When the science teacher she still couldn't remember the name of announced a field trip to the local science centre, as part of some ploy to give students ideas for the school's science fair, Madison was excited. She loved science centres as a kid- but her parents never wanted to pay for tickets, and she was always either too busy or too tired to visit one as an adult.
The novelty of needing to hand her parents a consent form to let their child go on the trip was entertainment enough. As she treaded out of the bus with Charles, Madison walked with a spring in her hoofsteps, eager to explore.
The class was split into two groups, following different teachers on different routes throughout the museum. Charles clung to Madison like a creeping vine, which Madison appreciated- she certainly didn't care for partnering up with someone loud, or, worse, a bully part of Kasie's gang. The crimson preteen seemed to attract an orbit of other children with the presence of a supergiant red star.
They waded through the exhibits; each one decidedly more impressive than the last. Madison couldn't help reading each plaque accompanying the displays, even though she knew most of it would be completely outdated by the time she got to the present.
It was a bit of a fascinating experience, she thought, as some classmate she had absolutely no recollection of cranked the lever of an earthquake simulator. Now having more knowledge at her disposal; her fascination wasn't exactly what the exhibits taught, but with the exhibits themselves. She wasn't a scientist, but she could hazard a guess how each display was constructed; the people needed to be hired, the bureaucracies of it all, the countless meetings that must've happened behind the curtain. Her apartment in the present alone was probably more technologically advanced than anything she'd find here; but there was something charming about how the science centre presented things, so full of optimism and caution.
"Out of the way, alien girl," snarled Kasie, stepping in front of her when they were in line for one of the interactive exhibits.
"Kasie," their teacher admonished, "Don't cut the queue. Go all the way to the back like everyone else."
"Ugh!" She growled, seeming... oddly enough, genuinely upset? Then she turned to glare at Madison, "See what you did?! You're so selfish, this is all your fault!"
Madison quirked an eyebrow. She had literally just been standing here, and hadn't said a single word, this entire day, but alright.
She leaned to her side and looked at the exhibit- some kind of singing-and-dancing screen thing that would become commonplace as, and maybe even outshone, by social media filters, one day. She was just kinda here for the sake of it; but she supposed she could throw the kid a bone.
"Nah, it's fine," Madison said aloud with a shrug, stepping out of line, "She can, uh, take over my spot. I wanna go to the toilet, anyway."
She didn't, actually. But now that she made that convenient excuse, she needed to find where the toilet actually was, so she didn't look weird. Running took too much out of her, so she tried for a hurried stride, instead.
Every hallway she came across, with the wacky decor and winding corridors, looked like something straight out of a nostalgic liminal space compilation on TubeYou. Goosebumps spread across her fur as she ventured on.
She nearly fell back as she collided with a mass of blue and yellow fur; Charles, on her way back from the very same restroom she was trying to find.
"S-sorry," Charles stuttered.
"What? No," said Madison, "Don't apologise, I'm the one who, um, bumped into you, dude."
It was like she had two left hooves. Madison was always the one accidentally bumping into people or stepping on the hooves of others. That never changed, even well into her adulthood. She looked behind Charles, "When did you go to the toilet? I didn't, uh, see you leave."
"Ah..." Charles clasped her paws together shyly, "Ly and Blu were... poking me, and pulling my tail, so I just decided to... hide here."
Madison had absolutely no idea who Ly and Blu were, but that sounded like it sucked.
"Tell a teacher?" she suggested, to which Charles adamantly shook her head. Fine. They weren't having the flower argument again.
Unconsciously, they both began wandering the direction Madison came, when they happened upon a room detailing the biographies of famous historical scientists. Madison was already bored, an uncomfortable shiver rolling up from her tail to her snout at even a glance at all the success stories and awards on display, but Charles went in, fiddling with the ends of her sleeves as she stopped to read each one.
"Smart guys that get recognised with clear talent from a young age and get- get elevated above us mere mortals," Madison scoffed, muttering bitterly, "Big deal. C'mon, let's go."
"What do you... reckon we'll be when we grow up?" Charles suddenly asked.
Madison stopped at the doorway. She did not turn around to face her, "I dunno, why?"
"Hah, I mean, you're so smart, and always talking about space, so you'll clearly be an important scientist, like these fellas," Charles said, quietly. Oh, Madison did not want to have this conversation. She'd prefer it if the ground swallowed her up alive. If only. If fucking only.
She remembered the rejection letter from the college astronomy course as clear as day. She'd spent an entire day clutching it in her paws, crying in bed, hoping that if she fell asleep, she'd wake up to discover it was all a bad dream. She'd spent countless hours desperately studying, trying to understand all the math and physics, and even staying back in school for an extra year to boost her chances, all in the hopes she'd be good enough.
