Chapter 3

The next week Max took off from monster hunting. His back was still sore and he needed to figure out a way to trap them that was fool proof. On top of all that, his monthly visit to Dr. Rashid, his therapist, was more annoying than usual due to his supposed bad dream that caused him to cut his back on the bed. Max had been seeing the good doctor for over a year to deal with some of his "repressed anger" over his father's death and they were at the point in his sessions where "I don't want to talk about it" wasn't going to cut it. So Max came up with a dream about how he was being chased by a dark presence. Real enough to be convincing but vague enough not to require too many details. He went away from that session having to keep a dream journal. Max was fuming about having another psycho assignment but later while out buying his new journal, Max was able to get a set of rope lights to string under his bed.

And then there was Ginny. Max found that his overt dismissal of the girl only fueled her determination to reform Max and his barbaric ways. A few days after their standoff in the driveway Ginny's mother showed up at the door with Ginny introducing herself as Kate and asking about local activities for kids. Much to Max's horror, the two became fast friends. He watched as the two women sat in the living room talking about their pasts probing for common ground on which to base their new friendship. Ginny sat across from him savoring the torment she could see in face. Max tried to intervene but the mothers sent he and Ginny off to find their own common ground. 

Max went straight for his mom's small office where the second computer was kept. Ginny followed expecting to maybe get a tour of the house but found herself being ignored once again. Max sat immediately at the desk and logged onto the internet and began surfing. Ginny now understanding that she was being snubbed again, began to explore the office on her her own. It was an untidy office. There were papers shoved into various colored folders all over the desk and shelves. A small filing cabinet was left half open revealing it's disheveled contents. Packing materials were stacked in the corner be hind the desk, a corner of bubble wrap poked out from between some folded boxes inciting Ginny to play with it. Pop! Max ignored it, focusing on a recipe for making glow sticks out or household chemicals. Pop, pop, pop! Max's eyes darted over toward Ginny who was staring at him, daring him to insist that she stop. Pop! 

"That's my mom's packing stuff. Stop it."

"What does your mom do?"

Max realized she had tricked him into conversation and so decided to make it as short as possible.

"She sells stuff online."

"Stuff, like what?" 

"Old junk."

"Where does she get it?"

"Garage sales, thrift stores, she goes and buys stuff while I'm at school. Some stuff she sells on consignment."

"What do you mean?"

"People give her things to sell and she'll auction them online for percentage of the profit."

"She makes good money doing that?"

Max was a little surprised by the question."Enough." He replied suddenly realizing he didn't know how much his mom made auctioning her nick-nacks. Ginny sighed heavily and stood behind Max and announced, "I'm bored. Let's do something."

Max replied as he continued to read the computer screen, "I am doing something."

" No, I mean something together." She took a turn about the room."Like a game or something."

" I don't really play games."

"Well then..."

Max interrupted." Look I don't really play with other kids. I find it distracting."

"You don't have any friends?"

"None that I play with."

"So what do you do when you have friends come over?"

"My friends don't come over." Max looked up at Ginny and smiled slyly,"And that's why were friends."

Ginny shook her head in disgust." You are gonna be one of those kids that comes to school with a gun and shoots people aren't you."

That made Max angry. " Yes! Yes I am. I do fit the profile. Father killed in an accident," he started ticking off the reasons on his fingers," Mother could be called overbearing, antisocial, pyromaniac, and" he raised his voice to punch the last point home," I have a bad temper. Maybe you should leave me alone because I'm dangerous."

Ginny stood quietly for moment looking down at the floor.

Max barely heard her soft apology over the throbbing in his ears."I'm sorry." She said. " I didn't know your father was dead."

He looked at her and saw her sincerity. The pounding in his head slowed. The rage in his body subsided. It made him ashamed somehow that she could admit that maybe she didn't know everything. She wasn't as sure of herself as she made her self out to be. Suddenly her humility shone a light on his anger that made it seem extreme and unjust.

The words came out before Max knew what he was saying, " I'm sorry too for getting mad."

She shifted uncomfortably,"It's O.K."

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room. Max suddenly wanted to say something to Ginny that would make her feel better but nothing came to mind. He had no experience with this. Now that he had gotten what he wished for, Max suddenly realized what he had rejected. A chance at friendship. Ginny was scared of him now and that was something he didn't know how to fix. He wanted her to respect his privacy but he also thought how nice it would be to have someone to share his plans with. If only people would just be friends on his term then he could have some real friends not just the faceless online chaters that he probed for information about the world of monsters.

Ginny shifted and then went to the door."I'm gonna see what my mom is doing."

As she left she looked back at Max. He couldn't discern what the look meant but he didn't like the way it made him feel dark and hollow.

