Kill Marguerite and Other Stories (4 page)

BEGIN>> Caty crawls toward the trampoline the back way again. Shelly and Kim are already there, plus the Wheelers, Riley, Alex, Brendan, and Ray, and there's Marguerite slinking out of the Wheelers' house in black spandex ninja gear, handling some nunchucks and other ninja stuff.

Caty clocks the SuperPowers sitting in the tree and deduces that the only way to get them is to use the trampoline. She breathes deep for a minute and tries to develop a strategy. She will play dumb, she decides. They're used to that. So Caty steps forward and announces herself with her hands up, and everyone ripples with excitement. She hears Brendan bet Alex loudly that she won't last two minutes, but she ignores him, breathes deep and smart and asks Marguerite with much humility if she can please please jump on the trampoline just for a few minutes to warm up, please.

Marguerite thinks for a minute. “Fine,” she says. “Just try not to piss your panties.”

So Caty steps on the wooden block and then onto the trampoline and tests it a little. She does some dumb stretches and doesn't give a crap that they are all mimicking her in their outer-trampoline circle, she's going to get her jetpack, they'll see. She jumps and she jumps and she jumps, and then she jumps high enough to
grab the branch below the jetpack and pull herself up, it is not a graceful maneuver since she has very little upper body strength, but darned if she doesn't do it, grunting all the way, and look, there she is, up in the tree in reach of her goal. Caty grabs the rocket pack and tries to put it on. A low blare sounds in her ear. Huh. She can't seem to—oh. She pulls her rifle out of her bra and stashes it in a bird's nest, then tries the jetpack again:

Chime!

Caty finds herself angling forward while the chatter below speeds up to match the accelerated soundtrack tempo. Now Caty is SuperRocketrix, and Marguerite is in big trouble.

Caty glances down to see The Enemy scrambling onto the trampoline and huffing and puffing like one of the indignant blowfish in Caty's brother's collection of dead fish and sharks.

“Uh!” Marguerite lets out and stares up at her. Caty grins from her tree branch, raises a fist, and she's off and zooming away.

She is determined to get a handle on her new powers before putting them to the test, so she tries out SuperSpeed, then aerial somersaults. She practices landing by stomping on clouds and unleashing tufts of white fuzz that rain down on her enemies.

She's ready.

Swerving away from Marguerite's flying nunchucks, Caty zooms down and lands in a somersault on the trampoline, the impact leaving Marguerite off balance so she falls hard on her bum. Marguerite bounces on the trampoline once, twice, three times, and Caty's
back up in the air showing off her new and impressive acrobatic moves, like aerial somersaults and high kicks at SuperZoom speeds.

Marguerite manages to get herself upright again. “Come down and fight, you fat bitch!” she screams.

“Why don't you come up here?” Caty taunts.

Marguerite spouts samurai stars from her mouth and Caty leaps and dives in and out of clouds to protect herself. Caty says, “Hot dang Marguerite you really know how to push my buttons,” and she says it bored-like and in control, like a supercool superhero named SuperRocketrix should.

But enough with the small talk. Shut the freezer door! Caty folds herself into SuperSpeed torpedo form and zings toward Marguerite, fist-first, kerplow, right in that precious evil face. Marguerite's eyes tremble as Caty's knuckles drive into them.

Marguerite is down.

Caty regroups. Her body flickers as she flies up and into a SuperPower Somersault and then Thunk, she lands powerfully, kneesdown on Marguerite's stupid head, which ruptures on impact, leaking all of the slimy spaghetti strands that were her thoughts and feelings.

Ding-ding-ding-ding! LEVEL COMPLETE.

Caty throws her arms up in champion mode, relishing her easy win and the proud look on Alex's face as he cheers for her, for Caty, and even mouths “I love you,” as Kim looks on approvingly. So she is totally not ready for Shelly, who comes flying at her, trying to slice up Caty's face with her fingernails. The world fades out in time.

BONUS LEVEL: AT HOME

Caty goes home and eats her dinner and her dessert and tries to persuade her mom to drive her to school tomorrow because she is afraid of the bus stop but she Has to go to school because tomorrow is the Spelling Bee, and she cries into her brownie when her mom says no. Why is Caty so upset, Caty's mother asks, and Caty blubbers about the mean girls in the neighborhood and how they'll kill her and stuff. And Caty's mom says, “Don't be so dramatic.” She turns up the TV volume. “Fine. I'll drive you. Have another brownie.”

Caty marches over to the kitchen counter where the brownie pan is, and look, a slick red heart is beating thu-thump in the middle of the pan. Caty claws it out of the pan and swallows it whole. Ba-da-dum-chime! New life.

