The Pitch for Vengeance Is Hers
When the school bully viciously assaults a student, the police in Poeticule Bay, Maine prove useless. Enraged that the victim and his family are run out of town, Molly Jergins launches a campaign of vigilante justice. As her threats and vandalism escalate to a war ending in death, the line between right and wrong blurs.
When hunting monsters, the safer route is to become a bigger monster.
In the end, will revenge be the best success?
What follows is the partial manuscript of Vengeance Is Hers.
Copyright © 2025 Robert Chazz Chute.
This manuscript is currently on submission to literary agents. To request the full manuscript of 113,000 words, please send all inquiries to Holly at expartepress@gmail.com with AGENT REQUEST in the subject bar.
Part I
With mean enemies made and fine friends lost,
we teeter at the edge of the end.
Naming our sorrows and counting the cost,
we are broken because we would not bend.
Seduction
On her ninth birthday, Molly Jergins was almost eaten by a shark twelve feet from shore in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was a best-of-times, worst-of-times situation.
Shark attacks are incredibly rare, but when they occur, most happen in shallow water. At the time the large triangular fin appeared behind her, Molly was up to her chin. She tipped her head back so the little waves would not spill salt water up her nose and down her throat.
After stopping in St. Petersburg to visit one of her father’s Army buddies, Molly had been promised a couple of days at Walt Disney World. Until the shark appeared, this was possibly the happiest day of her young life.
Her father had borrowed his brother’s Airstream trailer for the summer. Her mother complained it smelled of mildew, but to Molly, the big, polished aluminum trailer looked like a spaceship.
Her parents, Chuck and Kay, took turns at the wheel of their pickup. Both were nervous about hauling the big trailer down U.S. Route 1 from Maine. Her mother’s knuckles were especially tight on the steering wheel of their pickup truck.
Molly had heard her mother swear occasionally, but from the driver’s seat of their Ford, Kay lambasted other drivers profanely and profusely. Listening to her mother curse someone who had cut her off was a delight. By acknowledging the world’s dangers in her presence, her parents made Molly feel more like an adult.
They’d parked the Ford and the Airstream in her father’s friend’s driveway. Her mother complained of the heat and was eager to leave St. Petersburg for Wekiwa Springs State Park. However, Chuck insisted they give Molly a break at the beach.
We focus on big choices. Where to live, whom to marry, when to divorce, how to die. But seemingly small decisions can have a big impact, too.
“When they’re flyin’ around in formation,” he said, “the pelicans look like pterodactyls. The kid will love it.”
“The beach here isn’t like back home,” Kay told Molly. “It’s all tattoos and the smell of coconut sunscreen oil. Don’t be long.”
As she waded into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Molly thought her father was right. Watching the pelicans on the hunt, skimming the water, it was easy to imagine the dinosaurs from which they’d descended. When Molly said so, Chuck nodded and added cheerily, “History is full of horrors.”
The little girl looked up at her father, her face a question mark.
He shrugged and patted her shoulder. “You get older, you’ll understand how messed up things are.”
She scanned the pristine sand. Far out, two catamarans were racing, knifing through the light waves. Sunlight played on the water’s surface under a warm breeze. “Looks nice to me.”
“I mean things are messed up compared to what they could be. I was raised believing in the Star Trek future. Instead, we got people talkin’ about rocketing to Mars. Mars is just the worst parts of Utah, but with no oxygen,” he said sourly.
“Anything else, Mr. Sunshine?
“Sure! You buy life insurance, but it’s really death insurance. People go to what they call a teaching hospital. The patients would friggin’ freak if they called it a learning hospital. Doctors make mistakes and not everyone in authority has your best interests at heart.”
“Dad!”
“Relax. You’re nine now and growing up too fast! I’ll lose you to the world soon, but stay my little girl a little longer, please. I got no spare kids lyin’ around, so you’re it and it’s all on you! You’ll be embarrassed to be seen with me in public — ”
“Already am!” she teased.
But she wasn’t as precocious as her father gave her credit for. At nine, Molly Jergins still thought bad things were confined to the past. She had yet to seriously consider that the future, too, held horrors.
Drawn by her splashing, a curious shark was swimming up behind her at that moment.
Molly was long and lanky for her age. She felt like a ballerina on tiptoes in the shifting, sloping sand. Another minute and she would have been treading water.
Chuck had bent his knees to go up to his neck, just six feet from shore. When he spotted the triangular fin break the surface behind his daughter, he stood. He didn’t wait to analyze the danger. Hands outstretched and coming toward her as fast as he could, he shouted, “Molly! Come here!”
But she didn’t move toward him. Startled, she turned to follow his wild-eyed gaze. She saw the fin. It wasn’t far from her, and it was approaching.
Molly wasn’t sure which was faster, to try to run back to shore or swim. There was no time for a conscious choice. She tried running to shore. Between losing traction in the loose sand and the wall of water holding her back, every movement felt too slow.
The seas conceal millions of secrets. Beasts lurk in the dark. The drowned disappear into watery graves. Dead people and broken ships find their final resting place on ocean beds. On her ninth birthday, little Molly learned that sometimes monsters made of teeth come for the innocent.
Both father and daughter wanted to deny that reality. It couldn’t be a shark, could it? A porpoise or a dolphin, maybe? No, the fin was too sharp, too distinctive. They’d seen plenty of depictions of sharks in movies. Watched from the safety of a living room couch, the sight was interesting. In real life? A fish up from the depths hunting for meat?
Molly peed a little. Butt and jaw clenched, she discovered that she could walk underwater with her feet fairly far in front of her. Not far enough, of course, but to the girl, it felt like she was tilted back at an extreme angle.
By the look on her father’s face, she could tell the fish was coming closer. She could picture the shark going for her legs, chomping down, crushing her bones. Driven wild by her blood, it would shake its head, working at what tender connections bind the flesh until her legs no longer belonged to her.
Chuck reached for his daughter’s hand, and in one mighty heave, pulled her up out of the water. He tossed her behind him as hard as he could manage. Molly splashed down in water up to her waist.
The only sound in the world was her father’s voice, “Get to shore! Get to shore!”
She did. So did he.
When Chuck and Molly turned to look back, the shark had disappeared. The ocean was once again a shifting blue mirror under a bright sunlight.
