“Oh, I’m sure. I’ll do it first thing tomorrow, okay, Mrs. O’Grady? Sorry for the delay.” I started heading up the stairs to Doli’s room, but Mrs. O’Grady grabbed my hand.
“I’m sorry, but until your request is granted, you need to sleep in your own room,” she said. “Starting tonight.”
I sighed miserably. Just what I need to make this day even harder: face time with Nicole. “Fine. I need to get my blanket and pillow from their room, though.”
Mrs. O’Grady nodded. “We’ll go together.”
Upstairs I opened the door to find the room empty. Shani must have stopped in the common room or to chat more with Lin; Doli was probably taking her time walking back from Spanish class. Quickly I gathered my things, wrote a quick note, and rejoined Mrs. O’Grady in the hallway, sticking the note to the door behind me. Mrs. O’Grady nodded and walked me back downstairs to my old room.
After she left, I hesitated outside the door. I could hear music playing and smelled something like ammonia. I heard a giggle behind me, and turned around just in time to see the door across the hall slam shut. Great. Someone had already gotten wind of the Disgraced Roommate returning to the site of her shame. I might as well go in before the hallway filled with spies.
I turned the knob. At least the door was unlocked. I found Nicole inside, sitting on her bed and painting her nails. Bruno Mars blared from her iPod dock. Between the nail-polish fumes, the throbbing music, and the very sight of Nicole, I suddenly had a pounding headache.
She looked up at me, her face registering surprise and then contorting into a frown. “What are you doing here? I thought I told you to find somewhere else to sleep.”
I sighed. “I did. But someone told Mrs. O’Grady, and she says I can’t move out without filing a room-change request. I’ll do that first chance I get, but for now, you’re just going to have to deal.”
“I don’t have to do anything,” Nicole snapped, slamming her magazine shut and tossing it to the floor. “And I don’t want you in here if you’re going to be growling at me and acting all insane.”
The veins in my forehead pulsed and I felt the same tingling in my spine that I’d felt the first time I’d transformed. Uh-oh. “Be careful, Nicole,” I warned. “I don’t think you should make me angry right now. Back off, or . . . or . . .”
Her voice went up another octave. “Or what? You’ll do something to me like you did to Ms. Benitez?”
This time I took a step back. Thanks to my new superhuman cat senses, I could hear the other girls on our floor gathering on the other side of the door to eavesdrop. They were whispering and jostling for space.
“What are you talking about?” I exclaimed.
“Don’t play innocent. I know you were there the night Ms. Benitez was taken away in an ambulance. She tried to be nice to you and now she’s in a coma.”
I felt off balance, my legs shaky. “That wasn’t my fault!” I insisted. “She—”
But I couldn’t say, She was protecting me. If I did, I’d have to tell Nicole what Ms. Benitez had been protecting me from. “S-she got hurt when a piece of the museum ceiling fell on her,” I tried. “I helped drag her out of the building.”
Nicole shook her head. “You’re such a liar. I know you know more than you’re letting on. Something happened that night but you’re covering it up. Miss Benitez was young and healthy. Why would a bump on the head send her into a coma?”
I wanted to tell her that Ms. Benitez was far from young. She was probably older than everyone in the dorm combined times a hundred. But I clamped my lips shut. That was one piece of gossip Nicole would not get her hands on.
“It’s like you cast some evil spell on her or something,” Nicole hissed. “You must be some kind of witch and you’re out to destroy this school!”
I was furious. Here I was trying to fight the forces of evil, and she was accusing me of being a witch!
“I’m no witch,” I cried, as much to all the girls I knew were listening from the hall as to Nicole. I balled my fists at my sides, aching to knock her to the floor. We’d be the talk of the campus for months, thanks to her. But after the first time I’d lashed out at Nicole, I’d checked the welcome packet again, and she was right about one thing: They weren’t kidding about their zero-tolerance violence policy. It was mentioned at least three times. I knew that if I lost control with the jaguar so near my surface, there was no telling what would happen. But the tingling in my spine was getting stronger.
“Nicole, would you please just turn the music down?” I begged, dumping my blanket on the bed. “I’m exhausted. All I want is to take a nap.”
