Cat Bennet, Queen of Nothing

by Mary Strand

  “I need to take a shower.”

  Mary rolled her eyes. “I kinda assumed. So? I’ll wait. Just hurry if you can, okay? I really do have to get home. Mr. Skamser was brutal with homework today.”

  My own teachers weren’t any better, but I’d planned on being on the road by now. As it turned out, running away from home was a lot harder at sixteen than it’d been at six, when I packed my teddy bear and a bag of red licorice in my mom’s cosmetic bag and made it to the end of the block. Now, I needed wheels, cash, and a destination. And, preferably, at least one friend.

  Lydia’s key to the Jeep was in my backpack, and I had a packed duffle bag in my closet at home, figuring I could grab it and hit the road before anyone got home. Unfortunately, I needed to go somewhere a lot warmer than Minnesota in February, I needed more cash than the forty bucks I’d scrounged up, and I’d like it if I had someone I could trust.

  Maybe, like my six-year-old self, I’d just make it to the end of the block. I could always throw myself in a snowbank and freeze to death within an hour or two.

  “Seriously, Cat. Hit the shower. I need to get home.”

  I jerked, realizing I’d been standing there pondering my death in a snowbank while Mary watched.

  “You don’t have to wait for me here. I can look for you in the media center after I’m dressed.”

  “Great idea, if you weren’t known for ditching me.”

  I rolled my eyes, as if I hadn’t even considered ditching her, let alone in detail. “You’re the one with the keys to the Jeep. How do you think I’d get home?”

  “Let’s just say I wouldn’t put anything past you.” Mary scrounged around in her backpack and pulled out a thick book. “I can read in here.”

  “Don’t I get any privacy?”

  “Don’t worry. I won’t look.” Mary opened her book and started to read. Leave it to her to be able to concentrate even on a hard wooden bench in a locker room.

  I grabbed a towel, stripped off my sweaty clothes, and headed to the shower. “I can’t believe you don’t trust me.”

  She didn’t even glance up from her book.

  “Cat? What do you think?”

  I heard Ms. Mickel, but it was like a mosquito buzzing around my ear. I kept hoping she’d bite someone else.

  “Cat?”

  “Yeah?” I covered the pages of my journal, where I’d been doodling a portrait of Chelsea being led to the guillotine, and my head turned slowly in Ms. Mickel’s direction—a direction that kept changing as her emerald-green stilettos tappity-tapped around the room.

  “Excellent. You are with us.” She smiled, but her lips were pursed and it looked like she might be in pain. “I wanted to know what you think of Jane Austen’s treatment of Kitty. Would you agree that it’s almost dismissive?”

  After being stuck at home last night, I’d spent way too many hours curled up with The Book, drawn in despite myself, almost like watching a train wreck. I’d noticed how everyone treated Kitty, but it wasn’t as if my own family or friends were any less dismissive of me.

  Oh. My. God. I clapped a hand over my mouth as I thought about The Book and it suddenly became crystal clear. My older sisters could bitch all they wanted about The Book and fate and blah blah blah, but none of them had been totally ignored by Jane Austen. Jane Austen thought I was nothing.

  At least, that’s what she thought of Kitty.

  “Cat, are you sick?”

  Ms. Mickel looked genuinely concerned, but she might just be afraid I’d puke all over her shoes if she got any closer.

  “I’m fine. Totally fine.”

  Chelsea laughed, Jeremy snickered, and the guy on the other side of me moved his desk a couple of inches away with a loud scrape. But Tess looked sympathetic and Drew actually frowned at Chelsea as Ms. Mickel took a step closer to me.

  “Don’t you have an opinion? Don’t you find it a bit insulting? Even Mary Bennet gets more notice from Jane Austen.”

  I shrugged. “I wouldn’t exactly want the attention that Jane Austen gave to Mary.”

  Jeremy nudged me, then winked when I frowned at him. I didn’t need detention just because Jeremy felt like nudging me. He wasn’t even cute. Or nice. Or, well, anything. And I had no idea why he dyed his hair green and red this week. Christmas was over a month ago.

  Ms. Mickel’s pointy red fingernails tapped my desk. “Good answer. But you haven’t said how you feel about Kitty.”

