Hey! I remembered my promise to you guys, and the names of two of my fans are in here as characters. If your name isn't, I haven't forgotten you! You will be characters in the next chapters or in my other story!Anyways, here is your new chapter. I'm spoiling you guys: new chapter for feathers and bones and a new story and an extra chapter, all in one day! I must really love you guys!
Max POV
We landed just outside the school. The school itself was one that was set just outside a forest. We walked out of the tree line and merged with the growing crowd that was going through the school gates. I held onto Angel's and Gazzy's hand so I wouldn't lose them on the way to the office. Iggy kept a hand on Nudge's shoulder and Nudge made sure she stayed close to Dylan. I heard Angel whimper beside me and asked "What's wrong sweety?" It's the thoughts going around. Oh. I should have thought of that. This school had a junior, middle and senior school all on one campus. It was a good thing and a bad thing. The good thing was that we were all close together. The bad thing was the thoughts of some of the people in the senior school. I felt a sudden pang of sorrow for Angel. "It's ok Max, I'll just try and block those thoughts from my head. Some people are so- oh!"
"What is it sweety?" I asked, my worry starting to grow. At the same time I asked, Dylan completely spaced out and I knew he was getting another vision. 'What is his vision?' I asked Angel in my head. Dylan growled but Angel squealed in happiness. "Whatever you do, don't tell Max!" Angel suddenly said sternly to Dylan.
"Don't tell Max what?" Iggy asked.
"Yeah, don't tell Max what!" I said.
"Don't otherwise I will torture you in your head for the rest of your life and if you try to run I will hunt you down and kill you!" Angel screamed at Dylan.
Dylan's shoulders slumped. "Fine," he mumbled.
"Don't tell me what!" I demanded again.
"Oh, you'll find out soon enough anyway, I just want to keep it a secret!"
"Is it something to do with the thoughts you he-"
"SHHH!" Nudge suddenly scolded and I realised we had just walked into the deserted office. I went up to the old lady sitting behind the desk.
"Hi! We're the new students here. We were told to come to the office. My name is Max Ride," I said with fake enthusiasm.
"Oh yes!" Here are your schedules. Feel free to accompany the younger ones to their classes. There is a map on the back of your time-tables, now off to class and I hope you have a good first day at St Xeti's!" The old lady said. I thanked her and walked back to my flock. I handed Nudge, Iggy and Dylan schedules. Technically, according to Angel, I'm actually seventeen, same with Iggy. So we're in year eleven. Since Dylan is only around twenty months old, but looks seventeen, we decided to plop him in eleventh grade, too. Nudge would be in year nine, Gazzy in year six and Angel in year four. Dylan escorted Nudge to her homeroom and then went to his. Thankfully, he wasn't in any of my classes, or even in my homeroom. Iggy, on the other hand, was in ALL my classes and in the same homeroom. Iggy stayed with me as I took Angel and Gazzy to their classrooms. Their teachers looked nice so I wished them both luck on their first day. We then made our way to our homeroom. When we entered, we were greeted by a balding man sitting at a desk in front of a class filled with curious teens. Oh joy.
"Hello. You must be Miss Ride and Mr Griffiths. I'm Mr Basson." The teacher said. "Looks like trouble-makers, both of them!" I heard him mutter under his breath. Ah, gotta love super-hearing. Just to make fun of him, I put on my best evil grin, as well as Iggy. "Class, this is Max and, uh, Iggy. Please make them feel welcome!" I rolled my eyes at that and grabbed Iggy's hand. We sat down at the spare two desks at the back of the classroom. Everyone went back to their previous conversations. So much for making us feel welcome! The only person in the class who didn't talk to anyone was the girl sitting next to me. She had short brown hair with bright red tips, a rebel look and dark purple eyes. Her eyes were flitting around the classroom, doing what looked to me a 360 check. Why would a normal school kid need to a 360 check? She noticed me staring at her and her expression turned from one of worry, to one of boredom. She stood up –she was freaking tall! Just as tall as me- and came over to me and Iggy. "I'm Skyler. You probably want to get out of this dump, I do too," she said. Skyler had an Aussie accent but her tone of voice told me she was definitely a badass rebel.
"Yeah, I wanna get out of here, more than you know. I'm Max and this is Iggy. He's blind," I said.
Skyler grinned. "I'm sorry about that mate! Well, what's your story?" She directed the last part to me.
"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," I said. Skyler grinned again.
"Fine. Anyway, I was adopted by an American witch who didn't care much for children, only for torturing. My foster brother and I came up with a plan to get us and my two other foster brothers outa there. In the end, we escaped and have been moving around ever since. F-Nick should be here now actually. Probably ditchin. I'll find him and drag him back here. He's the same age as me. Anyway, he said we should go to school for a bit, to touch up on our education. So, now you've heard my tale, tell me yours."
"Did she just say Fnick?" Iggy whispered and I shrugged. Skyler, it seemed, had a pretty tough past.
