There was a monster in the town of Checkerberry. While it had managed to survive right under each of the occupants' noses, there wasn't a doubt that it was there. Maxine Anderson and her friends would be the only people to ever know this.

It all began in the summer of 1985...

The horrible, nasty, disgusting summer of 1985.

It was the cherry on top of a year that already sucked.

Even though she had such little experience with the world, Maxine was already bitter with an adult's hate toward everyone and everything. She was pessimistic, as her mom had once put it—and it was true. Hell, she didn't even care that her own birthday lurked just around the corner. She was too caught up in thinking about how miserable her life was that the idea of a birthday hadn't even crossed her mind.

One thought in particular made her mind throb:

Uncle George.

She refused to believe that they were blood relatives. How could a sophisticated person like her and her mother be related to a smelly, beer-breathed hillbilly? He was dumb and ugly! Even though he hadn't even made it through high school, he invested all of his spare money to collecting college hats... Key word: college! As if that wasn't bad enough by itself, the one that he wore 24/7 reminded Maxine of her uncle himself—if was both hideous and the idiotic (way to kill two birds with one stone, George!). The yellow-on-green-on-blue wasn't at all flattering under any circumstances, and the fact that it read "CSU" was borderline pitiful. It stood for "Checkerberry State University..."

Now, what's wrong with that?

Checkerberry wasn't a state.

Maxine's eyes flicked up to the port she hid under. She kept her gaze locked on the squiggly, Ramen-Noodle-shaped spindles of light dancing on the wood a couple yards over her head, and she tucked up her legs to her chest as a salty breeze blew right into her face.

I probably look like an orphan, she thought with a half-smile. Sitting under a port, all alone, unaccompanied by any legal adult... I wonder...

As she fantasized about being taken away from her uncle (and perhaps going to live off somewhere exotic— like Thailand or Puerto Rico), she had hardly noticed the young boy who had made his way behind her... much less, the fact that he was grinning and waiting for the best moment to startle her.

"Are you lost or something?"

When Maxine had heard that prepubescent voice, she kicked up to her feet and turned around so fast that she nearly got whiplash.

"Oh, sweet Jesus!"

She was quick to get into a karate pose that she had somehow remembered from a self-defense class from so long ago... however, when she realized that it was just an idiotic boy her age and not a threat, her fear subsided and snowballed into annoyance.

"I'm not lost," she said with a scoff, crossing her arms over her chest. Her hair and sweaty scalp was covered by an (orange) hat, and as a nervous habit, her index finger and thumb pressed onto the fraying edge. "I come here all the time."

"No, you don't," the boy retorted plainly, mimicking that same scoff that she had given him. "I come here all the time— and I've never seen you before."

"Yeah? And?"

Maxine stood her ground as her eyes narrowed, as if she was trying to stare down the kid, and she was just waiting for "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" music to start playing as she placed her hands on her hips. She was beyond ready for a cowboy standoff. "You don't own this place."

"I do actually," the boy shrugged.

The ground crunched as the boy kicked a handful (or top-of-a-sneaker's full) of pebbles up into the air, and he bit back a laugh. "Since the first grade."

That took Maxine by surprise.

"Wait... Really?"

The boy gave a nod.

This did two things: it convinced her and made her curious.

She turned around to face him, squinting now only because the sun was reflecting right into her eyes, and she wiped her forehead with the back of her hand. "How did you get it?"

"I came here first," he shrugged. He sauntered over to poorly-put-together pieces of driftwood (which were assumedly a couch, or... something) before picking out a seagull feather left on the seat. "My friends and I have land all over Checkerberry... I just got the best spot – and you, Madame, are intruding."

As opposed to focusing on the fact that she broke the (unspoken) rules of the town, she made a face right when he had called her "Madame."

"'Madame?' Ew!" she said with an exaggerated gag. It wasn't at all an offensive word—probably polite to those of French monarchy and whatnot—but nonetheless, she feigned offense anyway. "How old do I look to you?"

"About a billion years old, Madame," the boy said with a smirk, looking quite pleased with himself and his witty comeback. He was quick to realize that the girl seemed to be bugged by the word. It was a little funny to him, actually—especially when her face seemed to go red with frustration. Her fists balled up at her sides, and after drawing in quite a deep breath, she decided against pummeling his face in and, instead, tried to taunt him with a snarky remark.

