Hey guys, so sry for takin' so long, but here is the new chapter. It is in MALLORY's perspective. I know, rite?! Omg omg plz read and review, your feedback makes us so happy, luv luv luv xoxoxoxo
The Rise and Fall of Linda Bruno
The only dignity they showed me was trying me as an adult. At least the metered scales of Lady Justice recognized my maturity. Rightfully so. I have a lot of time to reflect on the wisdom of age, years lived beyond mere time, now that I've been put away. They say even my high powered lawyers couldn't save me from myself, but I know that it was the knowledge that any prison or institution is better than returning to the hell masquerading as the Pike family home.
John Pike, my father. Dee Pike. So many siblings: Byron, Adam, Jordan, Vanessa, Nicky, Margo and Claire. And don't forget my namesake...Mallory II and then the two baby twins, Edna and Edward. I'll be sucked back in before you can blink. Dreaming of the day I can finally wear skirts above my knee...Trying to deal with my frizzy hair with the cheap shampoo that they insist that is all they can afford. Why the hell didn't they stop after me? Why wasn't I enough for them?
If they can't afford 8...Excuse me, 11 kids...Why did they have them?!
"Kids," John used to laugh and say, "Fun to make but suck to raise!" And everyone would guffaw with him. Except for me. I never found the whole thing funny. There's not much to giggle about a working class family with too many mouths to feed and parents who confuse Frodo the hamster with whomever their youngest child is (at the time).
I remember when the Pikes-- I can't even think of them as my family, having been Linda for so long now-- the Pikes came to visit me in jail after I was so poetically betrayed by the only man I'd ever loved or trusted. No one really spoke, except that loon Vanessa who just danced around, singing a poem she'd written.
Things can change, oh dear lord
The sister we once adored
Is now so reviled
And is on trial
The night Mallory died
Was really the night Mallory LIED
The day after they visited was the trial. I sat quietly in my black suit with my hair in a sedate chignon. My team of lawyers told me to look as adult and mature as possible, after arguing for days about whether or not I should try to look my birth age. Thankfully, they went the other way. However, they didn't know that my earrings were shaped like unicorns. You've just go to have something sparkly, no matter what!
I like to think I managed to get a good sense of fashion from hanging out with Claudia and Stacey so many years (god, it seemed like we never got older). Claudia used to wear the wildest outfits, like this one time, she came to school with her hair dyed mauve and then shaved down the middle (but still hair on both sides), oversized green fisherman's boots, turquoise and violet plaid striped stretch pants, and a pink bowling shirt that said WHITE PRIDE on the back (she was being ironic) and two bone earrings! Man, I used to idolize that crack-addled whore.
When I was arrested, John and Dee tried to offer to hire me a lawyer. Oh, how I laughed. Their "little girl" could afford ten-- no, fifty-- times the legal defense they could. Besides, their offer probably came with strings... strings attached to bulky plastic glasses, I'm sure.
They'd never accept that I was any older than Clare. Instead, I had to TAKE my age and my revenge. They forced my hand.
At the trial, all the old Baby Sitter's Club Members were there. Even Abby, that bitch who helped Logan sell me out. Kristy Thomas sat in the front row and apparently tried to get other people to forgive me. What did I do that needed forgiveness?
"Friends screw up sometimes," she would say eagerly. "Friends forgive." Her dowdy face would fall and then she'd lift her vapid, empty eyes upward, and show us all the mock-up of her new poster announcing the re-opening of the BSC. "It could be like it was before... when we were... happy..." she'd sniffle.
But I hadn't been happy then. I was only ever happy as... Linda.
I had power, prestige, money and as many men...Grown men...As I wanted. Oh, sure. Logan was great for kicks when I was in Stoneybrook, but I really only ever saw him as one thing. A way out. He'd been working at the Rosebud Cafe for like two years! He had to have quite the savings account. Of course, I hadn't thought about how many stuffed animals he bought me.
When I found out his savings had dwindled, the situation seemed almost untenable until he broke down crying one day about same aunt of his, going crazy after a divorce. A little prodding and I met Linda Bruno, mediocre author, and miserable woman seeking a way out. She agreed to cede me her identity, to run away. But she was unstable. How could I trust her to stay?
When one grows up in a house, unnoticed and unloved, raising the siblings whose constant needs obscure you, one learns how to be clever, to always be prepared.
Yes, Linda needed to go.
It wasn't hard. Just a little push when she thought I was hugging her goodbye and there she was...Lifeless. Ah! I imagine you want to know how I hid the body...Well, I don't want to give up all my secrets...Just know that there aren't only baby alligators in the NYC sewers.