Shaking, Molly whispered, “A monster made of teeth.”
Chuck turned to her, his eyes still like pie plates. His first words were, “Don’t tell Mom!”
It was as if they’d knocked over the snake plant in the living room, and some soil had spilled on the rug. As if they were both children, afraid of getting in trouble.
And then something wonderful happened. They flopped down in the warm, sugary sand and laughed and laughed and laughed.
“She’d never let me go to the beach again, would she?” Molly giggled.
“Dunno. She might kill me for insisting on takin’ her little girl down here. On the other hand, I wouldn’t put it past your mom to get her shotgun from the trailer. I can see her lookin’ to shoot a fish!”
“Where is it?” Molly asked.
“What?”
“The shotgun. I could do it.”
Chuck chuckled and waved her away. Then he quoted Jaws, a movie she had never seen. In a gravelly voice, he mimicked, “Lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes.”
That set them off again. They laughed until their relief washed away all the sudden adrenaline that comes with facing cruel mortality.
For some reason neither could quite articulate, they kept their shark encounter a secret from Molly’s mother for the rest of their lives. They told a lifeguard about it down the beach, but Kay never knew. Precious and private, it was a memory and a moment for father and daughter alone.
Years later, after a mean night by a colder sea, Molly would keep another secret from Kay Jergins. Stumbling into their kitchen at dawn, Molly was too afraid to admit the murderous truth. Had she been honest, she would have marched upstairs, woken her mother, and confessed. Molly failed to meet that moment. She told herself she was sparing Kay from the worst day of her life.
“I met two monsters made of teeth on the Drifting Cliffs. I killed somebody — actually, a couple of somebodies.”
Molly did not say that.
Neither did she admit that she let one of the monsters get away.
Instigation
The average person lives 27,375 days and few are memorable. The worst day of Barry Graves’ life — the day he could never forget — was rooted in evil. Evil, but nothing supernatural. Choices were made, and mean actions taken. All too human, in fact.
News of the crime spread, but law enforcement wasn’t interested in pursuing a conviction. The town sheriff commented that the boy was “roughed up.” A better person would have called it assault. To Barry, it sure felt like attempted murder with a cruel dollop of humiliation.
People say, “It can’t happen here.” But bad things happen everywhere, even in forgotten nooks of the world like Poeticule Bay, Maine.
The town clung to the edge of the Atlantic along a six-mile half-moon crescent of rocky coastline. A miniature lighthouse — a replica of the town’s actual lighthouse — decorated the town’s Welcome To and Come Again signs. Stiff ocean winds spun the seagull whirligigs that decorated many a front yard.
At first glance, the town — a village, really — seemed a tiny retreat from the many dramas of the new century. Nestled at the foot of Poet’s Mountain, it certainly looked safe enough. A lot of places used to be like that. For instance, many didn’t know about the upward trend of suicides among Poeticule County’s young and elderly.
Honesty about some local nobody taking his or her life could kill. One suicide could spur two more. Information could act like a virus among the vulnerable. Secondary suicides used to be called copycats. Now the phenomenon was called social contagion. However, the media still reported far away celebrity suicides. For some reason, that was okay.
Suicides were secrets, so no one but the Graves family doctor knew Barry had considered finishing the job Keith Faun had started. Alone and isolated, the boy came close to taking his life. Three things stopped the boy from taking his own life: He had no gun, there weren’t enough dangerous pills in the house, and his parents’ love. If they hadn’t elected to run away from Poeticule Bay, the kid surely would have found a way.
In those gloomy days and cold nights, it seemed like the sky was always gray over an empty gunmetal ocean. Some locals, mourning a bygone era with rose-colored glasses, speculated there was something wicked in the air. As if choices were curses wafting up from the ocean depths, appearing with the foul smells of red and brown tides.
Besides the dying fishery, the area’s cottage industry was cottages. People came from three states away to their summer retreats. In summers gone by, Poeticule County’s population would quadruple. At one time, the little town supported two taxis. Harsh winters nearly emptied the town and the surrounding countryside, but vacationers returned with the warm weather.
But nothing is forever. Most young people moved away as soon as they could, searching for work, for love, for anything and everything small towns can’t offer.
Some said it was simply the fish die-off that killed the town. Toxic runoff from creekside farms had turned the water hypoxic. Once a busy port for a thriving fishery, algae blooms killed aquatic life and turned the bay into a dead zone.
Some elders felt the town’s downward spiral on a spiritual level, with 9/11 as its turning point. “The whole country’s going to hell,” they’d say.
Several towns nestled up and down the coast and along the crooked roads of rural Maine offered more charm. As the fish stock depleted, Poeticule Bay became more often a waypoint than a destination.
To glimpse the infamous dead zone, a few curious travelers still took the coastal route instead of the much faster interstate highway. The roiling black the Atlantic pulled their gaze. Most thought there was nothing more to the town than what they could see of weathered buildings and fading paint from the twists of Shore Road at forty miles an hour.
Some motorists stopped for gas or to stretch their legs on their way up the coast to Bridge Falls or Legger’s Notch. A few took pictures of themselves at the foot of the white tower of the lighthouse.
Once a manned station, the lighthouse had become automated in 1995. The base of the lighthouse had been repurposed as a tourist information office from May to September. Janice Bull, a retired teacher and a descendant of the last lighthouse keeper, manned the information desk. When asked how brisk business was, she always answered the same, “Quiet. Too quiet.”
Some summer people kept returning, though. It was impolite to ask for details, but those returnees were probably too stubborn, too poor, or too tired to look elsewhere for a better family retreat. Circumstance, desperation, and tradition contains an inertia that keeps good things past their best-before date.
In retrospect, it’s clear that most of Poeticule Bay’s residents — both summer and year-round — held to one key lie. They told themselves they were safe. They talked as if what Keith Faun did to the skinny fifteen-year-old was a unique aberration and not a sign of psychopathy.
The lies we tell ourselves are the most dangerous deceits. The come-from-aways didn’t hear much about the assault on Barry Graves at first. That sort of news was for the locals to whisper among themselves.
However, some infections cannot be contained. From warm breath to cold wind, the town gossips broadcast the bad word as if their highest aspiration was to become living radios.
