Disclaimer: I don't own MR. JP does.
Max's POV
Hi. My name is Max.
If you're reading this, you probably know who I am.
Anyways, my name is Max Ride, short for Maximum, and I'm 16 years old. Fang and Iggy, the two big boys, are 16 but younger than me. Nudge, Gazzy, and Angel are 13, 10, and 8. They are my best friends who are supposed to follow me anywhere and do whatever I want. Though, lately, they've been growing up to the point of being able to think for themselves. We recently saved the world, so we're planning to take a few years off and stay at Dr. Martinez and Ella's, my mom and sister's, house in Arizona.
Enough with the introductions.
We're about to do something crazy.
And yes, crazy by our standards, so that's saying a lot.
We're applying for SCHOOL. Yes, you heard me, SCHOOL.
Before you yell at me for a false alarm, hear me out. School by our standards is a hi-tech lab full of evil scientists wearing dreaded white lab coats, not a bustling building full of smiling kids. At every school I've ever seen, I half-expected the teachers to morph into rabid scientists and the students to turn into failed genetic experiments.
So that's why I was completely and utterly blindsided by the news that Dr. Martinez (Maybe I should start calling her Mom. After all, I will be here for a while…) had signed us up for school.
The flock and I had just finished eating dinner. "Dessert, anyone?" asked Iggy, with a wide grin, already heading back towards the kitchen.
Dr. Martinez answered, "I have some ice cream at the top of the freezer. Remember the rules: two containers per person!"
A cheer erupted from Gazzy, Iggy, Ella, and Nudge spontaneously, "Yeah, baby!" shouted Gazzy, practically rocketing out of his seat. I wish he would launch that fast in life-or-death situations.
"And Nudge, I have something to speak with you about," said my mother.
Nudge turned around, an expression of horror on her face, "WHAT? But Iggy will eat all of the ice cream and he'll become fat! And I'll be super duper skinny and we're already so skinny because we fly so much and we'll both be out of shape and die! How would you like to deal with two dead-"
Dr. Martinez put on an grin evil enough to scare her own daughter, which apparently was enough to convince Nudge to shut up, "This is better than ice cream."
Nudge stepped backwards, clearly disappointed. "It had better be," she muttered under her breath as she followed Dr. Martinez to the living room.
Dr. Martinez sat down, "Okay, since you kids will be here for a few years, I have a proposal."
Nudge didn't even try to show interest, "Huh." That had to be the only one-word sentence she had said since our School days. Not schooldays, School days.
"Before you start complaining, let me show you what I have to offer," my mom said as she went to the bookshelf, lifted some books, and pulled out a two-dozen box of donuts.
Nudge immediately perked up. "ZOMG! Donuts are the best food in the world! They taste so good and smell so good and-"
Dr. Martinez held up her hand. She was smart to stop Nudge before she could get on a roll.
"They can all be yours, along with this box of makeup, if you do what I ask."
"SQUEEEEEE! I've always wanted hot pink eye shadow! What do you need?" squealed Nudge.
"Well, I don't have enough money to buy another house if Iggy and Gazzy blow this one up, so we're going to need something to fill you kids' time." She paused, as if considering something. "You guys are going to school. It's five minutes from here."
Nudge looked shocked. "SCHOOL! Has Max told you about what's happened to us at the School? They zapped me with electricity and messed up my hair!" She sounded legitimately devastated as she recalled the memory.
"Hold on. I'm sorry if you have something against schools, but I can assure you that the Tucson County Public Schools would never zap you with electricity. Plus, you've always wanted to know what a normal life would be, right?"
She had Nudge there. For the first time, Nudge hesitated before speaking. "Yeah….-"
"And normal kids go to school. Plus, would you like me to give these donuts to Iggy and Gazzy? I don't think you'd like to know what types of pranks they could pull with donuts as one of their materials." Dr. M smiled.
Nudge nodded her head no.
"Very well, then, all we need you to do now is convince Max to approve. Speaking of Max, don't tell her about the donuts. Or the rest for that matter."
Nudge shook her head, remembering the problem. "She'll never let us!"
Dr M. grinned, "That's where you come in. On my command, stare at Max with your, uh, Bambi eyes. She can never resist them."
Nudge slowly nodded, understating the plan.
Meanwhile, Fang, Iggy, Ella, Gazzy, Angel, and I were sitting at the table eating ice cream. Fang was glaring at me the whole time since I had taken the last mint chocolate chip carton. I was blushing, and he knew it. Wow, he was hot when he glared. I wondered if female Erasers (do they exist?) thought the same. I didn't blame them.
We weren't officially together, since we both couldn't seem to make up our minds about each other. We were practically siblings, since we grew up together, but things had shifted the past year or so. I stopped seeing him as a brother and best friend, and started to notice other parts of him. Like his beautiful, mysterious, eyes and his smile that makes my brain short-circuit.
I shook my head. How could a guy make me freeze by just looking at me? This couldn't be. I was the all-powerful Maximum Ride. When did I become a girly girl? This was really not g-
"MAAAX!" yelled Nudge, bursting into the room with my mom right behind her.
