Maddy "No Chance"

By Kristin Carter Rowe

Madison Chance is a misunderstood and oft-teased nine-year old girl who escapes the rigors of elementary school by occasionally sneaking away to the cemetery on an adjacent hill. There, Maddy "No Chance," as she is called by her peers, finds comfort in her unusual discussions with the recently murdered daughter of the towns police chief, Nora Pendleton. Noras murder is unsolved until Maddys unique psychic abilities begin to unravel the secrets surrounding Noras untimely death, secrets so sinister that they threaten the safety of the entire community and even Maddy herself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 24, 2002
• ISBN: 9781462839605

Kristin Carter Rowe

Kristin Carter Rowe is a mother and practicing attorney. Her first novel - The Most Undeniable Things (Xlibris 2000) – is a story of the undeniable possibility of life after death. In MADDY "NO CHANCE," Ms. Rowe again explores psychic phenomenon and spiritual communication, this time in the context of a supernatural thriller. With this second book, Ms. Rowe hopes that others find comfort not only in the possibility of an afterlife, but in the knowledge that even a brutal death can bring about a peaceful forever. Life does indeed go on after a tragedy, for the living and the "dead."

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Her name is Madison Francis Chance, but they just call her Maddy. Her family that is. Others call her Fatty Maddy or Maddy No Chance. Others still don’t call her anything. They simply stare, their eyes semi-closed in an angry squint, their noses pulled up tight as if overcome by a foul odor. Sometimes they giggle and point, their whispers of hate and meanness only half-discernable in the crowded halls of the elementary school. Sometimes she can hear them yelling to her, trying to get her to look, trying to get her attention so they can crush her harder still. But she ignores their half-laughed pleas on most occasions, fearful not of what they’ll do or say but only of what she’ll see, what she’ll know when she looks into their eyes.

Maddy Chance is only nine years old, a fourth grader at Kennewyck Elementary School, but she knows more about her peers, her teachers, her neighbors, and even the custodian than anyone else in the growing town. She knows, for example, that Mr. Price, the gym teacher, has a fondness for strip joints and hard liquor, that he drives twenty miles out of his way to entertain his fancies without risk of being seen and often makes his way home with a mouthful of gum and prayers. She knows too that he has a satellite dish that he uses to rent adult films, the unrated kind, for $7.99 a pop almost every night.

She also knows that her neighbors, Maggie, a third grade teacher, and Emma, a police officer, are not cousins like her mother insists. And every time her mother calls them the cookie cousins, a descriptive phrase she has employed for as long as Maddy can remember, she knows Dana Chance sees more in her mind than two women with a fondness for baking.

Even her own father’s behaviors do not go unseen by her, although like all of her other visions she never discusses his weaknesses, not even with her older sister Millie. If she can keep the custodian’s affair with Jackie Rose, the school principal, a secret, certainly she can hold her tongue when it comes to the embarrassments of her own family.

With all of this and quite a bit more within ready sight, Maddy climbed off the school bus that early March morning with only one, very singular and intense question. How do I escape today?

Her sister Millie followed behind and grunted goodbye as she passed Maddy and headed to her fifth grade homeroom. If Millie had known that her twenty-something teacher—Ms. Mason—had once robbed a gas station as a college prank, scaring the owner’s overweight son into a near heart attack, she might not have been so envious of her pretty nails and perfect, white teeth. But she knew no better and walked the hall with eager anticipation of the sweet hello she’d get when she entered class.

Maddy stopped after she made her way through the red double doors of the school and stood alone among the noisy pre-teens. She stared at the large cafeteria before her, thinking that noon would come soon enough and she’d once again find herself sitting alone at the third table down, two aisles over from the outside wall, the only one made of large white brick, the only one not littered with posters advising kids to be kind, to smile, to lend a helping hand.

Maddy turned and peered into the nurse’s office to the right, the tiny office with two cots, a simple desk, and a myriad of warnings on the walls, signs about coughing and sneezing and the spread of germs. Maddy liked the nurse’s office. It was the quietest place in school and usually empty, except for Ms. Billows, a loving and caring creature with very few oddities or sorrows to clutter her past.

