Free Dear Killer by Katherine Ewell Page B

you, that’s how. Beneath that timid exterior is a . . . I don’t know. A tiger or something. Waiting to break free. And Jesus, what’s so good about the status quo?”
    “You say that. But you stick to it too. You wear preppy clothes and don’t cause trouble. You’re just an upper-middle-class kid with her own agenda and a few nice pairs of shoes like the rest of us.”
    I grinned, still tired, but behind that wooziness, my heart was beating quickly.
    “I stick to the status quo because what I like is the status quo.”
    Well, not entirely true. Murder wasn’t the status quo. But true enough. There was enough truth in it so I didn’t feel like I was lying. One-half of me was the status quo, at least—the half of me that went to school and went to cafés and ate lunch in the cafeteria. The half of me that murdered was absolutely separate from all that, another being entirely.
    “And hey, befriending you wasn’t the status quo, was it? You were a friendless loser and I befriended you. That’s not what normal people do,” I added.
    “You say that, but in the end, you’re just like everyone else, including me. You’d ditch that rebellious attitude the moment it endangered your social status.”
    I stood up suddenly, smiling a wild, wicked grin.
    “You sure about that?”
    “Yes,” Maggie said, undaunted.
    I walked across the room to the window and flung it open. The night air hit my face like a cold sheet, washing over me. Outside, I heard the soft call of London, the swish of cars passing in the distance down King’s Road.
    I put one foot on the low windowsill.
    “Jumping out of windows isn’t the status quo,” I said loudly.
    She gasped and shot up into a sitting position, eyes wide, mouth gaping like a fish.
    “Don’t do it, Kit!”
    I laughed heavily, the sound coming from deep within my stomach.
    “Don’t worry. I’ve done this before, when I was younger. Accidentally, then, but I figure the same sort of thing would happen if I did it again. There’s some nice bushes at the bottom that stop my fall. I’d come to school with scratches on Monday and I’d have to answer the questions, wouldn’t I? Don’t you think word would get around that I jumped out a window? Wouldn’t that be breaking the status quo? Should I do it to prove a point?” I put my other foot on the windowsill, so I was crouching in the window frame, holding the bottom of it with both hands, the drop looming below me.
    “Don’t do it—I get it already, I get it!”
    I smiled. I stepped backward out of the window frame.
    “I won’t do it,” I said, looking back over my shoulder toward her. “Don’t worry.”
    She sighed but kept staring anxiously at me.
    “The point is,” I said, “don’t stick to the status quo. Live wildly. You’ve got your freedom—now do something with it, for God’s sake.”
    “You’re crazy,” she said.
    “I know.”
    “But you’re the most honest friend I’ve had in a long time.”
    I hesitated. I bit my tongue gently.
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Thank you,” she said.
    “No problem.”
     
    A few days passed innocently like that, with no change in Maggie’s behavior or mine. I began to plot my next murder—a young lawyer who apparently cheated a divorcing couple out of their money—and I did well in school, especially in philosophy, where I excelled. I tried to take to heart Dr. Marcell’s suggestion of sharing more of my thoughts, but it really was quite hard when most of my thoughts were of murder.
    I began to gather strange, hostile glances from Michael. Beginning on Wednesday, in the early morning, in homeroom, he was silent in my presence. I caught him sneaking glances over his shoulder at me when he thought I wasn’t looking, his eyes almost accusing, somehow, as if he knew my secrets. He made me sick.
    And then, in philosophy, the only class we shared, he made a point of antagonizing me during discussion. Dr. Marcell praised him for arguing, of course, saying it