So, I wrote this Iggy story...

Erm, well, I thought that I should post some of it, and if anybody's interested, I'll keep posting it.

MY POLICY AS A WRITER::: I write for MYSELF, and for MY READERS. Not for ratings, comments, views, or publicity. I'm not going to do that whole "If I get x comments, I'll post the next chapter, but I have to get that many!", because I want those who enjoy reading my story to just ENJOY READING MY STORY. I don't want them to feel obligated to respond to them in any way, shape, or form. But it is appreciated, and I will probably reply. I have a quality-standard, and if I think it's crap, I will not post it ANYWHERE. I try to use proper punctuation, capitalization, sentence structure, grammar, and spelling, so if I screw up, PLEASE tell me!!!! Please!

Okay, that's all for that, so here's the story. If I had to rate it, I'd say PG-ish, but more of a warning than a restriction, y'know? Whatev, here's the story:


“Hey, Charlotte,” said my brother, pulling the headphone rudely out of my ear. I paused the song before I lost more of the life-giving, precious music.
“Hi. Don’t you have, like, a place to be that’s… anywhere but here?” I asked him, impatiently twirling the cord of the individual speaker.
He sighed; one of those exaggerated, world-weary, Hollywood-worthy sighs. “When will you ever get an ounce of respect?”
“Yeah, really! It bugs me that no one treats me like they should around here! Honestly,” I huffed, folding my arms over my chest indignantly and closing my eyes, shaking my head emphatically.
His eye twitched. “I meant when will you ever get an ounce of respect for your older brother.” He paused. “ And other people that should get your respect,” he added as an afterthought.
In an ‘old-man-voice’, I said, shaking my fist, “Respect yer elders, Missy!” and soon began laughing. My stupid, boring brother seemed to not find this funny, at all. Like, not even a chuckle, or a giggle, or an evil little grin that I had no doubt he would wear when he walked through a park and happened to see small baby birds getting chased out of a tree by a kitten, neither of which would know what to do to prevent the imminent doom awaiting them on the hard, unforgiving, concrete sidewalk.
Okay, gross imagery there, Char. Bad. Shudder-worthy, much? I mean, bleah!
“That’s the exact kind of disrespect that I’m talking about, Charlotte,” he scolded, shaking me back from my morbid thoughts at the same time as he was shaking his right hand first finger at me, in that annoyingly parentlike way, which, even more annoyingly, shouldn’t have been the case because he was twenty-one, and I was thirteen, and so he should therefore act like my brother, which he freaking was, as opposed to acting like my mom. “Mom” because I can’t imagine any dad being this—no offense to anybody—this faggish. I’m sorry, but it just upset me that he could be such a frigging putz, but still have:
-a girlfriend
-a job that payed out the ass
-a soul? (not sure about that. He worked at a bank, you can never be too careful with them)
-a life, and more of one than I had, that’s for sure.
Yeah, now you can see why I don’t like him. But I have to like him, since he’s my stupid, gol dang brother. Stupid laws of siblinglyness. New word, just because I can.
“Anyway, I came in here to say that I’m leaving for work right now—”
“I’ll try not to be too excited,” I cut in, stealthily taking the earbud from him.
He sighed. Yeah, respect. That’s sure as heck happening, right? “—so you’re going to go the dishes. Okay?” God, he talked to me all slow and condescending-like. Which, y’know, makes a girl wanna punch her brother.
“Okay,” I said, mockingly slow. “Then do I get in my jammie-jams and go to nighty-bye land?” I made eyes into wide, innocent circles, and I clapped my hands together, smiling wide and bright and fake.
He groaned, rubbing his temples, then sighed. “You need to really get your act together. Someday, you’re going to face the world, whether you like it or not, and it’s not going to be easy if you don’t start trying at this age,” he lectured like he was his own dang college proffesors.
I did a half-rasberry, and he glared at me, for my “un-ladylike behavior”. Absently, I decided that he was a master of ladylike behavior. “Yeah, whatever,” I mumbled, putting my headphones back in as I pressed “play”.
He pulled the buds out of my ears and I glared, but he ignored it and put them in his own ears.
“Eeeeear… infection!” I sing-songed.
He listended to the music blasting in for a little while, frowning. Finally, he paused it and looked at the screen for a few seconds. “Why do you listen to this crap?” he asked.