My lawyers wanted to paint me as a scared, little girl, very clever, but traumatized after watching the accidental death of a woman she admired. They said posing as Linda was because I was afraid I would be blamed. It was a clever little girl's way of hiding under the stairs. I forbid them from using this defense.
Instead I gave them my own version of the truth: that I had posed as Linda to protect the real murderer, my beloved boyfriend Logan Bruno, from being punished. He had turned me in because in his own deluded mind, he'd blocked it out or maybe to get away with it once and for all. Who knows?
Of course, there were more amusing things to do than tell this to the judge during my trial. Claudia Kishi was there. She kept excusing herself to the ladies room.
Sure.
I'd only wished Dawn had been there but apparently it's hard to get the weekends off when you're a junkie whore.
The best thing to see was single mommy Marianne. Oh, Logan had told me of her insta-family with triplets and Stacey, but there was nothing finer than seeing that bitch, that bitch who had once suffered like me in clothes meant for younger children but had with no struggle suddenly allowed a short, cute cut and a boyfriend. Yes, her demise was the sweetest of all.
Her failure and my success only further legitimate the fact that I was always the mature one. I deserved the short hair. And Claudia-- it is clear I was more worthy of those glittery legwarmers. The other sitters all ruined their damn lives but me? I BUILT A DAMN EMPIRE. Linda Bruno's preteen chapter books, particularly the Mallory the Grown-Up Unicorn series, have sold millions of copies. Translated into 26 languages! There's an animated TV show.
That's right, Kristy, let's talk about business sense, you moping pretender.
Let's see you haze me, judge me, try to keep me from joining, degrade me into a junior officer now!
All I can think about is all they lost... and all that I gained that fateful night I staged a tragedy.
Of course, the judge let me go. There's no jury in the world that will convict a sobbing girl on the witness stand. I'm still upset that they didn't believe my lawyers when they said that Logan did it...But at least I'm not in jail.
Of course, I'm not overly fond of the place where I am. Welcome to Sunshine Manor. The court placed me back into the custody of John and Dee. When they walked up to me while Dee was crying, I just said it. "Don't waste your tears on me. They don't matter. I will wear make-up! I WILL WEAR GLITTER! I WILL SHOP AT VICTORIA'S SECRET STILL!"
Soon the entire courtroom was silent as they stared at me. Good. Now I've begun as I mean to go on. John and Dee may be able to force me to live with them, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to bend back into that sickening eleven year old.
The court officers, nice men, told me their children loved my books, tried to comfort me, telling me my parents were good people. "They aren't my parents," I said, and spit at the Pikes for good measure, "They were my jailors."
I pulled my shirt collar to the side, stretching it off my shoulder. "I'll wear whatever I want!" I shouted and pointed at my cleavage, "I paid 20 grand for these and I'll show 'em off however I want!"
Dee sobbed harder and I laughed and laughed. My lawyers told me to calm down, told me they'd file to have me emancipated, it would just be a few weeks.
"A few weeks?! You don't understand!" I raged. "Living there was hell. I HAD TO KILL A BITCH TO ESCAPE! Do you think I liked taking a human life?!"
Thank god for double jeopardy laws!
But I wasn't thinking. And that's how I ended up here, in Sunshine Manor. It's not a fancy spa or anything, although I pretend it is. I always ask for my lemon-cucumber water when we get our medications in the morning. Really, it's a mental health center. Although it's my prison. John and Dee had strings to pull that I never knew about. Apparently Dee had dated some high level lawyer in college and they were still in contact. He had me declared legally incompetent...For the rest of my life. My lawyers sighed sadly and said it was airtight, that for the rest of my days I'd be wherever the Pikes...First John and Dee and then the triplets sent me.
It's not bad. I can wear whatever I wanted, unless it's sharp or pointy. They actually prefer my contacts because it's less likely to be made a weapon. Kristy stops by a lot, to tell me her newest scheme of freeing me. She's trying to organize the old client kids into a Free Mallory chapter but so far she's the only member. Figures.
Logan comes by too, to tell me he forgives me and loves me still. He says he can't wait until I'm better again, his sweet girl again. I tell him about how I suck off orderlies for cigarettes and laughs while he cries. Except for the Pikes, no one else visits.
Of course I pay for my own care and am still writing from the institution. The Pikes can't afford quality care so I foot the bill for my own bondage. Hilarious. The trial was actually great for sales. I developed a cult following among teenagers who hate their parents.
The money goes to my care and then to a foundation I set up to help mentally ill girls-- of course, it helps no one and is really just a tax shelter. I miss the outside world, my apartment in the Bronx, my suitors. At night, I sit in the common room and gaze at the moon, planning my next move. I'm slowly waiting until I have enough money in the foundations' account to either buy my freedom... or my revenge.