Fat Cat E-Book

Robin Brande

• Herausgeber: Ryer Publishing
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

An experiment so bold, anyone might think it was a little crazy...

Catherine Locke is smart, ambitious, and--okay, not the slimmest girl around.  But she's always cared more about her brain than her body.  So far that's gotten her where she wanted:  into the most advanced, competitive science class at her high school, where she'll once again face her fiercest rival, Matt McKinney.

The guy who broke her heart.

If Cat's plan works, she'll win it all:  a huge improvement in her body and her lifestyle, first prize at the science fair, admission to the college of her choice, and best of all, revenge on Matt McKinney.

But as every scientist knows, even the best experiments can go wildly out of control...

"Fat Cat was AWESOME.  I couldn't stop reading it!"  Meg Cabot,  New York Times bestselling author of  The Princess Diaries & more

Leseprobe

FAT CAT

ROBIN BRANDE

RYER PUBLISHING

FAT CAT

By Robin Brande

Copyright © 2009 by Robin Brande

First published by Knopf/Random House 2009

Published by Ryer Publishing 2018

www.ryerpublishing.com

Cover art by rea_molko/Deposit Photos

Cover design Ryer Publishing

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Created with Vellum

CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Chapter 80

Chapter 81

Chapter 82

Chapter 83

Chapter 84

Chapter 85

Chapter 86

Chapter 87

About the Author

Also by Robin Brande

1

“You’re all good little machines,” Mr. Fizer told us. He sat there this afternoon in his tweed jacket and his white shirt and plaid bowtie, and glared at us over the top of his half-glasses. Which was a seriously scary sight.

“You know how to take tests,” he said. “You know how to memorize facts and mimic everything your teachers have taught you—but do any of you really know how to think? We’re about to find out.”

I know I should have been concentrating. I should have kept my eyes locked on Mr. Fizer, practically reading his lips to make sure I caught every word. His class is going to be the hardest thing I’ve ever taken in my life.

But sometimes my body parts have a mind of their own. And there my eyes were, straying off to the right, seeking out that one particular face in the crowd the way they always do, no matter how many times I’ve told them to stop. And since this was a crowd of only nine, he was way too easy to find.

Unfortunately, right at that moment Matt McKinney was looking back at me, and our eyes met for just that one split second, and even though I instantly looked away, it was too late. I had to see that subtle little smirk of his, and it made me wish more than anything I had something sharp and heavy to throw at his head.

“Here are the rules,” Mr. Fizer said.

As if he needed to tell us. Every one of us understood the deal long before today—Fizer’s Special Topics in Research Science class is legendary, not the least because every few years someone has to run out of there on the first day and vomit because of the stress.

I had a light lunch.

“When I call your name,” Mr. Fizer said, “you will come up, close your eyes, and choose a picture. You will then have one hour in which to devise your topic. You may not use the Internet or any other resources. You may not discuss it with your classmates. You will have only your own creativity to rely upon.

“We do it this way,” he continued, “because true scientific progress comes through innovative thinking, not merely reciting what other scientists have taught us. Albert Einstein believed that imagination is more important than knowledge, and I agree. We must always push ourselves to discover more. Understood?”

No one bothered answering. We were all too busy staring at the folder he’d just opened on his desk, revealing this year’s Stack.

The Stack. It’s your whole future resting on a pick of the cards. Only in Mr. Fizer’s case, the deck of cards is actually a stack of pictures he’s gathered throughout the year—pages torn out of magazines like National Geographic and Nature and Science.

If you luck out, you can end up with a picture that applies to a field you’re already interested in—like for me, insects and their co-evolution with plants. It’s what I spent the whole summer helping research in one of the biology labs at the university. I figured if I ended up with a picture even remotely dealing with either plants or bugs, I’d be able to use everything I just learned about fig wasps.

On the other hand, you can also end up with something completely outside your subject field, which is why people like George Garmine had to flee the room last year to puke.

Because if you bomb, you might as well plan a career as a drone in some laboratory at some obscure college in a town nobody’s heard of, because you’re never going to get the premium offers. But if you do well—I mean really well—you can not only get Mr. Fizer’s recommendation for college applications, but you might also win your category at the science fair, and then go on to internationals. Some of Mr. Fizer’s students have done just that. And then you have a great shot at winning scholarships and impressing college recruiters, so that even people like me can end up places like MIT or Duke or Harvard or wherever. So yeah, it’s a big deal.