Maddy went to the nurse’s office often, complaining of a headache, nausea, uncontrollable itching, anything really, anything to get just ten minutes of peace and quiet. That’s about all the time it would take for Ms. Billows to check the girl’s pulse, her temperature, her heartbeat, her skin, her eyes, her throat and whatever else Maddy could think to complain of. Ten minutes was all it took for Ms. Billows to confirm what she already knew, that Maddy was as healthy as they come. Then the nurse would smile, give the girl a wink and either send her on her way or give her a bonus ten minutes on the cot to rest. Ms. Billows didn’t know about the visions, but she had heard the names and had seen the taunts. She liked the overweight girl with the toothy smile and freckles and she thought she understood why Maddy No Chance came to visit. So she welcomed her in, without a scold, without a warning, without an unkind word or expression of any kind. She welcomed her in and gave the mature nine-year-old a break from the world.

Today, Maddy didn’t go to the nurse’s office, even after exchanging a quick smile with Ms. Billows. It was Monday after all and that’s when she liked going to Pinewood the best. The Enders, as she called them, were always there on Mondays. And if she was going to get in trouble for skipping a class or two, maybe even the whole day, she would not take the punishment for anyone but the Enders. So she worked her way down the long corridor, largely ignored by the bustling crowd of kids headed to class, and took her first right down the hall where the first graders spent their days. She kept walking, her rubber soled sneakers flapping lightly, despite her weight, against the shiny floor, until she reached the blue double doors that exited out the side of the elementary school. Without looking back, she pushed hard against the metal bar and swung the right door open, slipping her oversized body outside so quickly that no one saw her leave the building.

She had to cross the side parking lot to reach the woods that stood thick on the land between the school and Pinewood, but it didn’t matter. She walked so calmly and purposefully that no one bothered to question where she was going. She did not look lost or upset or sick. She simply looked like she was headed somewhere and nobody cared to question where that was. Just as she had gone unnoticed in the crowded hallways that morning, she walked invisibly across the sparsely populated pavement, managed her way up the steep, wooded embankment and found the narrow, dirt trail that would bring her to Pinewood and the Enders.

It took less than fifteen minutes for Maddy to reach the first row of headstones. Pinewood Cemetery had no gate and no fence, just a border of dense woods that perfumed the site with the overwhelming scent of pine and tree sap. The tall timbers crawled up the steep slopes around Pinewood like stiff toothpicks stuck deep into the ground, casting a shadow so large and engulfing that only small streaks of light scattered across the headstones on the edges of the circular cemetery.

Her shoes dirty from the short walk, Maddy made her way over to Nora Pendleton, one of her favorite Enders. Nora had some wonderful pasts and Maddy never tired of hearing about them. She rested her hand on the stone, closed her eyes and smiled hello. The images rushed through her mind like the gushing water of a wave crashing its force against her forehead and temples. She saw Ionic columns and smelled the olive trees first—she always did—and then the other lives came through. There was the sound of hooves against cobblestone, a snap of lightning, the music of an orchestra dominated by strings, the smell of roses, then lilacs and gardenias. It was as if the tape was being fast forwarded through hundreds of years, years filled with joy, sorrow, anger and fear, years filled with sounds and smells of infinite number and variety.

Unlike her other visions, though, her visions here were always brief and pleasant. That’s the way it was with the Enders. They were at the end, after all, and souls at the end have no sorrow. It was for that reason that Maddy liked Pinewood so much. She didn’t see the pain the Enders had experienced. She saw only their accomplishments and, most important of all, the end result of all the living they had done—the patience, the understanding, the peace, the empathy. At Pinewood, her mind and soul could rest. It was the only place she could truly shut down and shield herself from all the noise in the world.

