Cat Bennet, Queen of Nothing

by Mary Strand

  “No problem.” Megan didn’t move.

  “Alone, if you don’t mind.” Mr. Reiman smiled at Megan, which softened the harsh angles of his face.

  The expression on his face would actually be cool to draw, but I had a feeling this wasn’t the moment. I also didn’t have a clue how Mr. Reiman thought he could talk to me alone when the hall was filled with kids, a dozen of them shuffling past us into Drawing class right now.

  He didn’t seem to notice. After Megan gave me a final thumbs up, Mr. Reiman frowned. Man, he was tall. Taller than my dad, and even more intimidating the way his eyebrows slanted into a “V” when he was pissed.

  “You didn’t stop by after school yesterday.”

  It wasn’t a question, so I wasn’t sure I could answer. Teachers didn’t usually worry about the truth when they’d already formed their opinion. I looked him in the eye, though. I mean, I had shown up. Just not right away.

  “Cat?” He kept frowning. “Didn’t I ask you to see me?”

  “Yeah.” Shrugging, I scuffed the toe of one boot against the floor. “I did stop by, but it was maybe ten minutes after the last bell.” More or less.

  He raised one eyebrow. “I wanted to talk to you about your drawing, but I couldn’t wait long after school.”

  He wanted to nail me with detention, but teachers always tried to make it sound like we were just having a discussion before they dropped the hammer. I straightened my spine. Any moment now, he’d demand my sketchpad and send me on my way to Mr. Paymar’s office.

  More kids shuffled past us. Mr. Reiman’s head jerked up when the bell rang, then he glanced into the classroom. Half the kids were already drawing, but several—including Megan—were staring out the door at Mr. Reiman and me.

  “I need to start class, but I’d like to talk to you.”

  I blew out a frustrated breath. “Should I just go to Mr. Paymar’s office now, or wait ’til after school?”

  “Mr. Paymar’s office?” Mr. Reiman tilted his head, studying me, then chuckled. “Because of your drawing?”

  “Sure.” I shrugged. I’d been to Mr. Paymar’s office so much, they might as well assign me a desk there.

  “You’ll have to go another time. Right now, you have portraits to draw.” His lips twitching, Mr. Reiman pointed at my table. “Have a seat. But can you stop in after school today? I’ll wait until you arrive.”

  Fine. I’d talk to him, and then I’d go to Mr. Paymar’s office. For detention. I could hardly wait.

  Not.

  I didn’t bother trying to dodge Mary after school. First, I had a hot date with Mr. Reiman, to be followed by one with Mr. Paymar. Second, it was ten below zero, and I’m not stupid—unlike a certain Gym teacher I know. Ms. Gonzalez made us run outdoors for ten minutes today before Mr. Paymar sent a very cold and cranky secretary outside to yell at her about putting students’ lives in danger.

  Still sucking wind after a quick hot shower, I changed back into my street clothes and trudged to the outer door of the locker room, where Mary slouched against the wall.

  “Hey.” Mary started to offer a friendly little wave as I walked right past her. She hurried to catch up. “Bad day?”

  I shrugged. “The usual.”

  “No, something is different. Like with your girlfriends.”

  “Right.” I rolled my eyes even as her words slammed into me. “Like you’ve always hung out with me so much.”

  “Hmmm.”

  I whirled on her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Hey!” Mary held up a hand. “I was just thinking.”

  “You said `hmmm’ the way Dad says it when he doesn’t believe something one of us tells him.”

  Mary’s eyebrows rose. “I’m like Dad? What’s next? You’re gonna tell me how I’m like Mom?”

  I blew out a breath, wondering if I had overreacted. But I don’t know if it’s overreacting when all your friends start dissing you, and you don’t have a clue why, and you’re stuck with a 24/7 babysitter. A lot of people in my position might want to ram their fist through a wall.

  When we got to the corner where I’d normally turn right to go to my locker, I hung a left, heading for my Drawing classroom and Mr. Reiman and detention. I might as well bring Mary along for the ride. She’d find out soon enough anyway.

  She grabbed my arm. “Where are you going? I need to be somewhere.”

