Maximum Ride

Because it brings a smile to my face.

"I once ate 9 Snickers bars in one sitting. Without barfing. That was a record!"

"Hardly a special talent." ter Borcht said witheringly.

Nudge was offended. "Yeah? Let's see you do it."

"I vill now eat 9 Snicker bars," Gazzy said in a perfect, creepy imitation of ter Borcht's voice, "visout bahfing."

Ter borcht wheeled on him as i smothered a giggle. It wasn't funny when Gazzy did a pitch-perfect imitation of me, but it was hilarious when he did it to other people.

"Mimicry," ter Borcht said to his assistant. "write dat down."

walking over to Iggy, he poked him with his shoe.

"Does anysing on you vork properly?"

Iggy rubbed his forehead with one hand. "well, i have a highly developed sense of irony."

ter Borcht tsked. "You are a liablility to your group. i assume you alvays hold on to someone's shirt, yes? Following dem closely?"

"Only when I'm trying to steal their dessert." Iggy said honestly.

"Write that down," I told his assistant. "He's a notorious dessert stealer."

ter Borcht moved over to fang and stood examining him as if he were a zoo exhibit. Fang looked back at him, and probably only i could see his tension, the fury roiling inside him.

"You don't speak much, do you?" ter Borcht said, circling him slowly.

Fittingly, Fang said nothing.

"Vhy do you let a girl be de leader?" ter Borcht asked, a calculating look in his eye.

"She's the tough one." Fang said.

Dang right, I thought proudly.

"Is dere anysing special about you?" asked ter Borcht. "Anysing vorth saving?"

Fang pretended to think, gazing up at the ceiling. "Besides my fashion sense? I play a mean harmonica."

ter Borcht locked his gaze on me. "Vhy haf you trained dem to act stupid dis vay?"

They weren't stupid. they were surviors.

"Why do you still let your mother dress you?" countered snidely.

The assistant busily started writing that down but froze at a look from ter Borcht.

The scientist stepped closer to me, looking down menacingly. "I created you," he said softly. "As de saying goes, I brought you into dis vorld, and I vill take you out of it."

"I vill now destroy de Snickuhs bahrs!" Gazzy barked.

~pg. 139 Maximum Ride Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports

Maximum Ride

Missing Piece

I just got off the phone with my best friend, Lollie. She's in the UK for a month. It's only been five days so far, but I miss her so bad already. This is the longest we've been apart since we were nine and became friends. It's like she's a part of me, and I didn't realize how much I'd miss her until she was gone. I have another 15 days all by myself. It'd be easier if I was at school, with things to distract me. Instead, it's spring break and I'm spending most of my time here in my room, on the computer, writing, or asleep, or outside running. None of these things make time go by any faster. I honestly think these have been the longest five days of my life.

Wicked Awesome

30

Knees

15) I am secretly afraid of a lot of things. Its just hard for me to admit that I'm afraid of anything.
I hate showing any sign of weakness. The world has to see me as strong, no matter how I am inside, I can still look like I've got it all together, all figured out, so no one sees how confused and breakable I really am.
16) I don't think anyone will actually ever read this. Thats why I'm writing it. If I thought people would read this, I wouldn't write anything half this personal. But I like the idea of some random person reading it, someone I don't know, and getting a bit of a sense of who I am. For some reason that really appeals to me.

Shins

I can't understand why it's so hard for people to listen. You'll say something, and they just subconsciously omit what they don't want to hear. It's like the whole world doesn't want to face it's problems, so it just pretends they don't exist, and its MADDENING!!
Sometimes I worry about Lollie. She gets swept off her feet so easily. Like a dust bunny really. I'm just worried that she jumps into things that she'll regret later, and she doesn't listen when I tell her that maybe she should just slow down and breathe a little. She gets so caught up in the latest thing, whether it's a guy or an adventure, or a mad plan, she'll just rush in, and then she gets dropped on her ass, and I have to help, and I feel bad for her at the same time that I want to scream because I told her that this would happen. She's so fragile, and she hides it so well. I'm just scared that someone will break her, she's so fragile.

Ankles

Today was my last competition ever. We came in second, same as Nationals last year. It just so feels so strange and final, you know?? Lots of things seem to be ending right now, and the only one I don't have mixed feelings about is winter. I'm glad for winter to be gone. I'm just not sure about the rest of it. I'm not sure about a lot of things. Like college. Me and my best friend have been planning for ages. We wanted to move to London, yes, London, England, and go to university there. But I won't have the money. Her family is paying for her schooling, so she doesn't think about that, but I have to. London is expensive, to live there and go to school there, and I don't want to have to spend the rest of my life paying off student loans. And I won't be qualified to get any decent jobs until I get my journalism degree, which will take about two years. And even then, jobs as a new journalist are not a given. And I just don't know how I'm going to do it. It's harder than I thought, to work out how you're going to live your life.