  “I don’t feel anything about Kitty.” I leaned back in my chair, trying to get some distance from Ms. Mickel’s interrogation and her fingernails. “Am I supposed to? And, like I’ve said a million times, Kitty isn’t me. It’s not even the same name.”

  Ms. Mickel leaned over my desk. “Do you think your parents did that intentionally? To try to distance you from Jane Austen’s treatment of poor, hapless Kitty?”

  Kitty wasn’t that hapless. “You’d have to ask them. I mean, if you really think it’s relevant to our study of Pride and Prejudice.”

  Jeremy clapped a few times before getting The Look from Ms. Mickel, but no one else said anything, and I had a feeling another detention was in my near future. With my luck, with Jeremy. Ugh.

  Ms. Mickel just stared at me, and I stared back at her, until the bell rang. Amazingly, she didn’t slap either Jeremy or me with detention. But it was still early in the week.

  I joined the crush of kids heading out the door.

  “Dude, that was brilliant.”

  I kept moving until a bottleneck at the door penned me in, squeezing me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe.

  Someone tapped my shoulder. “I said, that was fucking brilliant, dude.”

  I glanced behind me. Jeremy. “You were talking to me?”

  He grinned down at me, and I suddenly realized how tall he was. Tall, and annoying.

  “What you said to Ms. Mickel, you know? Like, she oughta stick her stupid questions up her—”

  I whipped my head around to see if Ms. Mickel was right behind us, which would be just my luck.

  “I didn’t say that to her. I just don’t see why she’s so hung up on finding a connection between my family and The Book.” She didn’t even know my family treated Pride and Prejudice practically like a bible. Or did she?

  Jeremy nodded. “Yeah, like Kitty and Cat. Totally different. Ms. Mickel is wacked.”

  We’d made it a safe distance from our classroom by now, but I wouldn’t put it past Ms. Mickel to follow Jeremy and me down the hall, trying to catch us doing something else wrong.

  I blew out an exasperated breath. “No offense, but what’s with the change in attitude? You’ve been laughing at me for a week now whenever Ms. Mickel picks on me, and suddenly you think Ms. Mickel is the one who’s wacked?”

  In fact, I could basically thank Jeremy for the rest of the class laughing at me. They tended to go wherever he led, but I had no idea why. I mean, we’re talking Jeremy. Not exactly the coolest guy on the planet.

  Like right now. His jaw hung open, and I could practically see the wheels turning in his head, trying to come up with a decent answer.

  Too late. “I have to get to class. See you.” I picked up my pace, beating a quick retreat from Jeremy.

  “Dude!”

  I stopped and gritted my teeth before slowly turning around. “My name is Cat.”

  “Yeah. Like, not Kitty.” Jeremy gave me a lopsided grin. “I, uh, didn’t mean to laugh at you. Or with you.” Right. His flushed face said it all. “Hey, we have U.S. History second period. We could, like, walk together.”

  I couldn’t believe I got stuck with Jeremy in two classes this term, back to back. At least I had that cute senior guy—Ben—to distract me in U.S. History, and Jeremy sat on the opposite side of the room. He couldn’t nudge me or tap my shoulder or call me dude.

  I spun around and started walking in the opposite direction of U.S. History class. “Gee, thanks, but I just remembered I’ve gotta go to my locker.”

  Jeremy spun around, too, and s
tarted following me. “Yeah, I could go to my locker, too. Good idea.”

  Thank God it was around the corner from mine. Since I already had what I needed for U.S. History, I could shoot past my locker when he stopped at his. It’d be the long route to U.S. History, but I could probably make it before the bell.

  “I could walk you to your locker.”

  I glanced up at the hallway clock, as if it mattered. “But then we’d both be late.”

  “I, uh, just remembered I’m already set for class.” Jeremy’s goofy grin returned. “So I could, like, hang with you.”

  Nightmare. And it wasn’t even second period yet.

  “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom, too.” I could look in the mirror and check to see if alien body snatchers had switched me in the middle of the night with someone wearing a “kick me” sign on her back. “You don’t want to be late.”