“Crap? What are you calling ‘crap’? I’ve seen your MP3-machine, and at least you can scroll through my music.” And I was right, because he had enough songs to count on my two hands, and no more than that, I was sure. What a waste of storage, really! “Besides that, 3OH!3 is, like, the awesomest thing the Mothership could’ve brought for us. Sure wish the aliens’d take you back, though…” I said with a smirk on the last part. He rolled his eyes, with a you’re-so-immature-and-I’m-clearly-better-than-that look. “And NEATFREAK 47 is a dang awesome song, and you can’t do jack about it!”
“It doesn’t even matter, if your Zune is going to be your only friend in life,” he said, all fortune cookie-like, and annoying at that. “I’m going now, Charlotte. Wash the dishes. I have to get out of here, though; I’m running late…”
“ ‘Late’, which in your book means ‘not as early as I usually am’, right? So, instead of being forty or thirty minutes early, you’ll be, say… twenty-nine, maybe?” I said. He rolled his eyes.
“Kitchen. Dishes. Hop to it,” he said, taking his coat off the rack and putting it on to complete his fancy-pants business suit.
“Whatever…” I got up slowly, putting my headphones back in and I walked into the kitchen. I checked out the dish-duty as I turned on a new song on shuffle. I ended up with Pretty Rave Girl by I Am X-Ray. So I started dancing around to the rhythm of the fast-paced song and was done before I knew it.
I moved out into the living room and sat at the computer, the song fading out and changing into Cello Suite No. 1. I ignored it. I’m not usually a fan of classical, but I would deal with this while I played World of Warcraft, and drank Coca Cola from glass bottles. Not so traditional for WoW, but that’s fine. It’s not like I was that into it; I was no level eighty, for sure.
A while later, I got bored and closed down the game, now listening to Beat It by Michael Jackson. I flopped on the couch to relax and close my eyes for a little while, but it didn’t seem like that would happen, because in between Beat it and Surfin’ USA, I heard weird sounds coming from my door.
Please define the term “weird sounds” as “sounds that sound rather suspiciously like someone picking my lock at the front door”. Thank you.
“Okay, what the heck?” I muttered, going to the door. I unlocked it and pulled it open. “Who the—who are you guys and what the heck are you doing, trying to break into my house or something?”
“Or something…” said one of them, while the one in the front (the one holding the lockpicking kit) said, “We knocked first, you know.”
“Oh, God…” I groaned, putting my forehead in my palm. “What do you need?”
“We need to talk to you,” said the oldest looking boy, who had black hair and all black clothes. “It’s important. Can we come inside?”
“Fang!” hissed the girl next to him, who had brown hair, brown eyes, and a rather leaderly air about her. “We are not, N-O-T, not going in someone’s house!” Okay, rude much? Something wrong with my house? It’s not that big, but hell, it’s not pathetic.
“Max, we need to,” the other guy said. I didn’t think that would work. I was right.
“What if you’re wrong? What if she’s not the right girl? What if there is no girl? What if you read the file wrong, like Nudge did? Then what? Someone knows, it gets out to the whole world, and the School comes and gives us more hell?!” I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I got the feeling that it wasn’t some regular old school who wanted to give them hell about not wearing the uniform.
The other guy had just the slightest, tiniest, most hardly noticeable smirk on his face. “When have you known me to be wrong?” She glared at him, frustrated.
“Hey, it’s okay. She’s not mean. She wants to help us. You should trust her, Max,” said the littlest girl, who had cute, curly blond hair. I tried not to stare at her, because that was exactly what I had been thinking. The little girl stood up and moved around the others—there were six people, I’d counted—to the front and looked at me, smiling. “Hi. I’m Angel. Can we please come in?”
“Uh… Um, I guess you can… Come on in,” I said. There was just something about her… that smile, that cuteness, that cute smiling-ness… Simply irresistable. It made me not worry at all about “stranger-danger” and any of that.
They all walked inside behind me and sat down on the couch. “So… Names?” I asked.
They all looked at each other, then at the older girl and boy. The girl bit her lip, but the boy shook his head, then nodded.
“Well, I’m Angel, but you already knew that,” Angel said, smiling. Augh, it’s just too CUTE!!!!
“Hi! I’m Nudge! I don’t know why my name’s Nudge, though. It’s kind of a funny name, don’t you think so? I’ve never heard of anyone else with that name. But I guess that’s really cool, because that means that I’m an individual, and it’s so awesome to not be like other people. But I’m already not like other people, so it doesn’t matter. But it’s still—”
“NUDGE-CHANNEL!” everyone called.