"Ok, our story is that me and my brothers and sisters are a bunch of orphans. I actually found my real mum and she's the best ever, but for certain reasons, I can't stay with her. We keep on the move, but my little brothers and sisters convinced me that we should try school again. Much to my disliking."I explained.
"Sounds like we have pretty similar pasts," Skyler mused. Yeah, but we were the ones brought up in dog crates. Actually, no. I wouldn't be surprised that Skyler was brought up in a cage too. "What do you have next?"
"Umm, English with Bolton then PE with Gilbank," I said after referring to my timetable.
"Hey, same classes! Gilly and Bolton are actually the only decent teachers in the school! They're pretty cool. I feel sorry for you though, Igs. Mr Bolton makes us do a lot of reading and writing, so you'd probably just be sitting bored in the classroom all lesson. Right now in PE we're doing track and field, which is pretty easy for me. I could probably make it into nationals for running if I really wanted to," Skyler said.
"So could Iggy and I. We spent half our lives running for our lives for some reason," I said. Completely true. I heard a bell ring outside.
"K, I'll meet you outside English, it's the classroom down the hall. I'm going to find my brother!" She said and she took off out the door.
"That was interesting," Iggy said. I nodded my head in agreement, but then remembered he couldn't see.
"Yeah, it was. Come on, let's go," I grabbed Iggy's hand again and led him to our next class: English. On the way, I described everything to him, so that eventually he would be able to find his own way around.
Fang POV
I landed in the woods outside. Suddenly Skyler was in front of me. Man, I forgot that kid could move like lightening. "What's up Skye?" I asked. Crap, she looked pissed.
"Where were you?" she demanded.
"Scouting the area. I now know that this is a new branch of Itex. I saw Dr Gunther-Haggenwhatsits in a white-coat going down a tunnel, talking to another white-coat," I explained.
"So you were right. What gave you the idea that this school was the one we were looking for anyway?" she asked. I smirked.
"The name of this place to start off with. Xeti backwards is Itex. Then the fact that in biology, we learn about recombining different species and the best reports suddenly disappear," I said, "why are you so pissed?"
"You missed out on meeting the new kids in our class. They're actually pretty cool, and they had a pretty tough past by the sounds of it."
I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, and I'm sooo keen for meeting new friends. Now get back to class! I probably won't go to English, so I'll meet you in PE, and then you can introduce me to your new friends, deal?"
"Fine," she grumbled. "Oh! That must be one of the kid's sisters; I've never seen her around before! Aw she's sooo cute!"
Again, I rolled my eyes but looked over where she was pointing. The girl was tall, had blonde hair and beautiful blue eyes but looked no older than eight. Skye was right, she looked sweet. As if she could hear my thoughts, she whirled around and looked me straight in the eye. Fang? I shook my head; I thought for a moment that I had Angel's voice in my head again. The girl rolled her eyes. Something about her seemed really familiar, I just couldn't figure out what. The young girl suddenly burst into a random laughing fit.
"Angelina, are you ok?" one of the girls, named Luci asked. I thought Luci was a really sweet kid, she could make friends with anyone. Angelina grabbed Luci's hand and led her back to where their class was waiting. Angelina was still laughing. "Something must be seriously wrong with that kid," I heard Skyler mutter.
"Go to class!" I said. She grumbled but walked off to English. I quickly walked back into the woods and unfurled my midnight wings.
Max POV
"Hi! Do you need help? My name is Siena!" said a bright, bubbly and altogether, too happy girl.
"Uh," was my smart response. Thankfully Iggy saved me.
"Hi. That's Max and I'm James, but my friends call me Iggy. It's short for Ignite, 'cause I like to blow stuff up!" he said.
"Really! So do I! Though, my mum gets kinda pissed if I blow up the house or something like that. We've had to move house several times 'cause I keep blowing them up."
Iggy looked like he just found his dream girl.
"Awesome. What's the biggest bomb you've made. I can't remember mine, I've had a few!"
I rolled my eyes and tuned out the conversation. I'm sure Iggy knows how to talk on his own.
"Hey again," said a voice from behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin!
"How long were you there? I didn't hear you!"
"Just got here actually. I see Iggy's made a new friend. Oh, does your youngest sister always have random laughing fits?"
Wha? Oh, she must be talking about Angel. Angel doesn't get random laughing fits, but she tends to laugh a lot when someone thinks someone's thoughts are funny. "Uh, yeah."
At that moment, our teacher arrived and we filed into the classroom. "Oh, my brother is ditchin English, but he's coming to PE," Skyler said. We took our places and I sat between Skyler and Iggy, who was still talking to Siena.
Skyler was right, Mr Bolton was pretty cool. He gave Iggy a special audiobook for the book the class was reading: Gifted Hands, Ben Carson's life story (A/N: me no own and don't want to. It was the book we had to read last term). It was about a brain surgeon. Insert shudder there. I hate any kinds of doctors, even the good ones.
