collateral damage

VOLUNTEERS NEEDED

Do you still need volunteer hours for the Spring Semester?

Openings are currently available in:

-Janitorial

-Physical Education Services

-Groundskeeping

-Food Services

Inquire in the Main Office.

Get those hours the Woodchuck way!

GOOOOO WOODCHUCKS!!!

Natalie Brenner tore the notice from her locker door. She did need more volunteer hours, but didn’t need it staring her in the face. It as so stupid that this school made them do volunteer work in the first place. Isn’t that what people got paid for?

Like Natalie didn’t have enough problems. Her idiot father had just gotten married again, to a little gold digging tramp with an 8 year daughter who thought she was a princess. Natalie may only be 13, but she knew a tramp when she saw one. Nat’s mom had barely been dead a year when her dad brought Ashley home.

Kevin Brenner was twice her age and worth over half a million dollars. Ashley was the pilates instructor who was going to change his life by getting him in shape. Or so she claimed when they met. They only thing she had changed was her address.

So Nat had gotten a little sister. Princess Madison could do no wrong, even when all she did was wrong. She picked out her own clothes, even if those clothes were Nat’s. She set her own bedtime, even if that meant she was impossible to get up in the morning. If they went out to dinner, Maddy always chose, even if it was ice cream. She was a tiny tyrant and no one seemed to care. Except Natalie.

They even went to the same school. In their tiny town there were only two private schools. One for first through eighth grade, and one for high school. Unfortunately, Natalie was still in the eighth grade.

Ashley and Princess Maddy had been living in their big house by the river for 4 months when Natalie came home late from school to find her bedroom turned upside down.

“Maddison.” Natalie whispered, and made her way down the hall. She quietly open Maddy’s door and glanced around the pristine room. Canopy bed with pink hangings, perfectly made. Three story dollhouse under the window. Vanity table with silver brush set. And a light coming from beneath the closet door. Slowly Natalie turned the handle and eased the door open. There, on the floor of the walk in closet, was Maddy, covered in chocolate syrup, wearing Natalie’s mother’s wedding dress.

“Hi Nat. Want some?” Maddy asked, squeezing more chocolate onto the skirt.

Without reply Natalie took the bottle from Maddy’s sticky hands and set it aside. She wiped Maddy’s hands and face as best she could on a pair of discarded pajamas and tossed them in the hamper. Then quickly and carefully removed her mother’s wedding dress leaving Maddy sitting alone and mostly naked in her closet.

When Natalie got back to her room with the ruined dress in her arms she was feeling mostly numb. At this point she didn’t even want to save it. She didn’t want anyone to see what her life had become, didn’t want anyone to know that the only person who loved her was dead. She took the dress to the basement and tossed it in the furnace.

Natalie stayed in the basement a long time. She reorganized the already organized boxes. Alphabetized the cleaning products. Swept the floor. Put out some rat poison when she found a bunch of droppings when sweeping the floor. But she couldn’t stay down there forever. When she came back up through the kitchen Ashley was there putting away groceries.

“Oh Natalie! I’m so happy to run into you!” Ashley gushed. Run into me? We live in the same house. Nat thought. “I’m going on a Pilates Instructors Retreat next week so you and Maddy will be buying lunches at school, okay?” she looked at Nat expectantly.

“Oh course, have a good time.” Nat enthused and ran upstairs. At least that gets rid of one of them. Then she had a horrible thought. Did that mean she would have to take care of the brat?

Nat shuffled through her bedroom door, lost in this thought, and tripped over her school bag. Lying on the floor where she fell, staring at her dirty school bag, Nat thought she would just stay like this forever. No one would likely notice until she began to smell. But first, chocolate. She reached through the open bag flap for her emergency candy and encountered a crumpled paper instead. Pulling it out she scoffed at the Volunteers Needed flyer and crumpled it into a ball. Just as Nat squeezed it a phrase caught her eye, Food Service, and in a bright moment of clarity she knew exactly how to fix her future.

“Mrs. Dennis, I would like to sign up for Food Service, if it is still available?” Natalie chirped to the school secretary.