They relayed the details of the attack as they shook their heads in disgust. Some of that outrage was performative. Others, weak fools who imagined themselves hard men and no-nonsense women, spoke of Keith Faun’s crime with glee. With few exceptions, most townsfolk didn’t really care much about what Keith did to the Graves boy. It hadn’t happened to them, and no one relished the prospect of drawing Keith’s father’s ire.
It is one of the curses of small towns that prominent families skate on the fantasy of “coming from a good home.” Though no one claimed to love the Faun family, they were an institution. They’d been in the Bay for generations, and for some unknown reason, that sort of legacy carries weight with idiots.
Lloyd Faun’s father, Jim — ruthless and lucky to boot — had grown rich from the lumber business after pioneering sawdust logs for fire starters in wood stoves.
Big Jim Faun had served as mayor for three decades before his death. He was a brawny, loud man. Jim prospered as better and more polite men stepped aside to make way.
When Big Jim passed away, his son Lloyd became head of the Welcome Wagon Committee and president of the Poeticule Business Guild. His handshakes were painful exercises in domination. As the town shrank, the Faun family’s power and influence grew.
Though the town seemed destined for ruin, Lloyd was determined to either turn Time’s tide or preside at Poeticule Bay’s wake.
After receiving a massive inheritance from his father, Lloyd had branched out, selling franchises of his laundromat and dry cleaning business across New England. With the wealth that Big Jim had built, Lloyd could have lived anywhere, but Poeticule Bay was his kingdom, and Keith Faun a prince.
Earl MacAdam, AKA Old Earl because he was the town’s most elderly resident, once said, “Folks around here claim Lloyd’s ornery, but I was born in Scotland, so I just call him an asshole.” (MacAdam and his family emigrated to Maine when he was nine months old, but he proudly claimed to be “Scotch” all his life.)
Every king has a queen. Lloyd’s wife Marjorie was a fading beauty with a laugh that could pierce eardrums. The balancing yin to Lloyd’s angry yang, she played the part of town socialite. Her circles bridged the worlds of the locals (cliquish, caustic, and judgmental) and the summer people from New York (wealthy, entitled, and oblivious).
“Marjorie’s a character, that one,” MacAdam observed. “She buys her friends by the drink. Whether she’s playing badminton, tennis, or pickle ball, she always seems to have a racquet in one hand and booze in the other.”
Aided by precocious puberty, Lloyd and Marjorie’s son Keith had inherited the athletic and towering Faun family frame. It seemed he’d skipped from boy to man having never slowed down to be a tween. When Keith entered a room, people thought, There’s a big’un. The young Faun did not walk school hallways. He lumbered.
As a muscled brute, Keith was the high school hockey star. No one doubted the handsome boy was bound for great things. NHL scouts had already traveled to Bangor to watch him in the playoffs. The consensus was that he wasn’t the best skater or scorer, but as a goon, he was unmatched.
Keith could deal out savage beatings. Much later, locked in a small room with his hands bound behind his back, Keith would reflect on his life. He would briefly consider that if he’d kept his fighting to hockey rinks, fewer people would have died, and he indeed would have been a star.
The Fauns may never have done anyone much good, but locals said the Faun family had “done well.” They had the nicest house in town so, as often happens, money was mistaken for merit and worth was mistaken for value.
The Graves were poor, so they received no benefit of the doubt. When news spread of Keith’s assault, too frequently, the first question asked was, “What did that little Graves kid do to deserve all that?”
Victims are often blamed for their misfortunes, as if their wounds and bruises sprang from a moral failing. Everyone heard of Keith’s sins on the wind, but too many turned their backs to the nasty gale. “Nothing we can do about it. That’s the way it goes sometimes.”
Lloyd and Marjorie protected their son instead of allowing Keith to be punished. Lloyd even threatened to sue the Graves for defamation and false accusations.
“I got a Bangor lawyer on speed dial for all my troubles,” Lloyd bragged, “and deep pockets to keep my enemies in court until they die, maybe even then some.”
Frightened for Barry’s safety, the Graves family left town one night without a word of farewell to anyone. Smug and thinking themselves untouchable, the Fauns assumed silence equaled total acquiescence.
Ordinary people have few choices. They can mind their own business and hope others will stop injustice. They can hide or bend over and take it. Those options keep them in their dull prisons, but in matters of injustice, nothing is what ordinary people ordinarily do. For folks who measure each day’s weight, worth, and waste, this is very sad news, indeed.
However, one extraordinary person lived in Poeticule Bay. She would later go by many aliases, but when she was innocent, her name was Molly Edwina Jergins. Fueled by righteous outrage at Keith’s crime, Molly was damned, mad, and damned mad.
Revelation
Barry Graves was almost three years younger than his attacker, four inches shorter, and forty pounds lighter. At Keith Faun’s hands, Barry suffered a broken nose and cracked cheekbone, two black eyes, a twisted ankle, and bruises that turned him black and blue.
As with any assault, the damage that can’t be seen lasts longest. The pain of humiliation never really goes away.
Keith’s parents tried to play it off as a boys-will-be-boys spat. When that didn’t fly with Barry’s parents, Lloyd accused Barry of flirting with their son, propositioning him. As if that would be enough to justify such violence. Apparently, Keith had learned his homophobia and cruelty at home.
High school girls got unwanted attention all the time. Girls got hit on and even groped at school frequently. That didn’t give them license to leave their pursuers gasping in the dirt, crying, bloody, and unable to stand.
The school didn’t consider the assault a matter for the police. Instead, Principal Kieran Costa suspended Keith for three days. The hockey coach also pulled him from a couple of games. For his vicious assault, Keith received a vacation from the classes he hated. When he returned to the ice, his buddies celebrated him as a hero.
Barry’s parents complained, of course. To try to bring a quick end to the matter, Principal Costa threatened Keith with expulsion if he didn’t apologize to Barry. Keith complied and said he was sorry. However, his telling smirk sucked any power a mere apology might convey.
Too easily placated, the principal then tried to shame Barry into shaking his bully’s hand. To the kid’s credit, Barry steadfastly refused. Curling a busted lip, he looked Costa in the eye and said, “There’s nothing more satisfying than a disingenuous apology.”
Next, Costa called a school assembly to make a galactically stupid pronouncement. “I don’t want violence in my school.” He spoke as if they were all guilty, which made Molly furious.
