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Her name was Madison Penrose, and she frankly deserved much worse.
Madison’s life was largely a series of extracurricular activities designed to look good on a college application. Her mother started hunting for preschool places before her first ultrasound. By second grade, she was spelling bee champion, hogged choir solos, and placed in under-ten gymnastics. Swimming had been a bit of a non-starter, though—the chlorine made her skin break out. It was a shame. She liked swimming, but nobody was holding rallies in rivers or ponds.
Plenty of activities, very few hobbies, most of which consisted of venting the formless anger constantly broiling inside her at weaker children at school. Weaker children and—what was her name again? Was she blonde? Suzanna Something? Madison swore she could remember having playdates with her. Madison had told her mother she’d broken one of their nice plates, because Madison had been jealous of her mother.
It didn’t matter. What did matter was that Madison’s life sucked now. First her clothes had melted. That might not have been so bad—even pure cotton didn’t entirely agree with Maddison—but it’d been in class. And the rash! Soon as it started fading, she started getting acne, and she wasn’t even ten. Her hair was falling out! Now instead of activities, she had doctors.
Her parents still made her go to school, though, no matter how much Madison screamed and kicked on the way. Now kids were making fun of her, in complete defiance of the natural order. Even Julie and Sandy. They were supposed to be her friends. They were stupid and useless, but that was their function. And that weird new boy—Eric, his name was—kept looking at her like he felt sorry for him. It was like being pitied by a special-ed kid.
And then, when the teacher asked her what six times five was, frogs had fallen out of her mouth! She’d fled into the girls’ room and locked herself in a stall, where tears possessed her like a weird, alien parasite. Madison wasn’t supposed to cry. That was other people’s job.
