A/N I really like this chapter. It ties up nicely.

Also I found a rather...amusing website. A wikiHow on how to act like Maximum Ride. And I quote: Max is the leader of 'The Flock'- a group of kids who are 98% human, 2% bird. So get five friends, who have similar personality traits to the following: Fang is the quiet one. He usually wears black, but he's not emo, just really quiet. Also her love interest, but thats all i'm sayin'.

Iggy is the blind one and amazingly amazing, but he can get around easily. He is also mostly blind.

I say whoever wrote that deserves a prize. "Get five friends with similar personality traits to the following". Lolz.

Sorry about the gap. BUSY, like everyone else.

The bookfair at my school started. The bookfair is where I first got Maximum Ride. I FINALLY got this one edition of STWAOES that Amazon kept telling me didn't exsist.

People overreact sometimes. And when they do, it makes me suspicious. Call me paranoid, but...

"Max was fighting today," Iggy announced as we piled into Jeb's car at 4:52.

Jeb turned around and glared at me. "School?"

I was offended, not to mention pretty PO'd at Iggy for tattling. I jabbed him with my elbow. "Thanks," I hissed.

"He would have noticed the bruises," Iggy added primly. "I did, and I'm blind."

"No one would've noticed if you hadn't tried to hug me! What was that about?"

"You--"

Jeb cleared his throat. "Fighting, Max? Who was it? Should I be expecting a call from Mr. Pruitt?"

"No," I said tightly. "I took a walk and some homeless dude tried to mug me."

Jeb stiffened. "One? Only one, and you had bruises?"

"All right, two!" I said angrily.

The first one had landed a--a as in singular-- punch, only cause I wasn't paying attention and I managed to whip my head out of the way before any damage was done. I had a very small bruise on the edge of my jaw.

Plus, Buddy had a really strong bearhug and I hate to admit it, but hypothetically he might possibly have kinda sorta cracked a rib. A rib. One.

Which of course hurt like the dickens when, for no reason, Iggy tried to hug me when I got back, which caused me to double over and swear, and subsequently caused the librarians to shoot death beams out of their eyes at me.

I told this all to Jeb.

He was not happy.

In fact, he was worried.

Very worried.

"Oh, God, we've got to file a report, with the police department and the school and take you to the hospital..."

In the back, the three of us exchanged looks. Well, me and Gazzy.

"Whoa," Gazzy said.

"It's a hypothetical cracked rib, Jeb, not brain hemorrhaging," I said, alarmed. "It'll take about five minutes to heal. No hospital necessido."

He started muttering about bone splintering and punctured air sacs.

"Besides," Ig said slyly. "We don't want the hospital asking too many questions, no? About Max's...unique anatomy?"

"Ditto for the police," I added. To Iggy, under my breath, I said, "I'm going to pretend you said Max's unique anatomy without that smirk on your face."

Jeb glared in the rearveiw mirror. "Fine," he said. "Fine. But Max doesn't go anywhere alone."

"I can take care of myself!" I flared.

"That goes for the boys too."

There were loud protests.

"Listen!" Jeb yelled. "There's something much deeper going on here. I'm going to take a stab and say that homeless dude who attacked Max was not homeless. He must've been good to land a punch on you."

I was slightly mollified.

"I'll do some digging," he said, obviously upset. "This is not good. Not at all."

"Does this mean the School?" Gazzy blurted.

Jeb turned and met our eyes. "Yes," he said. "That's exactly what it means."

Word Count: 493

Coming up Next:

People close to you can be stupid, ignorant, tattling pigs and you have to deal with them because they're sweet.