The result of that afternoon was a very cold shopping trip for school supplies the next week. In preparation for the new school year which started in two weeks, Kate and Evangeline took Max and Ginny out together to buy new outfits, notebooks, backpacks, and pencils. Max was determined to be nice to Ginny and convince her that he was not going to be the kid who shot people at school and Ginny was determined to be politely aloof. She dismissed his compliments, deflected his questions, and only gave general opinions when pressed. It drove Max mad. He couldn't understand. He was just trying to be nice. Isn't this what she wanted? He decided to make one last effort at peace before giving in to the belief that he was better off without friends by buying her an ice cream with his own money. As stood there behind her with two cones of creamy goodness slowly melting,  he began to question what he was doing why did he just spend $6 to seek the approval of someone he wanted nothing to with. Why should he feel guilty for seeking solitude? This girl could never understand him anyway so why should he try to justify the way he wanted to be to her. 

Ginny turned suddenly around startling Max into almost dropping his tasty gift. As he gathered himself. Anger and frustration boiled up in Max's emotional caldron. 

"Geeze! What'd you do that for! I almost dropped this! Geeze!"

Ginny calmly looked at the dripping cones wrapped in napkins that Max held out in front of him. Ginny smiled. Not only had he bought her a treat, it was wrapped so she wouldn't get her hands sticky. She paused a few moments to give Max the chance to offer the cone to her but it came apparent that he was still uncertain if he wanted to be a part the whole friendship thing. In Ginny's young experience with boys, the one thing they hated the most was to be ignored. To her being a boy was all about showing off. If one ignored them a little, they would do bigger things to show that they merited attention. Eventually though if ignored enough they would lose interest and go away. However a little compliment or a gesture of acknowledgment right at the point they began to believe there was no attention to be had here, that made them try even harder. She had watched women coax men into lavishing the world onto them. The trick was to not give in too soon or wait too long but to, at that perfect moment, give a sweet smile, a flattering compliment, or in this case to accept a gift.

"Is that for me?"

Max looked puzzled for moment. "Yes." The word came out a little more curtly than he had intended but Ginny didn't seem to notice. She thanked him and smiled as he handed one of the cones over to her in complete confusion about what just happened. All he knew was that it made him feel good when she smiled.

Chapter 2

Max woke early the next morning, his thoughts bursting out of the starting gate at the first moment of consciousness. He sat up quickly and winced at the tightness in his back. The blinds in his mothers room were aglow as they tried to block out the early morning light. Max smiled at them, imagining the brilliant future ahead of his new friend in the fish tank. Next to him, Evangeline shifted in her sleep. Max knew what had to be done must be done before she awoke, and so he left the bed as quietly as he he could. 

Max stood in his pajamas on their driveway in front of the street. A toy robot in one gloved hand, a butane torch in the other, and a welding mask on his head. He set the robot and a patch of asphalt that was already scorched. He studied it for a moment and noticed the monster's toy shell was starting to sweat. The monsters didn't like direct sunlight. He found himself wondering if the perspiration was caused because it knew of it's impending doom and was therefore nervous or if this was simply that reaction its shell had to sunlight. Max sat himself cross-legged in front of the robot deciding that either way he was enjoying the process very much and wondered what would happen if he left the monster out in the sun all day. is attention was momentarily diverted as a man cam out of the house across the street and went to a large shipping container that had been unloaded in the street the previous day. Max knew that the house had recently been sold because he had heard his mother talking about it to one of the neighbors, Mr. Portage, who was very old and always wore a large yellow gardening hat and smelled like onions. Mr. and Mrs. Portage were "retired" which Max assumed meant that they were too old to work because they both just played in their garden and rode their scooters to the the grocery store or the hair salon. This new neighbor however was young. Well not young, Max thought, but youngerish.

The man came out of the container carrying a large box. He struggled with it's weight as he set it down to close and lock the container back up. He noticed Max wearing his pajama pants, heavy leather gloves, and a welding helmet sitting across the road in the driveway behind a large blue and red robot. He smiled and waved at Max wondering what kind of summer mischief this little boy was up to. Max neither smiled or waved back but focused his attention back on the robot hoping the man would go away and not interrupt his dealing out of retribution on this agent of evil. The man picked up his box and went inside. 

Max was back to enjoying his dominion over this creature until the man came out again to get another box from the container and than another and then another. The constant interruptions where beginning to annoy Max. He just wanted a little piece and quiet in which to torture an evil being from what he assumed was another dimension. The last straw was when a woman followed the man out and started calling to him to bring in the box with the pans, not the pots but the Teflon coated frying pans. She looked over to Max and with a smiling wave called across the street a neighborly greeting to him which he ignored and went back to keeping watch over his monster. Max began to feel that this was a torture for both he and the monster and so resolved to finish the deed when the man went back into the house with his box of Teflon coated pans. 

