Joey Hopper//Will Byers -Book two-

MADMAX: Part two

"Meet the human brain." Mr. Clarke says as he slams down a big plastic brain onto his desk. "I know, I know, it doesn't look like much. A little gross even, right? But consider this. There are a hundred billion cells inside of this miracle of evaluation. All working as one-"

Someone taps me on the back and I turn around, annoyed at the interruption.

"Pass this to Mary." One of my classmates Cindy says.

I roll my eyes and take the note out of her hand, passing it to Mary.

I look around and notice that pretty much everyone minus the party is paying absolutely zero attention to Mr. Clarke. I just don't get how they don't find this interesting.

"A hundred billion!" Mr. Clark explains.

Just then the door flies open and a red headed girl walks in with the principal.

"Ah, this must be our new student." Mr. Clark says, turning his attention away from the brain.

The principle nods, "indeed it is. All yours."

The girl attempts to rush to a seat but Mr. Clarke stops her. "All right. Hold up. You don't get away that easily. Come on up, don't be shy. Dustin drum roll."

Dustin closes his text book and starts drumming on the cover.

"Class, please welcome, all the way from sunny California, the latest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage, Maxine!"

She looks up at him, "its Max."

"I'm sorry?"

"Nobody calls me Maxine. It's Max." She explains.

Our group all looks at each other.

"Mad Max." Lucas whispers.

Mr. Clarke smiles, "well all aboard Max."

We all turn our heads and watch as she takes a seat in the back of the room. I can not believe that a girl got the top score on Dig Dug. I mean, I've gotten the top score on games thousands of times but usually that's just me. Most girls are too busy doing their makeup or gossiping about boys. I smile to myself, I think I'm gonna like this girl.

.

.

.

.

We all crowd around the fence and watch as Max does a tone of cool tricks on her skateboard.

"There's no way that's Mad Max." Mike says.

"Yeah," Will backs him up. "Girls don't play video games."

I turn to him. "Excuse me?"

His eyes widen for a second. "I didn't mean you, Joe. You know, like other girls."

"That doesn't even matter," Mike steps in. "You can't get 750,000 points on Dig Dug, it's impossible."

"But her name is Max." Lucas points out.

"So what?" Mike scoffs.

"So how many other Maxes do you know?" Lucas asks.

Mike shrugs, "I don't know."

"Zero," Lucas says. "That's how many."

"Maybe she's just really good," I suggest. "Maybe there's harder competition in California."

Dustin watches her for a second. "She shows up at school the day after someone with her name breaks our top score. I mean, you kidding me?"

"Exactly." Lucas nods, "so she's gotta be Mad Max. She's gotta be."