Kill Marguerite and Other Stories (2 page)

Whoosh, whoosh. Back and forth.

Caty and Alex swing over the creek as Marguerite crosses her arms over her Girls Rule Boys Drool crop top and stops a few feet in front of where Kim and Ray and Brendan and Matt are standing. Marguerite's long blond hair is twisted into a topsytail, the kind Caty always fucks up so it ends up crooked and impossible. But Marguerite knows these things, they come second nature, along with her evil demeanor. Hey look at that. Marguerite's evil
demeanor
is
demeaning, mean
, and
demon
-like, all at the same time. Caty is going to win the spelling bee if it kills her, but this is unfortunately only a momentary respite r-e-s-p-i-t-e from the nagging fear that Marguerite is almost definitely about to ruin Caty's life again.

Marguerite saunters to the edge of the overhang and puts her hands on her hips while she watches Caty and Alex swing back and forth, back and forth, and Caty just knows she is thinking of doing something mean. But then Ray, who has a huge crush on Ellie, and who hopes he can get her on the rope swing with him soon, yells out, “Y'all! Quit hogging it!” and sidles over to Ellie and Marguerite until Alex and Caty get off. Caty breathes a sigh of relief when she is off the rope swing and out of Marguerite's line of sight. Marguerite will choose someone else to pick on today, she guesses. Praise God.

Caty's stomach rumbles, saying it's time for her mid-afternoon snack. Lunch at school is so early. So as everyone hoots and hollers at Ellie and Ray on the rope swing, Caty grabs her baloney-and-cheese sandwich from her backpack and goes off a few yards to sit down and eat it.

She is just two bites in when Marguerite in her stupid tiny crop top starts making pig noises and saying “Feed
me” in a high-pitched taunt just within Caty's earshot so Caty knows she is making fun of her, but Marguerite can just shrug and say “What?” when Caty looks at her accusingly.

Then everyone laughs, even Alex. Even Kim.

And you know, Caty has had a bad day at school and she is sick of this elementary-school bullcrap and aren't they in middle school now, after all? So for once she's not going to take it any more, she's going to say something, stand up for herself, instead of just playing dumb. So she says, quietly, into her sandwich:

“Bitch.”

Everyone stops. Shelly and Ray hop off the rope swing, knowing something big's about to hit. For a moment, Caty glows with pride.

Then Marguerite stomps over, rage scowled across her delicate face, and shoves Caty hard so she is flat on her back in the dirt. Mmmph.

“What'd you call me?”

Caty observes snatches of dusk through the trees.

“Someone's talking to you, fatso.” Marguerite kicks at Caty's sneakers and leans over into her face. “Try again. What'd you call me?”

“Nothing,” Caty mumbles and looks away.

“Bullshit, fatso.” Marguerite straightens. “Hey, Shelly, hold her down. Let's pull up her shirt. Let's see her blubber. Let's see if she wears a bra for her fat little blubbery boobies.” Shoot. Caty's not wearing a bra—her mom says she's too young. Still reeling from being pushed into the dirt, she protests and tries clumsily to get up—but Shelly is already kneeling on her shins and Marguerite is straddling her torso, yanking Caty's shirt up over her face.

“Aww...look at the fat baby's lumps of lard.” Marguerite jabs Caty's left breast with a stick.

Caty cries out and tries again to get up. No use. Marguerite prods the other breast, then moves to Caty's stomach, poking and prodding it with the stick. Caty whimpers.

“Crybaby,” Marguerite says.

Everyone laughs as Caty flails around. She is a beached whale. A shapeless turd. A fat cow. Then Riley bursts through the trees running. He leaps from the edge of the overhang to grab the rope swing in mid-air. Marguerite gets up. “Showoff!” she yells. So everyone goes over to watch Riley, leaving Caty in the dirt to pull her shirt down and breathe in deep. She sits up. They've stomped her half-eaten sandwich into a gross dirty turd. For a minute Caty just sits, holding in the tears, staring at them all as they hoot and holler at Riley, who is climbing up the rope swing while it's swinging, a dangerous, badass thing to do. Kim turns and makes eye contact, mouthing the word Sorry. Caty looks away.