“Oh… Sorry!” She was black, unlike the others with her, which seemd just a bit odd, but whatever.
“Hi, I’m the Gasman. Uh, you have a fire extinguisher here, right?” That can’t be a good question.
“I don’t think so, Gazzy,” said the older girl.
“Why not? She really should, right? It’s unsafe to not have one around, isn’t it?” the Gasman asked.
“I meant that there better not be any cause to use a fire extinguisher,” she corrected herself.
“Oh. Well what if it’s not my fault that we need one?” he asked.
“If It’s not your fault, it’s probably going to be mine. Yo, I’m Iggy, by the way,” said the pale, stawberry-blond boy who had been picking the lock earlier.
“Fang.” That’s an introduction of a lifetime, eh?
“Uh… I’m…” The girl looked sort of uncomfortable, as if saying her name would be dooming them all. “Max.”
“Okay. Cool. I’m Charlotte. So, uh… You said you needed to talk to me? I’m all ears, guys. What’s the story?” I asked, trying to be calm. Because this was freaky and weird and abnormal and a lot of other words that I shouldn’t say.
“Uh…” started Max smartly. “Um, well, we think… Uh, like, Fang is sort of, like, well…”
“I’ll do this, Max,” he said quietly. She nodded. “We think—no, we’re almost positive, that I’m… That I’m your brother.” I blinked a few times.
“Uh, what? No. No, you must be out of your mind or something… I definitely know my brother, and you’re not him,” I said, shaking my head.
“Maybe he’s not him. You know, your other brother isn’t really your brother, that is,” said Nudge.
“I’m pretty sure,” Fang continued. “You even look like me,” he pointed out.
“Wow, you’re right! I really see the resemblance!” said Iggy in a sarcastic voice.
“Ha!” The Gasman held out his hand for Iggy to slap, which he did. Both were grinning. Why, I knew not.
“Shut up, guys, this is important,” said Fang.
“Something important to Faaaang?! Who are you, and what have you done to our emo?” said Iggy, laughing.
“Iggy, shut up, this is important to the entire flock,” Max said in a scolding voice.
“Um, you do look like me, kinda… Oh, God, this is scary! Aaah, this is not happening! Oh my God, what the heck?! This is crazy! Who are you people?!?!” I freaked out, what can I say?
“Hey, just calm down, okay? We’re… here to help,” said Fang soothingly.
“Help? Uh, do I need help? Huh. Do you need help? You guys look hungry, actually…” I said thoughtfully.
“Yes! We are totally hungry!” said Nudge. “God, I’m staaarving…”
“Okay…” I said. “Well, I have food. Do you guys want some?” I didn’t get the reaction I expected. Instead of a simple “yes”, they eyed me suspiciously. “What?”
“Why are you being so nice to us?” asked Max. I blinked.
“Yeah, are you scientist?” asked Nudge.
“Uh, what? What the heck are you talking about? I want to help because I like helping people. And we have a bunch of leftovers and stuff right now. And my broth—well, whoever he is, anyway—just went shopping the other day, so we have a lot of food. Do you guys want any or not?” I asked.
“Ah. ‘…a lot of food’, I like how that sounds,” said the Gasman dreamily.
“Well, you guys can raid the fridge, if you want,” I said off-handedly.
“Cool!” said all three of the younger ones. “Max, can we?” asked Angel with all of her cutesy-ness.
“We haven’t eaten for a while. We might never get this kind of opportunity again!” Nudge put in.
Max sighed. “Fine, go ahead.”
“Sweet!” said Iggy, jumping up off the couch. He put one hand on the Gasman’s shoulder, and the other arm was waving in front of and around him. He ran his hand lightly over the furniture. I still hadn’t figured it out, though. In retrospect, I’m really dense.
Fang got up and followed them all into the kitchen. He turned and asked, “Hey, Max, you need anything?”
“Soda. Chips. Any sort of junk food, I don’t care,” she moaned, sprawling out on the couch while no one was sitting on it. A corner of Fang’s mouth poked up just barely. Max sat up again.
“So, uh, Charlotte, right?” she asked me. I nodded.
“Max is a cool name,” I commented. It got quiet again.
“So… what do you think?” she said, braking the short silence.
“About what?”
“Fang. Being your brother. Do you think it’s possible?” I couldn’t read her face at all.
“Um… I think anything’s possible, I guess. I don’t know if I believe it just yet, but he really does look like me… How old is Fang?” I asked, now seriously thinking about it.
