Allegedly

In an excerpt from the fictitious work, Babies Killing Babies: Profiles of Preteen and Teen Murderers, Mary is likened to Rhoda, the fictional blonde, blue-eyed eight-year-old girl in the 1950s movie The Bad Seed. Rhoda is known for killing people when she doesn’t get her way. To that end, the author states that “[s]ome children are just born bad, plain and simple” (1). 

In the three months since Mary has arrived in the group home, she has done chores, kept to herself, and taken a house “pet,” Herbert, a housefly with whom she respectfully coexists. Ms. Judy Stein, her abrasive foster mother, and her roommates go out of their way to make life difficult for Mary; sometimes they hassle Mary and other times they pose a threat to her safety. 

While Mary waits for Momma’s visit, her parole officer Kain Winters delivers New Girl to the home; she is mousey, meek, and visibly shaken. Momma, whom Mary refers to as “the Devil’s Spawn,” has visited Mary every other Sunday at 2:35 p.m. for the past six years since Mary was incarcerated at age nine. Momma arrives well dressed, having come from church. While Mary has been away serving her sentence, Momma has remarried the wealthy Mr.