One: MADMAX
!!!
It was a cool October night. Y/n was scrounging around for change. She was going out for a night at the arcade with her best friends, Will, Lucas, Dustin, and Mike. She was the only girl of the group, but she didn't care. She kind of liked being the only girl. While she looked for quarters, she heard Lucas and Dustin talking over the walkie about how much change they got.
"UGH!!!" Y/n shouted.
"What's wrong Y/n?" Her mom asked her from the kitchen. She had been cleaning up after dinner.
"I'm looking for change."
"For what?"
"I'm going to the arcade with the party." She explained, still looking anywhere for just a couple more quarters.
"How much do you need?"
"Just at least four quarters"
"I can give you four quarters."
"Would you?"
"Yeah, just take like a dollar-fifty."
She took six quarters from her moms change jar and stuffed them in her pocket.
"Thanks mom!" Y/n said, running out the door.
"You're welcome, I love you!" Her mom shouted. "Hey, check on Will for me!" She added.
"I will!" Y/n said, hopping on her bike before riding away.
On the way to the arcade, Y/n heard a voice through her walkie. It was Dustin.
"Y/n do you copy? Y/n?"
Y/n pulled her walkie out of her bag, still biking. "Yeah, I copy."
"What's your haul?"
"A dollar-fifty. You?" Y/n replied.
"Four quarters."
"Four?" Y/n repeated with a small chuckle.
"Son of a bitch, you have two more than I do. Ok, asshole?" Dustin pointed out.
Y/n chuckled before asking, "Have you called the others?"
"Yeah, Lucas has five bucks, and Mike 'doesn't know yet.' "
"Seriously? Okay, what about Will?" Y/n asked.
"Three bucks."
"Ok, that's good. See you there. Over and out." Y/n said before putting her walkie back in her bag and pedaling faster. She got to the arcade first. She went in to play Pac-Man as she waited for her friends. She played for around 5 minutes until she heard Dustin, Mike, and Lucas arrive outside.
After greeting her friends, Y/n saw Will pull up in his mom's car.
"Will!" Y/n ran up to hug him. Y/n was best friends with the whole party, but she always felt a particular connection with Will. She was never sure why.
"My mom wanted to know how you were doing." Y/n informed him.
"I'm good." Will told Y/n.
"Good." She said with a smile, wrapping on arm around Will as they walked into the arcade.
"Come on." Dustin immediately said as he ran over to 'Dragon's Lair'.
"Ready for me to beat your high score?" Dustin rhetorically asked Lucas.
"Yeah, right. Good luck." Lucas said, smirking.
"Just shut up and play!" Y/n told them, annoyed.
The party screamed at Dustin as he played. "GO! GO! GO!" "NOW! NOW! NOW!"
"Shut up!" An overwhelmed Dustin yelled at his friends. They all went silent with their jaws to the floor as they watched Dustin's character die, listening to him shouting in frustration, as his character turned into a skeleton. "No! No! No! I hate this overpriced bullshit! Son of a bitch! Piece of shit." He kicked the arcade machine with every curse word he yelled.
"You're just not nimble enough. You'll get there one day. But until then, Princess Daphne is still mine." Lucas bragged.
"You know, whatever I'm still tops on 'Centipede', and 'Dig Dug'. Dustin pointed out.
"You sure about that?" The kids heard a voice say. It was Keith, an employee at the arcade. He was stuffing his face with cheese puffs.
They all turned to him. "Sure about what?" Dustin asked him. The group ran over to 'Centipede' finding it out of order, so they ran over to 'Dig Dug', only to realize a player named 'MADMAX' had beaten Dustin's high score.
"751,300 points!" Will read aloud with surprise.
"Who's 'Mad Max'?" Dustin asked Keith.
"Better than you." He replied with a shrug, earning himself a middle finger from Dustin.
"Is it you?" Will wondered, pointing to the cheesy handed employee.
"You know I despise 'Dig Dug'" Keith sneered.
"Then who is it?"
"Yeah spill it, Keith!"
"Yeah Keith!" Y/n shouted in agreement.
Y/n turned to look at Will, but he wasn't there. Y/n decided to leave the conversation to go look for Will. When she found him, he was outside, staring at the sky with fear on his face. "Will?" She asked, trying to get his attention. "Wiiiilll?" She repeated, starting to get worried. "Will!" She called one more time, grabbing his shoulder, which fortunately, snapped him out of it, making him jump.
"You alright?"
"Yeah, I just- wanted- fresh air, is all."
"Okay, well, come on! We have a high score to take back." She reminded him, swinging her arm around Will as they walked back to the rest of the group. They returned to Mike's voice. "I'm not prostituting my sister!"
"Umm... I'm sorry- what?" Y/n butted in, confused.
"You know what? No. Don' get him the date. He's gonna spread his nasty ass rash to your whole family." Dustin insulted, ignoring Y/n's question.
"Acne isn't a rash and it isn't contagious, you prepubescent wastoid." Keith snapped back. The whole conversation was just making Y/n snicker, holding back her laughter.
"Oh, I'm a wastoid?"
"Nice perm."
"You're gonna make fun of my hair?"
Eventually, Y/n couldn't contain her laughter anymore, she bursted out laughing.
"I'm sorry- is something funny, Y/n?" Dustin asked her.
"I'm sorry!" She started, pausing to laugh a bit more. "This conv-" she wheezed in laughter. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I- I can't- I- just-" She wheezed again, and kept laughing.
Dustin just rolled his eyes, and kept arguing.
...........................................................................................................
The next day, at school, the party was in science class. Y/n was taking neat notes as always.
Mr. Clarke was explaining the human brain, and the fact that there were a hundred billion cells working as one.
