I wanted to cry a little more. I’d really had no idea how much I was going to miss the fuzzfaced little liar. He couldn’t talk and he couldn’t time-travel, and he certainly couldn’t save the world, but he’d gotten me through the first couple of weeks of the worst time of my life, and that was a lot for a cat.
I knelt down with the flower and planted it.
“Blast! I thought you’d never get here,” the Jag-voice said. “I’ve been digging for a day and a half. Get me out of here, and be quick about it! I’ve got permanent dirt in my fur.”
“A.B.!” I shouted, “I’m here, A.B. It’s okay!” and I started digging with my hands. Hal, who evidently thought I was the teen-age equivalent of one of those widows who leap into the casket with their dead husbands, stepped forward and grabbed me.
“Meow, Beast!” I shouted again, forgetting that A.B. could hear if I only thought it.
It was an order, but Hal evidently took it as a sign of panic. “He’s beyond meowing, Reeno,” he said, “I’m sorry.”
And finally the fuzzbrain caught on. A tiny, weak little ‘mew’ issued from the grave. “He’s meowing, Hal! Can’t you hear it?”
“Reeno, you’re just going to have to accept it. Jag is dead.”
“Could you put a little feeling into it, Your Furriness?” This time I thought it, and for once, the stupid cat did what he was supposed to.
A full-blown “Meeeeow!” came out at us.
Hal said, “My God, she’s right!” as if he had an audience. “I’ll get a shovel.”
But by the time he found one and got back with it, I had one filthy paw unearthed, and I was pulling hard on it.
“Don’t pull, Novice. Gently, blast it all.”
Hal elbowed me aside and started to dig. “Wait! Wait!” I yelled. “You’ll hurt him.”
“Get out of the way, Reeno!”
“You get out of the way!” I kept pulling on poor A.B.’s paw, and when he meowed this time, I was sure it was for real— real pussycat pain, none of the usual con-cat talk. “You’re going to hurt him.”
“Let me do this!” Hal shouted and shoved that shovel way, way down, right in A.B.’s mid-section. Actually, his aim might have been better if I hadn’t been trying to shove him out of the way, but he was hurting the poor old thing. A.B. emitted a screech like a hoot owl. I couldn’t stand it any more.
I kneed Hal in the balls.
The kitchen staff, who’d come out to watch the proceedings, let loose with a collective “ooof!” and Hal, grabbing his crotch, went, “Aieeyyeeeeeee!” and fell down writhing, the little knot of Mexican workers closing sympathetically around him. But what do you do for a headmaster who’s lost his dignity and proceeded to roll around on the ground?
He’d gotten over the initial shock and was now hollering all the words that got the rest of us consequences.
Me, I was digging like a gopher. I finally got A.B.’s head out, and I’ve rarely seen a sadder sight. He had dirt in his ears, his eyes, his nose, just about everywhere it could possibly cling. Horrified, I tried to brush it off, and he sank his teeth in the soft place between my thumb and forefinger.
I couldn’t believe it. “Judas!” I screamed.
“Later for the beauty salon!” the monster bellowed. “Just get me the bloody dickens out of here.”
I have no idea why I wanted to help the ungrateful Beast, but my finer instincts got the better of me, and I managed to work my hands around his shoulders so I could lift without pulling his ugly head off. He got some purchase with his back feet and pushed while I pulled. For a while, nothing happened. And then all of a sudden he came out so fast we cracked skulls.
I’d been squatting on my heels, precariously balanced at best, and I fell over backward, bouncing my head off the dirt, which was hard! No wonder it was so tough to pull the Beast out.
It took me a minute to get my bearings and sit up, by which time A.B. was sitting up in Cat Position Number Two (Egyptian temple cat), applying his little pink tongue to his matted, dirt-caked coat, absolutely as if nothing had happened. I think Hal had regained a little composure by that time and may have also been on the verge of sitting up, but I had eyes only for my little fuzzy buddy.
I grabbed him and hugged. “Let go, Novice,” he hissed. “I’m an assassin, not a play-toy! If you want to hug something, go find that egregious stuffed canine and squeeze the life out of it.”
