"Madison you're so dumb- just like you're stupid parents who can't even be bothered to get a job!"
The same boy as before, now much older (almost ten) laughs as Madison's cheeks flush red in anger, turning back in her chair to face the bully with balled fists. Corey's friends, who are sitting with him on the lunch table behind the one Madison herself is sitting at, burst out laughing at her.
"My parents do work! My mum is a nurse and my dad is a builder! I've told you that loads of times Corey don't be so mean!"
The rich boy snorts into his drink. They aren't real jobs, his mum had told him when Madison's family moved into the neighbourhood and stuck out like a sore thumb from the start. ("Some people just don't work hard enough in school to get a real job Corey," she had said, "See, that girl's dad is a builder- that's a job for stupid men, and her mum works at the hospital doing all the jobs that are too boring for proper doctors to do. That's why you've got to do well in school, son, so you don't become like them.")
He points and laughs at Madison's plate, full of the brown sludge provided by the school which she receives for free because of her family's financial difficulties. Well, by financial difficulties he means that Madison's dad is in thousands of pounds of debt from gambling, and they were recently victims of cyber crime in which their bank balance was nearly halved, or so Corey's mum had said. He sneers at her as he looks back to his own lunch, a box loaded with chocolate bars, jam sandwiches on white bread, cheese and crackers, a juice carton, grapes, and a white chocolate chip cookie.
"If your parents did proper work, you wouldn't be so poor, would you? How are you going to explain that Madison?"
ŞİMDİ OKUDUĞUN
Corey Mulligan, The Heart Thief - A Short Story
RomantizmMadison Hayford grows up learning to love a world which left her living in poverty until she was well into her teens. And for the most part, she succeeds in spreading love and joy in every place she can reach. But Corey Mulligan, from the moment she...