What dragged Y/n's attention away from the teacher was when the door opened. A girl walked in. She had fiery ginger hair, ocean blue eyes, and freckles scattered all over her face. She was definitely the most beautiful person to stand in Y/n's presence.
After Y/n was done admiring the new girl, she tuned back in to what Mr. Clarke was saying. "Our latest passenger to join us on our curiosity voyage... Maxine!" Mr. Clarke introduced.
"It's Max." The redhead corrected.
Y/n's eyes widened. Mad Max? She thought. She looked ahead of her to see her friends looking at one another with the same look on their faces as she had on hers. "Mad Max." Dustin whispered, so quietly it was barely a whisper.
"Ah. Well... all aboard Max!" Mr. Clarke said cheerfully. Max walked to the back of the room to one of the few empty seats. She sat next to Y/n. She found that seat more comforting than the other empty seats. Probably because Y/n was the only person not staring at her like she was a ghost.
"Can I sit here?" Max asked the girl, who she found very pretty.
"Yeah, of course" Y/n welcomed her with a smile. Max gave her an appreciative smile in return.
...................................................................................................................
At lunch that day, the party decided to watch Max, who was skating around outside.
"There's no way that's Mad Max." Mike doubted.
"Yeah, girls don't play video games." Will said, before looking over at Y/n, who was raising her eyebrows at him. "I- I mean, you do." Will corrected. "Yeah, only Y/n's barely a girl." Mike sneered.
"Excuse me?" Y/n fired back, raising her eyebrows again.
Mike gave a quick sigh. "Kidding."
"Fuckin' better be." Y/n muttered.
"Even if girls did play video games, you can't get 750,000 points on 'Dig Dug'. I mean, that's impossible." Mike continued the previous conversation.
"Hello?!" Y/n said, putting her arms up.
"But her name is Max." Lucas pointed out.
"So what?"
"So, How many Maxes do you know?"
"I don't know!"
"Zero, that's how many."
"Yeah, and she shows up at school the day after someone with her same name breaks our top score? I mean, are you kidding me?" Dustin adds.
"Exactly! So she's gotta be Mad Max. She's gotta be." Lucas concluded.
"And plus she skateboards, so she's pretty awesome."
"Very true." Y/n agreed.
Mike furrowed his eyebrows at Y/n. "What? Skateboarding is badass!" Y/n defended. Mike just rolled his eyes and continued.
"Awesome? You haven't even spoken a word to her!"
"I don't have to I mean, look at her." They all turned back to look at Max. "Shit I've lost the target." Dustin cursed.
"Target?" Y/n repeated, furrowing her brows.
"Oh! There." Will brought to the party's attention.
They all watched as Max walked up a staircase before dropping a crumpled up paper in the trash and walking inside. The group looked at each other, and then ran up to the trash can, hoping to unveil some secret of Max's. Dustin looked in the trash, while the rest of the party awkwardly waved to the girls walking by, as if their friend wasn't digging through garbage.
"Got it!" Dustin said, pulling a paper out as he emerged from the trash. "There we go." He gave a small happy chuckle. Once Dustin opened up the wrinkly paper, it revealed text, which they read aloud.
"Stop spying on me CREEPS!" Is what it said, although they read it in a very dull and awkward tone, so it sounded more like: "Stop spying on me creeps..."
"Well , shit." Dustin simply said.
"Great. Lovely." Y/n said sarcastically.
"William Byers." They heard a voice behind them say. It was the Principal. Y/n grabbed the paper from Dustin's hand and shoved it in her pocket.
"Your mother's here." The Principal told Will.
"You guys think he's okay?" Dustin asked the party after Will left.
"He's always weird when he has to go in."
"I don't know. He's quiet today."
"He's always quiet."
"I mean, what were we expecting?" Y/n asked.
...........................................................................
After school, Dustin, Lucas, and Y/n decided to see if Max would be at the arcade. Just to confirm their theory.
"Still no sign?" Dustin asked the two other party members.
"Jack shit." Lucas replied.
"Oh! Damn it, my mom's gonna murder me." Dustin said, looking at his watch.
"So go home. I'll radio if she comes." Lucas told Dustin.
"Oh, yeah, nice try. You just want me out of here so you can make your move."
"Oh, 'cause you're such a threat."
"That's right. She will NOT be able to resist these pearls." Dustin said before purring. Y/n cringed in response. "Please, never do that again." Y/n told him.
"Ten o' clock." Dustin said, grabbing Lucas's arm.
"What?"
"Ten o' clock." He repeated, pointing.
They looked over to see a blue car arriving. It was playing muffled rock music. Well, it WAS muffled. When Max opened the door to get out of the front passenger's seat, the music became more clear. The driver was yelling at Max, who could be heard yelling back. Although, what they were saying was incomprehensible.
"They're arguing. They're arguing." Lucas pointed out, though it was extremely obvious already.
"Oh, my God. I see that. I don't even know why you need those. God, you're so stupid."
Y/n chuckled at Dustin's comment, rolling her eyes with a smile. The car starting driving away before Max could shut the door, and when it finally left, she flipped off the driver.
"I wonder who's driving that thing that's making her so pissed." Y/n said.
"I don't know. Come on." Dustin replied, before running after her into the arcade. Once they were inside, they watched Max play 'Dig Dug', peeking from behind a counter.
"She's incredible."
"She's..."
They all finished the sentence simultaneously.
"Mad Max."
Authors note: Hi! I really hoped you liked this! It's the first thing I'm writing, so hopefully it's good! I'll try to do a new page every day! If there's not a new page tomorrow, check at the end of the week! Thank you for reading!
1892 words.