Kill Marguerite and Other Stories Read Free Page B

at her, burps really hard, and waits for the bell to ring.

LEVEL TWO: THE TRAMPOLINE

    BEGIN>> The trampoline is this big old trampoline in Matt and Curtis Wheeler’s backyard, and it’s surrounded by woods on pretty much all sides, which is why it’s so dangerous if you were to jump wrong or get pushed—you could go right into a tree, you know, and your whole face’d get slogged off by bark. It used to be fun and safe when Caty and Kim were in their heaviest BFF stage, when Kim liked Matt and Caty liked Curtis and they jumped and laughed and poked each other, and the boys doublejumped the girls to get them to go higher. Then Marguerite and Ellie moved in, you know, and that was the end of that. Everyone started getting rough and mean and tried to push each other into trees all the time, which Caty didn’t like, not one bit.
    But now she has an extra heart and a gun, and is dressed in her brother’s camo, and so Caty is stealth magic. She decides to check out the scene before she makes herself known since she is smart like that. So she goes the back way through the woods to get to the trampoline, and tries to be quiet and not step on twigs, which are always so loud and revealing, especially when you’re Fat like Caty.
    So Caty is crouched low a few trees back and surveying the scene. Shelly and Kim are there, plus the Wheelers, Riley, Alex, Brendan, and Ray.
    Suddenly the air beats red and the birds turn into exclamation points flying across the sky. Caty tenses. Marguerite slinks out of the Wheelers’ house in black spandex ninja gear, handling some nunchucks and other ninja stuff, and Caty is like Uh-oh and Oh shit, perhaps she has underestimated her enemy.
    â€œOh Caty...Caty Caty fugly lady, how does your stomach grow?... Come out and fight, you fat chicken... Aww, is the fat chicken worried she’ll break the trampoline?” Marguerite whooshes her nunchucks around expertlike and heck no, gun or no gun, Caty’s not going in there.
    She’s in the process of backing away when she hears a gentle jingle coming from the action arena. Look, up there, in the tree above the trampoline, right above Marguerite’s head, something glittery. Could it be... Superpowers? Caty zooms in—yes. Lodged in a big tree branch is a jetpack.
    The game has now changed entirely.
    So Caty pauses and wonders how she might grab the rocket pack without Marguerite strangling her with her nunchucks. Caty stands a minute, her mind chewing hard on this dilemma. And the smell of the woods is bringing back memories of last weekend, in the woods, at night, when they’d all gone camping, Marguerite, Shelly, Kim, and Caty, so deep in Marguerite and Shelly’s backyard you could barely see the light from the Thurwoods’ porch. And Caty is remembering how, when she had to go to the bathroom real bad, they wouldn’t let her take the flashlight, so she just went in the woods, close, but not close enough for them to shine the flashlight on her naked bum; and how they wouldn’t let her back in the tent afterwards until she’d gone all the way in the housein the dark to wash her hands; and how, when she got back, there was no one in the tent, no one at all, and it was really creepy like in Unsolved Mysteries. She’d zipped herself in and waited for like an hour until she got too scared and had to pee again, she’d had a lot of Sprite, you know, and so she decided to leave the tent and go back in the house to sleep, they must have all gone in after her, that was it. So she unzipped the tent zipper and cautiously stepped outside. And as soon as she was out they all flew at her from nowhere, howling and laughing and screaming. And Caty was so scared she shrieked and peed her pants and then they made fun of her all the rest of the night and made her sleep in the bathroom, on the toilet, just in case.
    And she had. Why had she done that? Why hadn’t she just...
    â€œCaty Caty