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When Madeleine turned twelve, she was five-nine and 170 pounds. That September she started the seventh grade, and she felt nervous, fat and ashamed. She worried about the clothes she wore to the extent that she didn't sleep well at night, and her breath came short and fast in the mornings, or sometimes all day, depending on what she was wearing. Lunch time was the hardest, because she no longer could run home, the junior high was too far away, so she had to eat at the cafeteria. After a few humiliating days of eating alone, she sat at a table with a handful of girls who looked around at each other with irritated and vulnerable eyes. It was a table that soon disappeared altogether, the girls sitting together only so as not to be alone, and as quickly as possible, they migrated to real, defined groups: the preps, the jocks or the nerds. Madeleine knew some of the preppie kids from her elementary school, but her view of them changed drastically in the first few weeks of seventh grade — she had once thought them important — and eventually they fell from her vision altogether, becoming vague, uninteresting phantoms who roamed the school in Izod shirts and cable-knit sweaters. Instead, she found herself mysteriously drawn to the freaks, and without realizing it, she began following them around, especially a small, wiry girl named Jennifer.

The freaks, of which Jennifer was a kind of queen, were generally from the south side of South Bend. The boys had long, stringy hair and wore heavy-metal T-shirts; their shoulders were slumped and they didn't look people in the eye. The girls dressed in tight, revealing clothing bought at discount stores, wore too much makeup and had bleached, feathered hair with dark roots showing. Both the girls and the boys had the reputation of being

violent and mean and were rumored to carry knives. Although they were not thought of as stupid, they were known to get bad grades, because they didn't care, because they smoked pot, because they were troubled. Maybe it was from fear, which can foster a curiosity or a kind of respect, maybe it was some knowledge they seemed to have, but Madeleine was drawn to their lunch tables and their ways, her voice became twanged and filled with ain'ts and her look became less respectable. Mostly, she wanted to be Jennifer.

Jennifer was perfect. She was thin and petite, her eyes were hard, and she was always impeccably dressed. Her sweaters outlined her smallish, well-defined breasts, and her pants were tight and new-looking, without a pantyline to mar the boyish curve of her bottom. Her piercing laugh was distinctly cruel and always directed at someone. But otherwise she spoke deep and low; the other kids would have to lean in to hear her, which they did nervously. She often slapped people on the arm or shoulder, biting her thin bottom lip as she did, and it hurt, stung for minutes, but it was just play, and no one could get angry about it.

Madeleine simply became Jennifer's shadow. She did this discreetly, unknowingly on anyone's part, especially her own. When Jennifer laughed, she laughed. When Jennifer kicked gravel, Madeleine did. She smoked Marlboro Lights because Jennifer did. Jennifer lined her dark eyes heavily with a Maybelline eyeliner, and her cheeks sparkled with blush that came out of a pink plastic case. Madeleine began darkening her eyelids with the same brand and stroked her robust cheeks with the same sparkly powder. She wore the same boots as Jennifer: brown with thick red laces. And Madeleine began swearing frequently with a violent enthusiasm, her sentences littered with fucks and shits, as if it were a part of her she had kept hidden all her childhood and finally set free. When Jennifer craned her neck around to

look at something, Madeleine's plump neck carefully followed in the same direction, a peripheral eye ever on her friend, in case she were to change the course of her gaze.

She called Jennifer every day after school. When they spoke, Jennifer talked about all the boys she knew, who was going out with whom, which girls did what with which boys, and Madeleine listened hungrily, curled up in the back of her parents' closet so nobody could hear her, the phone held tensely on her lap, surrounded by her mother's shoes.

Yeah, Marion is a slut, said Jennifer. Last year she fucked half the senior class at the high school. She thinks no one remembers because they've all graduated. But a slut's a slut.

Yeah, and I can't believe she fucked that guy in his car, said Maddy.

What do mean you can't believe it?

I just can't believe it. How gross. Where were they?

I just said, for the millionth time, they were in his car.

I mean, where was the car. Were they parked?

No, dumbshit, they were driving around while they fucked. What's your problem? Of course they were parked. You can't fuck someone when you're driving around. You're such a virgin.

Fuck you, I am not.

Yes you are. A fat virgin.

Fuck you.

Fuck you, Jennifer mimicked.

I am not a virgin.

Okay then. Who have you fucked?

I fucked Tim Spencer last year,

lied Madeleine.

The previous year, while playing five minutes in the closet, Tim, a nervous, skinny boy with protruding front teeth that obviously bothered him, had groped at her breasts and put a twitching hand between her legs on the outside of her jeans.

No way. Tim Spencer couldn't fuck no one if he tried. No way in hell. That nerd doesn't have a dick.

Fuck you. You're a bitch.

I gotta go.

Okay, I'll see you tomorrow.

Bye.

After they talked, Madeleine would sit in the closet for awhile, her heart beating fast, her lips moist, her mouth full of saliva. She'd stay there until her mother would come to the closet door, yelling, asking her what on earth she was doing, and Madeleine, caring little about her mother's frustration, stumbled out and into her own room and would plan what she would wear the next day. She fingered her clothes, spreading pants and sweaters out on the bed; she'd look at an outfit and change her mind, deciding on another sweater. Meanwhile, images of Marion fucking someone in a car raced through her head. And as she lay in bed, curled up in a big, cozy ball, with a warm hand between her thighs, she thought of Jennifer: of the way Jennifer held her body tight and erect, with her shoulders slumped slightly and self-consciously, of the way Jennifer walked down the halls, her bowed, short legs gliding quickly, her feet hitting the shiny, hard tiles and clicking solidly.

Now at lunch time, Madeleine without question joined Jennifer at a table in the back of the cafeteria. It was known as the freak table. The table differed from other tables in that it never lined up in quite the same direction as the rest, but rather pointed in a strange angle, and the lunch trays were extraordinary in their sloppiness. Food was left uneaten and graying, feet were propped up on the table despite this being against the rules. Bags of pot and switchblades and dirty magazines were passed from one grubby hand to the next. Everyone who sat there owned a blue jean jacket, preferably an old, beat-up one, and all of the boys wore theirs year round, even in the worst months of winter. After they finished poking at their lunch, the crowd gathered around by a side entrance of the school and smoked joints and cigarettes. Conversation and eye contact were spare. Gravel was kicked. Madeleine never spoke, but by the time she entered her next class, she felt powerful and dangerous. She was aware of her growing reputation.