“Queen! Stop crying. You’re okay,” Delilah said. “I’m in charge.”
Queen nodded, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Her face was wet with them. The pearls of despair dripped from Queen’s chin. And her school uniform clung to her body because of her sweating. Delilah sighed. She removed her backpack and showed the girls the rat poison she bought from Mr. P’s gas station. The girls looked on with dread. The plan was simple and crazy. The only problem Delilah could foresee was her friends' courage. She needed to give them some to defeat the monster.
“We can do this because we’re smarter than him. We won’t let him get away with it. Not for hurting you, Shelly, and not for hurting you, Queen. If the adults don’t stop him, who will?” Delilah reasoned.
“He didn’t mean it,” Queen sobbed. “He’s my friend.”
“Yes, he did! He did mean it! It’s wrong what he makes you do, Queen! Wrong!”
“Don’t yell at her, Dee. She’s scared,” Goodiva pleaded. “Can’t you see that?”
“She’s not scared. She thinks he’s a good guy, and we know he’s not. When you are a bad man, only bad things will make you stop.” Delilah looked around at where they were. The house was on a large lot of land. Collins lived with his sister and his nephew, and both had left town. Only Mr. Collins was home.
“We’ll put our bikes over here behind the well. Then you got to the front door Queen. Talk to Mr. Collins. Be his friend.” The girls started walking toward the well. It was to the back of the house, and there was a barn and several old cars they had to cross through. They did so in silence. But when they stashed their bikes near the well, Goodiva, who they nicknamed Shelly, broke her silence first. “What will we do now?” she asked.
“Queen? Didn’t you say there’s a doggy door to the back of the house? It’s big enough for me to go through it. Right? Right, Queen?” Delilah asked.
Queen nodded yes for her answer.
Goodiva looked from Delilah to Queen, trying to understand the importance of the information. “How do you know about the doggie door, Queen?” Goodiva asked.
“Leave her alone, Shelly! She doesn’t have to tell us anything else.” Delilah blurted. “Don’t say another word, Queen. It happened, and it’s over.” She hugged Queen. “Just tell Mr. Collins you want to be his special friend again.”
“That’s dangerous, Dee,” Goodiva said.
“I know what I’m doing. I’m the smart one, remember? Talk to him. He’ll listen. He’s a creep.”
“Yea, a creep,” Goodiva mumbled under her breath.
“Remember to keep him outside. We will put the poison in his milk, you said he makes that tea with milk every night.” Delilah paused. She looked up to the sky. “It’s going to be dark soon. We have to do this now before we lose the light.”
“But what about his sister and her son? What if they drink the milk?” Goodiva asked.
“Don’t you think I thought of that!” Delilah shouted. “I thought of everything. My momma said that Mother Abigail told her that Mr. Collins’s sister had to leave town for work, and she took her son because of all the drama. The sister wanted to apologize to me, but my momma and Mother Abigail said no. She should have been apologizing to Queen! To you! She is just kissing Mother Abigail’s butt. None of them are sorry,” Delilah sighed. “She gone be gone for a week. That’s plenty of time for us to come back after he dead and... oh never mind.”
“I don’t want to kill anyone,” Goodiva groaned.
“Me either,” Queen wept. “This is wrong. We’re children. We could get in trouble.”
“It’s too late!” Delilah said.
“I don’t want to do it. We’ll get in trouble, Dee,” Goodiva tried to reason.
Delilah looked at her friends. She thought of all the hard work she had put in, in buying the rat poison and sneaking them to the farm. “I hate him. I hate him for what he did to you guys. No one will stop him from doing it again.”
“We can make him sick,” Goodiva perked up. “We can give him a little of the poison, not a lot, and make him so sick he’ll leave town. And then we don’t have to worry. How about that?”
Queen nodded and wiped her tears. “Yeah, give him a little just to make him sick.”
Delilah read the back of the box. She saw that the poison was dangerous, no matter the consumption. She thought over her plan. Making him sick will punish him, but it won’t stop him. They needed to find a way to prove to the entire town that he was a bad man. “Maybe we can set up a trap to catch him and call the police—”
“What the hell are you girls doing back here!” A man’s voice boomed over Delilah’s. Mr. Collin’s charged toward them with a shovel. Delilah froze, as did Goodiva. It was Queen who screamed for them to run.
“You brought them here!” Mr. Collins grabbed Queen by the arm and shook her hard. “Haven’t you done enough! What the hell are you doing here!”
“I didn’t mean it,” Queen wept. “I didn’t tell. I didn’t!”
“Let her go!” Delilah charged at him. He reacted immediately with a backhanded slap that knocked the wind out of Delilah. She fell to her side. When she looked up, Queen and Goodiva were both fighting him with their fists, but he was an adult, and it didn’t seem to work. The girls weren’t strong enough. He slung Queen around like a rag doll and pulled Goodiva by her pigtails, lifting her by them. Dazed, Delilah got to her feet and searched for a weapon.
“Get the hell out of here. You hear me! Get the hell off my land!” Mr. Collins shouted, taking the girls to their bikes near the well. He threw Goodiva first. He flung her hard on her bike, and she cried. He then threw Queen next. Delilah ran at him with the shovel wanting to bash him in the head, but he turned and saw her. He grabbed the shovel before it landed. He yanked it from her. “You little witch. This is all your fault. Isn’t it! You’re the one that turned them against me. Made them go to their parents. Why! Because I didn’t want you. No one wants you. Did you know that! Know wants you, you little brat!” He grabbed Delilah by the throat. She fought and kicked as he shook her and then slammed her into the side of the well. “I should snap your fucking neck.”
Delilah feared he would do it. And she didn’t know what happened next. One minute she was choking and gagging the next; he let her go, and she dropped hard to the ground. Mr. Collins, however, was struck and fell forward. He dropped into the large well with a big splash. Delilah opened her eyes to see Queen standing there with a shovel. Queen had saved her life.
“Are you hurt?” Queen asked as she shivered in front of them.
Goodiva ran to the well and looked inside. “He’s down there! He needs help!”
The girls went to the well. All three staring down at Mr. Collins. He flapped around in the water. He gurgled and went under, then came back up. He was bleeding in the face from where the shovel hit him.
“I can’t swim! I can’t swim! I can’t swim.”
The girls stared down at him. None of them knew how to help. None of them could reach beyond their fear to help.