But instead of lowering the volume, she rose from the bed, crossed over to the iPod on her desk, and turned it up. She started dancing around the room. “Puh-lease. Because we’re running on generator power, they’re only letting us use electricity for a couple of hours. I’m going to enjoy it while it lasts,” she shouted over the music.
“Nicole, come on. . . .”
She cupped her hand behind her ear. “What? Sorry. Can’t hear you.” She kept dancing.
That was it; I was done being polite. I went over to her desk and turned the iPod off altogether. She whirled to face me, her eyes bulging. She stomped over to me and turned the music on again. I turned it off and ripped the iPod out of the docking station, glaring at her defiantly. But she came at me, her lips pulled back in a sneer. “Give it back—”
Acting on instinct, I bared my teeth and let out the same sound that had sent Lin scurrying behind Doli the night before.
Nicole pulled back with a grimace. “OMG, did you just growl at me? You’re a freak!”
Last night’s practice had gone well, but I knew I didn’t have much control over the big cat inside me. I could feel it tugging at my insides, as if it were itching to be let out of its cage. “I don’t want to hurt you, Nicole,” I said in a low voice. “So please don’t make me.”
“What did you just say?” Nicole asked.
“I said don’t make me hurt you!” I couldn’t help shouting, and I felt the cat within preparing to pounce, to rip, to . . .
I gasped in horror at my own thoughts. I took a few deep breaths and backed away from Nicole, holding up my hands in surrender.
But Nicole just flashed an evil smile. “Get away from me,” she said loudly, in a frightened voice that didn’t match her expression at all. Then as I watched in disbelief, she raked at her face with her own freshly painted fingernails.
“What are you doing?” I breathed, barely able to form words. I knew she was evil, but surely she couldn’t be evil enough to fake an attack on herself . . . could she?
“Ana, don’t! No! HELP!” she screamed.
Nicole’s scream was all it took to bring the girls from the hallway crashing into the room.
Jessica rushed to Nicole’s side. “What’s going on here?” she said.
They all looked from me, in my near-catatonic state, to Nicole, who was bleeding from her self-inflicted wounds.
Nicole pointed a shaky finger at me and cried, “She attacked me!”
That’s when I spotted Shani, standing with Doli and peering through the doorway. Shani raised an eyebrow at me. Did you? When I shook my head, she shrugged as if to say, Eh, too bad.
Most of the other girls seemed to buy Nicole’s story hook, line, and sinker. They fawned over her, sending me accusatory glares. Only a few girls hung back, regarding Nicole with wary glances. Lin stood in the middle of the room in her 7 For All Mankind jeans, seeming unsure whose side to take.
After a few seconds Doli spoke up. “Get real, Nicole. Ana never touched you. You’re lying.”
“What?” Nicole screeched. “That’s insane.”
“Yeah, why would you even say that, Doli?” Tanya asked.
Doli cast a bored glance in Nicole’s direction. “For starters, there are smears of pink nail polish on her face. As far as I know, Ana doesn’t even own a bottle of nail polish. And look at Nicole’s hands. Either smea
red polish is the new style, or she did this to herself.”
Some of the girls backed away from Nicole then, uncertainty evident on their faces. Nicole, seeming to sense that she was losing them, started sobbing dramatically. There were no actual tears and it seemed clear to me that she was just putting on a show. But her friends thrived on drama. The girls who were already crowded around her moved even closer, making little clucking noises of pity.
Shani rolled her eyes at the obvious ploy. Then she gave me a smile and pulled out her phone. Time for some distraction, she mouthed to me. I watched as she dialed Nicole’s number, waiting for the song about big butts to start playing from Nicole’s purse. Only, when the song did start to play, the sound came out of Lin’s back pocket.
Lin looked horrified, and I tried to work through my confusion. How had Nicole’s phone ended up in Lin’s pocket? Shani’s own puzzled look told me that she hadn’t expected this either. But her expression soon changed to one of shock as she realized the truth. “Lin, you’re the thief?”
“What?” Lin screeched, a little too loudly. “That’s crazy. You’re crazy.”