In the end, marketing was the only place that would open its doors for a dumbass like her. Then an internship became a job, and then the job became the reason she was too tired to do anything in her free time.
Sorry to disappoint.
Instead of voicing any spoilers about the future, Madison shrugged a shoulder, as nonchalantly as she could manage, and sat on one of the benches, furthest away from where all the foreboding statues and their creepily realistic eyes were. Charles sat next to her.
"What about you?" Madison inquired, "What do you think you'll be when you grow up?"
Conventionally attractive skinny girl with the gentlest voice like her? Probably the same as pretty much all of her college classmates and colleagues. Get married in her twenties, have cute kids, become a successful CEO of something.
Happy.
While Madison's just left behind, slow on the uptake, and struggling as always.
"Probably dead in a ditch, somewhere."
Well, that went from zero to a hundred, real quick. Madison stared at Charles, disconcerted, as the latter began shifting the conversation elsewhere.
"Maybe it'll be nice," Charles continued talking, oblivious to Madison's growing concern, "Ya' know how some people get turned into fertiliser for trees? I'd like that. I wanna be a tree when I die, it sounds peaceful."
"Hey, touch wood, it's not gonna, uh, not gonna happen any time soon," Madison replied, "You're- we're kids, we're not exactly on the verge of death."
She supposed she wasn't really on the verge of death in her thirties, either; though, it often certainly felt like it.
"Uh-huh," has Charles always been this much of a little shit? Were all preteens destined to be little shits? "And what about the ozone layer and greenhouse gases? Maybe we're all gonna die by space laser from the sun."
Oh, yeah. The ozone layer. That was a thing. Last she heard, it'd been well on the track to recovery- something about policy changes and technological progress; though, of course, nobody in the past would know that.
"Psh," Madison scoffed, "We're- we're not gonna get killed by a, uh, a space laser."
"A girl can dream," Charles joked, "What do you want to happen with your body when you die?"
Cremated. Have her ashes and bones thrown somewhere into the sea. Take up as little space as possible. She wasn't worth the landmass and hassle of a burial. She goes with the answer her younger self would've chosen, "I guess if I died, I'd wanna be shot into space. That seems kinda cool."
"If you died?" Charles snarked, "Are you immortal, or something?"
"Shut up, you know what I mean!" Madison chuckled, nudging her in the side. They both began laughing, and Madison leaned back on the seat, before quickly standing back up, with her arms spread and raised high.
"Why the, uh, the rush to thinking about all this, um, future stuff, anyway?" she questioned, "We're kids! It's the best part of our lives! Let's just enjoy it."
Charles made an unconvinced face, tugging at her sleeves again, "...Yeah, right."
"What's that supposed to me-" and then a loud whistle was heard, ringing across the hallways. Madison and Charles poked their heads out of the room, one of the teachers' voices wafting through the corridors.
"Children, everyone gather at the Greatest Of Geography room," the teacher called, "We're gonna do a quick briefing and then go out for DuckMonald's!"
Madison and Charles shared a brief look, before heading off, following the signs and symbols along the walls. Neither of them shared a word, Charles scratching the elbows beneath her sleeves as they walked.
She tried not to let her resent grow. Charles was just a child, nothing could be her fault; but why did she have to bring up their futures? That was the last thing Madison wanted to think about, right now. She knew how it ended. She didn't want another reminder of her own wasted potential.
Her mental prayers went ungranted, when as soon as they found the geography wing where half of their classmates were, Kasie took the opportunity to brag.
"You should've seen me in that singing game! I was the best player," she claimed, "When I grow up, I'm going to become a famous singer, and maybe you two will be my loyal servants!"
"No, no, don't hire them," one of her underlings laughed, "They're ugly and stupid, both of them are probably gonna end up cleaning toilets, or something!"
Ugly? She could see that about herself- fat, round, pudgy-snouted, and wearing pigtails, but... she glanced at Charles. Nope. Still skinny and conventionally alright-looking. The only real outlier was maybe her fur, but that wasn't ugly at all. Not to Madison, anyway. It wasn't like it would even matter when they got older.
She snorted. No, the only thing it'd ever matter to would be shitty beauty companies. They were pretty well-paying clients, but she's never met someone from a beauty company that she didn't hate the guts of.
"Didn't they come from the toilet, just now?" another bully grinned, "Maybe they've already gotten a head start!"
"Congratulations on your future careers," Kasie jeered, pretending to drape an arm over their shoulders, still unwilling to actually touch them. The other bullies erupted with laughter.
