It was Maddie's turn to shrug. “If I did the school thing with you, I'm pretty sure I'd be the oldest.” Which would also be embarrassing, but at least it would make Caitie feel better about not being the oldest. “But I doubt anyone's really thinking about an actual school. Most of what I've seen is the home-school thing, like what I used to do.”
Equally weird were the moments when Maddie showed that she could at least theorize about intelligent things. “I like thinking that there's no zombies up there. There have to be places where those things don't go.” Big cities had lots of zombies. It only made sense that lesser populated places had fewer or even none. “But I've never met anyone from Alaska, so I guess we'll never know.”
She hadn't been fishing for a way to look on the bright side of her minimal contributions, and even though she didn't completely agree or understand the compliments, she appreciated them all the same. “We started off talking about you,” she pointed out. “I was just trying to point out that you're not the only one people don't like.” A show of solidarity, or something. Whatever the word was. Maybe Caitie never noticed compliments tossed her way because she always misinterpreted them as Maddie selfishly fishing for reassurance.
“Did I mention I helped a kid get back to his mom?” She asked randomly. “Sort of a random good deed or whatever. The people who bitch about us not contributing don't notice little things like that 'cause they're always focused on the messes we make.” To her, it made more sense that the good deeds and the mischief evened things out, but apparently it just didn't work that way. Not that she'd told anyone other than Caitie about that day with Ledger.
It was just Caitie. Love at first sight was a stupid concept, but Maddie didn't say as much. It wasn't something she wanted to argue about, and maybe there was also a tiny bit of jealousy mixed in there. Because April knew how to talk to DJ and Maddie didn't. “No, I don't know. But that's other people, not me. And sometimes people who are alike shouldn't be together.” She'd seen that, too.