"What's Sarah McMillan like?" Karyn asked, thinking of the biggest bitch in the school. Was she different?
"Sarah? Oh, she dropped out last year," Mallory said.
"What?" Karyn asked. "Why?"
"Well, to pursue her political career."
"Political career?" the words practically erupted from her mouth, "She's seventeen years old!"
"Yeah, apparently Springdale doesn't have a minimum age on the books for the mayor's seat," Mallory explained.
"Sarah McMillan is the mayor?"
"And getting a patsy of hers to run for congress until she's old enough to do it herself," Mallory said matter-of-factly.
Karyn needed more information, but didn't know what to ask. "What, what party is she from?"
"She started her own party," Mallory replied. "The 'Better Things' party. It's been getting decent support from the press, and some city council member from upstate is saying he wants to run for congress in his district on her party's ticket."
"How the heck did this happen?" Karyn said in frustration.
"I dunno," Mallory said. "Kinda overnight. We've accepted it as normal for a while now, but now that you make me think about it, it is kinda weird."
"Well, duh!"
"Hey, don't get all offensive," Mallory said. "It's not my fault she's a national hero."
"What?"
"Yeah," Mallory said, "Back when we were kids. Her family was flying back to the West Coast from Boston, and I guess she got really scared of this Arab dude and told her mom to call the cops on him. She did, and it turned out the guy and his buddies all had boxcutters, so they took them in and, well, I guess afterwards they caught a bunch of other guys at other airports, and it was all a big plan to blow up the Twin Towers and the White House or something."
"Sarah McMillan stopped Nine-Eleven?"
"She stopped what?"
"The September 11th attacks! Three thousand people were killed, the Twin Towers were destroyed, and the Pentagon got a giant hole in its side!" Karyn said, exasperated. "That never happened?"
"Huh, now that I think about it, Sarah's whole thing did happen in September."
"'Sarah's whole thing?' September 11th has now been reduced to 'Sarah's thing' now? I'm sorry, Mallory, this is a bit much for me, I need some fresh air," Karyn said, getting up to leave the room.
