Oh hai there! I cannot believe people actually like this! I'm updating now, by the way. All of your suggestions were great! Some people said I put a lot of detail in this, and if can't agree more. I either put too much detail or not enough. There is no in between. Sowwy! Also, I need another book to read. I just reread the Divergent series -and still sobbed my heart out- and I need to read somethIng!

Disclaimer Of, Like, Magic

Iggy: I can't believe I'm a character in this chapter.

Me: Well duh! You're a very important character!

Iggy: I am!

Me: Yeah, who else would I have die in future chapters to create conflict and heart throb?

Iggy: …

Me: Just do the disclaimer.

Iggy: Fine, Ginger does not own Maximum Ride or Centipede. And why haven't any of you called the police yet?

Fang POV

"FANG! IF YOU TOOK MY OTHER SHOE I SWEAR I WILL STAB YOUR EYE OUT WITH A TOOTHPICK!" My sister's voice rang across the hall and into my room. The mocha skinned girl stormed angrily into my room, half of her hair was straightened while the other was its usual frizzy mess.

"Nudge, why would I want your shoe?" I asked, swiveling around on the office chair that I sat at as I hurriedly tried to finish -no, start- a school paper. Yes, even though there was only about a week left in school, our grammar teacher still expected us to write a multi paragraphed essay on the eight parts of speech.

"To make me look bad when the Batchleders get here. You probably want me to look like a fool in front of their kids. I mean, these shoes," she held up the one shoe she had in her hand "are the only thing that goes with this dress. And this dress goes with my hair when it's straightened. And if I don't have the other shoe my outfit will be completely ruined. And then you'll swoop in like some sort of Batman imitator and just be all cool while I look like a total mess! Now, where's my other shoe?" She exclaimed, exasperated and in a slightly whiney voice.

"You caught me Nudge! I have absolutely no idea where it is." I said before swiveling around to face the computer again.

She huffed before stomping off and yelling for our mom. Nudge was my adopted sister, she was an orphan from Haiti before my mom and dad adopted her. I was their actual child, I had inherited my moms black eyes and my dad's black hair and ivory skin. Other than that I was your average eighteen year old, going of to college in some other state to get as far away from my parents as possible, an overly attached ex girl friend from sophomore year, and practically no plans other than to go get drunk and party with my friends.

Running my hands through my hair I stared angrily at the computer screen in front of me. It was blank other than the words: The Eight Parts Of Speech And How They Have Helped Me By: Nicholas Ride. Other than that, it was a clean white electronic sheet of paper.

Taking in a deep breath and slowly letting it out I turned around and stared around my room. Over all it was black. The curtains: black. The walls: black. The bed: black. The desk I was sitting at: black. Etcetera, etcetera. Even my closet matched my room, well my over all closet. There were always those things I called 'random shirts from unknowing aunts' which I kept stuffed in the very back of one of my drawers.

I turned quickly back to my computer, with the off chance that perhaps a grammar ghost had flown into my room and typed my paper for me. To my greatest disappointment, the grammar ghost had not decided to bless me with its presence. Add dramatic sob in here. Truth be told, grammar barely helped me at all. Nouns? Pssh, it's not like on our resume we're going to be asked 'pick out the nouns in the following sentence'. Pronouns? Short nouns. Adjectives? Ooh, scary describers. Conjunctions? Well, but versus butt, which do you think I'd rather use? Interjections? We didn't even need them. Prepositions? Above, below, next to. Adverbs? Just add -ly to the end. Verbs? I had trouble with them when they were just things like run, swim, jump. Now it's all 'AUXILIARY VERBS ARE DIFFERENT FROM LINKING VERBS BUT I'M NOT GOING TO EXPLAIN HOW SO!' You get it? The English language is really fucked up to say the least.