We all just wanted to get on with it already, but Mr. Fizer still had one more rule to tell us about.

“This is not a time for teamwork,” he said. “This is a competition. This is your chance to show bold thinking and a true commitment to your science. For the next seven months you will work independently and in secret. I am the only person you will share any details with until it is time to reveal your project at the science fair in March. Is that clear? Good. Miss Chang, we will begin with you.”

Lindsay wiped her palms against her pants and walked so slowly to the front of the room it was like she’d just been told to come up there and drink poison. She stood in front of Mr. Fizer’s desk, did the palm swipe one more time, then reached into the Stack.

You could tell Mr. Fizer was watching to make sure she kept her eyes closed. Lindsay pulled out a picture, pressed it against her chest, and went back to her seat without even looking at what she’d chosen. That seemed like a good strategy—no point in freaking out in front of everyone if it turned out to be really bad.

Next he called up Farah, Alexandra, Margo, and Nick. Then me.

I eased between the lab tables and walked to the front, and that’s when I started to think about my butt. And about how Matt McKinney was no doubt looking at it right at that moment and noticing how much larger it was than the last time he saw it. Seven more pounds over the summer, thank you very much. When you’re working in a lab as intense as the one where I was, all you really have time for every day is the vending machines and the Dairy Queen on the corner. Everyone at that lab was a pudgeball.

So I stood in front of Mr. Fizer’s desk, my hand shaking, thinking about my future and how it was about to change, but really thinking more about my thighs and gigabutt and trying to pull my shirt down a little lower to cover them, and finally I closed my eyes and reached into the Stack. That’s when I heard Matt clear his throat, which sounded like he was suppressing a laugh, and my hand jerked from where it was, and I suppose that makes it fate that I chose the picture I did.

I couldn’t look. I clutched the paper against my chest and went back to my seat and did my best to control my breathing.

Matt was next. Mr. Cocky. Mr. Casual. Mr. I’ve-Won-More-Science-Fairs-Than-Any-Of-You. He pulled out his picture, looked at it, and actually smiled. Smiled. Not a good sign.

Which caused me to peek at my own picture, and OH HOLY CRIPE. No way. I slapped it face down on the table and heard my pulse pounding in my ears.

Because Matt McKinney cannot beat me this year. Please—there has to be a law. I’ve only beaten him once, and that was probably the worst night of my life. It would be nice to win for once and actually get to enjoy it for more than five minutes.

Kiona and Alyssa went last, and they both looked about as sick as I felt. Then it was time.

“Go find a corner,” Mr. Fizer told us. “Your hour begins,” he checked his watch, “now.”

Everyone scattered to find some private space to work. I chose a little nook between the wall and a file cabinet, and scrunched myself down onto the floor. Then I turned the paper over and faced the reality of my situation.

The picture was worse than I thought.

Naked Neanderthals.

No, I take it back. Not Neanderthals, but something even more ancient—Homo erectus, to be exact. Early hominins from 1.8 million years ago, the caption said. Great. Highly relevant to my own life, not to mention my fig wasps.

Whereas Matt, I’m guessing from the smug little smile I saw on his face, must have chosen something that plays directly into his field—astronomy. Probably a picture taken by the Hubble telescope, or something from the Mars expedition, or maybe a computer simulation of a black hole. Something easy and perfect and effortless, because that’s how it always is for Matt.

But I couldn’t worry about him—I had to worry about me. I went back to staring at my picture.

It was an artist’s rendering of how these early humans might have lived. There were three men and a woman out in a meadow of some sort. They were all lean and muscular and tan—and did I mention naked?

They were gathered around a dead deer, guarding it from a pack of saber-toothed hyenas who were trying to move in and snatch it. One of the men was shouting. The woman had the only weapon—a rock—and she stood there poised to pitch it at the hyenas. It was a great action scene if you’re into that sort of thing—the whole anthro-paleo field of studies where you care more about the dead than the living. But it’s not going to be my thing now or ever.

Naked hominins and hyenas. Great. This was going to be my life for the next seven months, I thought. Chalk up another win for Matt and another failure for me.

But that was before I understood just how perfect this whole thing is going to be.

2

Amanda was waiting for me after class. “How’d it go?”

“Great. I need a Snickers.”

“Oh, yeah?” she said, perking up. “Does that mean the diet is over?”

“Um, pretty much.” Although I knew the real answer was going to shock her.