  After staring at me a few seconds, Jeremy turned back in the direction of our U.S. History classroom. I zipped around the corner, then counted to twenty before following Jeremy.

  As I trudged to class, I decided I really had to work on my plan to get the hell out of Dodge. Even if I didn’t have a moronic family or friends who were turning into jerks, I needed to escape Jeremy.

  Or at least add him to the list.

  I trudged to Drawing class, still replaying my worst cafeteria experience since the day last year when I flipped a tray with spaghetti and it landed all over Lydia, who used it as an excuse for a food fight.

  Today, a food fight would’ve been better. Drew and Chelsea were camped at my table, and Amber scooted her chair over a few inches to block the one space where I could’ve pulled up a chair. Tess gave me a pained look, as if she wanted to help me but, gee, she couldn’t. Then Jeremy tried to get me to eat at his table. Filled with guys.

  Nothing against guys—nothing at all!—but his pals started hooting and whistling the minute Jeremy asked me to join them, and everyone in the caf turned to stare, and I think my face flushed even redder than Jeremy’s.

  What was going on? Did the whole school think I was a joke? Wait. No way. Jeremy couldn’t actually have a crush on me. He was totally not my type. He—

  Head down, I smacked into something—hard—and my gaze flew up to Mr. Reiman’s startled face as my sketchpad and pencil case crashed to the floor. He was standing on the threshold to our room, right where anyone could smack into him if she wasn’t looking, but I had a feeling he wouldn’t share my view.

  He frowned a moment. “For someone interested in drawing, Cat, you might want to work on your vision.”

  As I started to stammer out an explanation, or an apology, or maybe even a complete denial, I glanced around the room. A few grinning faces, maybe, but no one was laughing at me. Most of the kids had their faces buried in their sketchpads, even though the bell hadn’t rung yet.

  I glanced back up at Mr. Reiman, whose lips twitched.

  After retrieving my art supplies from the floor, I went to my seat, totally confused. Ms. Mickel tortured me every chance she got, but I slammed into Mr. Reiman and he didn’t give a rip? And no one laughed?

  “I wondered when someone was going to run into him.” Megan’s tiny voice twittered in my ear. “He totally blocks the way every day. Sorry it happened to you.”

  “Thanks.” I opened my sketchpad, grimacing at the crappy sketches I did yesterday. Why had I taken Drawing, anyway?

  “I really like how you draw.” Megan’s pink fingernail tapped my sketchpad, right below a horrid drawing of a bowl of fruit that looked more like lopsided aliens from Mars.

  I snorted. “Yeah, right. This totally blows.”

  Megan’s nose wrinkled. “The fruit? I didn’t mean that, but you’re good at shading.” She nodded at my sketchpad. “No, I meant the drawings you do of other kids in the class when Mr. Reiman isn’t looking.”

  Glancing to the front of the room, where Mr. Reiman was bent over some kid’s sketchpad and muttering, I let out a shallow breath. “I didn’t think anyone would see me.”

  “I’m an artist. I notice everything.”

  Megan grinned, which made her face practically glow under the fluorescent ceiling bulbs. It made me want to sketch her, but not because I was an artist, let alone a decent one.

  “I’m not an artist.” I flipped to the back of my sketchpad, where I’d done my not-so-surreptitious portraits, and shook my head. “I like to doodle in class, but that’s about it.”

  “You’re joking, right?” Megan pushed her glasses higher on her nose. “You’re great at drawing people.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Right.” She turned back to her own sketchpad, which had a picture-perfect drawing of a bowl of fruit. “I can’t draw people. If it doesn’t breathe, I’m good. But breathe or move a muscle? No way.”

  “That’s not true.” My head jerked up as I said it, because Mr. Reiman’s footsteps were headed down our row. I dropped my voice to a whisper. “You’re the most talented artist in this class. Mr. Reiman gushes all over you.”

  Megan rolled her eyes. “That has more to do with my mom being an art professor at the U, but thanks. Anyway. I really can’t do—”

  “Megan? Cat? Is there something you wanted to share with the rest of the class?”

  “Um, no.” I quickly flipped the pages of my sketchpad back to the butt-ugly bowl of fruit as Mr. Reiman’s feet stopped in the aisle between Megan and me. “We were just talking about drawing.”