“I want an end to fighting,” Costa continued, “so don’t fight. It’s the second punch that starts the fight.”
The feet of Barry’s chair scraped against the top of the basketball key as he got to his feet. He still had to favor one leg, but he stood as tall as he could. He tried to hold back his tears, but he was not successful. “What? It’s the second punch starts the fight? Really? I didn’t fight. I got beat up!”
The hockey team sat together at the back of the gym. As Molly listened to them snicker, a new energy, dark and swirling, surged through her. She wanted to torment every one of them, but she sat silent, balling her hands into tight fists as she fought the urge to hurl curses at them.
Barry’s moment was not over. “Was I supposed to take a beating? In your world, are there victims? I’m right here!” He pointed to his broken nose. “Can you see me, Mr. Costa? Do I exist? Is that the problem?”
At that, every guy on the hockey team laughed and jeered. The whole auditorium buzzed with excited whispers. Much of the laughter was of the nervous variety. Too much of it was gleeful.
Molly admired Barry for standing up to the principal. He couldn’t defend himself against Keith, but his words were strong. She clapped for the kid. However, she started too late, and the assembly’s applause was scattered and weak. To her great regret, seeing she was among too few allies, Molly stopped clapping too soon.
Her cheeks burned with embarrassment. She knew she should have stood with Barry. She should have added her voice to his protest. Instead, Molly remained silent.
A teacher shushed them, but the boys on the hockey team continued to whisper and sneer. Mr. Costa tried to appear conciliatory. “Barry, we’ll talk about this later, in private.”
“We have talked,” Barry replied angrily. “But what are you going to do?”
“Sit down, Barry.”
The principal’s plan for peace was silly. He was basically telling the bullies that they could pick on weaker children. He may as well have said, “Take your beating and stop whining. We’ll give your attackers a slap on the wrist. This is the way of the world.”
Molly couldn’t sleep that night. She tossed and turned and fantasized about all the unlikely scenarios that she could visit upon Keith Faun. She imagined sneaking over to the Faun house and super gluing all the doors to his house shut. What if she were to break a pane of glass and run their garden hose through it to flood their basement? She pictured the look on Keith’s face if she took out his knee with a lead pipe just before a championship game.
But it was too early in her education to graduate to violence. Instead, Molly responded the only way she knew at the time. The next Saturday morning, she went to the school early and slapped two rainbow signs of her own making on Keith Faun’s locker.
The first read: I’M A SMALL TOAD WHO BEATS PEOPLE UP TO FEEL BIG AND MANLY.
The second read: HOMOPHOBIA IS WEAKNESS!
Covered in layers of transparent industrial tape, the signs could not be ripped down easily. Slipping out of the school, Molly was satisfied she’d done something useful.
That early effort backfired. Monday morning, Keith flew into a blind rage and went after his favorite victim again. He found Barry in the school library. Certain of the culprit, Keith charged at him. The kid slipped beneath the table where he’d been reading. The bully missed grabbing him by inches.
If Keith had waited and gone after him off school grounds, Barry might have been killed or crippled. That would have been Molly’s fault, but she got lucky.
Trembling with fear, Barry popped up on the other side of the table. Keith gave chase, but Barry kept the big table between them. When Keith launched himself over the table, Barry wisely retreated behind another reading table. If the bully’s intentions hadn’t been so murderous, it might have seemed funny, like a flailing fight in a sitcom.
Rosemary Rainier, the school librarian, saved Keith from becoming a murderer that day. With the air of someone much larger than her small frame, she put herself between the assailant and the assailed. Keith sputtered curses. Instead of giving him a moment to explain himself, Mrs. Rainier took Keith by surprise. She hauled him out of her domain by the hair.
Believing Barry had pasted the signs to his locker, the goon vowed bloody revenge. To give him time to cool off, Keith received another suspension. That was the extent of his punishment.
Barry denied having anything to do with the vandalism to Keith’s locker. Costa didn’t believe Barry and gave him a stern talking-to before sending the boy back to class.
The Graves family’s troubles went on and on. Barry lived in fear that the whole hockey team would come after him. Lloyd and Marjorie Faun claimed that Keith was the real victim. They proclaimed far and wide that a lawsuit would soon materialize and seek damages for slander and defamation. Silly or not, dealing with the Faun’s claims was a financial burden Barry’s family couldn’t afford.
Lloyd Faun made rumblings with his buddies at Poeticule Bay’s business association. John and Marie Graves, Barry’s parents, were new to the area and trying to make a go of it in the real estate business. Lloyd made it known they should be unwelcome. Not willing to get in the middle of a spat, Lloyd’s sycophants complied.
The Graves family would find no justice in town. By the time Keith returned to Poeticule Bay Consolidated High School, Barry had begun attending a school in Bangor.
Molly’s failure literally made her sick. She could barely eat for days after she learned Barry and his family had been chased out of town. She didn’t understand the forces that allowed the school principal and the police to look the other way.
Economics and convenience fueled the authorities’ apathy. Lloyd sponsored the elementary school’s baseball team and had headed the campaign to fix the community pool. He was also chairman of the town’s rink committee. He bought the Zamboni himself and raised money for ice time each winter. Hockey was big in the Bay, and Keith was the team’s star.
The school administration did not guarantee Barry’s safety because he wasn’t as valuable to the system. The town valued the Fauns. They didn’t even know the Graves family.
Molly didn’t know Barry, either. A grade above Barry and one grade below Keith, she only passed them in the halls. As small as the school was, she really only knew the names of her immediate classmates.
Almost everyone dressed alike, and few dared to show off any individuality except for Barry. Nothing outrageous, just maybe a little feminine and fussy. He didn’t swear, wasn’t interested in sports, and was a little chubby. That was enough for the bigots.
Maybe it wasn’t any of that so much as that he was an easy target. Barry was small for his age. The older boys snickered derisively when they talked about the kid, laughing at his pain. “He cried like a baby!” someone said.
And with his injuries, who wouldn’t? But it’s that easy, Molly thought. One day you’re minding your own business and the next you’re traumatized.
Shaken by how uncaring those in charge had been, Molly was thankful to remain invisible. But a seed had been planted: What if the notorious Faun family were targets for a change? They were unfamiliar with the sensation of being victims. Molly decided she could fix that, so she began plotting. The bullies would finally know wrath.