Eventually she gets up, slinks over to her bike, plunks her fat ass on it, and pedals numbly away.

So there is Caty, riding her old, outgrown mountain bike furiously, all the way from the rope swing to her house, which is a pretty long way, you know, the two being on opposite ends of the neighborhood. Caty is pedaling fast as her thick legs will pedal, her purple handlebar streamers jerking violently to the rhythm of her legs. She is just one sniffle away from crumpling into ugly-crying-fat-girl face, and she wants to get home quick before she succumbs, because then the whole neighborhood will think she's a big fat crybaby, just like Marguerite says,
even though Caty has been told lots of times that she is actually very mature for a twelve-year-old.

As she pedals, she passes Kim's house, which is right across the street from the Thurwoods. She can't believe Kim just stood there and let them do that to her, Caty, Kim's BFF. And Caty knows if she tries to make her feel bad about it, Kim will act like they were just having fun, why does Caty have to take things so personally all the time? Well, when did Kim get so utterly clueless. And why did Marguerite and Shelly have to move here in the first place! Caty bites her lip and stands on her pedals to make it up the big hill.

Before They moved here it was just Caty and Kim, who were like total BFFs, and everything was magic. They'd go over to each other's houses after school every day, and they'd trade stickers and build tree forts and hunt crawdads and pretend they were dogs and detectives and R&B stars. Then one day a few months ago Caty went over to Kim's house to watch
The Birds
again and found two other girls there: Marguerite and Shelly Thurwood, from Long Island, who'd just moved into the McAllisters' old house across the street from Kim. And when Caty walked into Kim's bedroom, she saw all of Kim's sticker stuff laid out on the carpet, she hadn't even waited for Caty, and Kim sitting with a smile on her face and one hand extended towards Marguerite, and in Kim's hand was—Caty still can't believe it—it was the huge limited edition Lisa Frank leopard sticker that Caty had been eyeing for months! And Marguerite didn't even have any stickers to trade for it.

Caty stood there gaping as Kim chirped, “Now you can start your
own
sticker collection!”

Marguerite rolled her eyes. “Hey, wanna make friendship bracelets?”

“Sure!” Kim didn't get the sarcasm. “I've got tons of stuff.”

Caty knocked on the open door to announce herself.

Kim looked up. “Hey Caty! Marguerite, Shelly—this is my friend Caty.”

Just “friend.” Not “best friend forever.” Caty's face fell. She fingered her half of their BFF necklace and slipped it under her shirt. Marguerite took one look at Caty and scooted closer to Shelly and Kim so there was no room for Caty in the circle.

It's been like that ever since.

And the worst is that Marguerite and Shelly are both just as skinny and little as Kim, and so now Caty is Fat, even though she's only fat just a little bit, it's just a little extra, and according to Caty's cousin June, who is a real teenager, well, she says that lots of boys like that, especially when the extra's around the bum area, which Caty's is, so take that Marguerite, you flat-assed prepubescent.

Yeah. Caty glowers at the road ahead. Take that.

Caty is being a lameass turd, Caty thinks, and decides to turn around and tell Marguerite off once and for goddamned all.

So she turns her bike around, not bothering to slow down, she is impatient for vengeance, you know, and the front tire goes off the road and snags the edge of the asphalt, oh no, and Caty saves herself by swerving to the side real quick and uh-oh, there is a minivan in her way. It is an Aerostar, going fast, looks like Mrs. Dabbieri in the driver's seat and yep, it is, as Caty's head goes right through the windshield, and one of Caty's hearts starts to tremble, and Mrs. Dabbieri is looking mighty surprised
and then Mrs. Dabbieri gets bloodspattered bright red as Caty's neck is slit open by the glass.

Caty has died.

LEVEL ONE: THE ROPE SWING

BEGIN>> So they are at the rope swing, swinging, and there is Caty again, getting Hot and Heavy with Alex while straddling him on the wooden seat.