Let's ignore my English homework, shall we? I'll say that Nudge ate it on a murderous rampage. She was practically on one right now, anyways. You could still hear her yelling at no one in particular about her shoe. I knew my parents were plotting something, they rarely ever had people over. Much less someone that was from my dad's company, and someone who had a lower job position than he did. Not to mention, whenever I got near my parents they'd either nervously lock eyes before breaking off their hushed conversation and scurrying away. Maybe they were plotting my murder, maybe they were plotting Nudge's Sweet Sixteen, considering it was coming up in the next month and when she wasn't angry that was the only thing she would talk about. Who knows?

Shutting the lap top in frustration, I stood up quickly from my seat. I had gathered a bunch of nervous energy by just sitting there staring at the nearly blank screen for an hour. I had to do something. Just a quick little tidbit about me, I'm slightly ADD. I can't sit still for too long and often get off of my track of thought. If I didn't let out the energy that became stored up in me at least every hour, I felt like I would explode.

Quickly walking out of my room, my hands stuffed deep into the pockets of my sweatpants, I headed down the hall of the floor that Nudge and I's rooms are on and then ran down the stairs, going two at a time. My mom always told me not to do that, she was afraid I would break my head open, but I never listened to her. I knew one day I would regret it, but it wasn't today. I landed lightly on the ground floor, so as not to disturb Nudge who I knew was somewhere on this floor, and slipped on my black Nikes.

Tying them as quickly as possible, I opened the door and hopped out quicker than you could say pomegranate-pie. Glancing around, I took in the natural beauty of where we live. Sure our house is big and cost a lot of money, but the view is all that is needed. In front of the house there is a large grassy hill with a few trees dotting it. Behind the house, though, is where the real beauty is. We live on a hill, as a matter of fact, about half a mile from the river. You can see if from almost any point in the house, with the trees along side it and a huge island sitting in the middle of it.

Over on that island my friend Iggy and I built a tree fort. He insisted on calling it a fort because 'tree house sounds to babyish'. Still, just looking out you can see all the way to the Square Butte and some small ranges of mountains. You felt like you ruled it all, seeing as you could see for miles and miles on end. If a storm was moving in, we'd probably be the first to see it too.

Reminding myself I didn't come out here for the view, I began to walk towards our backyard. If you headed down the hill behind our house, you'd get to the river. The bad thing was, it was very very steep and very very slippery. Not like there was mud all over if, more like there was a lot of loose dirt and rocks that made hiking down the slope a very treacherous journey.

Reaching my destination a turned back to the house for a moment to see Nudge staring out the kitchen window at me. She had a sassy look on her face and her arms were crossed, signaling that she didn't approve of me going down there at all. Waving slightly at her and giving her my famous smirk, I turned back to the hill, placed my feet parallel to the ground and each other, and began to slide down the hill.

Both Nudge and I had done this too many times to be afraid, and she knew I'd be perfectly fine. Let me tell you, when you go down this hill, you go down this hill fast. No inertia built up, no friction, no nothing. You start at one speed and keep at that speed, which is a speed known as fast. I personally loved it, it almost felt like you could be flying, so to speak. Or maybe landing from flying.

Even though the hill was long, it only covered about 100 meters, which left me with seven hundred meters to walk. Or in my case, run.

So, I began to run to the river. I mean, it's just seven hundred meters, I wouldn't take me more ten minutes tops. Plus, I knew this terrain better than this terrain knew itself.

Soon I had reached the river. Well, actually it was more of a canal off of the river.

It snaked off in a loop before joining back where it started. In the middle of summer it was almost completely dry at some spots, but seeing as it was just the beginning, it still had a somewhat blue color to it. Give it a few months and it'll become a horrible murky green.

Iggy and I would dare each to go into it and fetch a golf ball the other threw into it. Who is this mysterious Iggy, you might ask? Iggy is my closest friend, he said I couldn't call him his best friend because 'that seems to girly'. We've been buds since sixth grade when he moved 'next door'. By that I mean he lived about two miles away. Still, we officially made a pact of being friends when he blew up some girl's books. We don't really know who she is, all we do know is she wasn't at the middle school next year, it was rumored that either she was killed or she had went off to some prestigious prep school.