“Thank goodness,” Amanda said. “No offense, Kit Cat, but you have been seriously cranky these past few days. I think some people just need their sugar and carbs.”

Matt came out of class just then and gave us both a nod. “Hey, Amanda. See ya, Cat.”

Neither of us answered, of course. Usually Matt’s only that friendly when Amanda’s boyfriend Jordan is around. They’re on the swim team together, and Jordan is always telling us how “solid” and “quality” Matt is, whatever that’s supposed to mean. What it really means is Matt continues to fool most people into thinking he’s this sweet, charming guy who happens to be a brilliant scientist on top of it.

But Amanda and I know the truth. And unfortunately, it’s not something we can share with Jordan or anyone else. So people go right on believing what they want to about Matt.

“He is looking slightly better than normal,” Amanda said, watching him disappear down the hall. “I think he’s discovered the comb.”

“Can we talk about something else, please?”

“Sure,” she said. “I wrote a new poem last period. Want to hear it?”

She recited it for me as we headed toward the vending machines. It was another in her series of poems exploring the secret thoughts of inanimate objects. This one was about a blender.

Don’t laugh. Or do. The poems are supposed to be funny, but they’re also sweet and sometimes a little sad in their own way. The blender, so the poem goes, can touch food, but never actually taste it. By the time it swirls everything around into a liquid form it can ingest, someone pours it out and takes it away.

“Ever chewing,” Amanda concluded, “never satisfied.”

We both nodded in silent appreciation.

“I really love it,” I told her. “But no offense—I still like the La-Z-Boy one best.”

“Yeah,” Amanda agreed, “that was a classic.”

We hit the vending machines, and I bought not only a Snickers, but also a Butterfinger and some peanut M&Ms.

“Wow,” Amanda said. “You weren’t kidding.”

I bit off about half of the Snickers and said with my mouth full, “You’ll understand in a minute.”

I made her wait until we were safely in her car, since I couldn’t let Mr. Fizer or anyone else see me showing her the picture. His secrecy rule is fine—in fact, I’m grateful for it, since it means no one will know what I’m doing until I unveil the whole thing next March—but there was no way I was going to keep it secret from Amanda.

As soon as we were settled I pulled the picture out of my backpack.

“Oh,” Amanda said.

“Right,” I said.

Amanda pointed to the guy closest to the dead deer. “He’s sort of hot.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“What?” she said. “Nice butt, nice legs—I’d go for it.”

“Good to know.”

“Don’t tell Jordan.”

I finished my Snickers, started in on the Butterfinger, and explained to Amanda how the whole thing came about—how with time running out my brain finally came to understand exactly what I should do.

People always want to know how scientific discoveries are made.

They like the stories about the apple falling on Newton’s head (myth) or Archimedes leaping out of the bathtub and running naked through the streets shouting, “Eureka!” (“I found it!”) (True.) (Unfortunately for the neighbors.)

For me, it was the hominin’s killer butt.

Not the guy’s, like Amanda noticed, but the woman’s.

“Ten minutes,” Mr. Fizer had called out. I was in full-on, meltdown panic. I didn’t have a single idea in my head.

Meanwhile everyone else was furiously scribbling away in their notebooks. Everyone except for Matt, of course, who was already done and just sat there reading what he’d written.

I squeezed my eyes shut. This was horrible. Silently I pleaded with my new naked friends to give me inspiration—any sort of inspiration at all.

When I opened my eyes again, there was the woman’s butt. And the rest of the woman. And for some reason, it occurred to me in that moment that she was actually kind of cool in her prehistoric way—strong, determined-looking, ready to haul off and hurl that rock while the guys just shouted and looked concerned.

And she was thin. Not emaciated, fashion-model-thin, but that good muscular thin like you see on women athletes. She looked like she could run and hunt and fight just as well as the men—maybe even better.

And that’s when I realized: I wanted to be her.

Not her in the sense that I wish I had to fight saber-toothed hyenas just to get a decent meal, but her in looks. I want—and I know this sounds incredibly shallow, but science requires the truth—I wouldn’t mind for once in my life seeing what it’s like to actually look ... good. Or at least better than I do right now. Maybe even pretty, if that’s possible.

It’s not that I’m hideous, but I’m also not stupid. I know how people see me. I might spend an hour every day straightening my hair and getting my makeup just right and picking out clothes that camouflage at least some of my rolls, but the truth is I’m still fat and everyone knows it. When I wake up in the morning it’s like I’m wearing this giant fat suit, and if only I could find the zipper I could step out of it and finally go start living my real life.