LEVEL THREE: THE SPELLING BEE

BEGIN>> The day of reckoning. Caty is about to face off with Marguerite, Ray, and six other spelling bee contestants, three from each grade. Caty has worn a skirt for the occasion and looks Fatter than usual because she is hiding her rocket pack under a hooded sweatshirt.

As Chester Middle's student body floods the cafeteria, the nine contestants take seats in the front of the room. The other students sit on plastic circles and impatiently turn this way and that, bumping into each other on purpose. The judges, Ms. Moore and Mr. Smith, are seated in blue chairs facing the contestants.

The cafeteria stoplight turns red and bleats a loud siren noise. The students hush, and the contestants are introduced. Marguerite's applause is twice as much as everyone else's. At this, Caty scowls.

The bee begins.

Sixth-grader Harvey Jones is out first, after skipping the second d in “hundredth.” Then Ray on “subtle,” and Troy Li on “schism.” Caty flies through without difficulty. “Suffice.” “Judgment.” “Aptitude.” No sweat.

Time is moving fast. The game seems to be speeding up. Pretty soon it's just Caty and Marguerite at the front of the room. No surprise. Marguerite has gotten all the easy words.

Caty glares at her nemesis. Marguerite returns it, eyeballs flashing red.

It's Caty's turn.

“Liaison,” Mr. Smith overenunciates. “The Secretary of State acts as liaison between the United Nations and the president of the United States. Liaison.”

“Liaison. L-I-A-I-S-O-N. Liaison.” Hrmmph. Caty leaves the podium, flicking her nose in the air and walking haughtily past Marguerite to her seat.

Marguerite gets “candor.” Caty gets “perceptive.” Marguerite gets “eight.”

Caty is getting pretty steamed at how easy Marguerite's words are. So after correctly spelling “memoir,” Caty stomps on Marguerite's foot as she walks by. Marguerite winces and returns Caty's glare but otherwise doesn't crack.

Ms. Moore pronounces Marguerite's next word slowly. “Scalpel. We dissected the frog using a scalpel. Scalpel.”

Marguerite smiles confidently at the judges. “Scalpel. C—,”

She gasps. Caty gasps. She hovers over her seat, ready to correctly spell “scalpel” and move forward to win it all.

“I mean S.” Marguerite regains her confident smile. “S-C-A-L-P-E-L. Scalpel.” She beams at the judges.

Ms. Moore and Mr. Smith cover the mic and deliberate. After a moment, Mr. Smith smiles at Marguerite and says, “That is correct.”

Caty's jaw drops. Correct? She can't believe it. “Not fair!” she shouts. “This is so not fair!” She pushes her chair back and stands up. “She misspelled it!” Now she's next to Marguerite at the podium, yelling down at the judges. “Once you misspell something, you can't go back
and pretend you didn't!” She jumps up and down. “This is bullcrap! I demand a recount!”

“Shut up!” Marguerite pushes Caty to the side. “Shut up! Shut up!”

“You shut up!” Caty pushes back and turns again to the judges. She stamps her foot. “This is a total inflammation of the rules!”

“Caty, calm down,” Mr. Smith says in earnest. “You can still win.”

“But I already won! You don't get second tries in spelling bees!”

“We have made our decision, Caty,” Ms. Moore snarls. “Now take a seat.”

“But she got it wrong! Tell her she got it wrong!” Caty is so busy shouting she doesn't see Marguerite pull a spiked mace out of her back pocket and swing it straight over and into Caty's skull.

Durnnnh-durnnnh.

Caty has died.

LEVEL THREE: THE SPELLING BEE

BEGIN>> Now it's just Caty and Marguerite with Marguerite behind the podium.

“C—,” Marguerite starts and then gasps. “I mean S.”

Caty scowls as the judges give Marguerite the nod, but is determined to restrain herself this time. She won't be a whiny baby. She'll win the spelling bee anyway.

Caty's turn. “Recipe.” Easy.

At this point, the student body is becoming bored. When Marguerite stands up again, someone, probably Shelly, starts cheering, and soon everyone has joined in, cheering and whooping for Marguerite until Ms. Moore activates the stoplight siren to get them to shut up.

Caty grits her teeth. This is her game! She should be the popular one.

As Marguerite steps smugly up to the podium, this time Caty takes a good long look at her. Who is Caty fooling? Nobody cares about Caty. Nobody cares about Caty's personal vendetta, the score she has to settle. Alex doesn't really love her, and Kim is a stupid BFF anyway. Anyway, the only way to kill Marguerite is to become a better Marguerite than Marguerite is. Does Caty really want that? Yes. No. Maybe so. Yes. No. Maybe—