  I jerked my arm free. “Yeah? So do I.”

  She didn’t say anything more as I trudged to the Drawing room. Mr. Reiman stood at the door like a guard dog, his eyebrows lifting when he saw I had company.

  “Thanks for stopping by, Cat.” He glanced at Mary, curious, before turning back to me. I would’ve figured a brainiac like Mary would know every teacher here, but she avoided art the way I avoided science. “Do you have a few minutes?”

  He ushered me into the classroom, smiling curtly at Mary before shutting the door on her, leaving her out in the hall. He waved me over to his desk, heaped with pencils and paints and sketchpads of every size imaginable. I wondered how he did any work at it. Shrugging, I inched in his direction.

  “I suppose you don’t have your sketchpad.” He shook his head as he took in my flushed face and damp hair. I’d dumped my art stuff in my locker before Gym class, hoping to make it harder for him to bust me on my drawing of him. Stupid, I know. “Well, it doesn’t matter. I’d like to look at your portrait work in more detail, though.”

  Huh?

  He leaned against his desk, crunching a pile of papers hanging over the edge. “It’s still early in the term, but I’d like to encourage you to submit your portrait work for the all-school art show.”

  I frowned. I heard what he was saying, but it didn’t make sense. “What about Mr. Paymar?”

  “What about Mr. Paymar?” As he spoke, we both glanced out through the closed door at Mary, who stared in at us. Finally, the barest grin hovered over Mr. Reiman’s mouth. “Did you think I had a problem with your work?”

  I just nodded, dumbly.

  “Well, I’d rather have you work on still lifes when the rest of the class is working on them.” He glanced at the bowl of fruit at the front of the room. One sickly pear had brown spots. “Your still lifes could use some work.”

  “They just don’t—” I cut myself off. If he wasn’t giving me detention, I didn’t plan to give him a reason.

  “They don’t interest you?” At my sheepish nod, he glanced again at the bowl of fruit, wrinkling his nose when a tiny worm crawled out of a hole in the apple. “I suppose fruit might seem a bit pedestrian for someone so good at portraits—” He nodded at me, as if my portraits were good. Ha. “But every subject offers valuable lessons to a serious artist. Form, shading, etc. You don’t think Beethoven started with symphonies, do you?”

  “Um . . .” According to Mary, yeah, he pretty much did.

  “In this class, we draw almost everything.” Mr. Reiman looked keenly at my face, as if he saw potential in it that nobody else did. Even me. “Your portraits are good. They can be better. I’d like you to focus on your portrait work, even sharpen it, for the art show.”

  He made me stay after school for this? Despite his words, which sounded so positive, I kept waiting for his real reason for this little chat. When it didn’t come, I finally spoke. “So everyone in class enters the art show?”

  A quick shake of his head. “No. Perhaps as many as half the class will enter, but we’ll select a smaller group to display that night. This year’s show is on March 27. It’s only a month and a half from now.”

  “And that’s all you wanted to tell me?” Feeling Mary’s eyes boring into me, I started to back out of the room.

  He laughed. Weird.

  “That’s all. You’re not in trouble, I’m not sending you to Mr. Paymar, and you can go home now.” As I reached the door, his grin faded. “I’m serious about the art show, though. I think you have serious talent. I don’t say that to many of my students, especially not this early in the term.�
��

  “Um, thanks.” I fumbled with the door handle, pulled it open, and headed out into the hall where a grim Mary waited for me. From the look on her face, she wouldn’t believe me when I told her I wasn’t in trouble with a teacher.

  I couldn’t believe it, either.

  Five minutes later, I climbed into the passenger seat of the Jeep. Mary stared at me through the driver’s-side window for a million years, then finally sighed and got in.

  I glanced sideways at her and caught her biting her lip as she just sat there, apparently entranced by the steering wheel. Which was just your basic, ordinary black steering wheel.

  “Aren’t we going home?”

  She gave me a quick look before turning the key in the ignition and pulling out of the parking lot. “Uh, that’s the thing. I’ve got something going on today, and Mom and Dad aren’t home yet, and Jane and Liz are tied up, too.”