And that was my Eureka.

Because seeing the hominin woman, just out there in all her glory, naked boobs and butt and stomach and everything, and noticing how lean and fit and strong she looked, made me realize something.

When anthropologists or forensic paleontologists find a skeleton, they bring it back to the lab and build a clay model over it, to see what the person might have looked like. They have to decide how much muscle and flesh to give the person to make it look like a real body, but here’s the thing: they never ever make the person fat.

Because obviously each person’s skeleton is made to hold a specific amount of weight, right? A small skeleton gets a little bit of weight, a big one gets a lot more.

And that made me think about what some scientist would do with my bones if she found them thousands of years from now. She’d build a body that looked normal for my skeleton, and she’d think that’s what I looked like. But she’d be wrong. Because she wouldn’t have factored in all the pizza and ice cream and chocolate and everything else I’ve been using as materials over the years to sculpt this particular version of me.

That’s when I knew what I should do. I knew if I made this my project, I’d really have to take it seriously. I couldn’t back out. I couldn’t cheat. This would be for a grade and for the science fair, so I’d have to do it for real. Once I committed to it—once I wrote my idea on a piece of paper this afternoon and turned it in alongside everyone else’s research topics—I’d have no choice but to take it all the way.

Mr. Fizer said he wants big ideas. He wants us to be creative and to really push ourselves. He wants us to throw ourselves into our projects, mind and body and soul.

Well, you can’t get more committed than this.

“I’m going to do it,” I told Amanda. “I’m going to become prehistoric.”

3

“Okay, so ... what exactly does that mean?” Amanda asked.

“No more candy, for one thing,” I said, polishing off my Butterfinger. I stuffed the M&Ms in my backpack for later. “No modern food of any kind—only natural foods they could have found back then, like nuts, berries—”

“You’re only going to eat nuts and berries for seven months?” Amanda said. “Are you insane?”

“I’m sure they had other things,” I said. “There was that dead deer.”

Amanda made a face. “Awesome.”

“And probably vegetables and a bunch of really healthy stuff.”

“So what you’re telling me,” Amanda said, “is you’re going on another diet.”

“No! It’s not that at all. I mean ... not entirely. This is going to be an actual science experiment. On myself. It’s not just the food—I’m going to give up everything modern. Computer, telephone, car, TV—”

“And this is supposed to prove what?” Amanda broke in. “Other than that you’re crazy?”

“That we’ve screwed ourselves up,” I said. “That somewhere along the way all of our modern advances have gone too far and we’ve let ourselves get lazy and soft.”

“Excuse me,” Amanda said, “but I happen to think my iPod is a brilliant piece of evolution.”

“No, but look at our bodies.” By which I really meant look at mine. “We have all these modern problems like obesity and diabetes and cancer and heart disease—”

“That’s because nobody used to live long enough to get those,” Amanda pointed out. “They were all getting chomped by wild beasts.”

“Yeah, but I think if we just went back to living a simpler life, we’d all be a lot better off.”

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said, “but I think it’s my job to tell you that you’ve finally gone too far.”

But I just smiled. Because the more we talked about it, the more radical it sounded, and that’s exactly what I need. Nothing ordinary is going to impress Mr. Fizer or the science fair judges—especially not with Matt in the game. I really need to bring it.

“Besides,” Amanda said, starting up her ancient yellow Mazda, “you can’t just give up everything. Some of our advances are actually pretty important.”

“Like what?” I said.

“Like running water, hello? Electricity? Soap? Are you just going to sit in the dark at night and rub yourself with dirt? And do you get to sleep in a bed anymore or do you have to sleep on the floor? Is carpeting allowed?”

“This is good,” I said, fishing for my notebook as Amanda pulled out of the parking lot. “I need to make a list. Keep going.” I had approximately 47 hours until my next class with Mr. Fizer. We were supposed to use that time to do as much preliminary research as possible before turning in our formal research proposals. I had a lot of work to do.

“Okay,” Amanda said, getting into it now. “You said no car—but they had the wheel back then, right? Can’t you improvise? Maybe you could ride your bike.”

“Right, and let Mr. Fizer catch me? ‘I wasn’t aware Homo erectus had the bicycle, Miss Locke.’ Forget it—I’m going to have to walk everywhere.”

“Everywhere?” Amanda said. “What if it’s dark out? Or it’s like twenty miles away and it’s raining and lightning outside? You can’t put yourself in danger.”

