It wasn't always doom and gloom for the Dollanganger family, for many years it was the idyllic life, heaven on earth, a peaceful and fulfilling life in suburban Philadelphia. They were the epitome of what post-war America proclaimed to be the ideal family, a hardworking father who brought home the bacon while his wife stayed home to tend to their many kids, however, the truth was that even though their lives were better than what their lives would become in just a few years, it was not all puppies and rainbows during the family's Gladstone days. While Corrine always preferred to tend to her needs over those of others, let alone her beauty needs over the welfare of her kids, it was up to her oldest daughter, Cathy, to tend to many domestic duties. While no kid preferred to clean the kitchen instead of hanging out of their friends, Cathy obliged, not just because her mother was the one who asked her to attend to the house, but because it would prepare her for the only life a woman of her time could expect to have, the life of a housewife. Apart from home chores, Cathy was also responsible for her younger twin siblings, Cory and Carrie; she always made sure they were well-groomed, well-dressed and squeaky clean.
This was easy with Cory as he always allowed himself to be washed up, but Carrie was different, not just was she difficult to pin down in order keep her clean, she didn't much care for the conventions society placed on her, she was a true free spirit, but Cathy always got to her and forced her to do as she said. Oddly enough, bath time for the twins was one of the easier chores Cathy had when it came to tending to her younger siblings because instead of focusing on one and letting the other roam free, she just plopped them both in the same bathtub where she could keep an eye on both of them at the same time. There was no shame in having two siblings share a bath for they were just innocent kids who knew nothing about the adult world, and it wasn't as if this was foreshadowing the fate of the Dollanganger family, correct? Either way, bath time was rarely ever different, Carrie complained about having to bathe, the twins splashed bathwater in Cathy's face whenever she tried to clean them up and the moment the bath was over, Carrie rushed outside, with Cory following suit, where the two would immediately get dirty again. However, that was not the case this time because as Cathy lifted up her little brother's shirt, she noticed a large, dark spot on the right side of his lower back.
"Cory, what is this?" Cathy asked him, only to be greeted with a face that screamed shame, so much so he just bowed his head down, refusing to both make eye contact with his older sister and answer her question.
It didn't take Cathy long to discover what was going on, she had also experienced such injuries before, especially in her early days of ballet classes whenever she failed to keep herself up during instruction, and with a tone of concern that only a mother could deliver, she once again asked her brother, "This...this is a bruise? Where did you get this?"
Cory never responded to Cathy's question, he just kept his mouth shut and his head held down, concluding that if he didn't answer his sister's question then she would just drop it and move on, and in a way, he was right. Tracking down the origins of a child's injuries was no job for an eleven-year-old girl, however, this was a job for Cory's twin who watched from inside the bathtub when their older sister discovered the bruise. Carrie had been bruised before and she knew how painful they were, yet she still had the same question that Cathy had, how did Cory get hurt? The twins had always been close, they rarely left each other's side, and because of that both had detailed knowledge of each other's lives, but that did not help Carrie answer this vexing question. As Cathy bathed the two, Carrie reminisced on the last few days and she could not recant a moment when Cory might have injured himself, she could not remember him crashing into a table, or a wall, a sofa or any other object that might have hurt him. Every moment over the last few days had been accounted for, that was most of the time had been accounted for, but there were short breaks spread about when they were separated, primarily during recess at preschool whenever Carrie left Cory alone on the playground because she needed to go to the restroom.
To the best of her knowledge, Cory was fine whenever she came back, but then again, her twin was not one to complain when things got uncomfortable if she didn't instigate a bratty fit first. However, this short period of time was the only one Carrie could think of that could hold the key to the origins of that ghastly mark on her twin's back. The day came to an end and a new day began once the sun rose, it was up and at 'em and Cathy was getting the twins ready for preschool, and once they were neatly dress it was up to Corrine to be mother she promoted herself to the outside world of being and dropped them off at their school so that she could get at least four hours completely to herself at home. It was just another day at preschool for the twins, a life of blocks and finger-painting with the teacher reading the entire class a story, this was the best their lives would ever get, except for the fact Carrie couldn't stop thinking about how she would try to discover how Cory got bruised. With all this time in their daily schedule allocated to creative pursuits anyway, Carrie devised an ingenious plan to get to the bottom of this mystery that had rocked her mind for nearly a day. Once it came time for recess and the preschool classes were excused to go out and play on the playground, Cory and Carrie rushed over to the sandbox where they dug in the sand for the next five minutes before Carrie got up and told Cory she was going to the restroom. This, of course, was a lie, she just walked off and hid behind one of the classroom buildings, peeping her head from behind and watching her twin continue to dig in the sand.
