Page 14 of Margo

Padding out to the common area, she opened the door and was immediately hit with a handful of crayons. Her mouth dropped open as she surveyed the scene in front of her. One of the bookshelves where they kept all their games, toys, and puzzles was facedown on the floor with boxes smashed underneath. Toys littered the floor, and a huge Tupperware container was currently being used as an ammo cache, crayons and markers grabbed out to be hurled at each other from close range. A second handful hit Margo in the chest and without thinking, she bent down and picked them up, hurling them back at Jade. “What the heck is going on in here?” she hollered.

Her friends turned to stare at her, and then looked back at each other. Chaos ensued. Margo wasn’t imagining things. She’d gone from innocent bystander to main target as all manner of things hit her all over her body from every direction. Game and puzzle boxes were ripped open and discarded, the contents being used as weapons. Puzzle pieces didn’t exactly hurt when they hit you, but they sure made a mess.

“Hey! Stop it! What the heck?” she cried. “Why are you ganging up on me? I didn’t do anything!”

“Exactly!” Mariah yelled back. “You haven’t done anything! You have a perfectly good Daddy who wants to spank you and spoil you and love you, and you are ignoring his very existence!”

Margo glared at her and stomped across the room. Grabbing a handful of children’s paperback chapter books off the shelf, she pitched them one by one at Mariah’s head. “Maybe you should mind your own dang business!” she hollered.

Tessa stomped up beside Mariah with a stack of puzzle boxes that she opened over the top of Margo’s head. Tiny cardboard pieces rained down, covering her.

“What the hell?” Margo screeched, dancing around to shake the stray pieces off her sweater. “Oh my gosh! What is wrong with you? Look at the huge mess you’re making! What in the world do you think you’re going to accomplish besides getting us all spanked? You guys are all stupid!” Tears of frustration pooled in the corners of her eyes as she dropped to her knees and started to pick up puzzle pieces. They were all mixed together.

Jilly, who hated conflict and generally tried to stay out of real trouble, walked up and sat beside Margo. “Maybe that’s exactly what we are trying to accomplish,” she said softly.

Margo halted her desperate attempt at cleaning and stared at her. When she’d interrogated her roomie as to why Knox had been in their room the other night, she’d discovered that it wasn’t the piece of cake she’d imagined. Shy, quiet Jilly had remained firm, refusing to discuss it while Margo just fumed. And now Jilly was speaking absolute nonsense. “Wait… what? Why? You’ve all… you’ve all been in trouble lately.”

“Yeah. And you haven’t. You’ve been stomping around with a giant chip on your shoulder, angry at all of us because we are getting spanked by Knox and you aren’t. You barely talk to us except to give us the third degree about our punishments, and we’re honestly just sick of it. So… we decided to do something about it.” It was Jade who spoke up with an explanation.

Margo couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She had every right to be upset. And yeah, maybe she was acting a little jealous, and maybe she was grumpy from having to be good all the time, but who did they think they were, starting trouble just so they could implicate her so Knox would finally have a reason to spank her? Rage filled her, blinding her senses. Before anyone could stop her, she lunged at Jade, tackling her legs until she fell to the floor.

“Arrgh!” Jade screamed as she went down. She attempted to get to her feet, but Margo rolled on top of her.

“It’s not your problem to do anything about!” Margo cried, grabbing a fistful of Jade’s braids and giving them a good tug.

“Well, you weren’t going to do anything!” Jade argued. “You have a perfectly good man who wants to be your Daddy and you’re being a selfish idiot and pushing him away!” She got a grasp of Margo’s curls and held them tightly, wrapping her fist around them as she tried to roll out from under her.

“Selfish!” Margo huffed, panting from the exertion of trying to keep Jade pinned beneath her. “How am I being selfish? It’s my life and I have every right to make my own decisions about who I do and don’t want in it!”

She leaned down so that her face was close to Jade’s and for a moment, she considered spitting.

“Get. Off. Me.” Jade growled. “If you don’t, I’m gonna knock you out.”

“I’d like to see you try!”

A few feet away Jilly started to cry, blubbering loudly as she frantically tried to clean the mess. Ellie got annoyed with her, and made it bigger, continuing to dump boxes while the two of them sniped at each other.

Mariah decided she’d had enough, and attempted to pull Jade and Margo apart, getting elbowed in the face in the process.

“Owie! I’m bleeding! You hurt me!” Mariah lost it then, her cries mingling with Jilly’s.

“That’s enough!” Tessa roared. “Stop it before someone else gets hurt!”

Jade and Margo ignored her, and Ellie dumped over the custom dollhouse that Baze had gotten them for Christmas, sending dolls, miniature furniture, and tiny clothes flying everywhere.

“Knox is coming!” Tessa cried.

Margo flew into a panic, leaping to her feet, and rushing to try to clean the mess. She really didn’t want to get blamed for this, and she knew she would be even though she hadn’t started it.

Everyone else froze and stared at the door. Nothing happened. Knox didn’t come.

“Where is he?” Jilly whispered.

“I thought you said you heard him coming,” Ellie accused.

“That’s not what I said,” Tessa snapped. “Maybe you should get your ears checked. Maybe your hearing is bad. Or maybe you’re just too dumb to understand!”

“Hey!” Ellie protested, her eyes welling with tears.