Someone gasped. “Hey! The night my ring went missing, Lin had been in my room.”
“Get real,” said Lin. “My father is a diplomat and my mother is a famous actress overseas. They’d buy me this whole school if I asked them to. What would I want with your stupid ring?”
If I hadn’t gotten to know Lin better over the past few days, I might not have noticed the self-conscious shift of her eyes, or the way her bottom lip trembled. She was trying to hold on to that infamous Yang demeanor that had always kept the piranhas at bay, but I could see that it was slipping away from her.
“And my iPod disappeared after we shared a locker for gym class,” said another girl, ignoring Lin’s denials. Once the ball got rolling, it was impossible to stop. The girls began to pile on, shifting their attention away from Nicole and focusing it on Lin. It seemed that Lin had been nearby each time one of the stolen items went missing.
“Leave her alone,” I tried in vain. I wanted to give Lin the benefit of the doubt. After all, I thought, glancing at Nicole’s scratched-up cheeks, I had just found out what it felt like to be accused of something I absolutely didn’t do. But the guilt-ridden, mortified look dawning on Lin’s face told me that her presence at the scene of each crime was no coincidence.
Finally, avoiding everyone’s eyes, Lin pushed her way past the girls and ran.
I stared after her in shock. I couldn’t believe she was the thief. Why would the wealthy daughter of a movie star and a diplomat have to steal? There must have been a reason. At least, I hoped there was.
Nicole, meanwhile, had all but forgotten her little crying display. She rubbed her hands together as if she were about to dig in to a delicious meal. “I can’t wait to tell Principal Ferris all this,” she said, smiling cruelly.
“Why don’t you start by telling me,” said Mrs. O’Grady, suddenly materializing in the doorway, “what’s going on here?”
Immediately, every girl in the room started talking at once. Mrs. O’Grady massaged her temples then said, “Enough! I can only listen to one of you at a time. Anyone who doesn’t live in this room, please go. My guess is, this is no concern of yours.” Some of the girls protested, but Mrs. O’Grady pointed to their rooms and sent them packing.
“Good luck,” Doli whispered as she passed me on her way into the hall.
When it was finally just Nicole and me with Mrs. O’Grady, she asked again for us to tell her what happened.
“Mrs. O’Grady,” Nicole began, batting her eyelashes—the picture of innocence. “I was just sitting here minding my own business when Ana barged into the room and started yelling at me. I asked her to leave me alone and told her that if she didn’t stop, I’d go get help, but she just said, ‘Don’t make me hurt you!’ ”
I winced. If Mrs. O’Grady asked any of the girls in the hallway what they’d seen or heard, they could all confirm that I’d said those words. Out of context, it sounded all wrong.
“I tried to lighten the mood by playing some music, but she ripped my iPod out of the dock. When I asked her nicely to give it back, she growled at me like some kind of animal. And then she . . . she attacked me!” Nicole dropped her head as if she was tearing up, but I knew she was probably hiding a grin over her Academy Award–worthy performance.
Mrs. O’Grady turned to me, studying my reaction. “Is that what happened?” she asked.
“No!” I exclaimed. I countered with the truth about Nicole blaring her music and accusing me of being a witch. I laid out the same evidence Doli had mentioned, pointing out Nicole’s smeared nails and my lack of polish. “She’s trying to frame me!” I insisted.
“She growled at me,” Nicole snapped, satisfied, I guess, that she could use that kernel of truth against me.
“She called me a freak.”
“You are a freak!”
Mrs. O’Grady pursed her lips and let out a long, high-pitched whistle, silencing us instantly. She sighed wearily. “Well, it looks like you two will not be able to resolve this any time soon. So perhaps it is best that we see about getting you a new room assignment immediately, Ana. For tonight, although it is technically against the rules, you may sleep in Doli and Shani’s room. As long as it’s all right with them.”
I breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Thank you, thank you. I really appreciate—”
“However,” Mrs. O’Grady interrupted, “both you and Nicole will have to go to student court. Since assault is grounds for expulsion, there will be a peer trial over this incident to determine whether you really did attack Ms. Van Voorhies.”