I was stung. “A.B., I was just—”
He turned his evil eyes into slits and said, “Listen, Novice, and listen well— today you violated the first rule of fighting. I simply cannot work with an incompetent!”
He stood up and seemed about to stroll grandly away, dirt and all, but by then Juan the handyman and Maria the cook had abandoned Hal and come over to witness the miracle of resurrection. They spoke in Spanish, evidently thinking no one could understand, but with my two years’ worth, I could just get the gist of it. It went something like this:
“What’s going on here? That cat had a hole in him the size of a quarter— this isn’t Jag, it’s some other cat.”
Maria had fallen to her knees. “Holy Mother! It’s a miracle!”
“Get up, stupid! It’s no miracle, it’s a stray.”
Hal dusted himself off and joined us, though I noticed he now had a slight limp. He knelt, but it had to hurt. “Jag? Come here, boy. Hey, Jag, nice kitty.”
A.B., who took orders from no man and no woman, walked right over like somebody’s sweet little Fluffykins, and rubbed up against the headmaster. “Let me see your side. That’s right, boy.”
He examined the Beast’s substantial ribcage, which now sported a half-healed sore— a quarter-sized scab that could have resulted from a run-in with a barbed-wire fence or a nip from a fellow feline. “Juan? Juan, look at this— he wasn’t shot. They probably gouged him with that tire iron.”
Even I knew a tire iron wouldn’t tear fur, but I kept my mouth shut. A myth was being made here and I didn’t want to interfere.
Juan went, “No. No! It’s not Jag.”
Okay, I did interfere. I said, “Did you ever see another cat with blue-green circles around his irises? Show him, Jag.”
The Beast might obey the headmaster (if it suited his agenda), but he sure wasn’t going to listen to his humble handmaiden. Hal had to grab him by the chin and hold up his head so we could see his creepy-looking eyes. “Humph. Never noticed that,” he said, and Maria crossed herself. As well she might. Because I knew what had actually happened— once again, the Alpha Beast had used up one of his lives, and what we’d witnessed was exactly what she said— a resurrection of sorts, though not exactly a holy one.
“Two, Novice,” the creature said.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Thanks to your damnable slowness, I had to give up two lives— once when I was shot, and once digging out— couldn’t do it fast enough, so I smothered. This thing could have cost me another three lives if you hadn’t come along.” He paused. “At long last.”
I was overcome with guilt. It was pure accident that I’d come along at all. It was only because I missed him. I thought he was really dead, once and for all, like normal mortals. I’d decided all that Planet Guardian stuff was so much bull and my imagination was just playing tricks on me. In other words, I was really thinking about me, not all the stuff he’d said. Some handmaiden I was. But I wasn’t copping to it. When in doubt, be sarcastic. I said, “I would have thought the great and grand Alpha Beast could manage the simple trick of resurrection without the aid of one so unworthy as myself.”
“Oh, stop talking like me,” he said. “I’m furious with you, do you realize that?”
“What, for not rescuing you in time? I told you, I didn’t know you needed it.”
“No. Not for that. For what you did to Hal. Don’t you ever listen? Never underestimate your enemy.”
He was right. I said only, “I guess I’ll have to work on that.”
“What? Do I actually hear an admissio
n of imperfection?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Actually, I don’t recall that. But you have passed a test of loyalty, even if you failed miserably in certain other areas, and you have proved useful, however imperceptibly. Therefore, I’m promoting you.”
“Promoting me?” You could have knocked me over with a cat whisker.
“From novice to soldier. We have work to do and we really must get to it. Just as soon as Hal’s through with you.”
I didn’t have to ask him what he meant by that. Running away was a Cat Five Violation, the most severely punished of all— up till now.
They didn’t have a category for nearly kicking the headmaster’s nuts off.
CHAPTER EIGHT—THE ASSIGNMENT PART I
Well, Hal made the punishment about as bad as he could. And he didn’t have to, he really didn’t. I begged him, I got down on my knees and pleaded with him just to let it go as fighting, which is only a Cat Four.
Majorly wrong move. It gave Hal a chance to point out that I’d recently had a Cat Four for fighting and seemed to be escalating, which meant he’d have to escalate too.
