Max Quick: The Pocket and the Pendant (Max Quick #1)

Two: Patchwork Girl

So angry.  So angry. So angry.  So angry.  So angry.  So angry. So angry.  So angry.  So angry.  So angry. So angry.  So angry.  So 

    CASEY COLE was writing on her notebook.

     She was angry.

     For lots of reasons.

     She was a gangly girl of twelve.  She had blondish-brown hair that grew in spurts around her rather pretty and freckly face.  Her eyes were glimmering green, like two emeralds.  They were usually shy and averted.  But right now, they burned hot and furious.  She was angry because Liberty Johnson had just snuck up behind her and placed a tacky cowboy hat on her head and her vicious girl-clique laughed at the sight.

     “Howdy, Cowgirl,” Liberty jeered. 

     Casey looked down sheepishly.  She was wearing a hand-knitted yarn sweater that her Mom had made for her.  It had a crude design on it: a blocky sort of Cowboy with a lasso or something.

     “Goes with your hick sweater,” Liberty said.

     “Shut up,” Casey said bitterly.

     “You shut up,” Liberty said.  “You look like a rag doll.”

     Casey opened her mouth to retort – and then closed it, because she knew it was true.  Her fashion sense was haphazard, slap-dash.  She had to wear clothes her Mom made rather than brand names.  Her outfits were often stitched together from random bits of yarn and patches of cloth. 

     Patchwork Girl.

    “What do you care what I wear?” Casey said. 

    “Because we have to look at you,” Liberty said.  “It must suck to be poor.”

    Casey’s cheeks burned.  Humiliation of Casey accomplished, Liberty and her pack of nasties sashayed away, onto their next victim.

    And this was why Casey was So angry.

    AT LUNCH, Casey wondered whether there were actually any people she got along with at all.  She glanced up at Liberty Johnson and her pack.  Not them, obviously. 

    And she didn’t get along with the boys, either.  Bruce Cody was sitting to her right now, oblivious to her presence.  Originally, Casey had been sitting alone.  She’d had an entire table to herself. But Bruce plopped his tray down within two minutes and said, “You don’t mind, do you?” and flashed a quick dismissive grin.  He had a perfectly white smile, like a toothpaste commercial. 

     In another few seconds, Casey’s previously empty table was mobbed with Bruce’s friends.  They yukked it up and shouted at one another.  In their world, Casey was just a weird loner.  She was merely a placeholder, good only for saving a table during the lunchtime cafeteria crush. 

     None of them even made eye contact with her.

     Sometimes, there is deep darkness even in the brightest sunlight,Casey thought.

    AFTER LUNCH came recess.  The sound of screaming kids filled the air.  The staccato noise of a kickball launching off a sneaker startled Casey as she sat on the aluminum picnic table.

    Oh, there were other girls that she knew.  Girls just like herself.  But they weren’t really friends.  Of course they would nod to each other on the playground and in the halls.  Yep, there you are again, Casey thought.  You’re just like me.  We drift through the world, unseen, unknown.  Sure, we might sit down and have a talk about all this.  But why would we?  What is there to talk about, really?