DISCLAIMER: Okay, for some reason the last chapter was all underlined. Why does it do that? It made it hard to read! L Anyway, I'm in a good mood today, so I'm going to write a chapter. I DON'T OWN MAXIMUM RIDE OR ANY OF IT'S PEOPLE! SUCK ON THAT!

Chapter 7

So basically, I think I'm doing pretty good with this whole mutant search. I mean what are the odds that I would find a kid who had animal DNA programmed into his bloodstream in my Science class?

Now it's Friday afternoon and I feel anticlimactic. I mean I had this exciting night last night and now I'm flopped on my couch flipping through channels like if I press the button enough times, a good show will come on. Unfortunately, my yorkie skillz do not include creating a good TV program to watch on a boring Friday night. Screw you white coats.

Finally, I settled on What Not to Wear, that show on TLC, where these people come up to you and say, "Hey, your fashion sense SUCKS! Here's $5,000! Spend it on clothing that's cool instead of lame!"

"Ella, I have another call about the parrot down the street. Do you want to come?" my mom asked while she put on her coat. It was still raining a little bit.

"If you see a mutant kid, call me." I said and turned to my side on the couch.

"I'll keep my fingers crossed." the door closed and I heard her locking it.

I grabbed my cell phone and typed on my keyboard to Carlos. "Hi, wats up?"

I waited for the dinging sound opened the message. "Nm." You can probably tell how deep and intellectual our texts are.

"Kewl." I typed back.

DING! "Yep. Did u finish the paper 4 English?"

Ugh. No mention of work, please. I already have so much stuff going on. You know, that's why I'm…lying on my couch…watching What Not to Wear…and texting. Face palm.

"Nope. U?"

DING! "Yea, did it on grapes of rath."

"Eh…U spelled the name wrong, smart 1." I typed back. Now this is the definition of boring.

DING! "oh. Since wen do u care about spelling?"

"U spelled when wrong." I typed, laughing to myself.

DING! "sue me. I gotta go."

"Y?" I asked.

DING! "idk. gtg. see ya later."

Well, that was a little…rude? Carlos and I have been friends since we were in second grade and he was on crutches because of a broken leg. Someone tripped him and I helped him up and then some other stuff happened and basically we somehow became friends along the way. He's on the short side and a little pudgy with curly black hair and dark eyes. Plus, he's always wearing dorky clothing, so he gets teased a lot by the guys. I get teased a lot by the girls though, so that's one of the things that keeps us close. Carlos is incapable of telling lies and never says anything offensive. That was why it was bugging me how abrupt he was about it.

The girl on TV was crying because she didn't want to give away her crappy clothing. Oh boo hoo, you have 5,000 big ones, give it a rest.

"I'm alone in my house!" I sang to the ceiling. I don't know why I do stuff like that. It's just a habit. Magnolia trotted over, probably wondering about my mental sanity.

"Me too, girl." I said, rubbing her head between the ears. She shook her leg. "Why do dogs do that?"

"I don't know."

I jumped off the couch, my ears perking up. Literally. "H-hello?" There was no sound. Oh, this is just too perfect. This always happens in the horror movies. The murderers not going to come out with his hands in the air, he's gonna shoot me or stick a knife through my back. "Who's THERE?" I shrieked.

"Um…me?"

There it was again. Same voice. It was like an teenage girl's voice, I guess. Not really that threatening sounding, but still, teenage girls are known to be very violent and scandalous, right?

"Wait, can you hear me?"

"YES!" I cried, grabbing the remote and holding it like a sword.

"Alright, well settle down."

"I'M CALLING MY…" I trailed off. I was going to say my mom, but I don't think that would be very threatening. "THE POLICE!"

"You're calling the police? I don't think they'll care."

Okay, this was officially the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. I felt cold all over. If someone killed me right now, no one would know who it was because my mom would get home after the murderer was long gone. Why didn't I go with her?

"Please don't kill me." I whimpered.

"I'd rather not stand up right now actually. My back legs are real sore from a the walk the other day."

What? "Where are you?"

"Right here."

"Where?"

"Are you blind?"

"NO!" I backed up against the wall behind me.

"Look down a little. Just a little." I obeyed. "There we go."

