It's a Wonderful Death - Sarah J. Schmitt Page 0,64

who will give witness now?” Azbaugh asks, boredom dripping from his words. “Please tell me you are almost done with this parade of cheerleaders.”

“Just one more,” Sal assures him. He turns to look at the front row. “Madeline Quinn will be our final witness.”

Finally, someone I don’t have to worry about throwing me under the bus.

Chapter 26

Madeline makes her way to the front of the room, fluffing out her skirt as she sits down. It settles around her like yellow petals on a flower. She looks up at Sal and says, “I’m ready.”

Not even Azbaugh can look at her with contempt or scorn. Sal steals a glance at the audience before he speaks. “Madeline, please tell us about your experiences with RJ.”

“Are you asking about our relationship on Earth or while she’s been here?” Madeline asks.

“Start with your human life,” Azbaugh advises and there’s an unnatural warmth in his tone.

Madeline smiles brightly at him. “Of course.” She turns toward Sal. “After RJ stood up to Felicity, all her friends gave her the cold shoulder. I felt sorry for her. I mean, no one wanted to hang out with her.”

“Why is that?” Sal asks, but I already know the answer.

Madeline shrugs. “I guess because it was socially inadvisable. I mean, most people tried to fly under the radar of RJ and her friends, but when she was dethroned, Felicity was vicious. She went out of her way to attack anyone who gave RJ so much as a glance of pity.” She pauses.

“Madeline,” Sal says gently, “is there another reason she had no friends?”

She’s quiet for a long time. Finally she answers, “Yes.”

“What are you not telling the Tribunal, Madeline?” Azbaugh asks.

With a sigh, Madeline answers, “RJ didn’t really have any friends when she split from the popular kids. She’d spent three years making a lot of people miserable. There were more than a few people happy to watch her fall from grace.”

The room is completely silent. So this is what it sounds like when the bus lays you out flat.

“What changed?” Sal continues.

“Daniel. He left school for a little while. No one knew it, but he was getting treatment for depression. He came back four inches taller and twenty pounds lighter. His skin was clear and he had switched from glasses to contacts,” she blushes as she describes him, which I completely understand. She’s describing Trevor. “When he came back to school, he knew part of the reason RJ was an outcast was because she stood up for him. So he started hanging out with her.”

Sal leans against our table and crosses his feet in front of him. “What did Felicity do when he returned?”

Madeline lets out a little laugh. “She was furious. She would call Daniel names, try to embarrass him, that kind of stuff. But Daniel didn’t care. He was still seeing his counselor, so if things got too bad, he could talk it out. Eventually, her words and jabs stopped registering. After a little while, people started gravitating to the two of them.”

“Why?”

Madeline looks at me. “Because they were fun. They would laugh constantly during lunch, completely oblivious of the evil glares her old friends were giving them. I have to admit, I was jealous.”

“And why’s that?” Sal asks.

Madeline looks sad, like she’s remembering something about her past that’s painful. “I spent so much time in and out of hospitals with cancer running my life that the friends I had when I was diagnosed eventually stopped coming around. And when I saw the former queen of the school hanging out with a cute boy like she didn’t have a care in the world, I knew I wanted to be a part of their little group. But I was afraid that they wouldn’t want to be friends with me.”

Not have a care in the world? Wow. I really had her fooled.

“What did you do?” Sal asks gently.

She brightens. “One day, about a week before I was supposed to start prepping for my bone marrow transplant, I got this surge of courage. I figured if I could face the possibility that I might walk into a hospital and never come out, asking a couple people if I could eat lunch with them was going to be a piece of cake.”

“And was it?”

She nods. “Yep, and there wasn’t even a second pause before RJ was pushing her backpack to the floor and making room for me. A few days later, a couple more people joined us. By the time I went