Well, that was uncalled for. Madison had a deep respect for the hard work of janitors, thank you very much.
Meanwhile, Charles shot a paw to her own mouth, covering it as if trying to contain vomit. Madison growled at the group of bullies, and bared her teeth, only to be met with more laughter.
"You call that a growl?" Kasie sneered, "I'll show you a growl!"
And with that, she roared in their faces, her canines glistening sharply under the ceiling lights. Madison was still thoroughly unimpressed; she's heard fiercer, and honestly, the sight of a kid roaring was still incredibly hilarious.
Charles, however, was not so unaffected. When Kasie finished roaring, Charles stepped a hoof back. Then there was a sniff. It was then, that Madison noticed Charles was crying, though by the way she seemed to be glaring at the floor, clearly trying not to be. The bullies laughed again.
"She's such a crybaby!" One of them cackled, "Hey, how are you gonna survive in the real world when you're so sensitive, huh?"
"Tch," Madison rolled her eyes. How are you gonna survive if you act like an unpleasant asshole? With a dismissive shoo-ing wave of her paw, she turned back to look at the crying child.
"You good?" Charles did not reply verbally; but her eyes flitted to her in acknowledgement, and she nodded, then she looked straight ahead to where the bullies were, now chattering obliviously amongst themselves. No dice on whether they'd leave if told to, even if threatened with telling a teacher, and she was pretty sure Charles wouldn't want to play hooky by leaving the room.
She followed her gaze- then she noticed what Charles was doing with her paws. They were balled into fists, so tightly that Madison was worried she'd draw blood. And then something clicked.
She stepped in front of Charles' field of vision, blocking Kasie's gang from sight.
"Don't- don't do that with your fingers, okay?" Madison advised, quietly. She swung her bag from her back to her front, digging through it; but she couldn't find a rubber band.
The next best thing, then. She undid her pigtails, and handed one of the bands to Charles. Her friend looked at the object, curiously.
"Trick I learned," from when and where? She genuinely could not remember, "You're supposed to, um, wear it like a bracelet. Then if you need to, uh..." feel pain? Hurt yourself? "...feel things, you can snap it. It feels like it hurts, but you don't actually, uh, hurt yourself."
Charles glanced down at the band in her paws. First, she rubbed at her eyes, wiping away most of her tears. Then she slid the band onto her arm, covering it with her sleeve.
"What about your hair?" she wondered aloud.
"Oh, yeah," Madison realised. Female students in their Primary School weren't allowed to wear their hair loose; either cut it short, or tie it up. Nevermind how stupid the existence of gender-specific rules were in the first place; but she wasn't going to argue and risk getting detention. She reached behind her head, using the remaining band to tie it in a single ponytail; the only style she ever wore as an adult. ...And the only style she really knew. Pigtails and ponytails weren't all that different beyond the angles.
When the other half of their class arrived, all the students sat on the floor while the teachers gave their briefing that went in one of Madison's ears and out the other. Then at some point, the group shuffled out of the room.
The next thing Madison knew, she was eating cheap french fries on a staircase, just outside the biology exhibit room, surrounded by the rest of her class. Charles sat close to her, as she always did.
Paying attention to body language, yours and others', was a big deal when she'd been studying service quality in college. Less-so important in her actual day-to-day life; most people didn't seem to care, as long as you weren't outright insulting them, and got the job done. Still, having an eye on what people were doing was a concept that had been drilled into her, relentlessly.
She looked at Charles. Really looked at her- her shoulders were hunched, her arms were crossed, and her tail curled into herself like she was afraid of taking up any more space than she needed to. Her eyes sweeping the room like she was watching every single thing happening with the caution of a hawk.
Now, she was quiet, too; but so was Madison. She certainly didn't feel like she had the energy to keep up a full conversation right now. But something about Charles' silence was... off.
Honestly, the kid was acting so nervous, it kind of made Madison nervous.
She nudged Charles with an elbow. The girl looked at her, "Hm?"
Madison offered her a fry, "Ya' want?"
"Oh," Charles plucked the fry out of her paws, "Thanks."
"No prob, Bob," Madison recited, the old joke feeling strange on her tongue, but as a decision in her mind, as easy as breathing.
Charles giggled, swallowing the fry, and reaching for another from Madison's pack, "My name's Charlie."
"Snrkk-!" Madison snickered, and laughter sprung up from her, unbidden, like it was the funniest thing in the world. Charles kept silent, but a smile was tugging at her snout, beside her.
Gosh, she's missed this. Will miss this. Just sitting around, giggling at cheesy jokes with her best friend. Madison didn't really have any friends outside of work, and none of her work-friends were particularly close, anyway. She was always too busy looking after Akeidat, or too exhausted, lying motionlessly on her bed at home, to really hang out with anyone beyond social obligation.
