Over the weekend, Lizzie got a call from Madeline's father, saying that she needs to help him with Madeline. Lizzie was aware that Madeline had been acting up lately because of the bad grades she was getting for the past week. She called her best friends about it and with her car, picked them all up and drove them over Madeline's home. Madeline's father opened the door once they arrived at the big house.
"I'm glad you're all here," he admitted, closing the door with the girls in the house.
"Where's Madeline?" asked Lizzie.
"In her room. Doing God knows what."
"Maybe she's doing witchery in there like Skye used to do," Andrea joked.
"I can so help her with that," Skye said.
Andrea looked at Skye straight-faced.
"Okay, weirdoes," said Madeline's gray-haired dad. "Since she won't listen to me, I expect she'll listen to you. If all fails, I just send her off to juvy."
"Juvy?" Lizzie inquired.
"Or an insane asylum. Do you girls want anything?"
"No thank you," answered Debra.
"Good because I'm not a waiter."
Madeline's dad turned around and walked away into the hall. The girls walked up the stairs together and entered the long hallway. They walked down until they found Madeline's bedroom, which has a flashy sign on the door with Madeline's name written in pink glitter. Lizzie knocked on the door three times.
"Go away!" ordered Madeline from behind the door which muffled her voice. "I'm burning incense."
"Neat," Debra said to herself.
"Maddie, open the door," shouted Lizzie. "It's us."
After a few seconds, the door opened by only an inch, as if a ghost opened the door. The girls produced confused faces, nonetheless, Lizzie opened the door all the way. The girls entered the room in a line, noticing its changes. The blinds on the window was closed so the room was dark, only to be lit dimly with a collection of candles on the dressers. Madeline was sitting on a beanbag chair in the corner of the room by the closet. She also sported a new look as her wavy hair had gone lazily straight, no pastel-colored makeup appeared on her face and her preppy clothes were replaced with an oversized sweater, ripped jeans and work boots. Skye, the last person to come in, closed the door, making the room more dim.
"Okay, I don't know what's going on here," Andrea broke the silence, "but if you have something that looks like Hawaiian punch, I would not like to drink it."
"Madeline, what is this?" asked Lizzie.
"My refuge," Madeline answered in a relaxed, vibrating voice. "I made my room a place to escape from the barks of life."
"You look like Kurt Cobain," Skye remarked.
"That's what I was going for."
"Madeline, this is not you," said Lizzie.
"No, it's not what I would go for. But that Madeline is gone. This Madeline is new so everything here is me now."
"So you're changing yourself because you're failing?" questioned Skye.
"Hey, I'm a rebel. It's not really much of a change. Rebels were born rebels."
"Oh, please, you are not a rebel. You can barely not recycle."
"Girls, girls. This is my escape pod from life trying to bring me down. If you are with me, you would not even attempt to bark at me. I'm not the girl you all met anymore. The girl from yesterday created the girl you are seeing. I got to commit to this, man."
"Madeline, you are going to act like a baby over several D's?" asked Andrea. "I've had more D's than that and I'm still the same."
"It's true," Lizzie agreed.
"You are way smarter than what you are acting like right now. This is not you if you're wearing size ten sweaters and sitting quietly in your refugee camp or whatever you call it."
"It's called a refuge," Madeline corrected.
"I don't care. If you don't stop it right now, I will punch you back into the old Madeline."
"She can," nodded Lizzie. "She can do that."
The girls quieted down and stared at Debra when they heard her loudly sniffing.
"Your room smells like apples and honey with oak," shared Debra. "Kinda like that special candle I bought yesterday but unfortunately lost."
"Yeah," Madeline said, closing her eyes.
"Wait, did you steal my candle?"
"Maybe... Maybe not."
"That means yes," said Lizzie.
"Why?" asked Debra.
"Because I'm a misfit, a fire in a poem," responded Madeline. "Since my grades are slipping, I got to accept that. While I do, I got accept the new acceptable qualities."
"So you're gonna fail on purpose and steal people's candles?" asked Skye. "That's sick, Maddie."
"If you mean 'sick' as in 'good', then yeah, it's pretty sick."
"Wait, 'sick' is used in a good way?" Lizzie questioned.
"Okay, Madeline, you find nothing absolutely wrong with this picture?" Andrea made a circle with her hand. "Like nothing wrong? This is not the Madeline I know. The Madeline I know does not look like Skye on drugs."
Skye crinkled her nose. "She does not-- You know what? She does. Oh, my God, she does."
"See, Maddie? This is your mirror. Just less on the drug addict side."
"Girls, I will ban you all from my refuge," said Madeline. "This is not a place where I'm gonna take all of this unneccessary judgement. If you were my true chums, you would support the fact that I do not care about anything. So may you please leave me in peace?"
"Why? So you can do harikari or something?"
"You don't care, huh?" Lizzie inquired with a smile. She walked over to Madeline's closet and dug her hands into her hung clothes. It did not take long Lizzie to find what she was looking for, which was a pink blazer. "So you don't care about this?" She showed the pretty jacket.
"Not at all," Madeline pursed her lips. "I dress grunge now."
"Okay, then you wouldn't mind if I did this to it?"
Lizzie walked over to the dresser next to Madeline and picked up a random candle. She dipped the blazer on top of the candle, setting the jacket ablaze from the bottom.
Madeline's eyes widened. "What are you doing?"
"Getting rid of your favorite blazer in the world."
Madeline tittered nervously. "It's not my favorite anymore."
"Oh, yeah?" Skye inquired. She walked towards the pink-sheeted bed and picked up the cellphone that was just lying there. Skye began to press the buttons and swipe through the screen. "So you don't mind if I delete some of your contacts? The contacts from boys that you used to or currently flirt with?"
"Nope," Madeline uttered like a swallow.
"Oh, good. Now let's delete Aaron, Ace, Adam, Adrian, Aiden, Albert, Allan, Allen, Allen B., Allen C., Allen D.-- How many Allen's do you know?"
"A lot of hot ones... that I don't care about."
Debra watched Skye delete away Madeline's contacts but her eye crawled towards something that sparked an idea. She walked over to the dresser in front of the bed and picked up a leather-covered object on top of it. "And here's your wallet," she notified. "You used to love it but I guess you don't anymore, right?"
Madeline folded in her lips, trying not to say anything that didn't fit her new character. As she watched, Debra opened the wallet and pulled out a few dollars.
"Look at that," she said. "Three one-thousand dollar bills. You won't be needing those anymore." Debra picked up a candle from the dresser and held it under the money.
"Wait, Debra, it's three thousand dollars," said Andrea. "We can use that."
Debra ignored her. She let the flame eat the dollars alive.
"No!" Madeline howled. She hopped up from her beanbag chair and ran pass the girls towards Debra. She swiped the money away from her and blew out the flame. She fell down on her knees while clasping onto the half-charred dollar bills. "You broke me!" she said as tears rolled down from her closed eyes.
"We broke her!" shouted Lizzie with a big smile on her face. She flapped the blazer to make the fire go out and dropped it on the floor.
She and the rest of the girls went over to the crouched and crying Madeline and gave her a loving group hug.
Then Andrea scowled. "Ew, something smells like trash," she asked in a disgusted tone.
"That's where I got the jeans," Madeline whimpered.
"I'm leaving," Skye said, getting up and walking towards the door to open it.
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