She lost sleep mulling the problem. Turnabout is fair play, and revenge is the best success.
Evaluation
Molly’s revenge fantasies were complex. In her imagination, she always won, and her targets saw the error of their ways. They moaned for absolution, repented, and made restitution. Was it sadism? Not if her cause was just.
Those constant reveries built up pressure, as if she were a balloon about to pop. The urges were undeniable, almost sexual. She had to find an outlet, or she thought she might burst.
Reading a book of science fiction one day in the school library, Molly came across a passage that spoke to her. In the story, some authority figure told a young girl, “Life’s not fair.” The fictional heroine replied, “But we are supposed to try to make it that way.”
It wasn’t just the Fauns that were the problem. She decided to start small with Keith Faun’s puck buddies. Her only rule was that her targets had to be deserving.
She also had to be cautious and anonymous. As her mother, Kay, would say, “Stay true to the eleventh commandment. Don’t get caught.”
Molly began by slipping anonymous notes into the jocks’ desks. After school, it was easy to leave notes in their homeroom.
At first, she warned the bad actors to stay away from Keith Faun and be better or she would report them to the principal. That didn’t work. Those first attempts were as weak and toothless as her school’s anti-bullying policies.
Molly took stronger measures. Her anonymous messages to her targets became more vague. She left the puckheads vague threats that took darker turns:
People are watching you and don’t like what you’re doing. We know where you sleep.
We know where you were last weekend. I watched you through my rifle scope. Be kind and polite, and we will move on to more deserving targets.
Even your parents don’t like you. Your mom complains to my mom about you all the time. Try being kinder, and maybe you won’t get kicked out. They’re talking about sending you away to military school.
I saw what you did. Do you want everyone to know? Keep acting like an asshole and see what happens.
Do you think your parents know? They could find out easily. Do you think they’d kick you out or just pull you off the team and ground you until graduation?
Does your girlfriend know about the cheating? Be nicer to people or she’ll find out.
Do you think the cops know yet? You’re just one phone call away from getting in deep trouble. You won’t be able to handle it. You know that, right? You think you’re a tough guy, but you wouldn’t do well in prison.
You didn’t know you were confessing, but one of your buddies recorded you in his car. Are you sure you know who to trust?
Be kinder or drugs will be found in your locker and not by you.
I have pictures. You don’t want the whole town to see the pix I have of you? Pretend you’re not an asshole and act nicer.
Through that writing campaign, Molly learned that fear of consequence from an unseen enemy could be a powerful force for good. Unknown to her targets, she remained safe while they studied the faces around them and wondered who was watching. For the bullies, it must have felt like getting punched while blindfolded, never knowing from where or when the next strike might come.
Whether those deserving targets had actually done something criminal wasn’t relevant to the effect she sought. It was not necessary that her targets possess a conscience. Molly suspected some of them lacked that capacity. Whether or not they felt guilty, their paranoia softened much of their antisocial behavior at school.
No one dared to report her notes to the principal, but she couldn’t claim she succeeded in turning bad people into good ones. Molly’s nasty note campaign didn’t deter everyone. The human skid mark, number one on her hit list, remained Keith Faun. He had already gotten away with so much, a poison pen wasn’t going to get him to stop. Besides, she was determined to make his punishment more proportional to his crime.
Molly knew she couldn’t beat Keith in a fair fight, but she wasn’t looking for a fair fight. Barry’s family had had to flee so her aim was to banish the Fauns from Poeticule Bay, too. For their sins, the whole Faun family became Molly’s target.
Inspiration
The Fauns lived in a huge house on Main Street. It was an old town lot with a big front lawn that sloped toward the street. One spring night, a couple of weeks after Barry and his family fled, Molly made that lawn her canvas. Two big bags of salt served as her paint.
She’d thought long and hard about what the message on their lawn should say. Supporting Hitler might be too over the top. She’d already tried declaring Keith weak and fearful. That tactic had backfired miserably. Burning “Whites Only” into their lawn would be too obvious.
Molly knew of few people of color who lived in the Bay. She didn’t want to risk putting innocents in the crossfire. However, ISIS was in the news, and those terrorists made Mainers itchy.
The budding avenger replayed the scenario over and over in her head. She pictured Marjorie Faun rising first, wiping sleep from her eyes, contemplating her first cup of coffee. She could almost see Marjorie in her nightgown and terry robe parting her living room curtains. The woman must have been mystified when she saw cars slowing in front of her house. Drivers gawked as their passengers pointed at the message burned into their lawn: WE SUPPORT ISIS!
The steep angle on the slope of the lawn made for an excellent sign to the townspeople. By sundown, everyone in Poeticule Bay and a couple of neighboring towns were jabbering about it. People being people, some actually believed the Fauns might stand behind the message.
The day after Molly painted their lawn with salt, Keith didn’t come to school. His whole family spent that day digging up their front yard and yelling at passersby, angrily protesting their innocence. Funny thing about innocence: The more you proclaim it, the less convincing you sound.
The next night, Molly spiked the car tires in the Fauns’ driveway. At first, she worried about trying to drive a nail into a tire and how much noise she would make. She donned her ski mask and crept out of her bedroom window armed with a hammer and a pocketful of nails.
Late at night, she set off to train, just another young runner prepping to be a high school track star. She’d scooped deck nails from her father’s shed. Wary of watchful eyes, Molly paused at the end of the Fauns’ driveway. All was quiet. No lights shone from the windows of nearby houses.
The Fauns’ red Lexus and classic 1961 Lincoln Continental, cream with whitewall tires, sat in the driveway, as vulnerable as baby chicks. Inspiration struck. She didn’t need the hammer. All she had to do was wedge nails tightly under each tire, poised to puncture as soon as the vehicle rolled back. In less than a minute, she was off running again.
On the way back from school, Molly spotted the Faun family’s cars at Bruce Motors. Her campaign had escalated far beyond taping signs to a locker or leaving anonymous notes. She’d crossed a Rubicon of sorts. Ruining the Fauns’ lawn and flattening eight tires had escalated her ambitions. In her eagerness to avenge Barry, she’d committed vandalism of an expensive sort.