“Okay, good point. Maybe I need to make a few safety exceptions.”

“Yeah, like your cell phone,” she said. “I can see not talking on it in general, but you have to have it for emergencies, right?”

“Right,” I said, jotting that down. “Hold on.” The ideas were really flowing now. The whole thing was a lot more complicated than I thought—issues of safety, practicality, unavoidable conveniences like showers—

“So when does all this insanity begin?” Amanda asked. “This eating of leaves and berries and such?”

“I don’t know, Wednesday night. Maybe Thursday.” Soap, shampoo, toothpaste—“I want to make sure Mr. Fizer approves my proposal first.”

“Great,” Amanda said, “because Jordan and I were just talking about you last class.”

She said it in a really cheery, innocent voice, and normally that would have been a clue if I weren’t so distracted. I knew she and Jordan had Creative Writing together while I was in Mr. Fizer’s, so I didn’t really think anything of it.

“So ... what are you doing tomorrow night?” Amanda asked.

Cell phone, darkness, weather—“Working my face off on this project. Why?” Refrigeration, soft bed, clothing, shoes—

“I was just thinking you could take a break,” she said. “You know, like for an hour or so. Maybe for dinner.”

Finally some innate sense of self-preservation kicked in and I noticed what was happening. Amanda’s voice was about half an octave higher than normal—always a bad sign. The fact is my best friend is a really terrible liar. I put down my pen and gave her my full attention.

“Okay, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said a little too innocently. She squinted at the traffic ahead of her as if it were suddenly the most important thing in the world. “It’s just that tomorrow’s Jordan’s and my anniversary.”

We’d only talked about it a dozen times in the past few days—she knew very well that I knew. “Yeah ... and?”

“And so we’re going out to dinner tomorrow night, and we thought you might want to come along.”

“Um, don’t you think that would be a little weird?” I said. “Jordan would probably rather be alone with you on your anniversary. Just guessing.”

“Actually, it was Jordan’s idea.” Amanda glanced at me nervously. “Really. He likes you.”

“Yeah, I like him, too, but I still say you two should be alone.”

She made the left turn. “Oh, we will be—we’re ditching you right after dinner. We just thought ... ”

Amanda glanced at me again and saw I wasn’t buying it. She sighed and gave it up. “Okay, fine. Look, here’s the thing. Jordan has this friend—”

“No. Stop right there.”

Instead she just talked faster. “He said he’s a really nice guy—he’s on the swim team with him—and Jordan thinks the two of you will really hit it off—”

“No,” I said. “No, no, no.”

“Come on, Cat! Just this once?”

Amanda has this delusion that guys might actually like me—that somebody out there is seriously wishing he knew some fat girl he could date. But rather than get into that debate again, I went with the easier excuse. “Have you not been listening? I have tons of work to do. This proposal is huge—it has to be perfect.”

“It will be! Come on, Kitty Cat, it’s just for an hour or two—”

“I can’t,” I said. “This whole semester is going to be a nightmare if I don’t stay on top of it. I’ve got Fizer’s, AP Calc, AP Chemistry—”

“I know,” Amanda said, “but that’s why I worry about you. When are you ever going to have time to do anything but go to school, go to your job, and do homework?”

“I’m very organized.”

“Yes, I think I know that,” she said, “but there’s this other matter you seem to keep forgetting about—it’s called a social life.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“That’s what worries me,” she said. “Don’t you know how happy I am with Jordan?”

“Yes, and I’m very happy for you. He’s a great guy.”

“There are other great guys,” she said, pulling up to the side of the hospital. “I’m sorry, but I have this fear that someday you’re going to wake up a dried out, bitter old hag with plenty of science awards, but no personal life whatsoever. And you’ll sit there at night and sob about how you’ve wasted your life.”

“Thank you,” I said. “That’s a really horrible story.”

“Good. I’m calling it, ‘She Didn’t Listen To Her Friend.’”

I thanked Amanda for the ride and got out. But she wasn’t through with me yet. As I walked up the steps she rolled down the window and called out, “Will you at least think about it?”

“No.”

“But how will our babies ever grow up next to each other if you don’t ever go out on a date? Cat?”

I waved to her over my shoulder and escaped.