"THE ONLY THING I SEE IS MY DOG!" No answer. "Hello?" I looked back at my dog. "No freakin' way." I leaned down next to her. "Magnolia."

"Yes?" the voice said.

Oh, crap. "Am I…are you…is my dog talking to me."

"I think so. I mean, you can hear me." Magnolia…um…said?

"Is this my power? Am I…like, the dog whisperer?" I put my hand on her back.

"That show bores me." Magnolia buried her face in her paws.

"Wait, but you're not moving your mouth or anything." I said.

"I guess you're just reading my thoughts."

"No freakin' way." I hissed.

"You said that a minute ago."

"I know. Because there's no freakin' way that I can talk to my dog without being mentally insane. Well, that explains things! I'm probably just mentally ill. Yeah, that's it."

There was silence. "Nope, that's not it."

"How would you know?" I shouted. "I gotta text someone."

"Can I have a phone? Why do only humans get phones. I have friends too. Gary the German Shepard down the street is sexy."

"No. You…you can't have a phone. You're a dog. Dog's don't have phones." I typed in the number.

"Humans don't talk to dogs." Magnolia pawed at my leg. I stuck my tongue out at her and started my message.

"jay i'm talking 2 my dog. i feel crazy. can u come over?" typed and frantically waited.

"Oh, who's Jay? Is he that boy who's house you went over last night? Is he cute?"

"Magnolia, shut your…mind or whatever." I tapped my foot. "He's not…never mind." I said.

"Can you ask if he has any young cute dogs?" Magnolia asked.

"No, he's a cat person." I said.

"That JERK! I need a partner. I don't have anyone to share my food with."

"Too much info." I said, looking out the window. "Can you be good while he's here? Don't talk."

"No promises." Magnolia trotted over to a pillow, circled a few times and lay down.

Suddenly, I saw a figure running across my front lawn, tripping over his shoe lace, falling. Two boys were following him and they lifted him off the ground by his arms. I threw open the door, roughly. "Jay!" I yelled.

"Hey, Ella. Sorry. I attracted attention." he pointed to the boys.

"That's okay. Can you guys let him go? I really need to talk to him." I asked.

The boys looked confused. "Uh…you're that chick, Ella, right?"

"Yes. I. Am." I said, standing up straight.

"You're the one who fell in the lake on the field trip last year?"

My posture disappeared. "Yeah." I murmured.

"This is just too perfect." the shorter of the boys said, whacking Jay in the back of the head. "You two, together. It's perfect."

"Hey. Don't do that." I said, shoving the guy back a little.

"Oh, sorry. It was an accident." He pushed Jay to the taller idiot. Who pushed him back to the shorter idiot. Who pushed him back and so on.

"Guys! Stop it!" I shouted. They did not obey. I hated guys like this. "You guys." I raised my fist and punched Short Idiot in the arm. He turned around.

"Wow. This one's tough." Tall Idiot said, laughing a little. Short Idiot pushed Jay over to Tall Idiot, who held him by his elbows. Jay struggled, but the guy had like 40 pounds at least on him.

"You guys are big fat jerks." I said and kicked Tall Idiot in the shins, grabbed Jay's arm and made a mad dash for my house. I closed the door behind me, quickly. "What's their problem?" I checked out the window. They were walking away, defeated.

"I…have no idea." Jay breathed and sat down on the couch.

"He's skinny, but pretty cute." Magnolia's voice said from behind the couch.

"Shut up!" I shouted at her.

"What?" Jay asked me, quizzically.

"I'll tell you in a minute." I muttered, unhappily.

"Hey," he put his arm on my shoulder. "Thanks for that." he smirked.

"No problem. Jerks like that are just…jerks." I took his coat and threw it over next to the coat rack.

"Yeah, I know. So, what is it that you were going to tell me?" he asked.

"Oh, I can talk to dogs. It's like…crazy." I said. Watch, "Magnolia, get out here."

"But I don't want to. I'm tired."

I groaned. "She says she's tired." Jay raised an eyebrow. "Don't do that. Magnolia now!"

She lazily picked herself up and traipsed over to me.

"See I got her to come!" I said.

"Oh, do you want a medal?" Magnolia asked sarcastic.

"Now she's being all sardonic." I said to Jay, who looked at me weird. "Magnolia, um bark."

Luckily she did. "SEE?" I cried.