At first, nothing seemed to be happening, all the kids were playing, it was just another recess; and so, Carrie was getting ready to head back to the sandbox and contemplate other ways that her twin could have gotten bruised, that was until she saw a group of three boys from another class approach Cory from behind. Carrie knew who the dark-haired leader of the group was, Ward Broderick from Miss Wimbley's class, she didn't like him before, and she surely didn't like him after he grabbed her twin brother from the collar of his shirt, and rudely asked, "Hey, Cory! Did you bring me my Yoo-hoo?"
"Oh, sorry, I forgot," the male Dollanganger twin responded, trembling out of fear that Ward had paid him a visit that day, all the while refusing to make eye contact.
"You know I like those Yoo-hoos you bring," Ward reminded the blond boy in the sandbox who was just trying to mind his own business, and since Ward wasn't too fond of Cory's timidity, he twisted the twin's body to face him, and eerily reminded him, "And you know what happens when you don't do what I tell you to do."
The fear present in Cory's face left his face even more pale than it normally was, it also left him so paralyzed that he couldn't fight back against Ward's two goons when they grabbed both of his arms after Ward ordered, "Basil, Hayden, pick him up! Let's take him behind the bush where they can't see us."
"No, not again, please!" Cory whimpered as he pleaded for mercy from his tormentor.
Unfortunately, Ward was not moved by the twin's pleas for forgiveness, in fact, it only made him angrier, but that forced him to be a bit more discrete as his goons pulled Cory off somewhere they could not be spotted, leading him to tell the male Dollanganger twin, "You better not tell anyone or we'll really hurt you next time."
It was all clear now, her Cory was being bullied at school, that's why he was bruised, because he failed to do what his bully wanted him to do. Her Cory was being hurt and that was something Carrie couldn't stand for, and with all the rage that had built up inside of her watching her twin get harassed, the female Dollanganger twin sprinted over to the posse that had her brother hostage, her blonde pigtails flailing in the wind as she ran, and all the while screaming out at them, "Hey, leave my brother alone!"
The loud scream caught the attention of the bullies who turned around to watch the female version of their latest victim approach them with a fiery rage in her eyes, but this didn't scare them, in fact, it made Ward laugh that she came to the rescue, so much so he taunted the male twin, telling him and the goons, "Oh, look, Cory needs a girl to save him. You're a little sissy, aren't you?"
Ward's goons, Basil Ogden and Hayden Slocum, got a good laugh out of their leader demeaning Cory as there was nothing more humiliating boys could do to each other than strip each other of their masculinity, but Carrie didn't see anything worth laughing about, all she saw was a situation that required an ultimatum, and so she barked at the bullies, "Stop being mean to Cory!"
Now, this only made the bullies laugh even harder as they didn't fear the little girl in front of them, and Ward let Carrie know how unafraid he was of her, by taunting and asking her, "Or what? What are you going to do about it?"
Carrie was never one to back down from a fight, if she didn't like what was happening around her, she did whatever it took to change it, and the use of force was never off the table. The rage of having both her twin being bullied and her being ridiculed had built up once again and it had finally reached its boiling point. Her right fist found itself all balled up one second and the next second, it found itself in front of Ward's face where she proceeded to punch him. The hit was so strong that Carrie managed to fracture Cory's bully's nose, sending blood gushing out of the nostrils, and even more fulfilling, sending Ward crying back to his classroom like the effeminate wimp he accused Cory of being. It didn't take much then for Basil and Hayden to run away screaming, all it took was Carrie giving them a furious look with her fist in the air to send the cowardly, now leaderless, rapscallions fleeing from the scene of the crime.
Cory was immensely relieved because of what Carrie did for him and she was quite pleased with herself, unfortunately, the entire scandal was witnessed by many adults, including Cory and Carrie's preschool teacher, Miss McKinney, who immediately grabbed Carrie by the wrist and dragged her to the school office where Corrine was contacted immediately of what had occurred. Ward had multiple fractures in his nose and ended up needing to have reconstructive rhinoplasty surgery and wear a cast for months so that it could heal properly; but after being sent to the office, Carrie tried to deny that she had done anything wrong, completely unaware of all of Ward's blood on her fist. Corrine came down to the school furious and grounded Carrie for an entire month, but Cory was so grateful to Carrie for scaring his bully away that every day for the next month he snuck into their room and gave her snacks, everything from cookies to candies, and yes, even Yoo-hoos.