Free Max Baker: Guardian of the Ninth Sector by Matthew Cronan Page B

Rebecca and Emily fell somewhere in between, but Max could never remember the order, or exactly how much older they were.  All of them still lived at home. Amy, Beth and Rebecca had full-time jobs to help their mother make ends meet.  Emily went to Forest Valley Community College and worked a part-time job on the weekends.  Norah and Noah were allowed to go to high school without any pressure to join the workforce; however, they both knew that if they wanted anything outside of food and clothes, they would have to earn it.
    Jacob Allman, Noah’s father, had passed away shortly after Noah was born.  It had been the result of some freak accident at the factory where he worked.  Noah had told Max the story once when they were in elementary school, but he hadn’t spoken of it since.  Max never pushed him to open up about the subject, but he found some sort of solace in the fact that Noah could relate to the same feelings of loss.
    Mary, Noah’s mother, was the strongest woman Max had ever met.  She worked a full-time job and ran a house full of six children without any help.  He looked up to her for this.  Mary had been put in a very similar situation that Evelyn had been, and she never tried to escape from it.  She had hunkered down and fought through the hard times.  She had delivered her family from what could have easily been the same disaster that Max had dealt with his entire life.  Max had always wanted to be part of their family more than he did his own.  Sitting here at the dinner table, he felt like he was home. 
    “Max punched Corey Peterson at school today,” Norah blurted out during the middle of dinner.  Max immediately felt his cheeks turning red, and he slouched down in his chair.  Norah, just like her brother, had a very big mouth.
    Mary looked at Max with a scowl. “Max did what?”
    “Tell her, Max,” Norah said, her eyes wide.  Max had developed a crush on her a long time ago, but it had been short lived one.  It had ended when Noah threatened to stop being Max’s friend if he ever dated Norah, or any Allman sister for that matter.  Ever since that day, Max had looked at the girls as family and nothing more.  He often wondered if the same threat would work with Noah when he babbled on about his mother.
    “Yes, please do tell me, Max,” Mary said firmly. 
    Just as Max felt like one of the family, he knew that Mary thought of him as one of her children.  He knew that she had no reservations about lecturing Max, or threatening him with some form of discipline.  The first spanking Max had ever received was at the hands of Mary Allman.  He remembered that he was six or seven years old and acting like a brat at the county fair.  He remembered Mrs. Allman giving him a couple of warnings to behave. When he refused, she whacked him firmly across the hind end.  He never acted like a brat around her again.
    “Nothing happened,” Noah interjected.
    “I saw it happen,” Norah said.
    “What are you 12?” Noah asked her.
    “Out with it, Max,” Amy spoke up as she got up from the table.  “You know Mom isn’t going to let it die until you tell her.”  She took her plate and exited into the kitchen.
    “She’s right,” Mary said. “So please inform me why my sweet Maximus has turned into Mike Tyson?”
    Max turned to Noah for support, but he just shrugged his shoulders.
    “Thanks,” Max said to him.
    “What do you want me to do, slugger?” Noah asked, also getting to his feet.  “You’re the one going around punching people.”  Noah grabbed his plate as the rest of the Allman sisters followed suit, walking into the kitchen.
    “Traitors!” Max called after them.
    Mary stared at Max from the end of the table.  She looked disappointed in him.  Max shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
    “Spill it,” she said.
    Max told her the whole story about Kennedy and Mr. Shook, and then about Corey in the cafeteria.  He left out the part where they skipped the rest of