It was late in the evening; the morning and day cleared out of any lessons, to give students time to rest beforehand, and the school's science fair was in full swing. All around the entire school; not just the hall, stood booths, decorations, activities, and people running about, galore.
Madison forgot how much she loved these kind of days. It was never so much a science fair as it was an... actual fair. Honestly, the science part felt more like just something the fair was themed after. Madison couldn't remember the last time she went to a fair like this- years, probably.
Charles and Madison took turns, standing guard at their own booth and presenting it to passing teachers, while the other wandered around the school to explore the other booths.
The science fair didn't normally take place in the night, Madison was pretty sure; but the arrival of the Wishmakers' Comet was easily spun into an opportunity for education.
Rumours of the comet's wish-granting abilities, like any plausible-sounding supernatural urban legend, spread around the children like wildfire, as each discussed the wishes they'd try to make, and what they'd do on the off-chance it came true.
Most of what Madison heard spoke aloud consisted of wishing for their crushes to be requited, a vacation to some faraway country, or a new toy or video game to be bought. After everything she'd learned thus far, Madison now knew better than to assume those were the only wishes the children thought of.
It all left a sort of bittersweet taste on Madison's tongue.
Now her turn to stand guard, she sat by the booth, leaning back against the table. Tonight would be the night she finally went home. Well, not home home; if she recalled correctly, she'd fallen asleep in Akeidat's parents' couch. But home to the present.
Home to her thirty-two year old body, in the present, with all its headaches and creaking knees and speckled, faded fur.
She could've been doing a lot of things, commemorating her last day as a child. On the day before her eighteenth birthday, seventeen-year-old freshly-sent-a-rejection-letter-from-her-dream-school Madison had ridden a taxi to the beach on the outskirts of town to get illegally drunk and melodramatically sulk under the stars until the clock struck midnight. The night before her thirtieth, she'd uncomfortably trudged herself to some club she couldn't recall the name of in some last ditch effort to savour whatever was left of her twenties, and woke up the next morning and the mornings after that to find her then-irregular headaches had turned regular and chronic.
She had no such inclination to be adventurous now. Instead of one last hoorah, she let the prospect of saying goodbye to all this wash over her, half-dozing as she sat. She wasn't fully asleep, just yet- her eyes were open, and she was idly watching the fair-goers pass by; but she let the noise fade into an indistinguishable mass, and her thoughts ran awry with surreal not-quite dreams. Aging was less scary when she'd already passed that dreaded point, both a long time ago and a few hours from now.
The serenity dispelled when Charles eventually returned, sifting through the items in her bag with increasing panic.
"What are you, uh, looking for?"
"My... my notebook," Charles replied, worriedly, "I can't find it... where is it?"
Madison rubbed her eyes, willing herself awake. She peered over Charles' shoulder, and sure enough, there was no sign of the recycled brown exercise book.
"Where'd, um, you last leave it?" She asked, purposefully adding a curious lilt to her voice, trying not to sound judgemental.
Charles sat on the floor, rubbing her knees, "I left it here, on the booth, I... think. Needed to keep my homework from flying. Did it drop, somewhere?!"
Madison paled.
"...Okay, gonna be honest, I've, uh, kind of been sleeping," she admitted, sheepishly, "Do you think someone might've taken it?"
"I..." Charles was shaking like a leaf. Madison reached to take her paw, but just like all the other days before, she flinched away. Madison frowned.
"Oh, is this what you're looking for?"
The two paused. In unison, they turned around, to see Kasie standing by the edge of another booth, her smirk wide and smug. She waved her paw, mockingly, and in it, was Charles' notebook.
"Give it back," Charles said, "that's mine!"
"Well, not anymore," the bully grinned, before turning heel and bolting away.
"HEY!" Madison sprinted ahead first. She locked onto the vision of Kasie's bright, red form, routing all the energy in her legs into a burst.
If there was one thing she appreciated about having a child's body, it was having stamina. Every little action as an adult made her tired; but not here. Not when she was small. And that stamina did well to keeping her speed from a burst to a stable run.
She glanced behind her. Charles was close on their heels, too; slower on her cloven hooves, but quicker at turning. Lither and flexible.
Kasie, however, was still proving faster than the both of them; the bully's red tail slinking just out of sight as they both rounded a corner. Where Madison and Charles entered one area, Kasie was already leaving.
