Vindicta

Claudia decides to get revenge on a girl in her class. But has she gone too far?

1908

There was a sudden sharp kick to the back of her chair, sending her abdomen hard into the desk. There was a familiar, tinny laugh and then another kick, sending the metal legs of the chair grating on the floor. She turned to see the ruddy, round cheeked face of Virginia Roberson-Carter, staring at her with that bulging blue bullfrog stare. “Away with the fairies, Claudie?” she lisped nastily, spitting her fs in a foam of saliva. “Or is that the goblins?”

“Shut up,” Claudia replied sullenly, turning back to her workbook. That laugh, again. That childish, high pitched laugh that made her want to grab Virginia’s straw straight hair and ram her head repeatedly against the desk until the blood pooled into the wood and she could see that glint of terror in that smug, poisonous face. The violence of her thoughts frightened her. It sent an electric anger through her, filling her with a sadistic power. She wouldn’t do it. She wouldn’t. Staring down at the fountain pen, she began to write out her verbs in shaking blue loops.

ambulare
currere
pugnare
canere

Another kick, sending the ink of the e streaming up in a spike across the page. Claudia rose to her feet, filled with a blind rage. “You beastly girl!” she hissed, grabbing…