But everything was simpler here, in the bliss of childhood, wasn't it? There were practically no consequences a child could face, unless, she guessed, she did something really bad. But she couldn't come under threat of losing her salary while she was physically ten years old.
"Charlotte," one of the teachers suddenly approached, "Could I talk to you, for a bit?"
Charles' expression steeled into a blank. Madison raised an eyebrow, curiously. She never remembered Charles getting into trouble with the teachers when she was a kid.
...Then again, she never remembered a lot of things.
"Uh..." her friend looked between her and the teacher, "Okay?"
The two left, separating from the rest of the class to round a corner. Madison looked between the fries in her lap, and where they'd gone.
Fuck it, she followed them.
Madison was careful to keep her hoofsteps as quiet as she could manage. She stepped slowly around the soft carpet, and once she could hear their voices, she backed away, behind a wall.
"Don't you know what this means?" the teacher was saying, "With the way you're going, I don't think you're gonna past the exams."
Quiet.
"Do you get what I'm saying? Don't just 'hm' me, show some respect for your teacher."
"I understand."
"I understand, what?"
A sigh, and the snapping sound of a rubber band, "I understand, Miss Ectareh."
Sheesh, with the way she talked, it reminded Madison all too much of her uppity boss.
"You need to try harder," Miss name-Madison-already-forgot continued, "You're already in Primary Four. In two years, you'll be graduating. Don't you wanna get good results, so you can get into a good Secondary School, then a good college, so you can get a good job, and have a good life?"
More silence. Madison made an unimpressed face. Chill out, lady. That's a ten-year-old. Practically an infant. She doesn't need to have the entire rest of her life figured out so young, she needs to be playing PocketMon on a Game Bud, or something.
Eventually, the teacher walked out, and Charles came in tow.
"What was that all about?" Madison inquired. Charles rolled her eyes, melodramatically.
"Worksheets. My answers aren't good enough, or whatever," Charles grumbled, stomping ahead, "I don't care anymore."
"You, uh..." Madison shuffled next to her as they walked, "Need any help? My grades have been pretty okay-"
"Good for you," Charles snarled. Then, she sighed, and continued walking away, "I said I don't care."
"Oh, come on," Madison scoffed, lightly thumping her side with an elbow, "You're a, uh, a clever kid, you've got tons of potential!" Not like her, the waste of space, "You could probably figure whatever it is out-"
"Ughh, what part of 'I don't care' don't you get?!" she whipped around with a growl. Madison tilted her head, idly confused, watching as Charles' shoulders went from raised to hunched over like they usually were. The child opened her mouth, slightly, as though wanting to say something else, and then evidently decided against it.
She turned away, joining the rest of the class. It wasn't long before a teacher spoke again, and so the field trip continued.
After a lecture about the digestive system in the biology lab, staring at a wall full of cheaply-printed optical illusions, and watching kids roll a toy car along a Möbius strip, finally, someone announced they were going to the space wing. She wiggled her short tail excitedly at the prospect; the space exhibit was, no surprise there, her favourite part of the science centre. She remembered seeing basketball-sized globes of each planet hanging from the ceiling, and she used to imagine herself in a tiny little spaceship, jumping from one orb to the next.
She still remembered the crushing disappointment she had when she went back to the exhibit, years later, only to find it all replaced by a giant, interactive screen. She never really went back again, after that.
The space exhibit was a short walk away from the rest of the building; its roof a round dome, with a fake, plastic telescope peaking out of a panel painted black. A fake observatory, smaller than the real things by a mile. But as Madison walked ahead with the rest of the class, she looked back, to find Charles hanging back to look at- the flower bushes, of all things. For a second, she wondered if Charles was going to pull out her camera and snap a photo. She honestly wouldn't be surprised. Hah, kids and their aesthetic flower photography. Some things never changed, did they?
"You gonna take a photo, or something?" Madison quipped. Charles scowled at her, and Madison bit her lip. Ah. Still mad at her, then. That was fine. Akeidat threw tantrums like this, all the time.
A small flicker of doubt tickled at the back of her head. Kids throwing tantrums. They're upset. Why were they upset? Cause and effect. Simple logic. Ask the whys to determine a root cause. It's nothing. Kids were dramatic all the time; she's heard enough of her parents calling her dramatic in the past to know that. And it was true, wasn't it? Akeidat was angry at her all the time. But it didn't matter; in the end, they still needed to come out of their room to eat.