Molly hardly slept that night, convinced she’d taken her campaign too far. She had reason to worry. The next day, the school was abuzz with the rumor that Barry had come back to town to mess with the Fauns’ vehicles. She worried law enforcement would go after the boy and his family.
However, it didn’t take long for that story to unravel. The Bangor police department had interviewed the Graves family and cleared them of any wrongdoing. By sheer luck, Barry had been off on a school trip to museums in New York City on the night Molly sabotaged the tires.
Molly could have stopped then. More sane and sober people would say she’d done more than enough. However, those people hadn’t seen Keith’s smug look the day he returned to school after his suspension.
The goon bragged to the puckheads how he’d run Barry’s whole family out of town. He showed no remorse, and it wasn’t just bravado. He actually thought he was the hero of the story. Worse, several of his buddies agreed. They had learned nothing, so Molly resolved that her lessons would continue, had to continue.
But prudence made her pull back a little. Molly’s next act of vandalism was more devious than expensive. A few nights later, after she assumed the Fauns had begun to drop their guard, she targeted Lloyd Faun’s pride and joy.
Eleanor’s Cleaning and Gleaming was the first of his chain of laundromats with locations in Bangor, Augusta, and Kennebunkport. It was dinnertime when she ran toward the big red and white signpost outside of Eleanor’s. Until his son became a murderous homophobe, the most trouble Lloyd had to deal with was his dispute with the Baptists. That story had powered the rumor mill for weeks: Lloyd versus the Baptists.
Reverend Ernest Bailey was head of the congregation at Poeticule Bay Community Worship Hour. The church stood close by Eleanor’s and the pastor objected to Lloyd’s sign:
DROP YOUR PANTS HERE! WE WON’T JUDGE YOUR SHORTCOMINGS!
Pastor Bailey showed up at Lloyd’s door, pleading in the name of decency that he change his sign to something less salacious. Lloyd crowed about the brief confrontation for weeks. “I’m a Presbyterian,” he declared, “and I thought we were humorless. I slammed my door in Bailey’s face! I opened it again and told him I didn’t give a shit! I slammed it again, laughed a lot, then opened the door again to shout that all Baptists would burn in Hell!”
His fellow Presbyterian congregants tutted and fretted and allowed that Lloyd shouldn’t have said such a thing to the gentle pastor. They didn’t come out and declare he was wrong about the fate of Baptists in the afterlife, just that he shouldn’t have said it.
Few — not even many Baptists — were so fervent that they agreed with Pastor Bailey’s prudishness. The town was generally on Lloyd’s side in the piddling matter of censoring his sign. As a matter of decorum, however, many agreed privately among themselves that Lloyd didn’t have to be such a cackling dick about it to the poor old fusspot.
Reverend Steven Gunter, Lloyd’s pastor, gently reminded Lloyd about the Bible’s entreaty to love thy neighbor. Lloyd announced grandly that he would capitulate. The next Sunday, the sign read: 10% OFF DRY-CLEANING FOR PRESBYTERIANS! BAPTISTS PAY MORE AND BURN IN HELL!
The townspeople sighed and said things like, “Well, that’s just ole Lloyd for ya.”
Molly agreed with her father’s assessment. Chuck Jergins said, “I’ve known Lloyd since high school, and at least I can say he’s consistent. Never knew a man so determined to be a contrary asshat. I tell ya, that whole family are a bunch of kitten drowners.”
It was still daylight as Molly jogged behind the strip mall containing Lloyd’s laundromat. Dinnertime was dead time. Whether they were around the table or taking in the news, no one was watching the back alley behind Eleanor’s.
Lloyd’s Lincoln Continental was parked at the rear door of the business. The possibility that he could pop out at any moment was Molly’s primary concern. She dealt with the door first. She’d acquired a tube of superglue from her father’s workbench and used all that was left of it around the lock. In the time it took her to bend to untie and retie her shoes, the glue had set.
Confident she would not be interrupted, Molly slipped her father’s smallest crowbar out of her sleeve and, after a sweaty moment, popped the hubcap off the right front wheel. After delivering the planned payload, she pounded the hubcap back in place.
Gluing the door had been wise. Lloyd must have heard the metallic pounding out back. The doorknob turned, but the door did not budge. Molly wasn’t quite finished, but she kept cool and finished getting the hubcap back in place.
“What the Jesus lord-leaping Christ is going on out there?” Lloyd yelled as he pounded on the door.
Molly hadn’t planned on it, but disasters provide excellent opportunities to improvise. She stepped close to the door, and in as low a register as she could muster, replied, “Your…clan…will…be…banished.”
It was improvisation, but Molly had learned a lot from playing D&D with her father. That particular proclamation would later get her shot, but Molly was happy as she jogged away.
Realization
Lloyd Faun didn’t suspect anyone had sabotaged his beloved car until he began following the locksmith’s truck out of the alley that night. Molly had slipped four heavy bolts and a couple of screws behind the hubcap. Those metal bits made a mighty rattle in the old Lincoln.
Most people would naturally assume it was a problem with the engine. That had been Molly’s intent. However, Molly’s previous acts of vandalism made Lloyd more paranoid. Upon hearing the rattle, he did not drive the two blocks over to Bruce Motors. Instead, he called the sheriff to ask how long it would take the Maine State Police to get a bomb squad to Poeticule Bay.
“Word is, Lloyd is in quite a tizzy,” Molly’s mother told her the next night. With a wink, Kay added, “I bet it was the Baptists.”
Chuck Jergins barked out a laugh from his recliner. “Lloyd let his imagination run away with him.”
Kay looked annoyed. “How’d you hear about it, anyway?”
Molly’s father gave a knowing smile. “Sheriff Gordon Hobbs is the biggest gossip in town. You wanna know what’s going on about anything around these parts? Catch him in the barber’s chair. Our town cop fancies himself quite the raconteur, and I guess he’s not wrong. Holds court down at Ernie’s every whipstitch.”
“It’s just that everybody loves crime stories,” Kay replied. “It’s not the sheriff who’s so shit hot, it’s his material. Gordon cornered us at a bean supper for the fire department a couple of years ago and wouldn’t shut up about all the gory details about that Atkinson case.”