“That just sucks, Hal,” I said, and got five consequences for it. They wanted me to be honest, didn’t they? You couldn’t win.
For a Cat Five, everybody— yep, everybody in the whole remedial unit— got busted down one level. And everybody had to spend two hours a day for a whole week walking around the exercise yard.
Oh, boy, oh boy, did they love me for that!
And there was more for me personally. Since this was considered even worse than a Cat Five, I got hours and hours in the language lab cubicle, listening to tapes.
Two things were really bad about my personal punishment— one was getting busted back to Level One (it was almost enough to make me pull a Kara and just give up). The other was all that hatred directed against me. Ouch, ouch and ouch! Now that sucked. Not that I had any two-footed friends there, except for Carlos, but now it seemed like I was never going to make any.
I hated being hated. I mean, I guess I’d sort of experienced it before (my mom never seemed that crazy for me) but at least at home I had Jace and Morgan. I decided just to hang onto the memory of them— Jace, Morgan, and Curly, my three true friends— and meanwhile try to be some kind of pals with the kind of cat who’d bite you when you tried to rescue him.
And worse, I felt horribly guilty because, just after the fight with Kara, she began to go downhill. I mean, physically. She wasn’t just sick, she was scary sick, and no one knew but me. Not even Kara. I knew I didn’t cause it, but maybe the stress made it worse. Can you imagine how guilty I felt?
That muddy mustard color she was got muddier. In twenty-four hours she went from the light side of Dijon to something like Worcestershire sauce. I literally thought she was going to die, but I couldn’t get her to go to the infirmary. If only Abuela had been there! I knew for sure she’d have helped. Finally, in desperation, I told Sonya.
“Listen, you’re going to think I’m crazy, but there’s something seriously wrong with Kara.”
Sonya glared at me, evidently holding a grudge about the fight. “I’d say so. Last thing she need’s a roommate that makes her feel like dog vomit.”
“Her color’s off, Sonya. I know it sounds crazy, but I can tell when people are sick.”
“Huh?” She actually seemed to perk up a little.
“I see colors around people— like my mom, when she’s really beaten down, she turns completely gray. I know it sounds crazy, but Kara’s gone from mustard to brown overnight. You’ve got to help me.”
Sonya’s stone face suddenly crinkled in alarm. “Wait a minute; let me see something.” She closed her eyes and moved her lips, as if praying. Then she sat still for a moment, looking alert, like someone listening. And out of the blue she bounced to her feet, yelling, “Oh, my Lord! Let’s go.” She started running, me right behind her.
By the time we got to our room, Kara was passed out on the floor. Before I could even panic properly, I heard pounding footsteps, and Carlos blew in, breathing heavily, looking as spooked as I felt. He took one look at Sonya, on the floor trying to rouse Kara, and knelt beside her. “Let me. You get Evelina.”
But Sonya didn’t leave. Without a word, Carlos lay down on top of Kara, like some pervert groping a sick person. And he truly did look like he was doing something obscene, pressing his body to hers, winding her hair in his hands. Sonya started to beat on him, but he didn’t budge. Not until Kara rolled her head back and forth, black hair flying, and spat, “Get off me, freak!”
And then Sonya did take off.
Rolling off, Carlos patted Kara gently. “Okay, babe. Okay, we’re gonna get you to a doctor. Gonna be okay now.” He was soaked in sweat, shirt and hair sodden, face slick.
“What did you do?” I squeaked, shocked at the shrillness of my voice.
He was panting. “I need to hold her hand, okay? Just till Evelina gets here. Could you hold the other one?”
I got down and grabbed the other, which felt half-broiled, and tried to smooth her hair. Carlos kept talking to her, “Take it in, babe, be still and take it in and you’ll be okay. Just keep awake, keep breathing. Talk to me, okay? Can you say something?”
And to my utter amazement, Kara said, “Thanks.”
The long and short was this— it turned out she had some kind of bacterial infection but wasn’t yet showing symptoms. (That is, before she collapsed.) The details are boring, but the off-campus doctors said she was in the early stages of septicemia and easily could have died without immediate treatment.
