The Story of Laughing Jill
Jill had never been your "average" teenage girl. She was a very quiet person with long, curly, black hair and a very pale complexion. Her eyes were a pale shade of blue; so blue, they were nearly white. Most considered her to be goth, as she had a tendency to wear shiny black lipstick, black nail polish, black eye shadow and eyeliner, and black mascara. She liked to dress in frilly black and white dresses, skirts, and blouses with black knee-high stockings and black high-heeled slip-on shoes with white lace bows. There was a silver necklace set with an ebony jewel that she always wore. The only bit of color Jill would ever wear was a pair of red ear rings with pear-shaped gems.
Jill lived in a small town with her father and she went to a public school that was not two miles down the road. She walked to and from school every day. Jill's quiet and solitary nature along with her gothic appearance didn't help her make friends. In fact, she was picked on a lot by the other students, who would make comments like, "Isn't it a bit early for Halloween?"
Most of the time Jill would just ignore them and continue on with her day, but she couldn't deny that the insults were degrading. She was also picked on about her weight. Not because she was fat, or anything—in fact, she was very skinny—but she loved candy. It was a rare sight to see her without a sucker popped in her mouth or a hard candy stuffed into one of her cheeks. The candy helped Jill take her mind off of the anger her peers caused her, because Jill's life wasn't perfect.
Even when she wasn't at school, she still faced abuse from her father. He was an alcoholic and e snapped easily when he wasn't sober. When he wasn't drinking, Jill's father was actually a kind and loving man who loved and respected his daughter, despite the way she dressed. But when he was drunk, he was violent. He'd often hit her or scream at her before sending her away to her room.
Jill often hated the way her father would get, but he was all she had. Her twin brother, Jack, and her mother had died approximately one year ago in a car crash. She had to admit she missed them both dearly, especially Jack.
Jack had been a lot like her, in many ways. His complexion had been as equally pale as hers and he dressed in black and white clothes. His hair had been straight instead of curly, but they both wore their hair long just for the sake of confusing people.
Jill would feel tears well up in her eyes at the thought of her beloved brother. She could only remember how he looked in the hospital; surviving only because of a life support machine until the doctors were forced to pull the plug.
It was whenever Jill though of her brother that she'd help herself to some Jolly Rancher hard candies. She hated them, but they used to be her brother's favorite. She'd also play the tune, 'Pop Goes the Weasel' on an old squeak box he'd owned, because the tune used to be his favorite. She had even managed to play it for him once before he died.
Jill popped another Jolly Rancher into her mouth as she thought about that horrible day. It didn't help at all that both of their birthdays were tomorrow. She thought about school and how much her peers were going to annoy her. Sometimes, she just wished they would all drop dead.
And then suddenly, Jill got an idea. For some strange reason, her father always kept a bottle of cyanide capsules in their medicine box in the kitchen. She figured it was because if her father ever went off the deep end, there was a quick and easy way out that didn't make a gigantic mess.
Jill snuck down the steps from her second-story bedroom and checked for her dad. She found him passed out on their living room couch with a bottle of wine dangling from one of his hands. He'd be out until morning.
She snuck into the kitchen and opened the medicine box. She found the cyanide capsules and hurried back up the steps with them in her hands. Looking through the drawers of her bedroom, Jill found a bag of soft caramel candies.
With a wicked grin on her face, Jill stuffed a cyanide capsule in each candy and wrapped them again in their individual pieces of paper. She'd take these with her to school tomorrow.
"Jill? What have you got there?"
A teacher had taken notice when Jill walked up with the bag of goodies in her hands.
"I figured since I snack on my own candy so much," Jill said in her usual, shy tone, "Maybe other people would like some, too."
"That's very kind of you, Jill. How many do you have?"
"Just enough for everybody to get one."
Jill sat a candy on the teacher's desk, and then she passed them out one by one to each of her classmates, and she still had plenty left over.
By the time Jill had taken her seat in the middle of the classroom, however, every person had dropped dead.
"They can't be that bad," Jill said to herself, crossing her legs, "After all, nobody spat them back out."
The same thing happened in the rest of Jill's classes, and by the end of the day nearly half of Jill's school had been wiped out. Although there were people who had found the bodies of the teachers and students, nobody ever suspected shy and quiet Jill to be the culprit.
When the last bell of the day rang, Jill disappeared into the local cemetery, having discarded the bag of goodies before walking out the door.
Jill found her brother's grave and kneeled down in front of it.
"You would be proud, Jack," she said, "Remember how Britney used to pull your hair and call you a dweeb? Well, no more Britney. And remember how that jock, Bobby, used to dunk your head in the toilets after football practice? No more Bobby."
Jill never got a response, but deep down she always Jack heard her, and this time she was sure he was proud of her.
"All around the mulberry bush," Jill sang, "The monkey chased the weasel. The monkey thought t'was all in fun . . ."
As she stood to leave, Jill placed a handful of Jolley Ranchers at the foot of her brother's grave.
". . . Pop goes the weasel. Happy birthday, brother. I'll see you tomorrow."