Untitled: Chapter one/1

Sitting in her seat at Keshula North High School, Madison Summers anxiously waited for the final bell to ring, signaling her freedom. Only five minutes left. Madison nudged Kathleen, who was sitting next to her.


“Have a great summer,” Madison whispered.

“Thanks, you too. Keep in touch okay?” Kathleen whispered back.

“Of course,” Madison said as she began to pack up her things.

As soon as the bell rang, students came spilling out of the brick building. They looked like scurrying ants as they said goodbye to their friends and sprinted to the buses or mom’s waiting car.

To her advantage, Madison lived two blocks from the school so she had no need to rush out and catch the bus. This summer was going to be great. She would hang out with Julie all the time, and have sleepovers and stay up late.

Madison turned the corner and walked to the fifth house on Cumberland Drive. She skipped up the front steps, slid her key in the door and went inside.

“Hello! I’m home!” Madison called as she tossed her book bag in the front closet. She frowned when she got no response.

“Oh well,” she shrugged. Madison headed to the kitchen for something to eat. She opened the refrigerator and peered inside. Her mother’s yucky spinach dip sat in the front, stinking up the rest of the food. She dug in the back for the chocolate chip cookie dough she hid from her older brother Gabe. Her eyes twinkled as she took the tub in two hands, skipping to the counter for a spoon. As if her mother knew exactly what Madison was doing, the phone rang, stopping her in her tracks. Maddie set the tub down and walked to the phone.

“Hello?” she said quietly.

“How was school?” her mother asked from her desk at work.

“Good, it was my last day today” Madison happily shared.

“Well that’s good news huh?” her mother responded.

“Yep.”

There was silence for about a minute before her mother spoke again.

“Well baby cakes I was just calling to check up on you. Me and daddy will be home around 5 okay?”

Madison rolled her eyes. She was too old for that talk. No girl her age called her dad ‘daddy’ anymore. “ kay mom.”

“I would tell you to get your homework done, but you don’t have any. So, be good. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay bye,” Madison said. She hung up the phone and trotted happily back to her cookie dough. She dug in the drawer for the biggest spoon she could find and speared into the cold, gooey dough. She held her doughed-spoon in one hand as she stuck the tub back in the refrigerator with the other. Licking the spoon, she headed through the house to her bedroom.

“G’day Lemons,” she said to her pet turtle as she walked in. She gently tapped the glass. The reptile curled his tiny head up and out of its shell in response, slowly moving itself in the pool of water it chilled in.

Crunching away at some chocolate chips, Maddie sat down on her bed and stared out the window at her neighbor’s house. There was a boy that lived next door, and he was completely in love with Madison. Whenever she went down to swim in her pool, she would catch him peeking at her through the fence. She would call him out and scare him away, only to catch him spying on her again. He didn’t interest her whatsoever because he was really strange, besides the fact that he was 3 years younger than her.

“I mean seriously, I’m a 7th grader, I don’t date younger men,” she said out loud with a flip of her hair.

After going back down stairs and ditching the empty cookie dough spoon, Maddie went downstairs to snoop in her brother’s room. Gabe’s door was plastered with bumper stickers and ‘warning’ signs. Madison ignored the innuendos that stuck to the wooden door, and went inside. Gabe had cleaned his room for once and left nothing but a pair of socks on his floor. Carefully stepping around her brother’s bed, she went to his closet where she knew he kept his secret stash of pixie sticks (and playboys). She fumbled her hand around on the top shelf until she felt the smooth cardboard box she sought. Madison gently pulled the box down and hugging it to her chest, sat down on her brother’s bed. She lifted the lid and set it aside, peering inside the box. Old baseball cards, gum wrappers, ticket stubs, and condom wrappers created a kaleidoscope of colors, from bluest blues to shiny red. She fished through the box searching for the candy she craved. Her fingers closed around the tubes of sugar and she grabbed a few. Madison carefully lidded the box and put it back in the closet. After making sure everything was as she’d left it, she scampered off to her own room.