Which she wouldn’t have gotten if it hadn’t been for me. Well, Sonya, Carlos, and me.
But it sure seemed to me the timing on the amazing rescue was a bit on the eerie side. The first part was logical enough— I could see Kara’s color was off and I went to get Sonya. But what was up with Carlos being in just the right place at the right time? And what the hell was the perv thing?
“I don’t know,” he said when Evelina had called an ambulance and Kara had been whisked to a hospital. “I just knew you needed me. I could feel you. Really, really strong. Does that make sense?”
“Not a lot.”
“It might,” Sonya said, returning from escorting her friend to the ambulance. “It just might. Mind telling me what the hell you were doing on top of that poor girl?”
Carlos flushed, his handsome face taking on a lobster hue. “I’m not too sure. It was… uh… what got me kicked out of school.”
“Hold it! I thought that was your homecoming date.”
He shrugged. “Well, yeah. That too. I don’t know how to talk about this other thing. It started when I was playing football. Guy got injured, I fell on him in the pile-up and I just started feeling something.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They call it tumescence.”
“No, no. No!” Was it possible to get any redder? I was pretty sure he was going from lobster to strawberry. “I mean something, like, flowing from me to the other kid, and it felt, I don’t know, so smooth and gentle I just went with it— like it was kind of holy, you know? God, do I sound like a perv! I know! I know what it sounds like.
“But, see, next thing you know his knee quit hurting. And after that, every time someone got hurt, they always wanted me to… you know.” He shrugged. “But then somebody’s parents got pissed off.”
Sonya’s forehead was so furrowed you could farm there. “That the only time it worked or what?”
“Oh, no, it always worked.”
I was thinking. Thinking back to a few minutes ago. “Hey! You know when we were holding Kara’s hands? I think I felt something like that. That flow thing.”
“Y’all had an energy loop going!” Sonya was so excited she was yelling.
“Huh?” Carlos and I spoke together.
“Carlos, you know what? You might be a healer.” We were both about to protest when she said, “No. For real. Somethin’s funny here. ‘Cause then there’s you, Missy
. You ever heard the word ‘aura’?”
“My dad said it once. About the colors people are.”
She nodded. “You got it. They’re the energy fields around people. You might not know the word, but you see ‘em. Me, I hear stuff.”
That was so not a good time for the bell to ring.
But it did, and upon hearing it, Sonya stood up and hollered, “Aw right, then! Let’s get out there and walk that yard. (Thanks so much, Reeno.) But listen up, you two— y’all are coming to our club meetin’ tonight.”
Sonya tried to outrun us— she was playing with us, building suspense. Which was fun! Almost like being teased by a friend. What a concept! Maybe I was making one of those. A slightly chubby girl, however, is no match for a perfectly-in-shape running back, so Carlos had her almost before she got started. A little tickling and she spilled the salsa: Kara and Sonya’s club was called the Ozone Rangerettes.
Big help that was.
***
The Beast even found a way to make the super-punishment work to his advantage. Or I should say, for the Assignment, which was the grandiose name he’d started calling the job he wanted me to do. He figured out immediately that while I was walking around and around with the others, he could sit in the yard and he and I could talk without anyone knowing.
So today of all days, he happened to say, “So. Know anything about the Mayans?”
I frowned at him. “Funny you should ask. That was the tape I heard today. Mayan History and Culture.”
“Possibly not so funny. Would you care to summarize?”
“Okay,” I started out, “the Mayans were Indians who lived in Mexico along with the Aztecs and others before the Spanish got here. They were extremely weird and bloodthirsty, but also very advanced for their time. They built up a huge, very grand civilization by 600 A.D. Do you know how long ago that was, A.B.? Europe was barely in the Dark Ages.”
“Before my time.”
“Oh, yeah, I forgot— even you weren’t around yet. Well, anyway, they had these giant cities with amazing pyramids all over Mexico and Central America— and then all of a sudden, around 900 A.D., their civilization started to disappear. Just like that. They abandoned their cities and disappeared. No one knows why or where they went.”
Bad Girl School Page 7