Soon English came to an end and we were off to PE. Skyler directed Iggy to the boy's changing rooms and took me to the girl's. Crap, the only uniform this school had to have was the one for gym. Skyler handed me some shorts that looked like they wouldn't cover anything and a tight white shirt that would become see-through if it got wet. "I know, this uniform is crap," Skyler said, replying to my horrified look. I snatched the uniform out of her hands and got changed. Once I was changed, I examined my back in the mirror. If anyone looked too closely, they would notice the faint outline of my wings. Skyler had her back to me when I faced her. I muffled my yelp of surprise when I saw her back: I swear I could see the outline of wings. I shook my head, I'm just getting paranoid and imagining things. "Let's go!" Skyler said and pulled me out onto the field. We gathered around a man that looked no older than twenty-two. He looked pretty fit and he was talking to some girls who were in my class. I looked for iggy and I saw him talking to Siena again. "Uh, where is he!" Obviously Skyler's brother wasn't here yet. Too bad.
"Ok, guys. Today we will be working on stamina and endurance. I want everyone to run around the track as fast as you can, for as long as you can. Any questions? Good. Boys go first. When you're done, go to the basketball courts and play a game while you wait for the girls to finish," Our teacher, Gilly said. Us girls headed towards the grandstands and sat down to watch the boys.
In the end, Iggy bet everyone for endurance and speed. I knew he could have kept going but I think Gilly wanted us girls to have a turn too.
I grinned at Skyler and said "Ready for some real competition?"
"You bet!" she replied enthusiastically. No-on can go faster than me. Recently, I realised that my supersonic power doesn't just apply to flying. It can apply for running too. The speed of sound is my fastest, but I think I'd better slow it down, just a notch. All us girls lined up at the starting point. "Ready. Set. Go!" And we were off. I was sprinting my normal sprint that no Olympic runner would be able to keep up with. I laughed with giddiness at the freedom running brought. Not as free as flying, but still free. Most of the girls dropped out after about four laps of the track.
"Who's the new speedy Gonzales?" I heard a familiar voice ask. I didn't care who the voice belonged to, I was too caught up in the freedom of running. I turned and gasped in surprise when I realised I had someone keeping up with me: Skyler. She was definitely NOT human. I poured on the speed, as did she. She laughed at my expression. "Wow, no-one's been able to keep up with me before,!" she said over the wind. "Same!" I called back. Soon we were both laughing our heads off, but we were still running at speeds that weren't humanly possible. It took all my self control not to snap out my wings, then and there, and take off flying. I noticed something shift on Skyler's back. "Are those wings?" I called to her.
"Crap," I heard her say.
"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. It would be a bit hypocritical if I did anyways," I said to her. We were still running. We'd been at it for almost half an hour now. Skyler looked at me funny. I sighed but I unfurled my wings, just the tiniest bit. Her eyes widened with realisation. "You're not the only one!" I said to her. She then got a glint in her eye.
"I guess now that you know, I can race you properly!" And then she was gone. I laughed. She'd never be able to go as fast as me! I poured on the speed. Now I was on the edge of supersonic and right on Skyler's tail. I then went full throttle. I faintly heard the BOOM I made when I broke the sound barrier. I laughed manically. My eyes widened once again when I realised that Skyler was keeping up with me again. "I guess no-one will win this race!" she called to me.
"Yep, I guess we better call this one quits," I said. Our supersonic conversation was interrupted by two voices: "Max!"
"Skyler!"
"SLOW DOWN!"
I recognised both voices: one being Angel and the voice I heard earlier but was too slack to figure out who it belonged to. I then realised two things: we had just been running supersonic in front of our class, and two: the only way to stop while running this fast without face-planting was to fling out your wings suddenly and let them catch the air like a parachute. "Crap," Skyler said. I figured she came to the same conclusion as me. "We still have something to find here, so no wings!" she suddenly screamed.
"How much do you love your pretty face?"
"Not enough!" she screamed and stopped suddenly. I saw her put her hands out in front of her to stop herself from destroying her face too badly. I sighed. Here goes nothing! I stopped my legs from running, much to their protest. I put my arms out in front of me. Suddenly, I was caught from falling on my face by two very strong arms. The arms softly lowered me to the ground. "Thanks Iggy," I sighed.
"I'm not Iggy!" said the familiar voice. I snapped my eyes open. Can you guys guess whose arms I was lying in?
The hulk's?
Noooooooooo.
Dylan's?
No, thank god!
If you guessed Fang, you are correct.
Ooh, kinda cliffy! Anyways, I luv u guys! Thnx 4 all the story alerts, PM's, reviews, fave story/author and other cool stuff! Virtual cookies and catapillas for you all! Don't forget, If you did review/story alert/fave story/author/PM me and your name isn't in here, I'll find a way to get it into my other story: feathers and bones. Ah, the Irony of the flock going to the SCHOOL that happened to be the new branch of ITEX.
-Catapilla1