just an escapee from that kitty-cat cracker factory.
Those idiots just scooped up some roadkill and wrapped its mortified carcass around a brick.
Not exactly a sociopath’s plan.
Even still, it means she’s got to handle this. She can’t have people throwing dead-cat-deliveries through the windows of her house. And this on top of the thing with the Coyne bullies.
Atlanta glances over at her mother, and the woman’s got out her clam-shell cell-phone and with trembling fingers is trying to punch in numbers. She takes two long strides over and snatches the phone out of her mother’s hands.
“No cops,” she says. “It’s just a prank. Go to bed.”
“It’s gonna get cold out here with the broken window.”
Atlanta clenches her jaw. Thinks, so fucking what you fucking scag hag jerk bitch I don’t care if your goddamn titties freeze into snowballs and fall off, but she’s not sure how much of that is her and how much of that is the angry Adderall squirrel that’s doing laps around her brain.
Instead, she says through clenched teeth, “Fine, go inside, sleep on the couch or whatever.”
Mama slinks inside like a guilty cat. One that didn’t get run over and thrown through a window.
Though she deserves that, too.
Shut up, brain.
No, you shut up.
Atlanta goes back inside to finish cleaning her room.
* * *
Next day she finds that someone has put a Hello Kitty sticker on the outside of her locker. They’ve drawn comical, oversized dicks surrounding it. Some of the dicks are jizzing little jizz bullets. Hello Kitty black marker bukkake. Underneath is the text:
DADDY WANTS DICK PUSY
PUSY presumably meaning PUSSY, but with these jackholes, who can say?
* * *
She about falls asleep in Mrs. Lewis’ class. Which does not endear the teacher toward her any more, but the Adderall is fading fast and the woman is going on and on about someone named Wilfred Owen. Even the strongest drugs cannot resist the soporific lure of World War One British poetry.
After class Mrs. Lewis tries to flag her down but Atlanta mumbles something about, “Oh, heck, I’ve got a… tooth… vasectomy… can’t stay, sorry, bye now.” And she ducks out.
And runs bodily into Chomp-Chomp.
She shoves him back and cocks a fist.
“Wait!” he hisses, wincing, ready for the hit.
Instead she grabs him by his ratty Brooks and Dunn t-shirt and drags him into the nearest open door. Which is, of course, the girls’ bathroom.
A girl with pink hair—Atlanta recognizes her, her name’s Susie but she spells it weird, Suzi or Soozie or something—yips like a spooked coyote and hurries out when she sees what’s going on.
Chomp-Chomp yelps as she jacks his buttbone against the sink.
“I didn’t do it!” he says.
“Do what, big mouth?”
“The cat. The brick. I didn’t do it.”
“But you knew about it.”
“I was there! But I told them not to. Look, here—“ His hands goes into his pocket and pulls out a fistful of dollar bills. She thinks there might be a five sticking up out of there. “This is twenty-three dollars. I wanna help pay for the window.”
She snatches the money. “Twenty-three bucks? Dang, do you know how much windows cost?”
“No.”
Of course, she doesn’t either, but she’s not going to tell him that.
“You’re not very bright, are you?”
Again he answers: “No.”
“Why do you hang out with those fuckwits, anyway?”
“I dunno. Because they let me.”
Things start to click into place. Tumblers in a lock. She’s always heard that there’s a kid who will do stuff for money—nothing kinky, but he’ll eat nasty stuff, he’ll headbutt things, he’ll say crass shit to teachers, all for a couple bucks. She looks down at the wad of ones in her hand.
“They make you do stupid shit for money. Is that right, Chomp-Chomp?”
“My name’s Steven. And yeah. But I like doing it.”
She shakes her head. “Then you’re a dumb-ass, dumb-ass.”
He shrugs. “Well. We kinda already figured that out.”
It’s hard not to laugh.
“Well-played, Chomp—er, Steven. I’m going to shit onto their heads for this. I am not a happy girl and I am eager to take out my unhappiness on those who piss in my cereal.”
He winces again. “Okay.”
“Either of your buddies got a car?”
“Uhh.” He hesitates, but then sees her face. “Jonesy’s got a Mustang. A ‘67 1/2. Green like a pine tree green. Why?”
She doesn’t say. She just winks and leaves.
* * *
Atlanta has a free period in the afternoon. She sneaks outside in the parking lot. Goes row by row until she finds that green Mustang. A restored classic muscle car.
She takes a piece of limestone gravel off