A/N: So, Word did a stupid upgrade, so now I can't find the italic or the bold or even the underline button. And I use italics a LOT in my writing. -Sigh- Oh, and some of the characters might be a bit OOC, but I think a few of them (like Star or Maya) were the way they are because of the stuff they went through because of the mutation. But they were taken away from that when they were babies, so they never had to go through it. That's just what I think though. Also, I kind of gave Maya a different personality. I hope no one minds, but I think she should be more separate to Max.

Max's POV (Dec. 2nd)

The doorbell rang and echoed through my house. Akila and Magnolia ran barking to the large white front door. My house is very open, and is pretty big. It has a polished wood dining room, a black marble kitchen, an office, the living room, the bar/game room, the master bedroom, a regular bedroom (Ari's), a Jack-and-Jill bedroom (that's two rooms connected by a row of two mini bathrooms and a shower, which is mine and Ella's), and then two garage's, a laundry room, a couple bathrooms, and the built in pool in the back. So, I guess it's pretty big.

I threw away the remnants of my French toast (I'm really lucky Ella can cook) and walked to the door before the dogs have a heart attack. Gazzy and Angel were there, Nudge with them like always. They were surprised when the dogs jumped all over them. Gazzy had to chase Akila around for a while when she stole his beef jerky out of his pocket. Then Iggy arrived, and Gazzy had to chase him around too, to get his jerky back. I had invited everyone over to hang out before Christmas break when we all go out of town. Ratchet's dad dropped him off in their flashy DeLorean and we decided to wait outside for the others. Ella had come outside with us by the time Star arrived. She and Ratchet got into an argument about something stupid really quick, and then Nick arrived.

"Nick, hunny!" His mom called. She was very pretty and shared a lot of his looks, like the olive toned and black hair and eyes. "Give mommy a goodbye kiss!"

Nick froze and couldn't hide his embarrassment like he usually does. The boys cackled.

"Yeah Nicky! Go give your mommy a kiss!" Ratchet made kissy faces at him through his laughter. Yeah, like that went over well. Nick picked up a rock and hit him in the face. Nothing to eventful happened after that, until Maya arrived last. When her brother's black Chevy truck pulled up, he let her out as he rolled the window down to talk to her. I've spent the night at Maya's house lots of times, so I've seen her brother a lot, but the others haven't. They all stared, especially the girls.

"Maya!" He leaned far out the window to talk to her. Jason's twelve years older than her, and just got out of the Marines. So he has a large build, the same golden blond hair as Maya, and he has pretty dark blue eyes from their dad. "You gonna call me when you want to be picked up, right?"

"Yup! See ya later!" Maya grinned and waved at him as he rolled up the window and drove away.

Nudge ran up to her the best she could in pumps. "Was that your brother?"

Maya stared at her. "Yeah, and I'm sure that sometime I could introduce him and his girlfriend to you." Nudge pouted and Maya just shook her head and guided her inside with a grin on her face.

Ella and I went ahead and showed everyone around the house since the only ones that have ever been here were Maya and Angel. They all were shocked at its size and the things we had.

When we finished Star shook her head and said, "Geez, you're gonna walk into my house and be like, 'is this it?'"

I laughed and shook my head. "I'm sure that's not true!" She just rolled her eyes.

"So what do you guys want to do?" Ella asked cheerfully.

"To the game room!" Iggy declared and ran off towards it, everyone right behind him.

Our game room has a bar table and some alcohol in the cabinets (which my parents forbid us to touch), a Nintendo 64, a Gamecube, a pool table, a dart board, and a flat screen T.V.

"Sweet! I didn't see the dart board!" Kate said enthusiastically and ran over to it. I grinned and picked up a dart, carelessly throwing it at the board. To my surprise, it hit dead center in the bull's-eye. Everyone gaped at me.

"Nu-uh!" Maya playfully shoved me. "No fair!" Normally, I suck at darts. But I wasn't gonna let everyone know that.

Then the boys caught sight of Ari's Super Smash Brothers Melee, so I brought out the controllers for the Gamecube, and started going completely insane trying to find the fourth one.

"My God, where did it go?" I yelled in frustration. It's about twenty minutes later and I had taken everything out of the game's cabinet. It had just been in there yesterday! I groaned and started searching in the mess I had made.

"Max… you know we don't have to have the fourth controller…" Dylan pointed out.

"No, I'll find it, okay?" I nearly screamed at him. He started to look a little freaked.

"I'll check your room!" Maya volunteered and ran off to my room.