Either way, Iggy and I became friends after that. Don't ask how, it just happened. After that we were as close as…something or other. I forgot how the saying goes. But that's not the point, the point is, we became tight. We went to the arcade every Saturday and had a lot of classes together. Of course, he was in more AP and honors classes than me, but I still considered myself smarter.

Enough about the Iggy talk. Let's skip back to reality, where I'm currently at the river, actually more of a canal. The current isn't too fast and the deepest it goes is to my waist, not counting the sloppy slimed mud that coats about two feet of the bottom of the canal. The sinking down of it brings the water about up to my chest. Even though I would absolutely love to take a swim -please, at least note the sarcasm- I had to keep in mind the Bathadlers or something were coming over. Did I already mention that we rarely ever have people over? Not like I don't enjoy company -you caught me! More sarcasm- but we hardly knew these people. They must be plotting my murder together.

"FANG! MOM SAYS YOU NEED TO COME UP HERE, TAKE A SHOWER, AND GET DRESSED NEATLY! ALSO, PUT ON DEODORANT AND COMB YOUR HAIR! AND CHANGE YOUR SHOES! AND PUT ON COLOGN! AND BRUSH YOUR TEETH! AND DO YOUR MAKEUP! Whoops! NEVER-MIND ABOUT THE MAKEUP COMMENT, THAT WAS MEANT FOR ME FROM ME! ALL OF THAT WAS FROM ME EXCEPT FOR MOM TELLING YOU TO COME UP HERE, TAKE A SHOWER, AND GET DRESSED NEATLY! ALSO PUT ON DEODORANT, COMB YOUR HAIR, CHAN-" Nudge yelled down at me from the top of the hill, her figure silhouetted.

"I GOT IT NUDGE! NO NEED TO RAMBLE!" I yelled up at her.

She is the definition of a motor-mouth. Leaving behind the canal I slowly made my way back across the 700 meter stretch of dirt and grasses, trying my best not to step in deer poop or have my foot slip down a gopher hole.

Nudge stood up on the top of the hill, tapping her foot impatiently as she watched me make my slow ascent back up the steep hill, using my hands to grasp onto grasses and bushes sticking out of the ground for extra support. I knew this would piss Nudge off and I'd probably get an earful of it after the guests left, but seeing her getting so annoyed so quickly was just so much fun.

Even though she's the social butterfly of the school and could make friends with the meanest drug dealer around, you did not want her to lose her temper. She turned into the hulk then, or at least as close as a sixteen year old girl could get to the hulk. Knowing from experience, it was a near perfect performance.

"Good, you're finally up here. If you pretend to slip and slide back down I sincerely hope you trip and hit your head on a rock. Then I'll leave you down there, bleeding to death and not call Doctor Farris to take care of you. And if I'm tried for homicide or murder or whatever, I'll deny it. And if you somehow came out of that alive and tried to have me arrested I would laugh at you and probably be sent to the crazy house and put in a straight jacket. Ooh, but dirty white so doesn't go with my hair. And, eww, what if their's blood on it too! Eww, eww, eww! Never mind, if you fake slip I'm calling Doctor Farris. I don't want a bloody straight jacket that clashes with my hair." Nudge said almost all in one breathe.

By the time she had finished her rant, which I wasn't following at all, we had already reached the house. Nudge still talking incessantly to herself, she headed down to the basement and I headed upstairs to my room to take a shower. I was quite dusty as it was and I knew my mom would get on me about leaving dirt prints on the rug, but truthfully, a hot shower sounded quite nice right now.

Flinging open my closet I grabbed a pair of jeans, a long sleeve shirt, socks and a belt. Like hell I was going to change my shoes! They were perfectly fine, never mind the fact that they were slowly dying.

