.
"I'm so stupid. My name is Valencia Martinez, I work at the veterinary office down the road. Maybe we should all introduce ourselves. After I get a piece of paper though."
When she returned, she not only had a piece of paper, but she had what might have been at least four different pens, all different colors.
Sheepishly she explained, "I have to make things interesting for her, or she'll get bored and won't pay attention to what I try to say. Or in this case, write."
"Is that why you do the voice and hand and facial expression thing?" Angel asked her.
"Yes, she calls it Changing. With a capital 'C'. We also have this code, she'll associate the color of choice with your name, therefore remembering you, so please chose your favorite color. It'll be hard to get her to change her mind."
"Okay, how 'bout I start." The boring lady brushed back a lock of her long hair. "My name is Anne Batcheler and my favorite color is . . . um . . . do you have a sky blue? Okay, good. I'm a stay-at-home mom." She looked to her right, where her husband was sitting.
"My name is Jeb. I'm a scientist. Put me down as dark green."
"My name is James, I'm a sophomore, and put me down as a red-orange."
"That's interesting, I don't think she's had a red-orange name before. Might I ask why?" Valencia asked.
"Not a problem. I like to ignite stuff."
"Ooh! Ooh! Ooh! My turn now! My name's Angel, I'm six, and I LOVE the color pink!"
Finally, Max came back up from doing who knows what and said, "Your name will be Fang." She stated matter-of-factly while looking at Nick, along with pointing a black Sharpe at him.
He opened his mouth to contradict her, but she slammed her hands over her ears and started to talk again. "La la la, la la! No no no! Don't say your old name! Your new name is Fang, okay?"
He slowly nodded, confused by her outburst. "Can I at least ask why?"
"You already did, but I'll still answer. It's because your— Mom, what do you call these?" She tapped her sharp tooth.
"A canine?"
"Exactly, and canines are also called . . . ?"
"Fangs?"
"Good, good. And his right one is chipped. So I named him Fang because it sounds better than Tooth, or Chip, or Canine. Coincidentally, when Fang is used as a name, it means 'Raven'."
They just stared.
i mean no offense to people that are/that know autistic/ADHD people, I more than likely got symptoms wrong, but those were the labels the doctors gave her because they didn't know what to do. Anyways, thanks to Catastrophe (Guest) and Rockelgriffiths14 for reviewing.