“Fourteen. Uh, well, fourteen-ish. We don’t know our exact birthdays, but we think that Iggy, me and Fang are around fourteen. And I’m the oldest. And Fang is second. And then Iggy.”
“Okay… Well, I’m thirteen. So it’s a possibility. Ugh, this is just too weird!” I said, pulling at my hair.
“Sorry,” Fang said from the doorway between the kitchen and living room.
“Eh, it’s not your fault we were, uh, born. From the same parents.” Fang’s eyes suddenly lit up. I blinked.
“Um, where are our parents right now?” he asked. He was trying to be casual about it, I could tell.
“O-Our parents, um… They’re… Um, they died, Fang,” I said quietly. It wasn’t an emotional thing for me, really, but I had to tell my long-lost brother (how cheesy is that?) that he was an orphan. That really, really sucks.
“They… They’re what? No, that’s impossible.” He was glaring at his fist that was clenched and held against the door frame. White-knuckles.
“Uh, sorry, Fang…”
“No. No way. No freaking way. It’s not… Cra—Dang it! That’s suckish. What a load of bull!” He stamped one foot loudly on the ground and moved toward the door. Slammed it open and stormed out.
“Fang, wait!” Max stood up and followed him out the door.
There was a tense silence that rang deafeningly throughout the house. “Is Fang coming back?” asked the Gasman, making me nearly jump from the sudden sound.
“Yeah, he is. He just needs a break,” said Angel in her sweet, bell-like voice. I nodded.
“So, do you guys need anything else?” I asked, trying desparately to change the subject.
“SHOWER!” they all said. I blinked, but nodded.
“Yeah, okay. Bathroom’s the first door in the hall. You guys can decide the order,” I said off-handedly.
“Seriously?! FIRST DIBS!” the Gasman declared to the world, totally sprinting into the hallway, skidding as he turned, and slamming the door to the bathroom behind him. I heard the click of the lock. This was when I discovered that if you turn the lock hard enough, it actually can be louder than normal. Which I find a little bit funny.
I sighed. Ugh… How is Fang taking it right now? Is he okay? Max went too, where did they go? Angel said they’re coming back, so… Well, what does she know?! Maybe she does know…? Uh…
“Um, Angel?” I said. She looked at me, ever the cheerful little girl.
“Yeah, Shar? They call you that, right, the people that you know?”
“Um… Yeah, Shar. I wanted to ask you… How do you know… that Fang’s coming back?” I asked her.
“Well, he always comes back! He loves everyone, especially Max. And besides that, I can read minds, and he’s going to come back in a little while. So you don’t have to be so worried that you’re about to lose the kind of brother you always wished that you could have.”
Woah, what? Weird enough that I just got a brother and found out that my whole life up till now may or may not have been a lie, but now there’s a little mind-reading girl reiterating everything I’ve thought for the past few minutes? Yeah, I’ve crossed between borderline-insanity and, well, y’know, not-so-borderline-insanity. This sucks, losing my mind at thirteen. Jeez…
“You’re not insane. Don’t worry, this is real, and it’s okay. We’ll all make it ‘cause we all have each other!”
Wow, that’s weird. How am I going to get used to this?

I sat around for a little while, letting random strangers wander about my house, which isn’t as weird as you might think. Well, with normal strangers, I’m sure it would be, but they weren’t, so it was totally cool.
There was a knock at the door, and then Fang walked inside.
“Hey, guys, they’re back!” announced the Gasman. He was sitting on the other couch, chugging a water bottle and seeing how much air he could suck out of it at one time.
“Hey, guys,” said Fang. He hopped over the arm of the couch I was sitting on and would’ve crushed me if I hadn’t moved mostly out of the way.
“Christ, Fang!” I breathed. He grinned at me.
Maximum walked in and rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, Team! Thanks to your wonderful captain, Maximum Ride, our resident drama-queen is no longer AWOL, and can continue to be a pain in our butts by not saying anything and wearing all black!” Maximum announced proudly.
Fang stood up, and now towered over Max (apparently, Maximum Ride). “First of all, ‘AWOL’ means ‘absent without leave’, and I think I made it a point of leaving, so you can’t say that. Second, I’m saying things right now, so soak it in while you can. And third, I gotta match the wings, so no whining.” He messed up her hair and she glared daggars at him.