"I'm only turning eleven in a couple of weeks," she said with a slight frown. She was trying quite hard to hide the smirk that wanted to curl in her lips, so instead, she decided to hide it with a sneer. "So what does that make you? A billion and a half?"

She was quite proud of that remark. Even though it was not—and probably never would be—regarded as a good comeback by moody teenagers and adults alike (or just about anybody), Maxine was pleased.

Even the boy smiled with entertainment.

"No. I'm eleven years old already, so I'm older.... But still. I like you." His hands tucked away into the pockets of his a size-too-big jeans and fumbled with crumbs, paperclips, old lollipop sticks, wrappers, and whatever else a boy would have in there. He more casual than usual, if that was even possible. "So... because I like you, I won't kick you out. Even though you're clearly intruding."

Maxine made a face (again). Her head pulled back and her eyebrows scrunched together... she tried to muster up whatever confusion she could, just so she could more realistically look the part

"Why aren't you going to kick me out?"

"First off, you're a girl," he shrugged. He took his hands out of his pockets, wiping them on the light-washed denim that he wore around his hips, and he plopped down on the driftwood bench-slash-couch that he had loitered by. He kicked off his flip flops so that he could put his feet into the gooey sand, and before he knew it, the waves were washing up to his feet. He smiled when Maxine didn't even notice. "And second off, you're funny."

When he said each of these things, he held up a total of nubby fingers, which seemed to have nails bitten down to the core.

"What? I wasn't joking about you being a billion and a half," Maxine said. She kept a straight face for a moment, her expression unmoving as she stared the boy down, although her lips broke into a smile when her serious facade dissipated. She was just joking about being serious.

The boy and the girl shared the same sense of humor. In fact, for the first time in her miserable summer in Checkerberry, she laughed.

It wasn't a guffaw—hardly even a giggle—but it was just enough for her to feel just a little bit happy.

The boy grinned.

"See? Funny..." he chuckled. "I'm Max, by the way."

He held a hand out for her to shake.

Maxine blinked a few times, staring at his hand with that blank stare that had been expressed on her face just before.

"Your name is Max," she stated in utter disbelief, almost as if she was repeating the most absurd statement she had ever heard. Her eyebrow had perched up on her forehead, almost as if it had a mind of his own, and she stared at "Max" as if she had watched him take off all of his clothing and eat it. Her head was pulled back again and her lips were pressed into a line, and she had made the very face she would if she had heard an obscure and simply unbelievable fact (like when she figured out that wombats pooped in cubes).

"Yeah," Max shrugged, picking away at splintering chunks of wood as he seemed just as confused as his counterpart... Of course, his confusion had manifested itself in an entirely different way, involving a false sense of indifference and a sliced hand sooner or later. "It's not that weird of a name, you know— it's gone down in my family ever since my great-great-great-great grandpa."

That was true... For him, at least. The name "Max" (just "Max"— not "Maximus" or "Maxwell" or anything of the such) was passed down like a family heirloom.

"But I'm Max," Maxine said.

It was almost as if their entire expression of  confused faces had switched completely.

"You're just saying that," Max— the boy Max— said.

"No," Maxine said. She took off her baseball cap (the only one she swore wasn't a hand-me-down from her uncle... even though it was the one she hated the most) and, sure enough, the name had been scribbled on the inside in quite large letters. The bleeding sharpie began to rub off because of sweat and the amount of her scalp rubbing against it, and the letters— which had blurred to become nearly unreadable at this point— spelled out the name in far from perfect handwriting.

The girl's finger (which would surely be covered in "stylish rings" by the next year) pointed out the evidence.

Seems legit... right?

"What's your full name?" Boy Max asked, tilting his head. He still seemed skeptical.

"Maxine Louise Anderson," the girl said, pushing the hideously orange cap right back into head. Her chin-length hair seemed to flatten right back against her head... while it wasn't uncontrollable, it was an absolute rat's nest, and she'd rather have a sweaty baseball cap covering the absolute mess of hair she felt too lazy to brush in the morning.

"Okay," Boy Max said with a nonchalant shrug. "I'm just going to call you Maxine, then."

"What? Gross! I hate being called that!"