"Wow, that was impressive." Jay said.

"Well, I could do without the sarcasm." I crossed my arms defensively.

"Ask her what she thinks about Global Warming." Jay murmured.

"What's that?" Magnolia crinkled her eyes.

"She doesn't know what that is." I said, sheepishly. "Magnolia…um…oh! Go pick up my phone."

She rolled her eyes as much as a dog can, but walked over and picked it up with her mouth. Jay's eyes widened a little. "Now type in a message and send it to Jay." I said.

"My paws aren't going to type legibly and I can't spell worth crap." Magnolia said, but dropped the phone and pushed her claws on the buttons and then pressed the button in the corner.

I practically cheered when Jay's phone vibrated in his pocket. He reached into his pocket and whipped it out.

"Magnolia says: Hj mlad ffffffffffjjjjjjjt fff k! bue." he looked up at me. "Oh my gosh. Your dog just texted me."

"MY DOG JUST TEXTED YOU!" I shrieked and we jumped up and down like five year olds screaming exchanging yells of, "That is SO cool!" and "WHOA!"

Finally we sat down on the couch and just stared at the ceiling. Suddenly, I started giggling. "Hey you know. That's never going to help us in the middle of a battle."

"You know, maybe one of the whitecoats has a pet dog." Jay suggest, a laugh under his voice.

"Not likely." I rolled over and looked at him.

"You might be right." he put his hands under his head and looked at me.

"You know, we're wasting time." I said.

"Yeah. But, I haven't noticed anyone cantaloupey, yet." he said.

""Me neither. But there's this little girl who lives down the street from me named Zendi." I paused. "And the other day, she was acting…slightly cantaloupey. Just slightly."

"Oh, really?" Jay asked, not looking at me completely.

"Yeah." I sighed, getting serious. "I mean, she asked me I'd ever shoot a snake. Did you know they blow up if you shoot them?"

"No, I missed that lesson during Science class."

"Me too." I said. "She said she would be sorry for the snake or something."

"That is cantaloupey." Jay replied, frowning slightly. "Okay, so maybe, we should investigate. Do you think she'll ever need a babysitter or something?"

"Yeah. I guess she would at some point." I nodded. "We could both do it. I did that Red Cross thingy last year." I said.

"Inspiring." Jay agreed. "Let's ask her."

"Today?" I asked. He nodded. "But What Not to Wear is on!" I whined.

"I think that might be able to wait." he said sitting up. I sat up quickly.

"Jay? Are you suggesting that there is something more important than watching What Not to Wear? Unheard of."

"No, not at all. But it's probably over anyway." he pointed to the clock, which told me that he was correct.

"Darn. Fine. Let's go."

We got to Zendi's house pretty quickly and Jay knocked on the door. A woman with dark hair answered.

"Hello, may I help you?" she asked. Then she saw me. "Ah…Ella! Darling, you have grown so much. And who is this strapping young man?"

Jay pulled on his graphic t-shirt that had the Legion of Superheroes on it. He shook Ms. Zendi's Mom's hand. "Jay Simmons. I'm Ella's friend."

"Nice to meet you. So, what are you two up to?" she asked.

"We just wanted to know if Zendi needed to have a baby sitter in the next two weeks and five days."

"Well, I'm going out on Thursday…but she has a brother." she explained.

"I'M GOING OUT ON THURSDAY!" Zendi's brother, Hendrix yelled.

"WHERE?" Zendi's mom shouted.

Hendrix ran downstairs. Hendrix was kind of short and weedy looking with giant glasses and messy brown hair. "With my new girlfriend, Amanda." he nodded, smugly.

"You have a girlfriend?" Jay asked. "How?"

"You got a problem with it, nerd?" Hendrix put his hands on his hips.

"No." Jay said quietly. I nudged him.

"Thanks, Hendrix." I sighed.

"Would you guys mind-"

"No, we can watch Zendi. We both have training." I blurted out.

"Well actually…" Jay said.

"We both have training." I repeated.

And that is how Jay and I got our first job as babysitter of a possible-maybe-not exactly mutant child.

Please read and review! It makes people so very happy. It makes Ella get awesomer. It makes Jay get nerdier. It makes Hendrix get creepier. PLEASE REVIEW SOON!