They passed by the bewildered crowds of students and staff, the night wind rushing against Madison's fur. As they began clambering up the stairs, Madison fell, catching herself by the palms. She cursed. Stupid body. Stupid brain. Stupid too-short-limbs and too-small-body and too-inexperienced-muscle-memory.
Charles went up an entire flight ahead of her, and they kept climbing, and climbing, until they reached the third, highest floor in the school, and Kasie still rounded up the stairs.
Madison caught a glimpse of something metallic hanging from Kasie's other paw- a key.
When Madison finally caught up with the other two on the school's rooftop- oh, this was so fucking dangerous, they were absolutely not allowed to be here- Charles was standing an equidistance to the door she'd just come through, and the very edge of the rooftop, where Kasie was posed triumphantly, a half-wall that barely passed for a railing behind her.
"Give me- give me back my notebook!" Charles demanded.
"Yeah? Come get it!" Kasie taunted, raising the notebook high, "I know you won't! You're too scaredy-cat to do anything!"
Madison snarled, baring her canines, "I'll tell a teacher!"
"Then you'll get in trouble too!" the bully snickered, "We're not allowed to be here! I'll tell the teacher I followed you here, and it's all your fault!"
"What..." Madison looked back to her friend, breathing heavily, her eyes wide, and pupils entirely focused on the notebook in Kasie's paws, "What do you want from me?!"
"Hmmm," she tapped her chin, before pacing around, tossing the book to her other paw, "I want to tear all the pages of your dumb emo stuff and throw it downstairs, so everyone can laugh at you!"
She waved it around, "Or, maybe I want to read it out loud, for everyone to hear! But I don't know if they'll hear me clearly."
"I..." Charles could barely get a word out, her voice shaky and brittle like dirt, "I'll..."
"You're so pathetic," Kasie continued, flipping the notebook to a random page, "All your whiny 'I'm normal!' crying and your dumb drawings- you're so bad at it! You're bad at everything!"
"I'll.."
"You'll what?" she goaded, "You'll cry? You'll beg? Maybe you'll get on your knees and bark like a dog, because that's all someone like you will ever be good for! Or maybe that's too flattering, because at least dogs are smart! Huh? Huh? Come on, get down and beg me like a good dog."
"Dude," Madison said, slowly, "Just- don't do this. It's cruel."
"Cruel?" Kasie laughed, "You're such a crybaby! I'm not even hitting you!"
She twirled her face towards the book. Helplessly, Madison watched as Kasie lifted two fingers, pinching the corner of one of the pages. Slowly, she pulled upwards...
"I'LL KILL YOU!" Charlotte suddenly screamed, pouncing upon the other girl. Kasie shrieked, as she struggled against Charlotte's rage, "I'LL KILL YOU, I'LL KILL YOU, I'LL KILL YOU!"
"EW, EW, EW! GET AWAY FROM ME!" Kasie screeched so loudly that Madison felt like a knife was being driven through her ears. Charlotte was currently clawing at Kasie's throat as if she wanted to strangle her, only being stopped by Kasie dodging out of the way to grab hold of her wrists, knocking her angry fists back into her own head.
"I'LL CUT YOUR THROAT OUT AND- AND DEVOUR IT WITH MY TEETH!" Charlotte declared.
"YEAH, YOU WOULD SAY THAT, YOU FUCKING EMO ASS," Kasie snapped back.
Madison stood by the sidelines, frozen. She watched with mounting horror as the girls fought and tussled; then found her eyes directed towards what landed on the floor during all the chaos: Charlotte's notebook. It must have fallen from Kasie's paws.
"CHA- CHARLIE, STOP!" Madison yelled, to deaf ears. Neither of them were listening, caught up in their battle. The fur on the back of her neck stood straight as an arrow, as she helplessly watched them tumble back-and-forth across the roof.
"SAY YOU'RE SORRY!"
Charlotte was all but begging now, tears in her eyes.
"NO, YOU'RE CRAZY!"
Kasie snarled back.
"I'M NOT CRAZY!" Charlotte reached for her throat again.
And what happened next was so quick that Madison could barely process it.
Kasie pressed both her paws on Charlotte's chest, and pushed.
