NaturalCures

AMaximumRideFanfiction

HAVE YOU EVER had a cold?

And I don't mean just a dinky little runny-nose cold. I mean a coughing-your-lungs-out-headache-sore-throat-keeping-you-up-all-night cold.

Colds are actually pretty interesting if you think about it. But what I find the most interesting about them is that even though we can get rid of cancer and tumors and switch hearts around, we can't cure the common cold.

You'd think that a society with enough brainpower to give kids (like me) wings and lighter bones and stuff like that could get rid of a little sneezing and coughing and sore throats, but no. Instead, the mutant bird kids get the colds and have to take, like, five different kinds of medicine even though nothing works, probably because they're mutant bird kids and something in their system flushes it all out.

Which sucks if you're a mutant bird kid with a cold.

So anyway, I'd tried every kind of medicine Dr. Martinez, my mom, happens to have. But nothing worked, so I was stuck in bed in the middle of the night with a humongous sore throat that I couldn't sleep through, even though I've slept through much worse. (Broken bones, for instance. Have you ever tried to sleep through a broken bone? Not easy, but still easier than sleeping through a sore throat.) There weren't enough beds, so I was bunking with Angel and Nudge—and let me tell you, it was crowded. Angel liked putting her angelic wings over my face and getting angelic white feathers in my mouth because she had started molting again. I couldn't breathe through a stopped-up nose so I had to keep my mouth open, so it got feathery. And Nudge was hogging all the covers. So I was just laying there with feathers in my mouth and cold because there were no covers and a sore throat, and I was sick of it.

But hey, desperate situations bring out the best in us, or something like that.

See, I was thinking. I had tried all kinds of medicine, but there was a more natural kind of cure, one Dr. Martinez—I didn't think I would ever get used to calling her Mom—had brought up in passing. It was apparently great for sore throats even though I hadn't tried it yet, and it resided in a tiny cabinet way up on top of the refrigerator. It's called honey. Ever heard of it?

So I got out of bed to get some.

My wings practically stretched of their own accord. It's not very comfortable for us to sleep, period, especially with three people in one little midget bed, because the wings are so big. And it felt so good to just stretch them out after two hours with them cramped beside me. I couldn't extend them all the way out because the hallway was only about two feet wide, but still. I could stretch them behind me, at least.

The kitchen was pretty small, as Dr. Martinez and Ella had only been rooming us for a few weeks—we had just busted out of that stupid government school, and we needed somewhere to stay. Dishes were still lying around in the sink and on the countertop, with several of the cabinets and the pantry door open. Six bird kids plus one adult plus one normal kid equals mess, after all.

Even though I was fifteen, more or less, I wasn't all that tall. And the refrigerator was, like, seven feet high, so I took off the best I could going straight up. It wasn't easy, but I managed for a few seconds before I reached the top of the fridge, so I just hovered for a second and grabbed the honey from the tiny six-inch-tall cabinet. Then I dropped and banged my chin on the top of the refrigerator.

"Ow," I mumbled, rubbing my chin. It hurt to talk, but I didn't say "ow" for that, since it was kind of redundant. Instead, I opened the jar of honey, unscrewing the top, then peeked in and saw a golden-brown liquid, complete with pieces of honeycomb floating in it. The honey didn't look that good, but I searched the drawers and got out a spoon anyway. Then I reached in and got a good chunk of honeycomb on the spoon.

I stared at the chunk of honeycomb, dark gold with pale white-yellow cells holding it together, and wondered if it really could taste as good as Dr. Martinez had said. It looked disgusting. But hey, I had been through worse, so I ate it anyway.

And it was good—almost as sweet as sugar, but it didn't taste the same. I ate all the honey I could, swallowed, and spat all the beeswax into the trash can. My throat felt better for a few seconds, but then it started hurting again, so I repeated the process.

And then I did it again.

And again.

I think I was about halfway through the (tall, wide) jar when Fang came in, but I wasn't sure because I was guzzling honey, trying to get rid of my sore throat.

"What the—what are you doing, Max?" he asked, staring at me, hunched over the jar of honey with the spoon halfway to my mouth.

I pointed to the jar. "What do you think, Fang?" I asked, imitating his tone exactly. "And what are you doing up here?"

He crossed his arms and shrugged. "I saw the light come on in the kitchen and heard someone messing around in here. I wanted to know who they were and why they were keeping me awake."

"Well, I was trying to cure my extremely sore throat, Fang. So butt out." I coughed a few times at the end of that sentence, which so was not the effect I was going for.

He rolled his eyes. "Isn't half a jar of honey enough?"

I swallowed experimentally and nodded, surprised, and started to put it up, but Fang was already there. He grabbed the jar and took a few steps forward before he took off, which was a much better tactic than mine had been—not that I would ever admit that to him—and carefully put it in the cabinet. I started to walk away.

"You're welcome," he said, much closer than I expected. I whirled around, instinctively clenching my fists, and he was right there.

So maybe it was the honey or the teenage hormones, but I did the last thing Fang—or me, for that matter—expected. I leaned up and kissed him, really quickly, and then pulled away and started back to my room. I didn't hear his footsteps so I kind of assumed he was standing there in shock.

And then he started laughing.

I scowled and turned around. "What's that for?"

He spread out his arms as wide as he could and said between laughs, "Because so loooove me. You love me thiiiis much!"

I growled, took a few steps toward him, and slapped him. "Fang!"

Instantly the rest of the flock was up, mysteriously awakened by the sound of Fang about to get his butt kicked.

"What?" they asked, alarmed.

"Nothing," Fang told them, still laughing. "Max just felt like a natural cure for her sore throat."

I barely suppressed my shriek. Instead, I summoned up as much dignity as I could and stomped my way back to the room, taking refuge in the bed's covers and waiting for Nudge and Angel to come back.

But what I'd never admit to the rest of the flock—Fang especially—was that I didn't have a sore throat for the rest of the night.

Or the next day.

Or the next.

Who knew natural cures really worked?