"It's your name, isn't it?"

His brilliant eyes were saturated with amusement, and behind that deadpan expression was a petite smirk threatening to play on his lips... it almost hurt not to let it go on his face.

It frustrated Maxine more than anything. She hated being called by her real name enough as it was... but she absolutely despised that it was from a boy who said it just because he wanted her to be annoyed.

"Yeah, but—" Maxine started, although she was interrupted by the boy running his mouth again.

"Exactly, Madame Maxine," he grinned. Due to her uncomfortable shifting and the glare of supposed hellfire teeming in her eyes, he could tell that he had gotten under her skin. To say that he was proud would be an understatement; he was superfluous with pride, simply because he had made a girl so annoyed to the point that she looked as if she would punch him.

"Whatever," Maxine murmured. She let out an elongated sigh, almost as if her anger would somehow deflate along with her lungs, although she tensed up right again as he grinned. Each of his teeth glimmered as he did so, and for a moment, she had fallen right back into the state of almost erupting with the urge to punch his face right in.

This would only ever be considered love to eleven-year-old kids.

As if the driftwood bench had been entirely forgotten by Maxine, Boy Max patted the spot directly next to him, indicating that she should grab a seat and watch the iris-burning water with. It was the first time in his life that he offered anything of the such...

However, Maxine had no idea how rare of an offer that was, and she was quick to turn her nose up and pivot on her heel. The way she acted was almost the exaggerated version of an adult (or teenager, depending on the maturity of Checkerberry's occupants) giving what is internationally known as "the silent treatment."

"Come on, just sit down, you dumb head," Boy Max said... as if he expected her to be willing to take a seat next to him. After he went out of his way to annoy and taunt her? Ha! That was hilarious.

"I don't trust you."

Boy Max felt like he was hit in the face. He had not once invited a person— a girl, no less— to sit down with him, and now, he just got the silent treatment. Most people would freak out at such an offer. But Maxine being indifferent?

He hated that.

"You don't trust me?" he asked. In a way, when the pitch of his voice went up an entire octave and nearly broke before he had even reached puberty. It was clear that he was hurt... or at the very least, really good at faking it. "Why not?"

Maxine gave a sarcastic chuckle laced with a scoff... it almost sounded like she was choking.

"You called me 'Madame Maxine,' and I hardly even know you well enough to let you go on teasing me like that."

Boy Max frowned. Instead of trying to coax her into the probably painful, sand-covered, splintering driftwood seat, he stood up and made his way next to the girl as he reached into his pocket again.

How deep did those things even go?

In a young girl's mind, she was almost certain that it had gone up to his elbow— though the baggy pockets truly went up to just about his forearm. Maxine was curious... What business would a boy have giving her something from out of his pocket?

In reality, he was just about to trade her.

She didn't think she had anything that he was after, so when the thought briefly went into mind, she brushed it off and went onto thinking of other possibilities... and even though she wouldn't offer anything for him to take, he just wanted one, non-materialistic thing: her friendship.

He pulled out a rabbit's foot. It was brown, petite (though because it was of such value to a child, it seemed larger than life), and it fit snugly in the palm of his hand... to be frank, the charm would have been a great trade back in her hometown.

It was a great trade here, too.

"Take this," Boy Max said. He dangled up the chocolate-brown rabbit's foot before he had dropped it right into Maxine's hand, and of course, she accepted it without protest. "Then we can be friends... And then eventually fall in love."

He flashed a cheeky smile. Even though Maxine didn't at all plan on falling in love with or get married to the boy, she accepted the token—what sane kid wouldn't accept such a valuable charm? Much less, without having to pay anything at all?

"Alright... Fine. We have a deal," she said with a half-smile. It hardly curled her lips, not even to the point where the annoying dimple in her left cheek showed, but it was a smile nonetheless... after all, the token was enough for her to change her mind completely. "We can be friends— if, only if, you promise that you're gonna be friends with me, too."

Boy Max grinned. It was just now hat Maxine realized how wonderful of a smile the boy had—even though his adult teeth had jutted out, being just a tad bit too big for the mouth that held them, they were near perfectly straight and well-taken care of. He sort of won the genetic lottery.

"It's a deal."

That was supposed to be the beginning of a life-long friendship...

But it didn't exactly work out that way.