  I struggled not to slam my palms against the roof and whoop at the top of my lungs. But if Mary knew how excited I was, she’d never drop me off at home and go hook up with Josh. I even resisted making a snide comment. Freedom was staring me in the face.

  I shrugged. “So? Just drop me off at home.” Crap. I did sound too eager. “Unless that’s too much of a hassle, but I don’t wanna walk. It’s way too cold out.”

  Mary frowned. “Mom and Dad don’t want you home alone.”

  “No offense, but I’m not gonna hang out with you and Josh while you play kissy-face.” I saw my chances of getting space to myself sliding slowly down the drain.

  “For your information, I’m not meeting Josh. I’m getting together with some other guys.”

  I snickered. “Does Josh know?”

  “Of course he knows. It’s not a secret.”

  “If it’s not a secret, then why is your face bright red? And why are your knuckles turning white?”

  “It’s not. They’re not.” But they were, and we both knew it. Mary gripped the wheel so hard, she almost could’ve broken it. “Josh is busy skateboarding anyway.”

  My eyebrows shot up. “In February?”

  Mary snorted, further proof she’d been hanging out with Liz too much. “At an indoor skatepark. Haven’t you ever heard of 3rd Lair?”

  “No. I don’t hang out with skaters, in case you didn’t know.”

  “Lately, I don’t see you hanging out with anyone.”

  My teeth started grinding. I didn’t even care anymore about getting the house to myself. I just wanted to wipe that smug look off Mary’s face. “How could I? Mom and Dad have me on a tight leash, and you’re on the other end of it.”

  “Not at school.”

  “You’re not in my classes.” I turned and stared out the side window, frustrated and annoyed and, okay, possibly on the verge of crying. “You don’t know who I hang out with.”

  “I’m in the cafeteria at lunch, and you haven’t been sitting with your usual gang the last few days.”

  I opened my mouth to deny it, but the words got stuck in my throat. So I changed the subject.

  “You didn’t tell me who these guys are that you’re hanging out with.”

  Mary shrugged. “My band.”

  Oh, God. With Jeremy. “I’m not listening to your stupid band. I have things to do.”

  “Like I said, no one else is home. Sorry.”

  She wasn’t, and I crossed my arms. “I’m not going. I don’t care what Dad says.”

  “Too late.” Mary rolled to a stop in front of a big brick house with a three-car garage. “We’re here. You can hang out upstairs if you want, instead of with us, but Michael’s little sister will probably be there.”

  I rolled my eyes. “How old is the dopey kid?”

  “I didn’t say she was dopey. She’s eight.”

  “You don’t have your guitar.” I knew I was reaching at this point, but desperate people do that.

  “I just found out about practice at lunch today, so I’m using someone else’s. Besides, my guitar would’ve gotten too cold in the Jeep, and it doesn’t fit in my locker.”

  Mary climbed out of the Jeep as she said it, but I hadn’t even unbuckled my seatbelt. She gave me a look as she walked past my passenger window on her way to the house.

  While the Jeep got colder. And colder.

  Sighing, I finally got out and hustled toward the house. My situation was going from bad to worse. I had to hang out with Mary and her band, including Jeremy, and it didn’t matter if I had other things to do. Like homework. Not that I would’ve done it right this moment, but I’d rather do homework than listen to Mary’s stupid band while Jeremy and some bratty eight-year-old hung all over me.

  Just inside the front door, I caught a glimpse of a little girl with flaming red pigtails, so I took a sharp left in the direction of some stairs to what had to be the basement. The squeal of guitars being tuned up and the heavy beat of a bass drum hit me full blast. At the bottom of the stairs, I tried to take in the scene without anyone noticing.

  I jumped when someone tapped me on the arm. My head whipped around and I saw the kid, three steps up, staring at me. Mouthing a quick “sorry,” I took another step into the basement.

  And shut the door behind me.

  The basement was long and narrow, carpeted and dark-paneled and spare except for a wraparound couch at this end and all the band gear at the far end. I crossed to the other side of the room and dropped onto the couch before checking out the band. The tall red-haired guy at the keyboards must live here. I stared at him, wondering if I’d seen him around school. With his flaming hair cut in a wild spike job, I should remember him. But I didn’t.

