Kids Plot to Kill

 

Kids Plot to Kill--A Book to Write -- Maybe

As usual Rick and I were still in bed at 8 a.m. this morning. Rick had bought me my tea. He was  looking at his news feeds as I read  Doppelganger. It was a typical lazy Saturday morning. "Fifth graders, all girls, plotted to murder a schoolmate in the bathroom and make it look like suicide," he said. 

I wanted to know more. The event happened last 24 October. What a book that would make. I took a sip of my tea. Writing it would probably take a year at least. It would be my 19th after my anthology of short stories and poems The Corporate Virgin which will be published later this year. 

The first thing I did was to look at duckduckgo.com ( I never use google if I can help it, and I usually can). Legacy Traditional School, where it happened, is a tuition-free, public charter school, grades 1-8, tuition free in Surprise, AZ. The courses looked fantastic offering in-depth learning and seemed to be relatively free of religious pressures that hamper learning about the world as it is.

It was one of 16 schools in Arizona and Nevada, but I couldn't find anything about a headquarters of this non-profit organization nor any board of director information. 

The plans of the four girls were sophisticated worthy of a television production. I could see it as a BBC program(me) or a Netflix special.

The reason?

The intended victim, a boy, cheated on one of the girls.

Weren't they bit young for this sort of drama? 

The plan?

Lure him into the outdoor bathroom and stab him.

Each girls had an assignment:

• Bring the knife. 
• Do the deed. 
• Write a suicide note. 
• Wear gloves so no fingerprints.

Although most suicides, teens or older, are not by self-stabbing, they may not have done that research. Slit wrists are far more common.  There's lots of data but much of it is for people 15 and older. 

The police said one of the girls when questioned was smiling and laughing. When I read that I thought of The Bad Seed, the 1956 movie staring Patty McCormack based on a book by William March. It has been a stage play and movies on the same theme have been done in an English movie in 2018 and another in 2022. All told of a child psychopath.

If I were to write it should it be fiction or non-fiction? Fiction would allow for more leeway in characters and/or location. Non-fiction would require much in-depth research.   

If I were to do a book of non-fiction. It could be Truman Capoteish. 

I'd be limited, but what if I wrote it as fiction? I could move the school maybe to the Boston area where I know the geography. Maybe to Cambridge, Lexington, Waltham?

I like the idea of four different families with different dynamics. Maybe one could be a single mom, but not the mother of the girl who hatched the plan. Single moms get enough bad press.

The one who was smiling and laughing could be the plotter.

What about the other families. Relatively normal. Maybe one family could be on the brink of divorce.

The four girls could have been friends from first grade although they might live in different neighborhoods.

Because the school is tuition-free there is no need for any of the families to be wealthy. 

Would the families do things together like dinners. or BBQs? Would the fathers play golf or the mothers play tennis together?

How about a psychiatrist as the narrator? He could be in a prologue. Rick and I joke about all the prologues in the novels of today.

How many points of view? Each girl? Each set of parents? Too many gets complicated.

Then there's the child (boy or girl) who overhears the plot and goes to the principal who calls the police.  

And what about the boy they wanted to kill?

Yes, it would make a great novel. With all the other things I'm writing and living can I fit it in? 

It is now 7 p.m. 19:00 as they say in France. The day has been sweltering but our home has AC as they say. We've had a snack of lemon cake made by our favorite baker with crushed local strawberries with whipped cream. A Swiss friend has stopped by to arrange tickets for a light show in a church in Perpignan on Thursday night.

I need to think -- do I want to dive into this project? If I can deep dive into a new novel, it will take my mind off all the horrible things happening in the U.S. and world.

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