Kill Marguerite and Other Stories Read Free Page A

and Marguerite end their cheer with their hands on their hips, all attitude, all sassified with themselves, and this has got to be the exact right moment, Caty thinks, so she screams “Bite me you bitch,” and she shoots and she jumps and she shoots and she jumps again.
    Wrong button.
    Her cover’s blown. Marguerite is whipping a grenade launcher from her back pocket, what! This is Caty’s game! But Caty is figuring out her buttons and quick before Marguerite can get her first, Caty aims at the throat of the grenade launcher as Marguerite lines it up with Caty’s head, and Caty shoots, BAMMMM, and the grenade launcher explodes, right in Marguerite’s face, and Marguerite disintegrates into a pile of dust.
    Ding-ding-ding-ding! LEVEL COMPLETE!
    Caty’s arms go up in slow-motion champion mode. The world fades out.

BONUS ROUND: SIXTH PERIOD

    Caty is in Science class, dissecting a frog with her partner Betty Finn. Caty is wearing turquoise jeans and an itchy sweater and her gun is stuffed in the training bra she bought after the rope swing. Next to them, Christopher Smith is popping out his frog’s eyeballs and saying “Hey Caty, dare me to eat these?” And Caty’s saying, “No.” But he eats them anyway, after repeating more loudly his “Hey Caty, dare me to eat these?” and getting everyone else’s attention, and everyone’s like Ew, gross, Christopher Smith and Caty’s like “[Eyeballs rolling in head].” Then he says “Hmm,” and belches and waves the smell around the room, but especially at Caty.
    And everyone is laughing, that ridiculous freakish kind of laugh that doesn’t seem like it’ll ever end, ever, and then Marguerite who is an office aide this period, enters the room and everyone just sort of stops. The guys they are all like Ohhhh Marguerite she is so Pretty, and the girls are all fidgeting like Ohhh Marguerite do you think she thinks I’m Cool? Except for Caty who knows Marguerite must be destroyed.
    Marguerite hands Mrs. Gill the slip she has come to deliver, then walks back to the door. Just as everyone is going back to their frog dissections and Mrs. Gill is waving the slip of paper at Howard Grey, Marguerite slinks overto Caty and Betty Finn and leans against the lab counter with her arms across her chest.
    â€œHiya, Betty,” says Marguerite, and Betty’s all like Gee whiz, Marguerite Thurwood likes me wow! And Betty smoothes her hair and smiles and says Hi back, and Marguerite says “So, Betty,” and now she has an audience, “aren’t you afraid Blubberbutt here is gonna eat your frog? I can hear her stomach growling from Guidance.”
    And Marguerite makes smacking noises and pretends to burp before erupting into snickers. Betty looks down at her specimen’s split-open stomach.
    Turning to Caty, Marguerite lowers her voice. “It’s you and me after school, fatty. The trampoline. So like be there or die .” She picks up the frog by its paper towel and pushes it at Caty. “Eat me, eat me,” she snickers, and after Caty takes the frog lamely, because it has been handed to her, Marguerite saunters out of the classroom, her laughter ricocheting off lockers, like MWAH HA HA, like all the evil villains in all the cartoons that have ever been made, her topsytail swishing behind her.
    Something glittery catches Caty’s eye. She looks at the frog and sees that its heart is bright red and beating hard and strong. Oh, goody. Caty knows what to do. She picks up the frog and eats it. Ba-da-dum-chime! It tastes like preserved swamp, but in the swallowing she has earned a new heart, so take that, Marguerite, you’re dead fucking meat.
    And everyone is like dumbfounded and then retardedly hysterical over Caty’s public feasting, but it’s way beyond what everyone else thinks now, Caty thinks. Mrs. Gill asks Caty if she’s all right and Caty just glares