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At lunch, Kendra and Charlie ate together, along with Jenna and her
friend, Sara.
"After lunch we have Bible class," said Jenna. "We're studying Moses
and the plagues of Egypt."
"Oh," said Charlie.
"There sure were a lot of them to remember," groaned Sara. "We're
going to be tested, today."
"I guess I have a lot of catching up to do," observed Charlie, thoughtfully.
"Oh, Pastor Edwards won't expect you to take the test," replied Kendra.
"It wouldn't be fair, not with you being new and all." As the four girls
ate, a boy walked by them and gave Charlie a look of recognition. Knowing him, Charlie
quickly turned away.
"Do you know Scottie Zimmerman?" asked Kendra, surprised.
"No, not really," replied Charlie. "He and two other guys were bugging
a woman at the bus stop, the day before yesterday. I kicked one of them in the shins."
"You didn't!" exclaimed Kendra.
"You were with 'Mad' Maggie?" asked Jenna, incredulously.
"I wouldn't be caught dead with 'Mad' Maggie!" chimed in Sara.
"What's the big deal?" asked Charlie, wanting to understand the cause of
their disapproval.
"Surely you noticed she wasn't all there," replied Kendra.
"I guess so."
"My Mom says she's brain damaged. She told me to stay away from 'Mad' Maggie,
because you can't trust people who's brains aren't normal," said Jenna.
"How did she get that way?" asked Charlie.
"Well," began Kendra, "I heard my Mom talking to a friend of hers,
and they said that 'Mad' Maggie once had an older brother, I think his name was Wayne.
She never met him, because 'Mad' Maggie was born a year after his death. Anyway,
Mom said that Wayne was drafted and shipped over to Vietnam. A few weeks after his
twentieth birthday, Wayne was involved in a terrible firefight in which forty-two
in his company of one hundred and ten, were killed. Wayne was a hero because he rescued
two of his buddies, by carrying them on his shoulders. Three days after, a terrible
thing happened: Wayne shot himself in the stomach with his own gun while having a
nightmare!"
"He had only been in Vietnam for fifty days!" exclaimed Jenna, picking
up where her fraternal twin had left off. "He was awarded the Silver Star, posthumously,
of course. Mom said Mr. and Mrs. Downen, Wayne's parents, went crazy after that.
He was their only child, and the sun rose and set with Wayne. Anyway, 'Mad' Maggie
was born a year after all this happened."
"I told Charlie that, already," pointed out Kendra.
"Mr. and Mrs. Downen kept grieving over Wayne, long after he died. 'Mad' Maggie
grew up with their incessant talk of how great Wayne was and everything. 'Mad' Maggie
wasn't all there when she was born, to begin with," said Kendra, "and the
Downen's obsession over their dead son just drove 'Mad' Maggie into insanity."
"She didn't seem insane to me," said Charlie.
"Oh, but she is," confirmed Sara. "She stands at the bus stop every
day, waiting for her brother Wayne to come back from Vietnam! My Dad said that's
the reason the bus stop looks like a dump. The city is trying to encourage her to
go somewhere else, by letting the benches and stuff run down. No one wants to go
near 'Mad' Maggie, so the bus line won't even stop there anymore!"
"Why do they honk their horns at her?" asked Charlie.
"Oh, everyone's just having some fun," replied Jenna, "that's all." |
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