I forgot that in the first chapter I made Nudge and Fang family! Nudge mentioned it briefly. And I've never brought it up since then. So this is just a quick reminder. Lana and Melanie are sisters. Nudges Dad is African American, and Lana and Melanie are what ever nationality Fang is, in the books, to give him olive skin and dark hair. Sorry for any confusion. I hope you enjoy.

Chapter Sixteen

In our first year of VCE, Year Eleven, Fang got three of his paintings into an art exhibition. His teacher had entered him into a competition, for school kids to have their work in a big show; Fang wouldn't have done it other wise.

Fang had not let me see the three paintings before the exhibition, he had said he wanted it to be a surprise, and a surprise it was. The three paintings were of me. One was a close up of my face with a fare off stare. The other two were of me dancing. I had stood examining the paintings, when I had noticed them. They were all done in water colours, they were soft and graceful looking, with amazing detail and technique.

'You drew me prettier then I am.' I had told Fang. He shook his head frowning. 'No, I didn't draw you as beautiful as you are.' Fang had said seriously. I had blushed, Iggy had snickered. Fang had not got embarrassed; he had just laughed, and punched Iggy playfully the shoulder.

All the paintings were up for sale in the exhibition, Fang didn't want to sell them so he put sold stickers on them, so people would think they were sold, however one of the exhibition organises questioned Fang about it, so he ended up buying his own painting. We had all thought he was crazy, but he had just shrugged and said he couldn't bare parting with them.

A couple weeks after the exhibition we had our annual camping trip planned, but that year the trip had been canceled. There had been terrible storms the whole week leading up to it, coursing flooding and tree's to fall down, it had been far to dangerous for us to go, we had all agreed- after being urged by our parents- to not go. So instead we decided to camp in Nudge's lounge room for the week.

Age Seventeen

"Nudge was your Mum okay with us doing this?" Ella asks, as she helps Iggy push the couch over, out of the way for the cubby we're making.

"Yeah! She's thrilled. She always gets nervous with us going out camping with Uncle Mark, oh, no offence Fang."

"None taken." Fang says. He picks up the other end of the sheet I'm holding and helps me drape it over the dinning chairs we set out, to hold our cubby up. We won't be able to stand up in this cubby.

Gazzy's collecting all of our sleeping bags and bringing them in from the car. We had been all set and ready to go, when we had decided against it.

Angel walked back onto the room from getting pillows out of Nudge room.

"I got all the pillows of your bed Nudge." She says, dropping them on the couch, and then lying over them.

I laugh. "Comfortable?" I ask.

"Yes quite, thank you." She says grinning.

"It would have been much easier if we had set an actual tent up in here." Gazzy says as he dropped the slipping bags on the floor. Gazzy's the most upset about not being able to go on our trip.

"Where's the fun in that?" I say.

"I think we're done." Nudge says excitedly. She gets down and crawls inside, I follow her. "This will do fine." She says. I nod in agreement.

"Squish over." Iggy says as he and the other's crawl in.

"We can't all sit around a fire." Gazzy says.

"No, but we can watch telly, and play video games." Iggy says.

"And order pizza, and eat heaps and heaps of chocolate." Angel says, nudging her brother playfully with her elbow.

"We could play, spin the bottle or truth or dare?" Ella suggested.

"No way!" I say. "What are we thirteen?"

"What about truth then." Nudge says. "Lets all sit in a circle and take it in turns asking, truth questions. I'll start.. Okay Ella, what's the embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you?"

"Okay but no circle." I say. Ella pulls a face at me, and then answers Nudge.

"When I was eleven, Mum had taken Max and me to the Melbourne zoo. And we were standing in front of the lion enclosure, I had been wearing knickers that were too big for me, mum had just brought them for me, I didn't have the heart to tell her they were too big, anyway as we stood there watching the lions I could feel them slowly falling down, and I was wearing a skirt, so I tried to pull them up but only manage to pull up my skirt. So I started walking towards the toilets that were like twenty metres away, but before I got to the toilets, my knickers fell down around my ankles and I tripped over. It was horrible, the most humiliating day of my life so far." Ella says shivering.

