5 Sentence Fiction: Scorching (Part 2 of 2)

Part 1 of this 5SF "two parter" is below, might want to read that one first.  But it's not like it's Breaking Bad or something, so whatevs.

Scorching

The fourth grade girls play Chinese jump rope and the thin soles of bright white Keds meeting that September-hot blacktop pavement right in the middle of Los Angeles make them jump high and quick like popcorn.

Bridget Cassidy curls her toes at the heat but remains still as a sentry as the band of elastic makes a thin indentation on the backs of her sweaty knees.

“You’re a slut and your mom’s a slut,” Katie Norris hisses  in her ear, appearing from nowhere and making Bridget jerk her head, startled.

Earlier that day, a strange woman pulled their teacher aside and said she needed to talk to Katie and two other girls in class–all of them are kids that Bridget also goes to church with and she thought it must have something to do with church, so why didn’t they want to talk to her?

There’s some connection here between the mysterious lady talking to Katie and the other weird stuff going on like how Bridget was suddenly not allowed to go to Katie’s slumber party (she cried for an hour) and her mom having a screaming fight with two people from church in the middle of the grocery store while Bridget watched, baffled and clutching a Betty’s Diary comic, and she wonders now as Katie stares at her with pink cheeked rage, why the girl is so angry when Bridget is always the one who’s left out.