A/N: In addition to some (major) OOC-ness, I must add that I can't account for any actual realism in my stories, so please forgive me for that. If you've noticed that people with American passports can't get into China, don't begrudge me for it. Please.
Thanks for reading, peoples! Review please!
Disclaimer: I don't own Maximum Ride. However, I would be willing to purchase Fang for a reasonable sum of money. Does anyone know where I can go to buy him?
Chapter Four —
My face burned as I detangled myself from Iggy; it seemed that he had bumped his head on the floor pretty hard — luckily, it was carpeted — and was out cold. Turning away from Fang's smug expression, I quickly assessed the situation.
Apparently, Nudge and Angel were too used to loud crashing sounds coming from wherever Gazzy went, because neither of them came to investigate. Just as I was surveying the damage, Ella peeked out of her room. "Max? Is everything all ri— oh my goodness!" She bolted down the stairs to Iggy, her eyes wide. "Iggy? Iggy!" Her shouts soon attracted the girls, and they came in to check out the commotion.
"Is he alright?" Nudge exclaimed, rushing forward when she saw Iggy lying on the floor. "Oh my gosh, what happened here?"
I shook my head, my face burning again as I remembered what had just happened. Quickly, I stuffed the rest of the offending cookie into my mouth before it could betray me again. Fang looked still looked faintly amused by my expression, his eyes never leaving me once during the commotion. "I'm going to get some water," I muttered, walking out of the room. I half expected Fang to follow me, but to my relief, he didn't.
Grabbing a bowl from the cupboard, I filled it to the brim with water and carefully carried it back out to the door. With quick precision, I flung out the contents of the bowl in Iggy's direction, while secretly aiming for Fang. My aim was accurate; a majority of the water was dumped onto Iggy, but some of it splashed onto Fang's broad back. He jumped, turning to glare at me as I snickered evilly.
"Muuhpfh!?" We all turned back as Iggy spluttered, gasping as he sat up. "What the hell just happened?"
"Uh, you see," I started, "Gazzy had stolen my cookie, so I was trying to get it back from him and then he ran—" I was interrupted when the door swung open, hitting Iggy in the backside just as he was standing up. He was sent flying right into Nudge, who jumped back before she fell. She hit Angel and Ella, and then they collapsed into Fang, who was pulled down right at my feet. I looked down at the huge pile of moaning bodies in front of me, and then I looked up at the stunned face in the doorway.
"Hi, Mom."
"…and that's what happened. And speaking of that, where's Gazzy? That little twerp started it, and he's still not back yet." I harrumphed over dinner as I told everyone the story (minus my little stint with Fang, of course).
"Well, he'll probably be coming in anytime now for dinner, and then we can get him." Iggy growled, nursing his shattered pride and his sore head. "I can't wait to get my hands on him…"
I was about to respond when I heard the front door open. "He's here!"
We all pretended nothing was wrong as the Gasman scurried into the room cautiously. He glanced about at all of us, quietly eating our dinners, and then scuttled into his seat and grabbed a plate.
Silence, but for the clinking of silverware.
"So… I got an e-mail about some field trip coming up in two months. Ella's just started at this school too, so does anyone want to fill me in about that?" Mom looked around at us, wary of anymore destructive stunts we might pull.
"Right," I started, shaking the cobwebs from my head, "I wanted to talk to you about that. We got a handout about the trip… er… where is it?" I snatched a paper from the counter behind me. "Here.
"We wanted to see what you though about it before we decided anything. The trips are pretty expensive, so I didn't want to vote for a place you would have trouble paying for. I know we're a bit of a handful…" I glared at Gazzy, who grinned at me meekly. "What do you think, mom?"
"Well, it actually depends on you, Max. What would you like to do? Money isn't the problem here."
I gawked. "Mom, there's six of us, not including Ella. If we all had to pay for a trip to Senegal, that would mean a total of… er, a total of — I mean, we would have each pay $3,900 as well as plane tickets. Although," I added as an afterthought, "plane tickets probably aren't wholly necessary."
"No, Max, haven't I told you? Jeb is supplying support payments for me. He knows I'm obviously not earning enough to support all of you, so he has been sending support checks to me for the last six months. If I were to talk to him about the field trip, I'm sure we could work something out."