"No, oh Ella." Nudge says horrified, putting her hands over her mouth.

"How embarrassing." Angel says with a laugh.

"Oh, I've got a good one that may even be able to top that." Gazzy says.

"I doubt it." Ella laughs.

"It was just after they had redone the Stadium and put in those knew glass door's on the door that separates the two stadiums, you know the ones, well I had P.E the girls class was on one court, second court, and I was showing off, one of the boys in my class challenged me to race to the other side of the second course. Well I didn't notice the other boys laughing before we started, so of course I accepted. So we raced and I was winning but what I didn't realise was that there were new door's there and... Well you can guess what happened; I smashed into the glass and went flying backwards." Gazzy told us. We all laughed. Angel was laughing the hardest.

"I remember that." She managed to get out after her fit of laughter.

"I never told you guys because I was too embarrassed." Gazzy said.

"I had heard about it from Angel." I told him.

"Max told me." Fang says.

"And me." Ella laughs.

"Fang told me." Iggy says.

"And Iggy told me." Nudge says laughing. Gazzy looks horrified, which makes us all laugh even harder.

One of Melanie's friends had come over to see her, and was shocked to find seven teenagers huddled under a sheet in they PJ's. Nudge had got up to answer the door, and came running back in diving into the cubby landing on Iggy laughing with embarrassment. She was wearing her Dora the Explorer pyjama's that Angel had given her as a joke.

We had stayed in the cubby in our pyjamas all of the following day. We had played board games, played hide and seek and very maturely prank called kids from our classes. I had gone out to the kitchen to grab white and milk chocolates to use as checkers pieces, when Melanie walked in.

"Max sweetheart can you send this message to Mr. Wilson for me, I just can't work that thing." Melanie said handing me her mobile phone.

Mr. Wilson is Nudges neighbour. He's an eighty year old man who's part of the town's council. Last night at the town council meeting he made a passionate speech about not letting McDonald's be built in our town. Surprisingly enough the majority of the town don't want it. Melanie is against having Maccas built in our town, much to the disgust of Gazzy, who said he'd get a job there.

"Yeah, no problem." I say. I look down at the screen. 'I enjoyed your parts last night. You were in great form'. I read. I couldn't help it, I crack up laughing. Melanie looks at me like I am crazy.

"What is it?" She asks.

"You can't send this." I say.

"Why not?"

"Nudge look at this, do you think your Mum should sent it?" Nudge gets up from working on removing the navy-blue nail polish from her toes, in the dinning room. I hand the phone to her, her eyes scan the screen, she squeals with laughter. "NO!" Nudge says between laughter.

"There's nothing wrong with it." Melanie says frowning. "It's just; I enjoyed your parts tonight. You were in great form."

"Yeah exactly, you don't think it's a bit... suggestive?" Nudge asks.

Melanie looks thoughtful for a moment then smiles, laughing slightly. "He's an eighty year old man. It's an innocent compliment." She says. "We'll change it." She adds.

"What do you want me to change it too?" I ask, as Nudge passes the phone back to me.

"Oh I don't know, you decide. I'm just going to get dinner on."

"Oh Mum, Max and I are cooking tonight." Nudge says. Melanie looked between us, eyebrows creased.

"Really?"

"Yes. Don't look so surprised." Nudge rolls her eyes.

"Why? Not that I'm not pleased."

"Iggy thinks we can't do it." I tell her. "He challenged us. But we can cook, no worries."

"Oh I see." She smiles. "What are you making?"

"Pizza." I answer.

"Are you making the bases?"

"What, no way. We're using pitta bread." Nudge says.

"Is that really cooking? You're putting ingredients on an already made base." Melanie says.

"Hey, it's cooking; it's going to take great skill." I say smiling at her. Melanie laughs lightly.

"So go sit down and relax. Max and I've got this." Nudge says pushing Melanie towards the stairs. Nudge and I go into the Kitchen and start getting our ingredients ready.

"How many should we make?" I ask Nudge.

"Five?"

"Is that enough? There's going to be nine of us, including your parents."

"How about we make eight then?" She says.

"That's a lot of pizza."