Maddy drifted her hand from the stone and sat with her back against the engraving. It read Nora Anne Pendleton, b. September 9, 1982, d. November 30, 2001, Beloved daughter and friend, She was an angel on Earth and will be so in Heaven. Nora was a wonderful teller of tales, an artist with words. She loved to amuse Maddy with her histories, stories of her life as an orator’s daughter or tales of her time in the woods of Montana, riding horseback with the other Indians from her tribe.

But it was her last life, her life as Nora Pendleton, that she spoke of the most. She had been a local girl, born as the fourth child of loving parents. She was their baby, their sunshine in the dark. She was the child who always smiled, the child who always saw the good amid the bad, the one who always looked for possibilities instead of dwelling on what was already lost. She had been through many lives after all and though she could not remember them when she was here as Nora Pendleton, they had made her who she was and she was wise indeed. She was wise enough to know that smiles breed smiles and wise enough to see the beauty in every day, even when her hair wouldn’t fall the way she wanted it to or her lunch tasted bad. Perhaps that was why she was taken so young. She had learned and accomplished all she was intended to. She had mastered her skills and had earned the right to be an Ender. She didn’t need to come back again.

Maddy had seen Nora’s parents. They came every Sunday, sometimes alone, sometimes with Nora’s sister or one of her brothers. But since the day of Nora’s funeral, they had not come again as a whole family. It just never seemed to work out and no great effort was put into making it happen. Perhaps it was because the sight of each other only seemed to deepen their loss by reminding them that they were no longer a whole family. One of them was missing and would remain so.

Aren’t you supposed to be in school, Maddy Chance?

Nora’s voice was soft and sweet, like the sound of a chime in a distant wind. Maddy opened her eyes slowly and stretched her back. She had been resting against the headstone, her eyes closed and her mind adrift. She had actually fallen asleep, despite the damp cold of the ground. Yes, she said softly. But it’s Monday and I’m tired.

Having a tough day, are we? You’re usually so good at looking beyond that childish cruelty. What makes today different?

Maddy took a deep breath and gazed out across the tops of the hundreds of stones before her. She did not eye the details, just the pattern, the endless pattern of rock and flowers in a circle of majestic trees. She closed her eyes again and felt the chill of a slight breeze against her face. It’s not the name-calling. Nothing like that. It’s these things I see. Sometimes I just want them to stop. I need a day off.

Nora smiled and pulled herself closer. With her legs folded, her bottom rested on the cold earth, she took Maddy’s hand into her own. Maddy saw her as if she was there in full flesh and bone. Do you want a story, Maddy? Is that what you need?

Maddy didn’t need to answer. Her desire was evident. Maybe I should tell you what I did this morning. Nora giggled like a child and rolled backward until she nearly tipped over. She gripped her forearms around her calves to stop herself from falling onto her back. She leaned forward again, the momentum pulling her chest lower to the ground; her eyes, eager and wide and smiling, were only inches from Maddy’s own. The words worked their way through her continued giggling. I went to see Lilly.

Your sister?

Yup. What a hoot she is! Do you know she was typing away on her computer at 6 o’clock this morning? That girl works way too much. I couldn’t help myself. She’s such an easy target!

What did you do? Maddy couldn’t help but smile herself, though she was not even aware she was smiling. Nora’s childish glee was contagious.

This time Nora rolled so far back that her weight pulled her hands away from her calves and her back fell against the damp, grassy earth; she felt neither the cold nor the moisture in the ground. She laughed until her belly hurt. She loves her coffee, you know, and boy does she need it in the morning. Nora spoke through her laughter, humoring herself with the memories of a few hours ago. When she got up to go to the bathroom, I moved her coffee from her office. She came back into her office, sat down and reached into the air, grappling for that mug with her eyes fixed on the computer. Nora sat back up, still holding her stomach. You should have seen it, Maddy! You really had to be there. She must have waved that hand in the air for five minutes searching for that cup, her eyes so fixed on the computer screen and the mumbo jumbo she was reading that I don’t think she even knew what she was doing until she smashed her hand against the phone and it fell off the receiver.

