Max!: Max!, #1

By Vic Connor

Funny. Engaging. Inspiring.

It's not easy being twelve and in middle school. It's even harder when a gang of tough older kids takes away your only soccer field. And it doesn't help that Max is a kid who tends to get a little overly anxious about almost everything. But, all those problems are nothing compared to the crush Max Lapin has on a girl named Tanya, who is smart, nice, a lot taller than he figures he'll ever be.

This book may be set in the fascinating time and place of 1983 in the Soviet Union, but the experiences Max has are universal to all times and all places. Readers, both boys and girls, will love meeting Max, his wonderful and wise grandpa, and all the funny, kind, and sometimes not so nice characters in his life.

Genre: a middle-grade novel for intelligent kids.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Helvetic House
• Release date: Sep 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9782970074762

Book preview

1

MONDAY, 5 SEPTEMBER 1983

Today started as the best day of my life and ended as the worst.

How do things go so wrong? That’s what I want to know. That’s what I hope you can help me with, Diary. I realize that you can’t talk back or give me answers, but I have so many thoughts swirling inside my head, I feel like there’s a blizzard going on in there. Maybe writing those down will help me sort out my problems.

Problem number one: How do I get Tanya Nosova to notice me?

Max looks at Tanya

It doesn’t help that she’s ten centimeters taller than every boy in the class, including me. I guess it’s easy for her to ignore me when she stares right over my head. Mom says that will change soon. She says that by next year, the boys will start catching up with the girls in height. It can’t come soon enough. Otherwise, I’ll have to wear elevator shoes just to look a girl in the eye.

We have a homeroom teacher, Pal Palych. His real name is Pavel Pavlovich, but no one calls him that because the shorter name fits him better. So anyway, he still thinks of us as babies even though we’re in the seventh grade. When we go on field trips, we still use the buddy system. I shouldn’t complain because Tanya and I were paired together as buddies today. See? Best day ever! Or so I thought.

Things started to go wrong as soon as we got on the bus and headed for the zoo. The zoo was in Yasnaya, the main town in our area. It was new to all of us — it had just opened a couple of years ago — and I didn’t feel very confident because I hadn’t been to a large town before. It felt like going to another country.

I wonder if we’ll see a Mongolian Death Worm there, Tanya said. She had her nose stuck in a book about animals, and it took me a moment to realize that she was actually speaking to me. I looked around. Bogdan and Vadim were playing rock-paper-scissors in the seats behind us. Alina and Dina were making faces at them from the seats across the aisle. Tanya could only have been talking to me. This was my big chance to impress her!

Max comments on the book

So I plunged in.

There’s no such thing as a Mongolian Death Worm, I said, feeling brave and grown-up. I wouldn’t let Tanya worry about some silly creature that exists only in campfire tales.

Tanya slammed her book shut. What do you know, Maxim Lapin? she snapped. Uh-oh. Whenever someone calls me by my full name, I know I’m in trouble. Just because you’ve never seen one, doesn’t mean they aren’t real. She turned her back on me and started to talk to Dina, whose round face broke into a happy smile.

Maybe I said the wrong thing.

Tanya ignores Max

"H op to it, boys and girls, Pal Palych said as we herded off the bus. Line up with your buddy. Two neat rows, people!"

Pal Palych is a good teacher, but he’s a little too enthusiastic at times. He’s tall and skinny, with hair so blond it’s almost white. Usually, his cheeks are red, and when he gets angry or excited, white splotches stand out among all that red. Weird. We’re his first class ever. He just graduated from teaching school. Sometimes I think he should have found a job as a kindergarten teacher. We’re twelve years old! Buddies and lines are for little kids. I would never say that to him, of course. I’ve been detention-free so far this year, and I plan to keep it that way.

Max and Tanya in the line

I guess the buddy system isn’t so bad when I get paired with Tanya. She won’t look at me though. In fact, she hasn’t spoken a word since the Mongolian Death Worm thing. She’s always going on about weird stuff like that. She knows more useless facts than anyone I know, even my dad — and he’s a history professor. I mean, I like to read. I even have favorite novels like The Little Prince. But Tanya reads encyclopedias for fun. Who does that?

Today, she carried a huge book, flipping the pages randomly while we waited in front of the zoo gates for Pal Palych to get organized. With her nose stuck in that book, I could watch her without her knowing.

Tanya reads as she walks

Okay, I’ll be honest. She isn’t a whole ten centimeters taller than me. Maybe only one or two. It just feels that way. When she turns her big, brown eyes on me, I feel small. And on the rare occasion that she smiles my way, I feel tall enough to touch the sky.

I guess you could say, Diary, I’ve got a bit of a crush on Tanya. I’ve never told anyone that, not even my best friend Alex. And it’s going to stay that way because to Tanya, I’m a lower form of life. I probably rank somewhere below her precious Mongolian Death Worm. Maybe just above a slug, if that.

Max things of Tanya’s priorities

Pal Palych came around with a bunch of red strings, which he tied to our wrists. This was our ticket to get into the zoo. Another one of Pal Palych’s favorite tricks is the deputy. Every time we have a special event, he nominates a deputy-teacher from the Pioneer leaders, his usual go-to girls and boys.