Max didn't relish the idea of acting quickly. He wanted this to be slow but didn't see any way around this. He had been caught doing this once before by a passing jogger who threatened to call the police and the fire department if Max set flame to the green dinosaur in the driveway. Then he got a long lecture about how burning plastics give off dangerous carcinogens into the atmosphere. The jogger never said anything about how playing with fire was dangerous. So Max waited patiently as the man across the street found his frying pans and took them into the house. 

From the back of the elastic waist band in his pajama pants, Max pulled out a flint striker. He set it to the butane torch clicking it until the burner whooshed to life with a pale blue flame. Max adjusted the flame's intensity until it became an incinerating spear head. Max flipped his head forward dropping the welding mask down over his face. His attention turned toward the robot, barely visible through the masks dark shield. The torched moved ever so slowly to the robot's head.

"What are you doing?"

Max looked up abruptly to see where the question had come from but all he could see through the darkened visor was vague shapes so he went back to the monster. 

"Um, I said, what are you doing?"

Max looked around again and replied to the shape that most looked like it could be a person,

"Nothing." And looked back to his torch.

The little girl clearly not intimidated by Max's brush off, came and sat down next to him.

"Yuh know if you don't want your toys. You could give them other little boys and girls who are less fortunate. Last Christmas my mom and I went through all my play things and we took them to the Salvation Army to give away to poor kids."

Max glared at her clearly not wanting her there. But she just kept on, not taking any notice. 

"I actually got to meet a poor kid. He was hispanic and his name was Miguel which mean Michael in Spanish."

Max scowled more angrily but failed to take into account that the welding mask which was obscuring his face's full fury. The little girl next to him babbled on about how Taco Bell was not real Mexican food because she knew what real Mexican food was because she went to Mexico.

She was obviously not getting a subtle hint so Max Tried a more direct approach.

"Go away! I'm busy."

The nattering voice stopped for a moment and Max thought that maybe she was getting up to go.

"Busy with what?" 

Max slumped his head in disappointment. He remembered that telling the truth about his monster hunting activities usually led to long conversations with his mother or therapist and he had grown tired of those so he lied.

"It's a science project about adding pollutants in the air. Now go away."

Again, a moment of silence during which the hope that she was leaving bloomed in him only to be plucked by her next question.

"Can I watch?"

Max wanted to relish this moment in private but didn't see any way that he could get her to leave without making a scene and his back was bothering him too much to throw a fit.

"Fine, but don't talk... or move... or look at me."

He focused back on the flame and the robot.

"I can't look at you."

"What?" Max turned back to scowl at her.

She pointed to the mask."I can't see you because you have a mask on."

Max thought about that for a moment."Well its just one less thing you have to do." 

The flame came into contact with the robot shell that immediately began to discolor, then bubble. A small opening began to fold back to reveal a charred pulsing mass underneath. With no warning at all, the toy burst into flame, disintegrating before their very eyes until it was little more than a pile of ash in the driveway.

"That was so cool!" The little girl exuberantly grabbed onto Max's shoulder who shrugged her off and extinguished the torch. He flipped the welding mask back up to make sure she understood the severity of her invasion into his personal space.

"Don't touch me."

"Sorry... Yuh know? Your kinda rude."

" I'm not rude. I just like to be alone."

She giggled and Max started to get angry. "What, you think it's funny that I like solitude?"

"No silly. Here I am telling you that you're rude and I'm being just as impolite."

Finally, Max thought, she was starting to get the hint that he wanted her to go. But instead of leaving she put out her hand.

"I'm Ginny. I just moved in across the street. Pleased to meet you."

It wouldn't be the last time he would be completely confused by a girl. She could see on his face that he wasn't quite sure what to do next. So before he knew what she was doing, Ginny grabbed his gloved hand, put it in hers and shook it.

" You're not good with manners are you."

She stepped back with hands on her hips and sized Max up.

"I think we can fix that."

Max was very uncomfortable with this. His frequent attempts at intimidation were clearly not working with this assertive person who was intent on inserting herself into and now taking over his life. He already had one mother telling him to bush his teeth and go to bed. He didn't need another telling him to say "please" and "thank you." Max was pretty sure that this girl could stand toe to toe with him in a shouting match so he opted for a silent retreat. Max stood up and started walking back to his house. Much to his chagrin she followed.

"Aren't you going to tell me your name?" She did not sound happy at being ignored and Max smiled a little at this minor victory as he went inside the house and closed the door in her face.

Ginny was angry. Who was this little boy who thought he was so above everybody else that he didn't have to be polite enough to share his name. Well she would show him. He might be able to ignore a kid but he had to respect his parents. That's how she would get to him. He obviously had no social skills and so she assumed that he also had no experience manipulating adults. So she would tenaciously use her charm, wit, preconscious nature, feminine guile, and vast experience from her travels around the world to capture this untamed boy and in the end she would break him like a mustang colt. Ginny walked past the mailbox at the end of the driveway and stopped to read the name spelled out with stick on letters. HUNTER.