Ella banged on Max's door before letting herself in and pulling back the blinds. Max groaned pulling the sheets over her head, rolling away from the light.
"Let me go back to sleep." Ella heard Max groan as she fixed her hair in the mirror. She laughed watching the mound of sheets.
"Sorry sis but I can't and you know it. Weekend's over so back to school we go; no matter how good our dreams are."
There was another groan of protest from Max and Ella made a face as she tried not to laugh.
"Although maybe it's not the dream that's making you want time to stay still. Maybe something happened before you went to bed."
There was silence from under the sheets; Max was like a state listening to Ella as she said in a sing-song voice.
"Fang was asking after you this morning."
Ella turned back to the mirror but kept an eye on the bed, and as she expected Max shoved the sheets off so she could sit up and glare at her sister. Ella pushed back a laugh at the dirty look she was being given.
"Are you trying to insinuate something here?" Max snapped, her normal morning self.
Ella turned back around to Max with an innocent look on her face.
"I'm not saying anything. It's just you two are always up so late and you get along so well." Ella had to stop as pillows began to rain on her and after a few of her own throws she put her hands up in defeat, noticing that she'd gotten Max at least out of bed.
They watched each other calculating whether the other would throw another pillow or not. After a moment Ella grinned again,
"You looove him." She said before running to the door and quickly notifying Max that there was only fifteen minutes before they had to leave for school. Max ran a hand through her hair as she pulled out her uniform and stared at Fang in the photo she had of the Flock on their first day of school.
Five minutes later Max trudged down stairs and into the kitchen where the flock plus her mum and Ella was having their breakfast. As she sat down to the plate already waiting for her as everyone muttered their personal mornings as she began to eat. That is all except Fang who was not game to look up in case the look he found was regret.
But surely she didn't regret that kiss last night. She didn't seem to be protesting, Fang thought as he stabbed his spoon into his left over cereal. It wasn't like they hadn't kissed before, she'd kissed him, he'd kissed her… But that was last year, what if her feelings had changed. Had she found someone else like last time they were at school, someone like Sam, someone normal?
"Hey Fang are you trying to eat that or kill it?"
Fang was drawn away from his thoughts towards the voice, it was Max's.
Well that's a good sign; Fang thought to himself as he looked up; at least she's talking to me.
Jeb came downstairs and looked at his watch as he grabbed the piece of toast Dr Martinez was holding and kissed her goodbye.
"Come on you lot," he said as he poor himself a coffee. "I have to go to work so hurry up so I can drop you off at school."
Dr Martinez placed seven lunchboxes on the table and gave each child a kiss on the cheek, even those who tried to dodge out of the way.
"Ok you guys know the drill, don't do anything silly and that means no flying, or bombs." She looked particularly at Iggy and Gazzy who looked back at her innocently. Rolling her eyes she continued, "And please don't forget that you're walking home and that does not mean fly, we don't want any incidents of people seeing you."
Nudge rolled her eyes, "Mum you've told us this before, every Monday in fact."
Max smiled happily to herself Dr Martinez was not only her mother but she was mum to the rest of the flock, even if it wasn't biologically. Looking up at the time Max pushed of her chair and grabbed her lunch and quickly shoving it in her bag.
"Come on you lot, up and at-em dad will be down soon and none of us want to be walking."
Everyone got up and started to head of and Ella said to Fang as they grabbed their own lunches,
"She still has that pack leader thing going doesn't she?"
Fang rolled his eyes,
"She wouldn't be Max if she didn't. Trust me that's how we figured out about her clone."
"And when she was going to cook for us," Iggy added as he walked past. Max playfully shoved Iggy's shoulder as they headed out towards the car.
"You know I can hear you right? And for the record Ella I'm not that bad a cook."
The boys looked at each other, and started coughing which caused Ella to start laughing. Max gave them a dirty look but before she could say anything Nudge came up and gave her a light hug.
"It's alright Max I like your cooking, you do good roast desert rat."
Max smiled and patted down Nudges hair as they headed off to the car,
"Thanks Nudge."
Ella looked back at the boys with an incredulous look on her face.
"Desert rat?"
Fang shrugged,
"Yeah that was good I'll give her that." He said before heading to the car himself. Ella looked across to Iggy still shocked,
"Desert rat?"
Iggy shrugged casually,
"When you're in the desert, running from a billion dollar company who has spy's everywhere you kind of can't just pop into the local shops. Rat's not that bad actually, it tastes like chicken."
Ella made a face,
"I think you've just turned me off chicken for life."