“Well, of course Natalie. We have this week and next, the last 2 weeks of February, all of March….When did you want to volunteer for? How many hours do you need dear?” Mrs. Dennis asked.

“Oh! Um, I think it still need a bit. May I please have this week and next, and the first two weeks of March? That’s more than twenty hours, right?” Nat asked, pretending to be confused.

“Yes, dear, it’s thirty hours total. So, if I put you down for those days, you know you have to start on monday, right?” Nat nodded her head. “Ok then honey, you report to Mrs. O’Leary twenty minutes before school starts on monday and she’ll give you a pass to show your teachers so you can leave a few minutes early, ok?” Mrs. Dennis instructed.

“Will do Mrs Dennis, thanks!

It was thursday, with only one day left of eating cafeteria food, when Natalie was finally handed her chance. Mrs, O’Leary told Natalie that she was going to be icing the cupcake for friday’s lunch, “I think you can handle it dear. It’s just chocolate frosting, it comes pre-packed in the icing bags and you just swirl it on.” She grabbed an icing bag from a box and showed Nat, “Sound ok?”

“Sounds easy Mrs. O, no problem. I’m just glad I don’t have to make the icing, I’ve never done it before!.” Natalie grinned. Mrs. O’leary gave her an understanding smile, bid her farewell until tomorrow, and went into the back office.

But it was a lie.

Natalie had been making icing from scratch since she was seven. The icing she would make tonight would be the most important batch she had ever made. Extra special chocolate frosting, for a very important princess. She snatched an icing bag from the box before leaving.

The next morning, before lunch began, Natalie frosted over three hundred cupcakes. The extra special cupcake for Maddy was sitting slightly off to one side and had been frosted counter-clockwise so it was easier for Natalie to differentiate from all the clock-wise ones.

“How are we doing Natalie?” Mrs. O’Leary asked suddenly, startling her.

“Perfect Mrs. O, nearly done. Should I start moving them out now? I’d like to say hello to my sister if that’s ok? I just saw her class move into the lunch line.” Natalie gave her a sparkling smile.

“Of course honey, how sweet. Go ahead, I’ll wrap up here.” Mrs. O’Leary hummed as as Nat passed her with a tray of cupcakes.

Natalie took her place near the end of the lunch counter and began handing out cupcakes as the children filed through. True to form, Maddy’s eyes lit up when she saw the cupcake that looked like it had a bit more icing than the others. Natalie gave it to her with a wink. Just as the first tray emptied Mrs. O wheeled out the cart with the rest of the cupcakes. Natalie gave them all away, her eyes on her sister the entire time, stacked the trays hurriedly back on the cart and wheeled them back into the kitchen. She needed to dispose of her icing before the kitchen was cleaned.

“Mrs. O,” Nat called while reaching for the icing bag she had hidden behind the unused soup pots, “May I take a bathroom break before I start cleaning up?”

“Be quick!”

It wasn’t there.

The icing wasn’t there. The bag was gone. Nat couldn’t breathe. The room got blurry and little stars appeared in her vision. She stumbled into the large plastic trash can and gripped its edges tight. There, right on top was the bag Natalie had marked with a tiny black square. The bag she had taken home and emptied, then refilled with her homemade chocolate icing. The icing with the antifreeze.

It was empty.

This was not how this was supposed to go.

Natalie looked toward the cupcake trays she had just stacked near the sink. Eight. There were eight trays. Each tray held fifty cupcakes. Natalie had only frosted seven trays. She glanced back into the trash. She had to get out of here, but she couldn’t stop staring at that tiny black square. Quickly, and without thinking Natalie heaved the bag from the can and lugged it out behind the dumpster. Using the edge of her apron she rubbed the square off the icing bag and, climbing the concrete steps, hefted the bag over the side. Just in the nick of time too, she could hear the trash truck coming.

When Natalie walked back into the kitchen Mrs. O’Leary was replacing the trash bag. “Thank you for taking out the trash honey, just in time too. Run along now, I’ll finish up. Oh, and next time be more careful where you leave things. I found a whole bag of icing behind the soup pots! Imagine! If I hadn’t found it we wouldn’t have had enough!” Mrs. O laughed.