Stepping into my bathroom, Nudge and I each had separate bathrooms, I turned on the shower as hot as it could go and stepped in, after disposing of my ex-clothes first. It was just a quick hop in hop out sort of deal, no actual… minutes tops.

Once I got out I changed into the 'formal' clothes I had laid out. I buckled the jeans with my belt and threw my shirt on over my head. If you can guess, next I put on my socks and shoes and did all of the other things you do when you get ready for a dinner party. I brushed my teeth, put on deodorant and ran my hand through my hair. Heading out of my bathroom I checked the clock, still about ten minutes until the guests were expected to arrive.

Knowing that they were my dad's guests, they would most likely be here too early or exactly on time. They needed to sucker up to the boss after all. Trudging out of my room I headed down the two flights of stairs that brought me to the basement. Nudge was leaning against the air hockey table, talking animatedly into her phone.

"Oh, hey Fang-a-rang! Just talking with Audrey, I'll be with you in a moment!" She said happily before skipping off into the theatre room.

I didn't really…like her friend Audrey. She was a very short girl, seemed more like a twelve year old than a sixteen year old. The only thing that actually set her apart from the middle schoolers was her breasts. She liked to show them off, a lot. Whenever Nudge had her over I always hid away, knowing that she would try to shove them in my face, even though she's two years younger than me.

I could almost hear Audrey's squeal at the mention of my name. I shivered before walking over to the small arcade we had. It wasn't really an arcade though, just a few games from the eighties that my dad had liked: Centipede, Galaga, Gyruss, Pacman, etcetera. I personally liked Centipede, mainly since I had no strategy for it, just shoot like a madman. Iggy absolutely adored Gyruss, because after you warp to Neptune, you warp to Uranus. He then proceeds to make inappropriate comments such as 'I love how Uranus glitters in the moonlight.' That's a basic Iggy for you.

Setting up myself before the Centipede game I put in a quarter I would retrieve after this and hit one player. In case you didn't already know, Centipede's basic purpose is that the player defends against centipedes, spiders, scorpions and fleas, completing a round after eliminating the centipede that winds down the playing field. Yes, I did do my homework on that.

I shot at random, moving my player haphazardly around the bottom of the screen, trying desperately to destroy the Centipede as it wound its way down the screen. Let's not go into elaboration on how I died, just because I like the game doesn't mean I'm good at it.

I heard a light laugh from behind me and whipped around to find Nudge leaning casually against the door frame, toying restlessly with the lace on her sleeves. That's something Nudge did when she was nervous or excited, she toyed with her clothes. Just little, subtle things that you wouldn't notice unless you're very observant. She knew that she did this and tried her best not to when people were over.

"Gosh Fang, I didn't know you could get a worse score than you did last time." She said, prancing up to me. She was the house champion with a winning score of 70,000. It was her favorite pastime, trying to beat her high scores on any of the games. And then rubbing it in my face.

"Okay Miss High-and-Mighty, why don't you give it a try." I say, bowing myself out of the way. She rolled her eyes at me before getting in front of the game.

She and I both knew that she would get much higher than I did, but we both liked a good challenge.

"Do you have a quarter? I don't just carry them around in my dress you know. If we were going out to eat or to the Batchleder's house I would have my clutch, but since it's our house that seems irrelevant and slightly vain." Nudge exclaimed, tapping her foot impatiently on the ground with her hand outstretched, waiting for the quarter she knew I would give to her. I grabbed one from my pocket, I always keep some extra change in there, and handed it over to Nudge. As soon as the quarter was in the machine she instantly launched herself into the game.

As soon as Nudge devoted herself to something, she kept at it until she either owned or achieved her goal. When she was seven she really wanted to go to England, you know how she solved that? She found a dance program that let the most talented dancers in certain divisions go to England for a highly prestigious dance competition. She almost always got what she wanted.

