Okay, soooooooooooooo…
inerd123 will be appearing as a character in this chappy for giving me a cool name for Fang!
Inerd123- Charlotte, Charlie for short, will be Nudge's friend (and has a secret passion for Iggy)
WHICH BRINGS ME TO MY NEXT POINT—
If you give me a good review, i.e. something long and thought out or something that makes me laugh, I will PM you and ask you if you would like to appear as a minor character in the story. Then, you send me a description of your character, and…yeah.
AND DON'T FORGET, REVIEWER #50 WILL APPEAR AS A NOT-SO-MINOR CHARACTER IN THE NEXT (AND POSSIBLY MORE) CHAPTER(S).
We thank you, inerd123, for the clever name for Fang that you have provided.
AND NOW, HERE WE ….
X
-Recap-
"Look, can you just show me where my class is and leave me alone?" I asked, irritated. Everything about him irritated me, every inch of his 6 foot and something body, from his Converse-clad feet to those dark, chocolaty, eyes that I just melted into every time I saw him… what was I saying?
"We're here, Maxie." He said, gesturing to a door on my right. I turned to tell him to stop calling me Maxie, but he had already disappeared around the corner.
X
By the time lunch rolled around, I was FED UP with this school, these teachers, these people, and everything to do with the god-forsaken town of Chino Valley. First, the whole English-fiasco happened, and then Dylan bugged me about my song journal the ENTIRE REST OF THE PERIOD, since I had left it in the classroom and he had taken the opportunity to flip through it and look at every bit of personal information I had written in the past six months.
"They're great, Max! Why don't you sing them?"
"Why don't you shut up?"
"I'm serious."
"Hi, Serious, I'm Max."
-This was pretty much what our conversation consisted of for the next half an hour until class was over.
Next was P.E., in which I was forced to dig clothes out of the lost-and-found to match the regulation white-shirt-black-shorts-longer-than-your-fingertips dress code strictly enforced by the man-ish teacher, Mrs. Ballard. I'm pretty sure that I now have lice.
After P.E. was my third period Art class, which I was had high hopes for that were soon dashed by the teacher, Mrs. Aschenbrenner, who got angry when I tried to call her "Mrs. A" and made me clean out the entire closet of paintbrushes, all the while saying, "It isn't that difficult. Au-shen-bren-ner. Easy."
Fourth was the hated Geometry class, which may as well have been Mandarin class since I had no idea what anyone was saying the entire time. Mrs. Huff was continually asking me questions about this and that, such as, "Do you know the formula for finding the volume of a regular polygon? It's alright if you don't." I felt exhausted and dumb by the time I stumbled out and headed to lunch.
I had been dreading lunch all day. I patted down my pockets, and—yes, of course—I had forgotten my lunch money on the freaking first day. I glanced around, trying to find Ella. There she was—I sauntered over, hoping to commandeer some of her food. Ella, of course, was already surrounded by a posse of friends, and I sat down across from her on the empty side of the table and stole one of her fries, the rest of which she pushed at me. Ella wasn't big into eating, a trait that she and I did not share. I was fairly certain that if consuming food was a profession, I would a renowned member of that work force.
"Hey Max! This is Nudge—."
"We've met! I saw her in the hallway on my way to first period! She's totally great, Ella, is she your sister? You guys don't really look alike, but sometimes that happens, you know? Like I look nothing like my brothers! That probably 'cuz I'm adopted, but still. Are either one of you adopted—?"
"And this is Charlie." said Ella, interrupting Nudge's rant and rolling her eyes a little. "I have her in almost all of my classes. Same with Nudge."
"Hi Max." said "Charlie". She had white-blonde hair and was super pale, with big black nerd-chic glasses adorning her face and was clad in an orange shirt, high-waisted tweed shorts, and orange wedges decorated her feet. Totally Ella-ish. Nudge was decked out in similar overly-made-up fashion (at least according to me), in a pink skirt, pink halter top, and a white vest, pulling off a bit of a Nicky Manaj look with pastel pink lipstick, makeup that people with Nudge's coloring (Carmel skin, dark hair. A light-skinned black person, maybe half asian as well) didn't usually attempt. I was faced by a wall of pretty people.
All of a sudden, I saw Charlie's eyes flick up, widen, and run up and down the body of somebody who was behind me.
"Oh, hey, Fang." She said, as he slid into the seat next to me, trying to sound casual, though her voice was a bit higher than usual.
"Stalk much?" I said, not turning as I munched through the last of the fries and plucked Ella's burger off her plate.
"Only you, Victoria." said Fang mockingly. Oh good. Underwear jokes. He looked down at my feet. "I see you aren't wearing your thongs today. Oh wait—yeah you are."
I punched him in the arm, but he merely chucked. So did Ella, and I shot her my best death-glare, but it didn't seem to have much effect. I was going to need to work on that.
"So, is Iggy here?" piped up Charlie in her quiet voice. Iggy…the name rang a bell…
"Yeah. He'll be here in a sec." said Fang, biting into his Subway sandwich. "Want my foot long?"
I rolled my eyes. "Want my foot up your ass?"
A blonde boy who looked to be about Ella's age slid in next to Fang, and Nudge started to look a little flustered.
"Hey Zephyr—."
"Call me Gaz, please." There was something familiar about him…wait, Gaz?
"Gaz? As in, Gazzy? As in, the Gasman?" I said, leaning around Fang's somewhat hulking frame to get a better look at the kid.
"Um, yes, random chick I don't know." He said, sounding creeped out.
I glanced at Ella, and she returned my look.
"Yeah, way to greet your cousins, asshole." I said, pretending to be angry. "We only haven't seen you in ten years."
Gazzy's eyes widened as he realized just who the 'random chick' actually was.
"Wait, what? Max!" and then he swooped me out of my chair and spun me around in a dramatic hug. I laughed, realizing how tall he had gotten. He had to have at least 5 inches on me, and he was lightly muscled, the kind guys get during their growth spurt. I hugged him back as he twirled me one last time.
"You guys know each other?" asked Nudge and Fang at the exact same time as Ella practically hurdled the table in order to greet Gazzy.
"Jinx!" screamed Nudge.
"Freak." muttered Fang.
"Butt head." said Nudge sweetly.
"Turkey." replied Fang. Nudge recoiled.
"Oh, don't even go there, you man-boob lover!" It was Fang's turn to recoil.
"I thought we agreed never to talk about that!"
"Yeah, well that was before you brought up the Turkey Incident!"
"SOOOO…you guys know each other?" cut in Charlie as Ella and I tried to understand what Nudge's relationship to Fang was.
"Yeah! He's my cousin! I haven't seen him in forever!" I grinned at Gazzy, taking in the 14 year old giant. "You've grown so much!"
"Really? It's only been ten years!" he replied sarcastically. "But why are you guys back so suddenly? Obviously not the family connections." he rolled his eyes as he referred to the ongoing feud between my mom and his. They hadn't spoken in my memory, but they had still let is play with each other while sitting on opposite ends of the park bench.
I glanced around at the crowd of people listening (well, except for Fang and Nudge-they were still arguing). "Tell you later." I said with a look. "But what's new with you?"
He opened his mouth, but then his face darkened considerably. "You probably don't know yet...but...well..."
I gave him a questioning look. "What?"
"Well...Angel. She-she has cancer."
Dun dun dun! Review, and next chapter you get the hang out sesh once we get up to 50!