Did she see you? Did she know it was you? Maddy knew the answers to these questions. She knew that Lilly did not see the way she did, but she asked anyway. She couldn’t help herself. She hated being the only one.

Nora smiled knowingly. No and no. But you knew that, didn’t you, Maddy? Anyway, once she realized the cup wasn’t there, she started looking for that coffee mug in a frenzy. You know my sister. She doesn’t like things to be out of place. Well, she twisted and turned in that office chair so much, looking around her office for that mug, that I thought she was going to fall straight to the floor from dizziness! I stood there in the corner, laughing and laughing, just having fun with her, you know. I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I was just trying to tease her a little.

Sure you were! Maddy laughed. She was thoroughly enjoying the story. The simple stories were always the best.

The best part though. The awful, funny, best part of all was when she got up to look for that mug in the break room and I put it back.

You put it back where? Maddy too was leaning forward now, her arms lazily folded on her lap in eager anticipation of Nora’s sweet, cheerful voice.

Her office, of course! I put it right back next to that computer, smack dab next to the monitor. You should have seen her face, Maddy Chance, when she came back into the office all in a huff and saw that mug sitting there. I thought for sure she was gonna swear. I really did. But she didn’t. She just stood there for a few seconds completely amazed, shaking her head and clearing her eyes as if she had just woken up from a dream.

And all the while you were standing in the corner laughing? Maddy asked with a broad smile of her own.

You bet. It was the funniest thing I ever saw. She started mumbling something to herself about turning twenty-five and losing it and working too much and all that. . . blah,blah,blah . . . What a rip! Maybe now she’ll slow down a bit, maybe spend more time with my parents.

Does it bother you that you weren’t a parent? That you didn’t have kids? Maddy asked, the thought suddenly popping into her busy mind. As wise and knowing as she was, she didn’t understand everything. There were many secrets still unknown to even her.

But I do have kids. I’ve actually had many kids in my lives. Some of them are here with me now. Some have returned. Only one of the twelve is an Ender.

Twelve?

Yes, but we’re not supposed to get into that now, are we? You already see and know too much for a little girl. You’ll have to wait until it’s your time. There are limits to what my tongue can tell you, you know, as impossible as that may seem! Nora laughed, causing the smile lines at the corners of her eyes to tighten and expand. Maddy loved those marks. They showed such happiness in Nora’s youthful face.

When’s my time? Maddy asked.

Nora continued to smile, as she usually did, but waved her finger as if to scold. Now, now, Maddy Chance. That’s an improper question. Yes indeed, I can’t answer that one. I get myself in enough trouble as it is. Nora paused then and let the smile slip from her lips. She looked out across the cemetery, her eyes now fixed on something over Maddy’s left shoulder. She squinted and blinked and suddenly seemed sad.

What is it? Maddy asked, pulling herself to her feet.

Nora didn’t answer. She simply waved good-bye with a smile and disappeared as quickly as she had come. Maddy whirled around when she heard the pebble crack against the headstone.

What are you doing? Millie scolded her sister, dropping a handful of pebbles at the base of Nora’s grave. Mom and Dad are gonna kill you for skipping school.

How did you know I was here? Maddy asked. She was embarrassed at being caught, even though she was pretty certain Millie had not seen Nora.

Where else would you be on a Monday? This is the third time this year, Maddy, and its only March! I had to pretend to go to the bathroom so I could sneak out and bring you back. If I don’t get back in the next few minutes, I’m gonna be in as much trouble as you are!

But how did you know I skipped? Maddy glanced down at her watch. It was already 9 a.m. She had been gone for over an hour. She had no idea that she had slept so long before Nora arrived.

The principal came to my homeroom looking for you. The bus driver knows you were on the bus. They called home and know you’re not there. You’ve got the whole school going nutso again! Mom and Dad are probably driving all over town looking for crazy people who trick kids into their car with candy in their hands and stuff like that! You are gonna be in so much trouble!

Did you tell them where I was?