I quickly regained attention. I cursed myself silently for letting myself daydream about Fang.
"What is it, Nudge?"
"Your mom is so cool! We can be normal now! Well, except for the wings, but that's fine. We can hang out with normal kids and play sports and go to dances and b-" Iggy covered Nudge's mouth with his hand without even looking up. I couldn't help being surprised. From what we've fought, Nudge's motormouth was, by far, the hardest thing to stop. I don't get how a blind guy can stop it when I can't. As soon as Iggy let go, Nudge continued, "-e awesome and stuff!" Iggy rolled his eyes in amusement as Ella sympathetically patted him on the shoulder. "Please please please let us Max!" Nudge finished.
After a moment of confusion, it finally hit me. She wanted us to go to school. I shook my head, "Nudge, you know what our rules are."
"But we're going to be normal now! We're living in one place, as a family, so why can't we go to school?" she asked.
My mother spoke up, "Max, you have two options. One, you can let Iggy and Gazzy spend 8 hours a day making bombs, let Angel 'request' that the candy shop owner to give her free candy, and let Nudge burn out your ears. On the other hand, you can rest easy, knowing they're in safe hands, and live your childhood the way a kid should."
I wasn't sold. "How can you consider a school 'safe hands'? We can't do this. Right, guys?" They all nodded, agreeing with me.
Except for Fang. "Y'know Max, we'll be fine. We're capable of handling ourselves in a crowd during the day. We'll always have each other after school."
I slowly nodded. Fang never said three complete sentences unless he felt very strongly about something.
I looked around at the other flock members, all of them not buying Fang.
Gazzy shook his head. "Remember Lissa?" Fang and I winced, not knowing how Gazzy knew about her or cared to remember. "There are million girls like that at schools."
Fang didn't respond. Gazzy nailed him.
Nudge suddenly screamed, "But we have to go to school! Max, do you want your mom to have to deal with us every day? When we become g-grownups, we have to be geniuses!" She looked at Dr. M, who winked at her. "Please Max? Pleaaaaaase?" she said, as she gave me the dreaded Bambi eyes. I sighed, knowing she had won.
"Alright, fine."
She and Fang slapped high-fives from across the table. Nudge jumped up and down. Fang settled for one of his traditional irritating smirks. I glared at him. "How can you do this?"
He smiled and shook his head. "Tell you later."
I nodded absently, still frozen in place by his smile. I slapped myself mentally. This couldn't be happening.
I tried my best to glare daggers at him. "Fine." I stood up and walked back to my room, giving Fang a shove on the way. I shook my head. How did I give in so easily? How could I do this to the younger kids? I made three people happy, while letting down everyone else.
It must've taken all her self-control for Angel to be quiet the entire time without mind-controlling anybody. It just wasn't fair to her. Unfortunately, now there was nothing I could do about it. Mom had already filled out forms for us to go to school, and was probably sending them in right now. All she needed was my consent.
I took off my sweatshirt and threw it to the ground.
As I was changing into my pajamas, I heard a faint, "Woo hoo! Now I can have friends and be normal and meet boys!"
Wait, what?
Boys?
I sighed. Forget it. I'd talk to her later about it. Let her enjoy herself while she can. In the meantime, I have to talk to Fang.
I left my room and pushed open his door without knocking. He was standing with his back to the door with his shirt off.
He turned around. I immediately gasped. He was seriously ripped!
He heard me and smirked. I ignored him. It was hard to ignore his beautiful six-pack, but I had to get to the point.
"Fang, just why? You know just as well as I how evil schools are!" I shrieked.
As usual, he remained calm. "I didn't agree to it for myself. I agreed to it for your mom and the kids."
"How would a SCHOOL help us?" I asked, in a more controlled tone.
"First, your mom will have an easier time with us. I already feel bad for burdening her with living here. School's the least we can do. Next, since hopefully we won't have to do any more world saving, we'll all need some sort of education. We aren't running from anyone right now. If you don't want a normal life, what do you want?" he concluded.
Hear that? I could totally imagine 'Fang Martinez: 45th President of the United States of America'. But really, since when did he give speeches?
He did have a point. A normal life seemed awfully appealing compared to constantly running for your life. Still…..
"Fang, we won't have any time for us to actually be The Flock. You know that no matter what we do, we'll never be normal. We've done our own thing this far, and look what we've done. You want to just throw it out the window and begin again?" I argued.
Fang shook his head, "We're not throwing it away. We're just moving on. Nothing lasts forever."
For some reason, his last comment irritated me. I shoved him hard, not missing the opportunity to touch his six-pack. He fell backwards on his bed with a satisfying, THUNK!.
Before I could say something stupid, I turned around and marched back into my room.
I looked out the window into the dark night.
I'm such a failure,I thought.
And with that happy thought, I flopped down on my bed and went to sleep.
So, how was it? Please R&R! Criticism and suggestions welcome!