Nudge soared flawlessly through the game. Unlike me, she actually aimed when she could and tried hard to break down all the mushrooms in the way. I knew that she could go on playing forever, but would probably cut her average time short so as to spare my feelings. Or maybe because our mom was marching down the stairs to tell us the Batchleders were here.

"Nudge, Fang! The Batchleders are here!" Our mom cried out. See, I told you so. Nudge glanced up from the game for barely a second, but that was enough as a bit of the Centipede came down and smashed on her character.

"Yes!" I exclaimed, throwing my fists in the air.

"I still have three more lives dip-crap." Nudge said defensively.

"No!" I cried out again, sinking onto my knees dramatically.

"How about you finish the game later Nudge, you already have the high score." Mom said, tapping her toe impatiently and glancing at the stairs behind her.

"Fine, let's go! Hey Fang, do you think they have any kids our age? I mean, I know Ella. She's nice, somewhat cut off from everyone, but still nice. She only has, like, three or four friends, and one of them is Arietta. Arietta is sooo sweet! And sooo cute! She looks like she's twelve or something, not sixteen. I once overheard Ella talking with one of her friend's, I think her name is Chrissy, about her sister coming home for summer, but I could be mistaken. I was, like ten feet away and Audrey was talking really loud about some new kid. I think it was a boy, Audrey wouldn't talk about them unless they were a boy anyways." Nudge said quickly as we walked up the stairs and into the kitchen.

I knew she would go off into another rant unless she was distracted. I threw my hand out towards the island in the middle of the kitchen and turned the handle of a pot so it was sticking off of the counter, right in Nudge's way. She didn't notice the pot nor any of my movements as she continued to blabber on and on. It was slightly to see her gasp of surprise followed by a wince and a slight shriek as she bumped the pot and it went flying towards the ground. I couldn't help myself, I laughed. You should know, I'm definitely not the laughing type, and I normally wouldn't laugh at something like this. I just couldn't help it. Nudge, graceful Nudge who persisted on getting whatever she wanted without any help, seemed like this was the worst thing that could ever happen to her. And her face was priceless.

"I…I…I can't even…" Nudge stuttered out, looking surprised and somewhat scared. "Where the hell did that pot come from?!"

"Language Monique!" Our mom shrieked even though her foul language was much worse. "Let's just go in there and introduce ourselves, okay? The Batchleders are already seated."

Nudge and I glanced at each other before following mom out the swinging kitchen door, Nudge going ahead of me. No one ever said I couldn't be gentlemanly, even if it was towards my pesky little sister.

At the table my dad sat at the head and to his left, facing us, was a thin man with wispy blonde hair and bright blue eyes. He had thin framed glasses perched on his nose and was wearing a white work shirt and a blue tie, at least from what I could see. Next to him I assumed sat his wife. She looked Spanish and her dark brown hair was straightened behind her back and chocolate brown eyes. She was wearing a purple dress that had sleeves down to her elbows and an emerald pennant swung on a necklace.

There was a seat between her and the next person. It was a girl who seemed to be somewhere in between my age and Nudge's age. Even though she had to be about my age she was, how do you say, underdeveloped. At least, as far as girl's physical appearances are concerned. She had blondish brown hair that hung like feathers. She had a strapless floral dress and seemed to be examining us just as I was examining them. She had a book or something perched in her lap. From my first impression, I thought she seemed like a girl who would take her parents word as law.

Next to her was a girl who looked like a spitting image of her mother, other than her one blue eyes, which I assumed she took from her father. Her hair was curled and in a high pony tail held back by a large pink bow. She had dress like her sister's except it was blue instead of floral. In her hand she held a phone with a pink case on it. She was most likely a girly girl.

I could feel Nudge bouncing up in down with excitement nest to me. She loved meeting people, whether she knew them or not.

My dad cleared his throat before standing up and walking next to us. "This is my daughter, Monique, and my son, Nicholas." He said, gesturing to us slightly. Nudge waved happily and I nodded, keeping my face void of all emotions.