  “I wish you’d both work on your drawing.” Mr. Reiman glanced at my sketchpad, shaking his head at my skanky bowl of putrid fruit. He jabbed a finger at the actual bowl of fruit, still displayed on a podium at the front of the room. “You’ll find you improve faster that way.”

  He started to move on, sending a wisp of relief through me, until Megan raised her hand. “Mr. Reiman, we were talking about Cat’s seriously cool drawings of—”

  I hissed at her. “They suck!”

  Mr. Reiman glanced down again at my sketchpad. Based on the curl of his lip, he agreed with me. “I wouldn’t say it sucks—in fact, this might be a good moment to discuss the difference between critiquing yourself and criticizing yourself, not to mention bashing your head against a wall.”

  “Really, Mr. Reiman.” Megan kept nodding, as if someone was asking a question and she was shouting out a “Yes!” to the world. “You should take a look at this.”

  Before I could blink, she’d grabbed my sketchpad off my table and started thumbing through it to the back. I launched myself at the sketchpad, but I came up short when she slid it to the far side of her table.

  “Megan.” As Mr. Reiman spoke, a buzz of conversation lit up the room. Great. An instant replay of English class and most of my life lately. “I don’t think—”

  He broke off when Megan held up a sketch of Mr. Reiman I’d done last Friday, when he was droning on about forms and shading and the Great Meaning of drawing stupid bowls of fruit. I felt heads turning, and the room went silent.

  After an agonizing pause, Mr. Reiman glanced at me and then back at the drawing again. “Cat, I’d like to see you after school today.”

  I closed my eyes. Utter humiliation plus detention in one glorious moment. My life in a nutshell.

  Chapter 6

  “Good Heaven! What is to become of us! What are we to do!” would they often exclaim in the bitterness of woe.

  — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume II, Chapter Eighteen

  I dawdled in the locker room after Gym class. I didn’t know why Mr. Reiman couldn’t just yell at me in class like every other teacher. I’d also had the first glimmer of an idea for my escape plan during today’s forced march with Ms. Gonzalez, and escape sounded even better now that I could add Drawing to the list of classes in which I was circling the drain.

  Mary poked her head into the locker room about five seconds after the final bell rang. “Cat? Are you coming?”

  I sighed as I slammed my locker shut. “What’s the rush this time?�
��

  She offered a casual wave to Amber, who said hi to her—even though she didn’t speak to me anymore.

  Mary turned back to me. “Oh, nothing. I mean, not much. I’ve just got stuff to do.”

  “With Josh.”

  Mary glanced at Amber, who rolled her eyes. Like I was the weirdo in this scenario. Why? Because I didn’t have a boyfriend? Because the guy I’d liked since forever blew me off for Chelsea?

  I opened my mouth to tell Amber exactly what I thought of her when Mary grabbed my arm and hauled me out the door. Startled, I practically flew past Amber.

  The instant we got outside, I yanked my arm away. “What was that for?”

  Mary headed in the direction of my locker. “You were about to say something snotty to Amber just because she said hi to me.” She shook her head. “What’s so awful about your friends being nice to me?”

  Because Amber wasn’t even remotely nice to me? But I refused to admit it to Mary. I slowed my steps, wishing she’d go ahead, even if it meant walking home alone. I hadn’t been alone—except in bed, sound asleep—in a week, and it felt like forever.

  Mary slowed down, too, but she didn’t look happy about it. “Really, Cat, I’ve gotta be somewhere by four, and I have to—”

  “—go see Josh. Yeah, yeah. I get it.”

  Mary lifted one eyebrow. “Actually, I have to get some homework done.”

  I would never understand her. “You already have a full ride to MIT. Why bother with homework?”

  Mary glanced at me sideways. “You wouldn’t get it.”

  No, I probably wouldn’t. I started to say that when Mary hauled up short in front of my locker just as I almost walked past it. I quickly grabbed my backpack, slammed the locker shut again, and headed toward the parking lot.

  Beside me, Mary hiked her backpack higher on her skinny shoulder. “I’d like to graduate as class valedictorian, which means I have to keep up my grades.”