I chuckled, then stopped for a second to think. What was that last part? “Uh, I got what you were saying for a while, up until the ‘wings’ bit, so, like, what the heck?” Don’t forget the finger-quotes around “wings”.
“Uh, that…” muttered Fang. “Well, Max, I’d hate to assume your leaderly duties, I’m gonna go check on Iggy. Hey, Ig! Wait up!” Fang disappeared into the hallway and began an animated (as animated as Fang can get) conversation with Iggy.
“Fang, you traitor!” called Maximum. “Hey, Shar, are all guys jerks, or just the ones I get stuck with?”
“Have you been to a public school lately?” Max shook her head. “Then you’re lucky you only have to deal with three.” I groaned loudly. “But, hey, what was that thing that Fang avoided talking about?” Yeah, that’s me. “Always-Gets-Down-To-Business-Charlotte”, that’s right.
“Well, straight-up, we have wings. Like, real wings. Like bird wings, except bigger. And, you know, on people.” Okay, wait, hold up, what?
“Wings.”
“Yes, wings.”
“…Care to demonstrate?” I asked skeptically.
She rolled her eyes. “What’ve we got to lose?” she muttered. She pulled off her windbreaker and threw it on the couch behind her. Max looked to her left and right. “Actually, I need more room.”
“Backyard?”
“Too visible,” she responded immediately. “Hallway.” She strode toward it and I fell into step behind her. “Fang! Ig! Move if you don’t want to eat feathers.” The two quickly stepped to the side.
Wait, did you read that? They moved. Like she told them to. Boys who listen to people. Can we take a moment to bask in the eighth wonder of the world, where two guys do what a girl tells them to?
But more story, now.
…And just like that, I was slamming myself against the wall behind me, shocked out of my mind as Max unfurled the wings on her back, and the five other people in the house didn’t even blink.
“Y-Y-You’re—Oh my gawd, you have wings! That’s so incredible, it’s insane, am I dreaming? Ah, of course I’m not dreaming, this is as real as it gets! Wow, you mean, you guys all have wings?! That’s so cool, I can’t even begin to describe how cool that is! Oh, God, I can’t tell anybody, right? Oh, duh, no wonder they didn’t want to come inside, they’re totally bird-people, it’s like that ‘caged-bird’ thing, and they can’t get out so easily! Ooooh, it makes so much sense now! You guys are totally amazing! Ah, this is so real and so awesome and so cool! And—Wait, so I’m related to a bird-guy?! That’s so awesome, oh my God, that’s cool! Wait, are you part-bird, or is this something else? Like, part-pterodactyl—Oh, God, that’d be weird, like, part-prehistoric-people or something! But no, those are totally bird-wings, right? God, this is totally cool! Okay, I’m on board, I totally believe you now! Ah, how cool, you’re my brother! So—do I have wings? No, that’d be stupid, how could I have gotten wings if I was born after—oh, but whoever did this could’ve put the genes—wait, that’s impossible, you can’t put genes is something and then—no, because dominance doesn’t work that way, no matter how recessive something is, so—” And of course I said all of this at around two-hundred miles an hour or something, so it was barely comprehensible and I couldn’t breathe any more after saying it, plus I was about to have a heart attack and a migraine all at once, and then I felt sort of faint, so I kind of stumbled and slumped against the wall behind me.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Okay, not really such a great cut-off point, I'll admit, but... Well, I'll put up the next part... Um, in a little while, I guess. I dunno when. If people really wanna see it (yeah, right), then I'll put it up sooner. And if not, well, I'll take my good ol' time.

And I need some critique, be as harsh as you want, I can take it!!! Mainly, I wanna know if that's a really bad idea to use that plot device. The "related-to-a-main-character" thing, I mean. I've only used it about, a million times before TT~TT. So if that's crap, tell me, okay? I mean, I'm not going to change it, (that was only 9 pages of the total 22 I've written), but I'll know to stop using it. Hm, I have three docs open right now that use that PD. FAIL.

Oh, and last thing--I swear--but if my writing offends you in any way, um, go ahead and tell me I guess, but don't expect it to be fixed. I try to keep my writing as neutral as possible, and the opinions of the characters are not necessarily my own. So there, if you think I'm racist, sexist, religion-ist, or something-else-ist, listen to Avenue Q's "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist", and then--wait, maybe that's a bad idea... Uh... Okay, if you get offended by my writing don't read it! Or keep reading it if you don't really mind! This is getting kinda wordy, so I'll shut up now...

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