“A trial?” I repeated, stunned.
“I’m afraid so,” she said.
“But I didn’t do anything!” I cried.
“You’ll have your chance to say that in court,” said Mrs. O’Grady, giving me a stern look that told me she didn’t want to hear another word about it.
“Fine, fine,” I mumbled. I glanced at Nicole, waiting to see if she would bring up the fact that Lin was the thief. But to my relief, Nicole said nothing. For now, she seemed satisfied with having gotten me into trouble. But I wondered if any of the other girls would report Lin in the morning. If they did, there was a good chance that Lin and I would be leaving Temple Academy together.
At that point, I hated the sight of Nicole so much, I would have done anything to get out of that room and away from her. I grabbed my pillow and blanket and walked back to Doli and Shani’s room. They were sitting on Doli’s bed talking, and they immediately perked up when I entered.
“What happened?” Doli asked.
“Did you get expelled?” Shani jumped in. “Did she? Please tell me Nicole got expelled.”
“And what about Lin?” Doli sat up, hugging her pillow to her. “I went to her room to check on her, but she wasn’t there or in the common room. Did Nicole report her to Mrs. O’Grady?”
“I don’t want to talk about it right now,” I grumbled, ignoring their questions. I didn’t want to spend one more second thinking about Nicole. Without another word, I crawled into the sleeping bag, closed my eyes, and fell into a dead sleep.
chapter 19
CATS CIRCLED MY DREAMS. THE many became one. Then one insistent cat was meowing directly in my ear. Along with the sound of Shani snoring and the soft tick tick tick of Doli’s alarm clock. Wait. No, this wasn’t happening in my dreamless sleep. The sounds were real. The meowing continued, getting louder. I opened my eyes.
When I’d settled into Doli and Shani’s room that night, I guess I’d succeeded in blocking out the world. It looked like they hadn’t even woken me up for dinner, just letting me sleep through till bedtime. But now there was a cat calling to me somewhere in the night. I unraveled myself from the sleeping bag and tiptoed to the window. There, right below me, was the black cat with the brilliant green eyes that I’d seen near the temple. It let out another loud mewl when it saw me.
�
��Doli!” I whispered. “Wake up, wake up.” She mumbled something but kept her eyes closed. Finally I went to her bed and shook her awake.
“Ana? What’s wrong?” She craned her neck to check her clock. “It’s three in the morning.”
“I know, sorry. But you have to see this.” I shook Shani awake too and brought them both to the window. The cat was still there.
“Uh, you woke me up to look at a cat?” Shani grumbled. “I’m going back to bed.”
I pulled her closer to the window. “Wait!” I urged. “I’ve seen this cat before. I think it’s trying to get my attention.”
Shani peeked down, one eye barely open. “Huh. It does seem to be looking right at us, doesn’t it? You think it knows about . . . the Wildcats?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Either way, I think it’s trying to tell us something. It’s been meowing for a while now. It woke me up.”
We watched as the cat spun in frantic circles. It padded away from the building, then looked up at us and waited, its back turned.
“Looks like she wants us to follow her,” Doli said.
I tilted my head. “She?”
“Just guessing.”
“I don’t get a bad vibe from her, but then what do I know?” I asked. “I went all these years not knowing I’m part jaguar. What if it’s some kind of trap?”
Shani smiled and left the window to pull on her jeans and sneakers. “We know how to use our powers now,” she said. “Kind of. If it’s a trap, I say bring it on.”
Just like the night before, we sneaked out of the dorm one at a time, careful not to rouse Mrs. O’Grady, who’d already had an earful tonight. When the three of us reunited outside, we found the cat waiting patiently. I reached out to pet her, but she turned and ran down the pathway.
I grinned at my friends. “Time for our three a.m. workout.” If Lin had been there, she would have griped about being forced to run when she wasn’t even in gym class, or she’d complain that the cat had ruined her beauty sleep. But Lin wasn’t there. It surprised me how sad that made me. I’d told her before that the four of us were a team. Going off to do something that might involve the Wildcats without her didn’t feel right. But since we didn’t know where Lin was—or if she wanted to see anyone right now—we had no choice.
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