"What? No, you can't be in my room alone after last time!" I ran after her in a hurry.

"What happened last time?" I heard Gazzy ask Ella.

"I really shouldn't say…"

I hadn't been in my room with Maya for two seconds when she held the dark blue controller over her head and said, "Found it!"

I stared at her. "W-where was it?"

She pointed to the wooden desk my T.V. and computer shared. "Right in front of it."

I sighed and shook my head. My reflection in the mirror that hung on my dark green wall next to my closet caught my eye. As I did my best to fix my hair, Maya came over to stand beside me. It's really amazing how much we look alike, a lot more alike than she and Jason or me and Ella do. We have the same face, the same chocolate brown eyes, we're the same height, and our hair has the same waves. Only her's is a pretty golden color, while mine is brown with sun streaks.

I smiled at Maya and took the controller from her hand. "Let's go and bring this to them."

-Time Skip-

Maya's POV

A few hours later and the boys are entertained by the video games (I wonder if Ari's gonna like that…), Kate and Star were playing darts, and Nudge and Angel were watching me and Max play pool. Max hit the white cue ball and bounced one of mine right off the table and hit Iggy in the head, causing a chain reaction and making him jump off the floating platform and die.

"Dang! Max!" He rubbed the back of his head and glared and Max (who just grinned) as the rest of us laughed at him.

"Whoops." Star said as she hit the wood behind the dart board.

"That's why that wood's there." Max stated.

Then the dart fell and landed standing straight up as the dart fell on the wood the protected the floor. I chuckled. "And that's why that wood's there." The sound of the front door opening echoed through the house.

"Guys?" Jeb said over the barking dogs. "We're back."

"Whatever you guys do," Max started. "Don't say he looks like Donald Trump." Everyone except Ella stared at her weird.

My face burned. "I said I was sorry!"

"It wasn't the right thing to say, Maya."

"I didn't know it would be offensive!"

Then Ari's tiny self walked in the room to see what was going on. I squealed and ran over to give him a hug. "Hey cutie!" He hugged my neck and grinned. "Did you get a haircut?" He nodded in answer.

"Lucky…" I heard Nick mutter and wipe his long black hair out of his face.

Ari noticed the boys' paused Super Smash Brothers' battle. "Can I play?"

"No," Max said at the same time Angel said, "Of course!"

We all looked to Max and she sighed. "Oh fine." She sent a glare his way. I don't know why she doesn't want him playing with us, he's adorable!

He grinned and ran over to one of the chairs in front of the T.V. and Gazzy handed him his controller.

-Time Skip-

"So yeah and then I said-of my gosh, Max you have a pool? Why didn't you say something? Can we go swimming? I'm sure we could borrow yours or Ella's swimsuits and the guys can swim in their shorts, and look how pretty it looks! It's just shimmering in the sunlight! I mean I know its December but it is south California I mean it's not that cold, and can I go out there and look at it? Cause it's so- ow!" Even with Nudge's voice drowning out everything going on in the room, no one really paid attention to what she was doing until she tried to walk outside and didn't see the sliding glass door and ran right into it.

Everyone laughed at her as she sat on the wood floor rubbing her forehead. Max shook her head. "That's the price we pay for cleaning so much."

Max's POV (Dec. 9th)

We came back in from recess, freezing but laughing on the last Friday of school before Christmas break. I sat down in my new seat across from Nick and next to Ella. I was so relieved when the teacher switched seats a few weeks back. I like Dylan fine, he's one of my best friends. But that Daniel kid is too much. He's a huge spaz, and he's really gross. The class stopped talking long enough to notice the snacks on the tables in the back. It was almost all the same things from the first party of the year (we've had about three more since then), except it was a complete Christmas theme. It had Christmas tree brownies, with Rudolph, elf, and Santa Clause shaped cookies and a whole bunch more.

Then Nick's mom came in with soda and a little girl. She was about Ari's age, and looked almost exactly like Nick. She had the same black hair and eyes and olive skin tone.

"Hey Nick," I whispered to him. "Who's that girl?"

"That's my baby sister," he answered sadly. "My stupid dad is trying to get full custody of her, so I don't see her much."

"She's so cute." Ella said.

"Yeah, her name's Sophie." He told us.

"Alright," Mrs. Randy began. "Let's party!"

Then we had our Christmas party, the best one ever in my opinion. It lasted the whole day, and with the kids in our class, it was definitely interesting. I just wish I would've taken more advantage of the moment.

A/N: This is one of my favorite chapters in the story. Hope you guys liked it.