"I'm Jeb Batchleder and this is my wife Valencia Martinez. These are my daughters Maximum and Eleanor Martinez." The man, Jeb, said. Maximum? What sort of name was that?

"You can just call me Ella and call her Max." The girl who looked like Valencia, Ella I guess, said quickly after her father finished speaking.

A ding went off from the kitchen and my mom quickly perked up. "Monique, can you help me with the food, Nick you can just sit down." I nodded slightly before seating myself across from Maximum- err…Max. She glanced at my slightly, her chocolate brown eyes scanning my face as if searching for some sort of emotion before she quickly looked back down at her book.

Ella started glancing at me, her lips puckered as if it was taking all of her willpower to not start spewing out words. Just as I knew that she was going to start ranting incessantly my mom and Nudge came in like some sort of superheroes with platters of food. I glanced at the two girls across from me, who I expected to be disgusted by the mass amounts of food that we were serving them.

While Ella looked like she would just take a bit to be polite, Max looked like she could eat all of this in one sitting. She seemed like a really skinny girl too. Either she never ate or she had really fast metabolism, like me.

As soon as the food was set down everyone started digging in. Something I noticed though, the Max girl never asked for someone to pass anything to her. Instead she seemed to nudge her sister and glance at the food she wanted to have seconds of and Ella would politely ask for it before giving herself a little bit and passing it to the hungry Max next to her.

After dinner there was no dessert, which we rarely had anyways. I could see the life slowly fading out of Ella's and Max's eyes at this 'sad' news.

Soon everyone was getting comfortable with each other, the Batchleders and my parents talking quietly, glancing at either Max or me every once in a while. Maybe together they planning both of our murders. Ella and Nudge were soon in a very heated conversation about fashion and television shows and such.

Seeing as I had no chance of talking to Max considering she seemed totally engrossed in her book, I pulled out my phone that was in my pocket and started playing Angry Birds. I hate Angry Birds more than I hate Centipede. Every once and a while I would glance up at Max only to see her looking at me. Considering that we were supposedly in the same age group it must have been expected for us to immediately 'get it off' so to speak. Whoever thought that was a good idea obviously doesn't know crap about teenagers.

My mom suddenly stood up and Nudge quickly bounded up as well to help clean off the table as quickly as possible so she could get back to her conversation with Ella on goat cheese, I believe.

As soon as the table had been cleared the grow ups began to whisper even more amongst themselves. I heard a few traces of words. 'Max…Nick…mar…arra…colle…' nothing that really made that much sense to me. I hated not knowing what they were talking about and was just about to burst and demand to know what they were whispering about, but Max beat me to it.

"Okay, mom. Stop with the hushed conversation. I've finished my book and I want to know what you're talking about." She said impatiently. Her eyes quickly widened and she covered her mouth with her hands. "Sorry, that was rude."

"Oh, Max, don't worry about it. There actually is something we need to tell you." Valencia said slightly worried as she glanced at Jeb. They then exchanged worried looks with my parents. Yep, they were definitely planning my murder, and perhaps Max's as well.

"You are going to get married to Nicholas."

Yeah, that was pretty much just the first chapter except in Fang's Point Of View. Thank you for reading! I'll give you an imaginary hug. Also, any good books suggestions? Any idea what this song is?

If you save yourself for marriage

You're a bore

If you don't save yourself for marriage

You're a horr…ible person

If you won't have a drink

Then you're a prude

But they'll call you a drunk

As soon as you down the first one

If you can't lose the weight

Then you're just fat

But if you lose too much

Then you're on crack

You're damned if you do

And you're damned if you don't

So you might as well just do

Whatever you want

So…

I like this song, I think it really displays that society just doesn't let you be who you are. Yay! Enjoy, read, review, and eat a cheese pizza. Unless you can't have cheese. In that case, eat goat cheese. I like goat cheese.