Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports (Maximum Ride Series #3) (Turtleback School & Library Binding Edition) Book

There was a metaphorical hole in my heart. A spiritual void and yearning for oblivion. My hands didn't want to turn the pages of the many books I own. Too lazy. What's the point? I'll still be me. Nothing on tv. All of these channels and NOTHING on. It's probably broken. There's no way that the same show is on every channel. I was bored. There was nothing to do. Pretty much the mental equivalent of food in the fridge and there's nothing good (tasty) to eat. I've got nothing! I'm a wasteland. There's no party in my mouth and no one is invited. All alone. Fifth graders are probably smarter than me. I could find out for sure but I'm too lazy and there's nothing on tv.

And in the dead television set a voice spoke to me. To me! It said, "Mariel." It was eerie, believe me. Not only was it broken, it was also unplugged! And it knew my name and it wasn't "Hey, you! You retarded or something? Get out of the way!" like the heavy books on my bookshelves say. I waited to hear it again to be sure. Pitter pitter pat. Is that the pitter patting of little feet? Was my biological clock ticking? (No.)
"I'm bored. It was exciting at first that my broken tv is talking to me. The dangling plug gave it an extra something, I'll admit. Now what?"
"Read my book. The pages turn themselves! I've got loads more where that came from. I write and sell these things like nobody's business."
"James Patterson?" It's hard to tell without bending down and turning my head sideways. He's curled up in the fetal position. But I run down my mind of authors who sell like nobody's business. It's not Stephenie Myer. She's a woman, I think.
"Yes, it's me." I'm cynical about this stuff. This girl I don't think much of is a huge fan of his. Guilt by association. "Hey, you look uncomfortable in there. It's not very big. I'm too cheap and it's also pretty old."
"You don't need to tell me! My hardbacks are $29.99. You can't pay for that? Kids in Africa could live off that for a year. You can't afford that for me?" "Welll...." A hand extends from the bowels of the television set to offer a hardcover book. I don't have any cash. "Your immortal soul will do."
"That's pretty steep..." But I'm bored and the novelty of purchasing through tv gets to me. Didn't Morgan Freeman star in the film versions? Who can you trust if you can't trust Morgan Freeman? Didn't he even play God in some thing? Anyway, he always plays those wise old guys. If you need to explain something that doesn't make sense in a movie, you get Morgan Freeman to do it... Wait, that doesn't seem right. I HATE those movies. "Okay, you got me." What was I using it for anyway? I probably gave it away to someone years ago like the loophole on The Simpson's. It'd be neat to get something through the tv. I like the scene in the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory film when they teleport the chocolate bar. I always wanted to do that when a kid and the sugar cereal ads would come on. (I don't have any cereal. Nothing to eat.)

The tube switches off and I wait for the maniacial laughter. A cha ching or something. My hands are burning . I rub my fingers over the neon raised letters as if they were braille and I could feel the magic contained within. The authors name is bigger than the title. That's always a sign of selling like nobody's business. Don't ask questions and they will tell you no lies. MAXIMUM RIDE: SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS. It's part three! But I haven't read the first two! And I don't have another immortal soul to sell! Did I use it to miss it? I still feel empty except for this shiny new book to distract me. Should I have children (pitter pitter patterson) and sell theirs?

There's a chick and shadowy other people (chicks and non chicks) are standing sorta behind her. The one in the back is probably going to die. It's pretty tense. Like watching a dream on the corners of your mind. Or trying to play a song in your head to get rid of the bad song that's already stuck in there (that happens to me a lot). Or a rorschach test and there are only wrong answers. That happened to me. "Interesting." "What's interesting about it?" "It's interesting that you ask why it is interesting." Therapy doesn't help.
MAXIMUM RIDE: SAVING THE WORLD AND OTHER EXTREME SPORTS. But you can save the world another way!

JAMES PATTERSON. It's larger than the above title. Use your mental abilities to image that those are larger than the other words. James Patterson.

The good news! You don't need to read the first two. It all makes perfect sense!

The bad guys from the first two books are after the good guys of the first two books. They are good because James Patterson says it is so. Look how large his name is. That's street cred that Mariah Carey couldn't buy with all of the rappers turned bodyguards in the employ of the Jonas brothers. He's on tv!

Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, Gasman, and Angel. I bet Angel dies. Iggy is probably the smart aleck who secretly loves the little one he gives a hard time. Gasman has gas or works in the employ of the government. Maybe he's a double agent. By day he collects bills and by night he eats tacos. Fang and Max have erotic tension you could cut through like butter. It melts.

Genetically engineered like Hitler would never dream of engineering. The Swedes are way beyond it too. That's saying something because they are blonder than Germans. It's all the sunlight they get. Now these blondes (I just realized they could all get into that blondes only concert held by The Police aka the gestapo) could kick all of your asses because they are genetically superior. Blondes have more fun. I am a brunette and this is why I am often bored. They could breed turtles with spiders and then those turtle-spiders would eat your children. Angel is stuck in Mexico where the chihuahuas are bitches in heat and mating with giant chupachabras because the male chihuahuas are humping the legs of tourists instead. She got into a fight her first day because they pronounced the g as an h. Nudge is ALL THE WAY in Canada and hiding in an igloo from rabid mounties who did it with their horses when lonely one drunken night. It's wrong to mess with nature. That's what Max (she's a girl. Her name is probably something like Maxine. James Patterson was a genius giving her a boy's name. It's not messing with boy-girl nature it's just she's too bad ass to be a girl and that's natural selection in action) is probably all about. With the help of her gang, of course. They eat yummy roly poly fish-heads to survive. They keep them on dry ice because the dead bodies of the lesser humans are on all the regular ice. When they get a head out to eat there's lots of fog like in a music video. It's hard to find time for the James Cameron directed sex scene with all the cool visual effects like dry ice. The hand only starts half way sliding down the steamed up car windows of THE MAXIMUM RIDE. The MAXIMUM RIDE has a car race against another bad ass car. The one that was featured on Trick my Truck marathon the day I had car troubles and had to sit in a stinky lobby for hours. I never wanted to die more in my life than that day. If I appreciated chase scenes I'd have been happier and could relate to other people who got the point of really long chase scenes that never seem to end.

They fight to the death in a game of extreme frisbee. Flying through the air (this is how Angel gets it. It cuts through her neck and her head comes right off) and crying Duck! in time. Marco! Polo! is played in the dire straits by Iggy versus the genetic snobs that are the bad guys. It's hard because his buddies are in different parts of the world and he can't hear if they cry out polo or not.

The pages turned themselves so quickly that I hardly had time to ask any questions. Morgan Freeman read the audio book and that helped. I trust that guy. He wouldn't lie about any of this. Flirty fishing. C'mon, give a little loving. Kiss the girls. Itsy bitsy spider crawled up the water spout. What? Okay, Morgan... If he says there is going to be a big race war and it's not moving fast enough and the winners won't be smart enough and all we gotta do is wait and take over in the aftermath.... If we stop being cheap with our $29.99 and give it to the starving James Pattersons who need it...

But it sounds like you're one of the bad guys! The bad guys believed in genetic superiority! But I don't have a cool name that could be either a man or a woman's like Max or Morgan. I'm NOT superior. It's like when the Soviets were for the people and then got all the good stuff anyway. I'd ask Liam Neeson what HE thinks but he's busy being smart in Hollywood films. Morgan says to trust him so I must.

There's a test at the end of the book. I failed just like I failed those ink blot tests. I failed every page of the graphic novel version. It was ink blots of product placements and I kept saying pepsi when it was coke.

It was a big ink splot on the page. It asks you what you think it is. I said it was a bunny rabbit. WRONG. It was James Patterson with a full head of blonde hair. There's another one and I said it was a bunny (law of averages?). Do they grade on a curve? It was James Patterson connected with all of the readers of the world. The connect the dots felt like braille and I could read the connectedness through my eyeballs and fingertips. He does sell a lot of books. Connected. Through him we could all be connected. "Look, we got the same book!" It's not all ink blots (I kept saying bunny and it was never a bunny). "Do you use a lot of hand lotion?" "What's a lot?" My pages don't turn themselves. I've been wrong this whole time. "Do you see the emperor's new clothes?" Yes? I made it! That was the right answer. I won a t-shirt, a key chain, a coffee mug and all I had to do was give up the souls of any children I may have (which is bound to happen any day now that I have something as huge in common with the wide world as love of James Patterson).

Now I watch all of Morgan Freeman's movies (he's very wise) and I never have to raise the energy to turn a page again.

When you get to heaven tell 'em that James Patterson sent you.