"Their not regular sized pizzas." She points out, as she lays the pitta breads out on trays.

"True. It's settled." I say.

"Okay lets go crazy." Nudge grins. We begin putting different toppings on the bases.

"Do you think this is too much cheese?" Nudge asks after accidentally pouring the whole packet of cheese onto her pizza.

I laugh. "Na, you can never have too much cheese."

I go over to the oven and put a tray in with two pizzas on it. I stand up and just as I'm about to turn around I feel strong arms wrap tightly around my waist and feel lips at the back of my ear.

"Cooking? Surely not?" Fangs says in my ear.

"Yes cooking! And we're doing an amazing job at that." I say pulling away from him. He takes a piece of salami putting it into his mouth.

"Hey cousin." Nudge says smiling at Fang. He smiles back, and goes to take a piece of ham from in front of her, she slaps his hand away. Fang rubs his hand. Going in again and managing to get a piece of ham this time. Nudge frowns, Fang smirks at her.

"Arr, family love." I joke.

"How long do you think it will take?" Fang asks leaning on the bench next to me.

"Not long. Let's say ten minutes." Nudge answers.

"Cool. I'll tell the others, their out side with Uncle Michael he's showing them his new ride on lawnmower." Fangs says.

Nudge sighs. "He loves that stupid thing. He shows all the neighbours as they pass. It's so embarrassing." She complains. Fang and I laugh. Fang kissing me on the cheek and leaves the kitchen.

"This is going to be the best darn pizza any of them has ever had." Nudge says, taking a tray out of the oven.

"We didn't even burn them." I agree, nodding. She grins putting her hand out for me to fist punch; I hit my fist against hers.

When we're done Nudge and I set the dinning room table with candle's, for Melanie and, her husband, Michael, leaving them to eat together and take the pizza's out the back. The seven of us sit on the back veranda and eat. It's a cool night out tonight, so we all huddle around the pot belly stove.

"Best pizza's ever." Ella says.

"Agreed." Gazzy pipes in. Nudge try's not to let a smile loose.

"Really? Thanks." She says then turns to Iggy. "And Iggy, I didn't even have to pay her to say that." She tells him. He rolls his eyes.

"How many pieces are left?" Iggy asks.

"One." Angel says pushing the plate towards him.

"Can you guys believe exams are coming up soon?" Iggy asks as he takes a bite of the pizza.

"No, Year eleven's almost over." Nudge agrees.

"I can't believe you guys are in year twelve next year!" Ella exclaims. "You'll be finished soon enough then you'll be out of high school, and I'll still have two year's."

Nudge looks at her sympathetically. "We'll be out in the big bad world and you'll be in cotton wrapped school." She says.

"It's okay for you guys; at least you know what you want to do after high school." I say.

"You've still got a year to figure that out." Fang says patting my knee. I huff.

"Oh hey, did you hear Shara is back from the Europe trip?" Nudge suddenly says excitedly.

"She went to Europe?" Gazzy asks.

"She's been gone for a year. We had a whole school good-bye assembly. There were ten of them going." Angel tells her brother.

"Didn't Dylan go as well?" Ella asked.

"Yeah, I talked to him as I walked to school yesterday. We talked...he's... back- yep" I say. I feel like I have to try to sound casual. As I stutter threw my sentence.

"Oh?" Fang says raising an eyebrow. "I didn't think you liked him." He asks.

"What makes you think that?" I ask.

"Maybe it's the fact that you say, I don't like him." He says sarcastically.

"Well I've decided I was wrong, he's alright." I say. I look around at all there faces, they are all staring at me.

"What? I can change my opinion can't I?" I ask coolly.

"You can... you've just never done it before." Iggy says.

"What's going on Max?" Ella asks.

"Why are you guys making a big deal out of this?" I ask getting defensive.

"We're not. You are." Fang says narrowing his eye's at me.

"What's happened?" Nudge asks looking at me with worried eyes.

"Nothing, Gees, all I said was I talked to him and didn't think he was that bad." I protest. I stand up quickly, and collect the plate, and take then inside back to the kitchen. I'm not surprised to hear footsteps behind me.

To be continued...

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to tell me what you thought.