Eventually, they stepped into the fake observatory, and Madison looked up to the planets hanging off the ceiling- they moved. It was subtle, but there were little contained clouds moving beneath glass. And the planets were rotating, slowly. Madison always thought they were still. It was magical.
"Can anyone name the order of all the planets?" somebody asked. Madison raised her paw, "Yes! You?"
"Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune," she recited. That one's easy. She always used to get Uranus and Neptune mixed up; but it became easier when she learned about trans-Neptunian objects. Then she noticed people were still quiet, and- oh, yeah. Dwarf planets weren't a thing yet, "And Pluto."
"Correct! Very good! Smart girl," probably the same person complimented, and Madison despised how just that simple praise felt like she was finally getting her fill of an empty cup. She wanted to relish it; devour the acknowledgement like an ever-hungry wolf. Call her fucking egotistic, she d- no, that's what she was, but it still felt good.
This is before, her thoughts told her again. Before anybody realised how much of a fraud she was. Before she just became another faceless sleazy shit-stain on the world. People thought she had potential. Children were the face of the future. And oh, how intoxicating it was, to be believed in.
It rang hollow in her gut. She was a bottomless pit- a black hole, that could never get its fill. No light could escape her hunger. Why wasn't- why didn't she feel more- more fulfilled by this? Little compliments like that used to give her a happiness high for weeks.
She stood still against the wall, zoning out as another lecture, now about the solar system, was given. It was the same lecture every year. She's heard it since she was first brought here at the age of seven. Eight-year-old Madison didn't recognise the speech, but thought it sounded sort of familiar. She noticed the pattern when she was nine. It was just basic information about each planet. Things you could easily find from an online search in the present she knew.
She read each paragraph on the walls, idly, and tried to ignore how boring these wonders had suddenly become.
The bus ride back to- not campus, this wasn't college, school, saw Madison sitting next to Charles, their bags tucked hastily under their hooves. As Charles was digging through hers, Madison used her own as a hoofrest.
The sound of a pencil scraping upon paper made Madison look up. It appeared Charles had dug out the exercise book from her bag. The pages were crumpled and worn, and parts of the cover had visibly fallen out.
A pleasant scent wafted over to her snout. She sniffed; some kind of citrus, most likely. She peered closer at the pencil Charles was holding, wrapped in yellow. Was that the smell of lemons?
She hadn't thought of scented pencils in ages. Younger her never did figure out where everyone else was buying them, from. They certainly weren't sold in the school's stationery shop. Now that she thought about it, she vaguely recalled there being some sort of black market among students, trading supplies of pencils and erasers for money. Perhaps these were a part of it.
She could buy some when she got back to the present, she realised. She had the money, and surely they wouldn't be breaking any office policies. The droll of her day-to-day would certainly feel a little more bearable if her ballpoint smelled like strawberries.
"What are you drawing?" Madison asked. Charles yelped in surprise, dropping the book. The child scrambled to pick it up, squeezing through the gaps between their bags, hooves, and the seats.
"It's... nothing...?" Charles replied, warily, as she clutched the makeshift sketchbook close, "Are you going to tell people?"
It took a moment for Madison to kind of realise what Charles meant; and even then, she wasn't completely sure. Was she afraid she'd, what? Holler out her findings for the bullies to see? Tell the teachers that a student was, what? Probably drawing in class? It certainly wasn't against the rules in the bus. Even if it was; it- all of it, just seemed petty.
"Why would I?" Madison replied, instead, "I'm not a narc."
"...Narc?"
"Narcotics officer?" Madison clarified. When Charles continued to look confused, "It means I'm not gonna snitch. You're not doing anything wrong."
"Oh," Charles seemed relieved. She bit her lip, and then answered, "I just... like to draw flowers."
Madison peeked over Charles' side. The drawings inside were either made of uneven, shaky lines around equally uneven circles, or unsettlingly symmetrical and intricate; the blurry shadows of erased grey lurking just behind the stronger lines. Madison was never one for visual artistry, herself; unless you counted overseeing and approving the graphic design of an advertisement. The most she herself had ever drawn was doodling the stars and constellations along the edges of her homework when she was a teen.
"Don't make fun," Charles warned.
Madison snapped her head up, "I won't, they're nice."
They really were. They weren't even close to the professional levels Madison observed from work, but the childish doodles had more charm in them than any logo she saw ever could. They reminded her of Akeidat, and their own drawings on their parents' computer. Such a little artist, they were.
"Um... thanks," responded Charles. She sat closer to her, the girl's long tail tapping lightly on the floor. They sat together, in comfortable silence, as Madison watched Charles draw, lines stabbing around amidst the bumpy road; the smell of lemons filling the air around them.