  Then I spotted a blond, skinny guy playing bass guitar. Another stranger. I definitely would’ve remembered a guy who sported a tattoo of the Cat in the Hat. Neither guy looked old enough to be out of high school. So much for thinking I knew the whole school and everyone in it.

  Mary stared down at her guitar as she fiddled with the tuning knobs and strummed what sounded like a couple of polecats in a fight over the last scrap of stale fish. Actually, she wasn’t bad, just tuning up the same way the blond bass player was. And like—

  Crap! I gulped as I recognized the fourth guy in the band, also playing guitar, wearing a baseball hat low over his eyes and, believe it or not, dark sunglasses. In a dark, windowless basement in February. Kirk Easton, Drew’s best friend. Also known as Mr. Cool, especially in his own mind.

  I waited for him to whip out his cell phone, racing to tell his pal Drew about the pathetic loser who just walked into his band practice, but he didn’t diss me or laugh at me or even grin. I don’t think he noticed me at all.

  In fact, the only person who noticed me was Jeremy. It might explain why he kept banging his cymbals so much that the rest of the guys in the band finally stared at him. It didn’t explain why I was the one who turned bright red.

  I reconsidered the kid on the other side of the door. Maybe I would be better off hanging with her.

  “Jeremy, quit showing off for your girlfriend.” The red-haired guy smirked at me.

  Oh, God. Forget the eight-year-old. I might have to drown myself in the nearest bathtub.

  “She’s not exactly my girlfriend.”

  Not exactly his girlfriend?

  “I’m not at all his girlfriend.” Or anyone’s girlfriend, thank you very much, Drew. “I’m here with my sister.”

  It had to be the first time I’ve admitted that in my life, which told me just how ugly the situation had become. Everyone stared at me now except Mary, who kept fiddling with her guitar, almost as if she was trying to pretend she wasn’t my sister.

  Another first. And an unexpected kick in the teeth.

  As Jeremy and the red-haired guy grinned at each other, I grabbed my backpack and shot back upstairs. The kid sister was nowhere to be found, and I slipped outside. It might be ten below zero, but there are worse things than freezing your ass off. Like being dissed by my sister Mary and finding out Jeremy definitely had a crush on me and everyone
knew it.

  God, it sucked to be me.

  Chapter 8

  “Indeed, sir, I have not the least intention of dancing. I entreat you not to suppose that I moved this way in order to beg for a partner.”

  — Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter Six

  Good intentions go only so far when it’s ten below zero. So do my feet. My toes had to be blue by now and would probably snap off my feet any minute, but I was a mile from home. Thanks to Ms. Gonzalez, I was used to death marches.

  A car drove by and honked, and my head whipped up. Saved! But the car kept going. I could swear it was packed with kids I knew—like, really knew, as in Tess and Amber and crew—but my friends wouldn’t have let me freeze to death.

  I really, truly, had no friends.

  Worse, a stupid drummer in my pathetic sister Mary’s band had a crush on me, and he seemed to be telling the entire world about it, and I was supposed to be thrilled. Not.

  As I kept walking and thinking, the snot froze in my nose, my eyes watered so bad that my mascara must be zooming down my cheeks, and my toes were past frostbite and on their way to needing amputation.

  I made it home, finally, to find no cars in the driveway or garage or street. The Jeep was nowhere in sight, so Mary hadn’t followed me. It surprised me, actually.

  The only sign of life in the neighborhood was old Mr. Fogarty, wheezing and turning a gross shade of purple under the hood of his parka as he shoveled his driveway. I rolled my eyes. No one else was crazy enough to shovel when it had to be colder than Antarctica, but Mr. Fogarty was the neat freak of the neighborhood. At age ninety, minimum.

  Shaking my head, I stomped my feet and rubbed my hands, told myself I didn’t have to do this . . . and crossed the street. I must be as wacked as Mr. Fogarty. But the truth was, he’d always been really nice to my sisters and me, especially when we were little kids, even after that time Lydia stuck a garden hose in his basement window and flooded everything. And after the time she stuck firecrackers in his mailbox.