“Yeah, right. See you monday.” Natalie walked from the kitchens as normally as she could manage. She watched the face of each child she passed. Everyone looked so...normal. Healthy, even. Maybe she hadn’t put enough in. Maybe it had tasted bad and they had gotten thrown away. Maybe everything would be fine. Yeah. Everything would be fine. Natalie skipped the last two classes of the day and went home.

Natalie had been as careful as she could have been. She had worn gloves when she poured the antifreeze from the bottle into a paper bowl. She burned the bowl when she was done. She had washed the mixer bowl, paddle, and spatula by hand, three times then burned the sponge. She wiped the counters and floor down twice and burned the paper towels. She burned the socks and old t-shirt she had been wearing. Everything in the basement, including the antifreeze bottle, had an equal dusting of her fingerprints. She haphazardly cleaned and touched nearly everything in the house that afternoon just for good measure. She had even called her Dad when she got home and said she cut school early to make sure the house looked nice for when Ashley got home later that night. That was okay, right?

Of course honey, how thoughtful.

Ashley got home at 7pm. She had a joyous reunion with Maddy, but the little princess wasn’t feeling well and was acting extra bratty to Natalie. Any doubts Nat may have had evaporated. Those other children fell from her mind like autumn leaves, her brown eyes bored in Maddy’s glassy blue ones. “I’ll put her to bed if you want, since you just got home and all.” Nat volunteered.

“Oh Natalie! Thank you! Good night Sugar Plum! Mommy will check on you later!” Ashley air kissed her own daughter, as she was too busy rubbing on her husband.

Natalie took Maddy upstairs by the hand and changed her into her jammies and put her in bed. “Nattie, I don’t feel good.” Maddy whined.

“I know.”

“What are you going to do about it?” She pouted.

“Not a damn thing.” Nat snapped.

Maddy struggled out from under the covers, “I’m going to tell Daddy you swore!” she threatened.

Natalie shoved Maddie back onto the bed and yanked the covers back over her, “He is not your Daddy you little brat.” She snarled. Natalie leaned down slowly, until she was nose to nose with Maddy, she hissed, “Do not get out of this bed, do not make a sound or you will regret it. I am going to sit right outside your door. Understand?” Natalie waited for Maddy to nod her understanding before straightening up. “Goodnight Princess, sleep well.” she said in a normal cheerful tone, in case anyone was listening, the left and shut the door.

It took mere seconds before there was a scuffling noise from inside, then footsteps, then the door shushed open. But Natalie was waiting in the hall, where she would remain until she was sure Maddy was asleep. With a YELP! The bedroom door shut and the bed creaked then all was quiet.

Sometime later Natalie sought her own bed. It was just after dawn when her father shook her awake and told her they were taking Maddy to the hospital. He told Natalie to get up but stay behind, the hospital was no place for children.

It was several hours later that Natalie saw the story on the news. Thirty-six reported deaths of children aged seven to twelve in Joplin County, all students at Franklin Roosevelt Private School, cause currently undisclosed. Thirty-six! That had never been Natalie’s intention, and it would all be for nothing if...well…. She had had no word from her father yet.

It was around noon when Natalie heard the garage door open. She turned in her place on the couch to catch the reflection of the interior garage door. When it opened her father was supporting Ashley, who looked the absolute worst Natalie had ever seen her. He took her upstairs and when he came back down he sat on the couch with Natalie.

“Where’s Princess Maddy? Getting room service in the Children’s Ward?” Natalie asked.

“Nat,” He choked back a sob, “Mads is dead.” He grabbed Natalie to him and held her so tightly she could barely breathe. “There are more kids from your school Nat, that have di...died. Almost fifty. Poisoned, the doctor thinks.” He pulled away and looked into her eyes, “Oh honey, I’m so glad I didn’t lose you too.” He squeezed her again.

“Me too Daddy.”

Kevin Brenner took another long look at his daughter before getting up to go console his wife. As he walked away he said over is shoulder, “All those kids, I wonder if we’ll ever know why?”

“Collateral damage.”

“What did you say honey?”

“Nothing Daddy, must have been the TV. Love you.”

“Love you too Nat.”

A smile spread across Natalie’s face. She had her father back.