“Yup!” Chuck caught Molly’s mystified look and filled her in. “They caught Ariella Atkinson standing over her husband with a deer rifle. She didn’t care to defend herself. She didn’t care about anything. I don’t even know why these things go to trial. When the prosecutor asked if she was a good shot, Ariella said she could light a match with a bullet at fifty yards.”
“It was a competency thing,” Kay interjected. “They were trying to decide if Ariel was crazy or just mean. Poor old thing didn’t go to jail. After she soiled herself and sat in her own stink in court, Judge Grimshaw couldn’t wait to send her off to the Waterville loony house.”
“Maybe her husband deserved it,” Molly suggested.
Her hand trembling, Kay made a seesaw motion. “Well, yeah, some, there is that. Denny Atkinson was no angel, quite the devil, in fact. Blackened Ariella’s eyes more than once. Those two fought like two cats in a bag.”
“Denny was a lot like Lloyd,” her father added. “Nobody liked him, neither. Anyway, everybody in town is having quite the laugh about Lloyd’s call for the bomb squad. Better, Lloyd knows we’re all having a laugh.”
Kay returned to her knitting. “Shouldn’t have messed with the Baptists. They talk some nice, but give ’em five minutes, and they’re all about the hellfire and brimstone their own selves.”
Molly’s crimes had an effect on the Faun family. Marjorie refused to leave the house. Lloyd was convinced dark forces were allied against him. Keith, looking even more surly than usual, stomped around school as if under a raincloud.
The next Wednesday, in an unhinged letter to the editor in The Poeticule County Lens, Lloyd wrote, “In my day, we weren’t all so soft. Boys settled arguments with their fists, shook hands, and left it at that. The people trying to run my family out of town are cowards. I’m sick of sympathizers to the gay mafia!”
Lloyd made it sound like the whole town stood against him. That made Molly chuckle. She didn’t have an army. She was just one lone teenager.
As a loner who preferred reading to hanging out with friends, few really knew her beyond the obvious. Molly was an honors student who excelled at track and field, a star of debate club, and tall for her age. No one asked, not even once, if she’d ever fantasized about burning down the hockey rink with every member of the high school team inside.
Lila Aaronson, the school’s guidance counselor, reviewed Molly’s grades. She asked if Molly had any interest in going to university. “Your grades are good, especially in math.”
“I prefer English and history.”
“But with these scores, you could be an engineer, for instance.”
“I don’t know, Mrs Aaronson. Honestly, all I really want to do is read novels, eat Chinese food, and wreak havoc.”
Mrs. Aaronson stared at Molly a moment to see if she’d break into a laugh. When the girl stared back at her stonily, the guidance counselor asked if everything was okay at home.
“Just kidding!” Molly said lightly. “I’m full of light and hope. Maybe academia is my thing.”
“Give some serious thought to engineering. The field needs more female energy, you know?”
“I hadn’t thought of that. Thank you so much, ma’am.”
As Molly left the guidance office, she was inspired, but not in a way Mrs. Aaronson would likely approve.
Molly was young and optimistic, so she thought she had a chance at changing the world. All she had to do to change behavior was to find the right pain and pressure points. Certain that dangerous times called for desperate measures, her campaign against the Fauns would continue.
The girl didn’t have an army, but later, she would have a squad of like-minded people on her side. To rise to that occasion, to attain that leadership role, she would have to grow into a woman. Her trial by fire still lay ahead.
Oration
Molly’s enthusiasm for vengeance and the Fauns’ banishment had not waned. However, with Lloyd calling in the bomb squad, she decided to give them a cooling-off period. She needed Sheriff Hobbs to stand down from high alert before deciding on her next move. While she waited, the Faun family were still spun up, punching the air, and fighting ghosts.
Lloyd, sure he was surrounded by enemies at every turn, continued to posit outlandish conspiracies about the gay mafia coming after him. Hobbs told him he thought that was more of a Hollywood thing, not a worry for sane people deep in the reaches of Maine.
Rambling about her salt-burnt lawn, Marjorie Faun showed up at the Pick-Right one day conspicuously inebriated. She cursed at a woman with a baby stroller for standing in her way. Then Marjorie threw a can of pineapple rings on the floor for reasons only known to her. She was so drunk that the grocery store’s proprietor, Emery Cantly, insisted on driving her home.
Keith showed up to class looking haggard and told everyone he was tasked with guarding the laundromat after dark. “Who knows when they’ll come at us next? Just because the terrorists have stopped doesn’t mean they’re done.”
Quite right, Molly thought. She waited them out, confident they would get bored after a while without further attacks.
After a week passed, Keith looked more rested and strutted around the school’s halls again. But Keith was on a campaign of his own. Still defiant and convinced of his utter innocence and victimhood, the goon searched for enemies in every face. When he approached, people looked away and pretended to be suddenly fascinated with the time, their lockers, or their notebooks. To catch his eye was to invite interrogation and harassment.
Then Molly saw the results of her actions in person. A student she didn’t know, so thin he appeared malnourished, looked up at the wrong time and stared Keith’s way a moment too long. That was all it took. Keith caught the kid by the arm. “Do I know you, boy? Barry Graves a buddy of yours, is he?”
The school’s corridors were filled with students changing classes. Everyone stopped to watch.
The boy raised his chin in defiance. “I’m Dylan Caffrey.”
“I asked, you friends with Barry Graves, or what?”
“I seen him around. Didn’t really know him.”
Keith pushed Dylan against his open locker. “It’s a one-horse town, shit-for-brains. How is it you don’t know him?”
Dylan was rattled, but to his credit, the boy’s voice was strong. “Don’t live in town. I gotta take care of the cows. I bus home. I don’t hang with townies.”
“Shit kicker and shit for brains, too, huh?” Keith pushed him harder into the locker.
Molly had not spoken up for Barry, but now she had a second chance. She found her voice, “He answered you, Keith.”
Keith whirled on Molly. “What are you, Jergins? His lawyer? Mind your business!”
“Funny you mention lawyers. Maybe I should be yours.”
Keith’s eyes narrowed. “How’s that?”
She turned to the gaping crowd. She had no friends in the hallway, but when she looked from girl to girl, even among the younger kids, she sensed some solidarity against the bully. At least no one was running away, and she needed an audience to make her plan work.
“Well?” Keith’s tone was low, but as threatening as the rumble of thunder from a darkening sky. She had to turn that oncoming storm before he unleashed a tempest. Keith still held the kid, Dylan’s shirt balled in his tight fist.