What the freak?
"Oh. I wasn't aware that—" Now that I thought about it, it made sense. Mom couldn't possibly have had the means to support us herself, and seeing as Jeb was the one who had gotten us into this mess, he should be the one to get us out. Not to mention the fact that as an illegal wacko scientist, he probably had millions holed up in some fancy vault in Ireland or something.
"Does this mean we can go to France?" Nudge bounced in her chair eagerly, her dinner forgotten. "Although, since I've been there before, I'm not sure I want to go there again. What do you guys think about Hawaii? I've always wanted to go to a beach in Hawaii! But it's pretty close, and we could probably go there ourselves… I think we should go to China then. Cuz, like, China is really far away, and we don't know Chinese, so we could go there with, like, translators or something, and they could show us the cool things in China, you know? I wonder if China is anything like Chinatown? I bet—"
Iggy cut her off. "Are you saying we really can choose to go anywhere we want to?" His hands were gripping the table in excitement.
"I don't see the point," interjected Fang, "seeing as we can fly anywhere we want to if we so wish."
"But we get to stay in fancy hotels and go on guided tours!" Angel had gotten up out of her seat and was tugging at my sleeve. "Oh, pretty please, Max? Can't we go?"
Before I realized the utter stupidity of doing so, I looked at Angel. Her eyes were huge as she stared up at me, and then there was no way I could say no. In the back of my mind, I faintly wondered whether she was manipulating me, even as I said, "Oh, alright."
Everyone cheered uproariously, and I shook my head, wondering what the heck had possessed me to agree to going. Fang only glared at me, as if to say you idiot. I glared back, mouthing, and whose idea was it to go to school in the first place? We continued glaring at each other while the flock yelled wildly around us, before he sighed and looked away.
"Hold the phone," I shouted, "everybody sit down!" After a few more seconds of screaming, the noise subsided and everyone's eyes turned back to me. Mom shot me a grateful look as she breathed a sigh of relief. "We need to decide where we are going."
"Can't we all just vote for where we want to go?" Gazzy piped up for the first time after sitting down at the table. I frowned at him, and he became suddenly very involved in the process of eating his food.
Ella tapped the table thoughtfully. "Well, where do we all want to go?"
"I just think it would be best if we could agree on a place, and that way we can check with mom and see if the prices work okay," I pointed out.
"Dr. Martinez, what do you think?" Iggy faced her in a way which would have been disconcerting if any of us had not been used to the fact that he was blind.
"I really am okay with any place," she intoned quietly, setting down her fork. "I just want you all to be happy wherever you're going. However, I would recommend a place farther away, a place you normally wouldn't visit by yourselves. That way, you can get the whole experience."
"We'll need to remember that the place we vote for won't necessarily be the place we go." Fang murmured.
"Right then," I said, taking charge, "where do we want to go?"
"China!" Nudge cried, popping out of her chair. "Dya think—"
I cut her off before she could start one of her rants. "Do we have anyone else for China?" I said, looking around the table.
"I've always wanted to go there too," said Ella thoughtfully.
"Well, I want to go to Africa!" Gazzy cried, spewing food all over the table. "My bad," he added, swallowing audibly. "I want to see a real, wild, lion," he continued, oblivious to the ewws and yucks coming from the girls across the table from him.
"How about Japan?" Angel asked. "That's where a lot of toys are made. I think Celeste was made in Japan," she said, lifting the small dress on her (no longer quite so very white) angel bear. "Yeah, she was."
Fang shrugged, his countenance indifferent. "Japan is fine with me," he said. "Japan has a lot of computer geeks, and I hear their computers are top-notch."
I rolled my eyes. Fang and his beloved blog.
"New Zealand…" Iggy muttered, cocking his head to one side. "I think it snows there, right? And I hear they make great pies."
I looked around at everyone around the table. They were all thoughtful, as if faced with a huge dilemma, which I suppose they were in a way. "Seeing as everyone has different opinions on where we should go, and seeing as we don't really have any power over where we're really going, I'm thinking we should just vote independently then." I shrugged, looking at the faces around the table. They all nodded slowly, and I sat back in my chair. "I guess that's that then. There's no point worrying about it any longer, so why don't we just eat our dinners?"
Dr. Martinez nodded. "Let's."