And there are Marguerite and Shelly, sauntering into the clearing from the woods.

And Caty knows what is going to happen but she just lets it play again because she is psyching herself up to kick Marguerite in the goddamn head as soon as she gets close. So she just watches while Marguerite saunters to the edge of the overhang and glares at Caty and Alex, all so very amused, all so very what-have-we-here. And when Ray yells out “Hey y'all! Quit hogging!” Caty anticipates Marguerite's distraction and kicks her leg out furiously in Marguerite's direction, aiming to make contact with her head.

But all she gets is Marguerite's topsytail sliding silky smooth over her hi-top, and now she's losing her balance. There she goes, backward, down, off the rope swing and into the goshdarn dirt. Oof, that hurt. Kim and Brendan cover their mouths and try to hide their laughter. Alex gets off the rope swing to ask if she's okay.

Marguerite touches the back of her head and looks around suspiciously.

“She was trying to kick you!” Shelly cries, pointing her riding crop at Caty.

“Oh yeah?” Marguerite says, and stomps over to Caty on the ground.

Caty sits up and examines her scraped elbow. She pays no attention to Marguerite.

So Marguerite shoves her down in the dirt and the same scene plays out a second time: Feed me, feed me, oink, oink, oink. Caty squirming as Marguerite pokes her thick breasts and stomach, and she can't get loose until Riley flies through the clearing and distracts them.

Then Caty, forgetting all about vengeance, pulls down her shirt and gets up, brushing herself off and trying to regain her dignity. Sniffling, she walks back to the trail to get her bike and leave.

By the time she gets there, her embarrassment has turned to anger. Caty is mad at Marguerite. Caty is mad at herself.

Caty picks up her bike and Marguerite's piercing voice repeats in her mind—Feed me, Feed me. It reminds her of that recurring dream she has all the time with the popsicles in the freezer. In the dream Caty opens the freezer door and all of the popsicles, there are lots, all different colors, the freezer is full of popsicles, and they all yell at her, shrieking Eat me Eat me, and the pitch of their voices gets higher and higher and louder and louder until it's unbearable and Caty wakes in a sweat thinking her eardrums are shattered and the popsicles will kill her for sure. The popsicles, the popsicles, they scream and scream. And Caty now sitting on her bike with crumple-face wonders why doesn't she ever just slam the freezer door shut in the dream, why does she just stand there and let the popsicles scream and scream, why does she let them do that?

Shut the door on the popsicles, Caty. Shut the goddamn bitchass door once and for goddamn all motherfucker.

Caty sets down her bike. She balls up her fists and turns heel, marching back to the clearing. She hides behind a tree and listens to Kim and Marguerite practice The Ugly Song on Brendan. “You ugly. You ugly. Yo momma say you ugly.” But everyone knows Brendan isn't really ugly and actually Kim has kind of a thing for him and she and Marguerite are just flirting while Shelly and Ray swing on the rope swing whoosh, whoosh, back and forth over Swift Creek.

“No, fathead, you don't clap there.”

Marguerite is being loud and bossy as usual. But, Caty thinks from her spy position, we'll see how loud and bossy she is when Caty explodes through the woods to obliterate her skank ass. Caty's hands are sweating. Should she?

“U. G. L. Y. You ain't got no alibi.”

Shut the freezer door! Caty zooms forward and pushes Marguerite down into the dirt. Kim backs away and Marguerite tries to get up but Caty grabs her topsytail and yanks with all her strength. Marguerite cries out in pain, then pulls Caty's legs out from under her. Caty falls, oof, on her bum, but she manages to get up before Marguerite does. Then whoosh. Shelly and Ray swing into Caty and snag her armpits with their tangle of sneakers, and now she is whooshing back and forth, back and forth over Swift Creek with them, her body hanging in the damp autumn air, her torso lodged between sneakers, and then Shelly shifts just a little because Caty's chin is digging into her shin and there goes Caty into Swift Creek Reservoir, dropped at a very wrong place to be dropped. She hits her head on a rock and there she goes, one of her hearts explodes.