Charlotte's hooves skidded against the ground as she stumbled back, disoriented.
She fell over the railing.
"CHARLIE!"
Snapping herself into action, Madison ran over to the edge of the roof, quickly reaching over the railing to extend her paw; sighing with relief as she found Charlotte gripping onto a ledge just under the roof's edge with dear life.
Madison wasn't quite sure if the fall could kill anyone; the school was only about three stories tall, and children could be remarkably hardy, compared to their ageing counterparts; but she wasn't eager to find out.
"Take my paw!" said Madison, using her other free paw to grasp tightly on the railing's surface as she bent over.
Charlotte only whimpered in response.
"Go get a teac-" as Madison swivelled her head, her words died out as she saw Kasie, stock-still at the sight of everything.
"I didn't-" the child sniffled, in horror, "I didn't mean to-"
Dust trailed from her hooves as Kasie ran away, screaming shrilly. While a part of Madison wanted to- no, was angry, she supposed she couldn't blame her too much; she was only still a child, after all. But that meant there wasn't anyone else around who could help her pull Charlotte up.
The realisation made her blood run cold. Was this why she went missing when they were kids? Because no-one else was around to catch her fall? She looked into her eyes, all teary and panicked. Was she scared, when it first happened? Did she fall, thinking nobody ever cared about her? Did she disappear thinking nobody noticed? Or, worse... did she close her eyes and let go, accepting of the fact that she wouldn't be missed?
Madison couldn't let that happen; because she was missed. Maybe not the way she wanted, and maybe not the way she deserved. Maybe Madison had been selfish all these years, blinded by longing and nostalgia and the false image she'd constructed of her childhood friend; if they could even call themselves that. Maybe it was too late, both here in the past and home in the present, for them to truly be friends; but Charlotte was missed, so dearly, by at least one person.
That person let go of the railing's surface, reaching for Charlotte's paws with both her own.
"I'll catch you, just take my paws!" she yelled. Charlotte still didn't move, breathing heavily. Madison's heart-rate accelerated an unheathly amount as she spotted her grip weakening.
"But what's the point?" Charlotte all but sobbed. Ugly streams of snot and tears were streaking down her face by now. Madison was suddenly struck by how utterly exhausted the child looked. Charlotte's eyes were red, and heavy with bags. Madison looked at her, desperately trying to find even the slightest hint of fear.
But what little she found was overshadowed by Charlotte's despair.
"Why do I have to- to live when it's just gonna get worse?" She reasoned, eerily calm for someone hanging off a roof, her hooves dangling like willow leaves three stories above the hard ground, "We're just kids, and this is supposed to be the best parts of our lives, but everything already sucks!"
The sentiment was far too familiar for Madison's liking. Why should she keep going on when there was nothing worth looking forward to? Why keep holding on when it was all downhill from here?
"Because everyone's wrong!" Because I was wrong, "It does get better! I know it does! You learn to cope, and you leave the people that hurt you, and it's never gonna be exactly what you wanted, but you'll meet new friends, and you'll listen to new music, and sometimes the best part of being a kid is we'll never have to deal with being kids, again! And- and-!"
"-And I'm- I'm sorry!" Madison cried, in a last-ditch effort. Charlotte seemed more alert, eyes wide and pupils flitting towards her. At least now, she had her attention.
"I'm sorry for not being a good friend," she started, "I'm sorry about the project, and the notebook, and you being so alone all this time, and-" she gritted her teeth, heaving with all her strength as Charlotte finally took her paw, slowly pushing herself upwards from the ledge with the other, "It's not right, the way everyone's been so awful!"
"You're smart, and brave," so, so very brave, even through she shouldn't have had to be, "and you deserve to have good things, Goddamnit! You deserve to- to have real friends that love you for exactly who you are, because you're- you're more amazing than anyone here at this dump realises, and I know you'll find them, someday, if you'd just hold on!"
"I-"
"Grab the floor!" Madison ordered, pulling their interlocked paws up. Charlotte did as she was told, quickly letting go of Madison's hold to grip the roof, instead. But as she did; Madison no longer had anything for her own paws to hold onto, except for the wall of the building, which would only serve to push her further out.
In an instant, Madison slipped over Charlotte's body, like oil over water.
Charlotte was safe.
But Madison was falling in her place.