Today, the deputy was Alex, and he took the job seriously. He stood beside Pal Palych with a clipboard and checked off names as we stood in our two lines beside the bus. Really? How could we be missing people already? We hadn’t been anywhere yet except the bus stop.

If he weren’t my best friend, I’d say Alex Toporov was a brown-nose. He even had a whistle on a string around his neck, hanging above his crisply pressed Pioneer tie. The whistle was as red as the tie. In his snow-white shirt and stark black pants, he looked like one of those perfect Soviet kids they put on school corridor posters.

Alex is helping Pap Palych

Okay, people, Pal Palych said. We’ve got two hours to see the whole zoo.

Pal Palych, do you know if we’ll see the tortoise? Tanya asked. I read that he’s turning a hundred and fifteen this week. We should stop and wish him a happy birthday.

Turtle’s birthday

Pal Palych raised one eyebrow at her. It was a good look for him. I figured after another twenty years of teaching, he’d have it perfected.

Two hours, Tanya Nosova. Two hours to see fifty-nine species; two hundred and forty-six animals altogether. Deputy Alex nudged him, held up a pamphlet, and whispered something. My mistake. Make that two hundred and fifty-eight animals. It seems the naked mole rats have had babies. But if we see the tortoise, Tanya Nosova, we’ll be sure to wish him a happy birthday. Now let’s move out, people!

I grabbed Alex’s whistle just as he put it to his mouth.

Max grabs Alex’s whistle

Don’t do that, I said. You’re only deputy for the day. Try to have some friends left by the end of it.

Alex laughed. Deputy today; world leader tomorrow, Max. You wait and see.

It’s hard to stay mad at Alex, and I don’t doubt that one day, he will be leading some world organization that distills drinking water from sewage for kids in Africa. He’s that kind of guy.

Tanya and I ended up last in the line of buddies marching towards the zoo entrance, partly because I wanted to stay far away from Deputy Alex and his whistle and partly because Tanya read as she walked.

Apparently, the zoo pamphlet with a guided walking tour wasn’t enough. Tanya also had to read that massive book about rare animals that she had brought from the library. I thought she’d leave it in the bus, but she didn’t. I hoped she wouldn’t get tired lugging it around all day because then I’d have to do the polite thing and offer to carry it.

I worried that she’d trip since she wasn’t paying attention to where she was walking. That would be kind of cool — not that I wanted her to fall, mind you. But if she tripped, it would be my duty as her buddy to save her. I’d swoop in, like the mambo dancer I’d seen on TV, and catch her in my arms just before she hit the ground. Then we’d snap upright and twirl to applause from the crowd. I could almost hear the music.

Max imagines dancing with Tanya

It says here that naked mole rats are native to East Africa. Tanya read as she walked. They live in underground clusters in a social hierarchy like bees. They have a queen and workers.

Fascinating, I said, and quickly held a branch out of the way before Tanya walked into it. It was a smooth move, if I say so myself. Too bad Tanya was too engrossed in her book to notice. At least she was talking to me again.

Tanya narrated the rest of our trip with tidbits of information from her book: Giraffes have only seven neck bones, just like humans. Wolves mate for life. Kangaroos can jump three times their height. Even the common deer merited a fact from Tanya’s book: The difference between antlers and horns is that antlers are shed every year and grow back.

Tanya talks about her facts

Now you might think that Tanya Nosova is an annoying know-it-all, but actually, I liked hearing about the animals. And, after a while, she forgot I was even there. She just blurted out facts that interested her. Until we reached the fox pen. The single grey fox paced his cage in agitation. And he smelled terrible, like rotten food and pee mixed together. He seemed very unhappy. His sharp eyes darted back and forth. Long, grey ears were perked up, listening, listening, listening. For what? I couldn’t tell. Maybe for a sound only the fox could hear.

The fox in its pen

Tanya lowered her book for the first time. What do you think is wrong with him?

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed, I said.

What does that mean?

"It’s a quote from my favorite book, The Little Prince."

We read it in class last year. Most of my friends hated it. Too much nonsense talk, Alex had said. I loved it, though. I read it again over the summer, twice. I wished I could visit the stars like the little prince. Actually, I wished I could visit anywhere but boring old Belsk, the dead town where we lived. Nothing ever happened here. But with the little prince, I could dream of roses growing on stars or the land of tears. And the little prince always had important things to say, even about foxes.

I like it. Tanya smiled. Do you know any other lines?

I think I’m in love.

The last stop of the trip was supposed to be the Siberian tiger lair, but Tanya and I never got there. As we passed the bat exhibit, she grabbed my arm and held us back until the rest of the group had disappeared around the corner.

Look! She pointed at the entrance to the bat exhibit. A big sign said, CLOSED FOR RENOVATIONS. We should go take a look, said Tanya. We’ll have the bats all to ourselves.

She headed for the door, but I didn’t follow.

Max and Tanya fall behind

Up ahead, I could hear the faint call of Pal Palych — Come on, people! — and Deputy Alex’s strident whistle. We were already too far behind. I didn’t want to get into trouble. But I also didn’t want Tanya to think I was a wimp. I could be wild and crazy sometimes, right? I could