Millie shook her head, but Maddy couldn’t tell whether it was disgust or sympathy. Some things even she couldn’t interpret. She suspected her sister was experiencing a little of both emotions. "Of course not! If they knew you came up here and talked to dead people, they’d probably send you away, Maddy. You’ve got to stop this crazy stuff. Why can’t you talk to real people? The living ones, Maddy! My goodness. If you’re not talking to the dead, you’re talking to those stupid stuffed animals. I’m even starting to think you’re crazy!"

Millie was only thirteen months older than her sister, but their personalities were worlds apart. Maddy was shy and withdrawn, speaking more in her head than to her classmates. Millie, on the other hand, needed to please. She talked endlessly, always trying to do what she thought others expected, always trying to say what she thought they wanted to hear. She was skinny and athletic. Maddy was overweight and a tad clumsy. Millie was prone to overreact and embellish. Maddy was always calm and forgiving. Millie loved her sister, loved her dearly, but she rarely said so and more often than not, she was angry at Maddy. She was angry with her for being fat and strange and for being so calm despite it all.

Come on, Maddy. This place is giving me the creeps. Besides, we need to think up a story to explain why you missed school this morning.

I don’t want to go back, Maddy protested. But even her protests were calm and quietly said.

It doesn’t matter what you want, Millie grunted, reaching for her sister and pulling her along. You’re coming back to school and you’re not going to tell anyone you were at the cemetery talking to the headstones. The cemetery of all places! You’re going to the principal’s office and you’re going to say you were sick, that you felt ill and went into the woods to throw up. Something like that anyway.

You want me to say that I threw up for over an hour, Millie?

Millie rolled her eyes and continued dragging her sister down the dirt path. No! No! They won’t believe that at all. No, you’ll have to say that you threw up and then passed out behind the bushes. You know, the bushes around the parking lot? They might believe that. They just might. She looked at her sister for a moment, but never broke her hurried stride. Of course, you look pretty healthy for a sick girl. Try to look sick. Okay, Maddy? My goodness, you’re going to end up in a place for crazy people if you keep this up and I’ll be darned if I’m gonna be the only one around the house to do chores. No way, Maddy. You’re gonna stop this crazy stuff and start acting normal. Do you hear me, Maddy?

I hear you, Maddy said. She was running out of breath from the pace she was being pulled and sweat began to sparkle on her brow. Can we slow down a bit? I can’t walk as fast as you.

We can’t slow down. I have to get back before they notice I’m gone. And you have to drag yourself into the principal’s office pretending to be as sick as the sickest dog you’ve ever seen. Got it?

Got it, Maddy huffed, tripping on the loose dirt and nearly pulling Millie down with her as she plopped to her knees.

I swear I don’t deserve this! Millie complained, bending over to yank her sister back to her feet. Come on!

By the time Maddy reluctantly walked into the principal’s office, she actually looked a little sick. Her face was sweaty and flush from the fast walk back through the hilly woods and there was dirt scattered about her pants as if she really had passed out in the bushes. The secretary gasped when she entered and ran quickly to her side, screaming for Principal Rose that the girl had returned.

Dear Lord! Principal Rose wheezed, winding her skinny body through the maze of desks in the small room outside her office. She approached Maddy with both anger and concern. Where have you been, Madison? We’ve been worried sick!

Maddy didn’t immediately answer. She wasn’t very good at lying and she had to pause a moment to remember what her sister had told her to say.

Madison Chance, I asked you a question, Principal Rose bellowed. Where have you been?

Maddy looked up sheepishly and tried her best to look sick. I threw up in the bushes and I think I passed out.

There was an audible puff from Principal Rose’s mouth as she took a deep breath of air. The shock of Maddy’s disclosure caused Mrs. Pell, the secretary who had a secret habit of stealing school supplies, to flop heavily in her chair with an equally audible sigh. Silence ensued as Maddy’s words were tossed around in their heads and they searched her face with their eyes for evidence of her claim. Maddy fidgeted in their glare and then, to her great delight, Ms. Billows pushed open the office door.

Maddy! she exclaimed with relief. Are you okay? She rushed