Rich Kids Don't Die | Featured

Chapter Seventeen

THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Maddie awoke to a plush, bouncy patting sensation on her forehead. There were bits of snowy fluff sprinkled across her bed, and what felt like a cloud with legs treading across her face.

"Augustus," Maddie groaned, shifting in her duvet and pulling her pillow over her face. Augustus meowed in protest, climbing onto her head in defiance. She coughed out a pristine piece of fur and sat up against the bejeweled backboard of her bed.

A soft thud followed, and the cat was now padding across the carpeted flooring of Maddie's bedroom towards the bathroom door. It leaped onto the granite sink, intrigued by the gleaming bubbles of soap that came with its own pawing of the silver tap.

Maddie's glance shot towards the clock on her bedside table, and she let out a sigh of (what was regrettably) relief. Sonia had asked her to arriv at the airport at nine o'clock, and it was currently half past seven.

The heaps of clothes that had been thrown onto her rug the previous night now lay there like explosives. She didn't want anything to do with them, nor the luggage trolley leaning against her door - because packing meant that she really did have to go.

With a defeated expression, Maddie dragged her feet towards the bathroom and splashed a handful of silken water onto her face. After brushing her teeth and throwing her hair up into a poor excuse of a ponytail, she began to assert her things in the suitcase. Leah had sent her a list of absurd items she swore on her immortal life would help, like small fruit knives and spare, empty tubes of lipstick. Maddie didn't attempt to question why.

Once she'd finished packing everything she could possibly need, she slumped against her luggage with a weary sigh.

Sonia had left all of them an envelope with a letter inside and had mentioned that they were to give it to their parents. Supposedly, it was a letter explaining why their child would be gone for the next month. The date printed on the letter was of a week prior, so her travels wouldn't seem as sudden. Only when she'd have left would her father realize that he'd technically been warned she'd be gone. He would only be able to blame himself for not reading it earlier. 

At the bottom of it was the forging of a signature that belonged to the school principal, and a brief paragraph on the child's trip: an expedition across Europe. Educational purposes, it read.

Maddie grabbed the letter off of her bedside table and crept into her father's study, placing it on his desk in the midst of other untouched documents. The myriad of books that were scattered on his desk had acquired a yellowing sheen through which Maddie saw the promise of age, and his wooden shelves were coated with a thick layer of dust.

She'd already given the school's principal a separate letter, with the forged signature of her father's on the bottom instead. The school had been lead to believe that she was visiting her ill grandmother for the next few weeks, whilst her parents thought she'd gone on a school trip.

Divide and conquer, she thought. It was a reference to computer science, not politics - that would mean something else entirely, and only her mother was familiar with that kind of field. Destined to be, Maddie liked to think. It was the most successful position for a professional liar, being in the Senate. 

It was now quarter past eight, and with an accomplished smirk, Maddie snuck into her room to change into an airport appropriate outfit. She ended up with gray Calvin Klein sweatpants, a matching cropped hoodie, a pair of trainers, and a black coat. On her dresser lay a pair of sleek, raven-colored sunglasses, and she slipped them over her head with a sly grin in the mirror.

Maybe this won't be so bad after all.

Her chestnut locks were left out, the bottom strands tucked into her coat. She grabbed her purple handbag off of her vanity and stuffed inside everything she'd need: her wallet, passport, ID, crunchy Cheetos.