Molly had seen too much of Keith lording his power over others to remain a bystander. Not everyone had a phone, but those who did had pulled them out. She thought she had a chance to get away with saying what she wanted if she could harness the power of witnesses. Keith had the brawn. Molly’s brains would have to win the day.
Sensing her time was running out, Molly gambled with her safety. Keith didn’t care about school, but he desperately cared about his reputation and playing hockey. Those were his vulnerabilities, the pain points she could press.
Her throat dry, Molly’s fear rose. A quaver crept into her voice, but she managed to smile. “I’m doing you a favor, dude! You and me, let’s provide evidence you didn’t hurt anyone today. Everybody? Phones up, cameras on!”
Keith’s face reddened. “What? You a narc?”
“This is for your sake, friend,” Molly replied. “If you hurt anyone at school now, that would be your third strike, right? The principal said he wouldn’t give you any more chances. You’re risking expulsion. That would put you off the team. I’m curious, would you have to start your senior year all over again? Here or somewhere else? How would that work?”
The goon’s jaw went slack. As his eyes darted to the watching crowd, doubt and indecision crept in. His grip on Dylan’s shirt loosened a fraction. Then Keith abruptly let go and turned to focus on Molly.
Her heart pounded a rapid beat. A rising feeling of elation filled her chest. The strength of it made her think she might defy gravity, lift off, and hover above her enemy.
Molly stepped nose to nose with the goon. She could smell onions on his breath. She forced herself to stay perfectly still. Whispering so no one else could hear, she allowed a pleading note to enter her tone. “Even your daddy won’t be able to push the school board around a third time, right?”
“What are you flapping your mouth about?”
“Well, you beat up Barry Graves, and you’ve threatened to kill him in the library. Now you’re bothering another kid. He’s a lot smaller than you. I’m worried it’s not a good look for you. I’m not trying to embarrass you, but why are you doing this? Does your daddy beat you? Do you need help? Do you want me to call someone for you?”
The way the bully’s eyebrows shot up in surprise told Molly she’d hit the bull’s eye. Keith stood staring at her — no, through her. For a few seconds, he may have forgotten where he was entirely.
Molly continued in the same whisper, “Does your dad worry you liked Barry? Is he worried you’re like Barry? Would he hurt you if you thought that way?”
“You do sound like a lawyer. Nobody likes lawyers, Jergins, and I’m not on trial.” His lips became a thin, white line.
“I just have to wonder why you turned out this way. Everyone is wondering why you care so much who’s gay and who isn’t. Why is that?”
“I have a girlfriend, you stupid bitch!”
Molly had seen him walking around school with Sarah, the librarian’s daughter. Ignoring that, she persisted. “Stop and think about what you’re doing, man. I’m helping you here.”
Pushing him like this, Molly stood on a trembling tightrope. Keith might lash out at her. The mob grew restless, shuffling and buzzing.
“Someday you’ll look back on all this and see how silly it all was. You don’t have to be up in everybody’s business. Not everyone is thinking about you. They’re just worried about themselves. Leave that kid alone so you don’t ruin your last year of high school. You’re being scouted, right? I’m worried for you and for the team. They need you.”
Keith’s gaze slid to the floor.
Molly’s history teacher, Mrs. Abby Simmons, pushed her way through the crowd. “Hey! People! The bell has rung! Get to class! What’s going on? I’ve got an empty classroom, and I get lonely talking to myself! All of you have somewhere to be!”
Molly, sporting a wide and grateful grin, turned to her. “Sure, Mrs. Simmons!”
Keith turned and walked away, and Molly called after him, “You’re welcome!”
Some students snickered. Mrs. Simmons shushed them and waved them on. The crowd dispersed. A few of the juniors and sophomores touched Molly’s shoulder as a silent gesture of respect as they passed. She was relieved, certain that those witnesses and their phones had saved her from getting a black eye, or worse.
“What are you up to, Molly? Did you just make a bad situation worse?” Mrs. Simmons demanded.
“Me? Nah. That guy is like an ice cream headache. He’s going to get worse before he gets better. Not that anyone cares, but a lot of us don’t feel safe going to this school.”
By her eyes, Molly could tell the teacher didn’t disagree. Mrs. Simmons didn’t feel safe, either.
“You should know,” Mrs. Simmons said, “when you’re young and immature, you’ve got a lot more anger and energy. You look at the state of the world and….” She trailed off. They were alone in the corridor, but the teacher still looked around nervously to make sure no one else was within earshot.
“What is it, ma’am?” Molly prompted.
The teacher’s jaw worked for a moment as she searched for the right words. Finally, Mrs. Simmons said, “I just think you should appreciate that a lot of people around here, not just students, are appalled by the incident between Keith and the Graves boy. But we’re also tired and just trying to get through our days. The police and the principal were informed. The ball’s in their court now. What’s best is to leave it be. Not our monkeys, not our circus anymore, right?”
Molly cocked her head to one side. “You’re tired?”
“Of this business? Surely and immeasurably.”
“If you’re tired, imagine how exhausted Barry must be. It sounds like you’ve given up, ma’am.”
“You will, too. Everybody does. When you learn the limits of what you can do, it makes sense to set your sights lower.”
“Spoken as a true educator, Mrs. Simmons! You’re an inspiration!”
The teacher shot her a sour look. “Tend to your own knitting, Molly, and get your butt to class.”
“I’ve got a free period in the library, ma’am.”
“Then get to it.”
She’d meant to curb Keith, not shame Mrs. Simmons. “Sorry,” Molly said, “maybe you’re right. I guess a lot of people do give up for whatever reason. I understand you’re trying to help me.”
But Molly couldn’t leave it at that, could not stop herself. “As long as I’m still young and full of energy, though, I think I’ll keep on being angry when it’s right to be angry. Your way, powerless people stay powerless. You taught me that, in your history class.”
Molly thought she had earned herself a detention, but Mrs. Simmons said nothing more, spun on her heel, and strode back to her classroom.
Whatever happens, Molly cautioned herself, don’t turn into her. Don’t get so chicken of being wrong that you don’t do right.
Vengeance Is Hers, Copyright © 2025 Robert Chazz Chute