Amanda has this fantasy that we’ll both go to the same college, we’ll both meet our husbands there (“Jordan can apply for the position if he wants to,” Amanda told me. “I’m not ruling him out.”), and then we’ll move to the same city, both have fabulous jobs—me as either a research scientist or a doctor if I decide to go that route, her as either a poet/novelist or an English professor—and we’ll both have at least two children apiece, and we’ll all live happily ever after next door to each other, our kids playing together, our husbands taking turns barbequing while Amanda and I sneak off to the kitchen to bake fabulous desserts and talk all night.

There are definitely parts of that I like. It’s fun to sit back and listen to Amanda spinning her tales about what our lives might be like in the future. I kind of like the person she imagines me to be. Except when the story involves me being a dried up old hag.

So I suppose it’s not the worst thing in the world that she—and now Jordan, apparently—wants to find someone for me. But even if I wanted that, which I don’t, they’re both ignoring an obvious fact: There has never been a single guy who has ever liked me. I mean, there have been guys who have been nice to me—friend guys—but never, ever one who thought of me romantically.

Maybe Amanda and Jordan have gotten so used to me, they just don’t see me the way other people do anymore. I guess I should take that as a compliment. But I think it also doesn’t occur to them that it’s just easier for me not to ever go down that road and end up disappointed. Or worse, really hurt.

Only one of those per customer, thank you.

4

Before I headed down to the basement, I stopped by the hospital cafeteria and picked us up a few things. Everyone likes a little afterschool treat.

My mother’s eyebrows lifted as I came in carrying my load. I told her the same thing I’d told Amanda: “You’ll understand in a minute.”

But just then the phone rang and my mother had to take it, and her co-worker Nancy was already on another call, so I just handed them each a bag of Doritos and a few Rolos, and settled down to my own snack and work.

My mom is one of the pharmacists who works for the Poison Control Center—the people you call when you find out the kid you’re babysitting just ate some dog food, or you’re wondering if that rash might be because you sprayed self-tanning lotion on top of your acne cream, that sort of thing. They’ll also tell you what to do if you’ve been bitten by a rattlesnake, stung by a scorpion, attacked by killer bees—apparently there are a lot of disasters out there. It’s good to know you can call someone and scream, “Help! My face looks like a beach ball!” and a voice will calmly tell you what to do.

Right then Nancy was calmly telling someone to immediately go to the hospital. My mom was calmly telling someone that no, despite what the caller had read on a website, rinsing her hair with grapefruit juice would not make it grow faster. Proving my mother’s point that I should never automatically believe what I read on the Internet.

As soon as they both hung up, we all relaxed. I went over and gave my mom a hug.

“Hi, sweetie. How was school?”

“Good.” The phone rang again and my mother took it.

“Cute outfit,” Nancy said. “Is that new?”

“Yeah.”

“Very slimming.”

“Thanks.” Nancy and I both know there’s no amount of black in the world to make me look slim, but it was nice of her to say.

The phone rang nonstop for about the next half hour. I spent the time opening and sorting the mail, and taking care of some of the filing.

Finally there was a little lull in the phone calls. It’s funny how disasters seem to come in waves.

“So,” Nancy asked, “any first-day gossip to report?”

“Nah, not really.”

“No stabbings or breakups or fashion crimes?”

“Nope.”

“Who’s in your classes?” my mom asked.

“The usual.”

“Matt?” Nancy wanted to know.

“Of course.” It’s one of the features of being on the AP/Honors track that you always end up taking classes with the same people. There are almost two thousand kids at my school, but I probably only know about thirty of them. And still hang out with only two.

I helped myself to the last of my mother’s chips.

“I need to meet that boy some day,” Nancy said. “I keep picturing him with a horns and a hunchback.”

“Close,” I said.

“Cat, stop it,” my mom said. “I don’t know why you’re so mean to him—you used to be such good friends.”

“Yeah, I’m the one who’s mean.”

“He always seemed perfectly nice to me.”

“I’m sure he did.”

And then both phones rang, and we were all back to work.

It’s not the first time my mother’s taken me to task for dissing Matt. I never told her what he did—Amanda’s the only one who knows, and that’s just because she was there. So it’s hard for my mom to understand what changed. All she knows is suddenly Matt was out and Amanda was in, and it’s been that way ever since. And believe me, I’m grateful—Amanda is a far better friend than Matt could ever be.

I couldn’t wait any longer. As soon as there was a break I took out my picture and showed them. And I told them my idea.

My mother and Nancy exchanged a glance.

“What?” I said.

“Are you sure?” my mother asked. “Maybe you should pick something easier.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. “It’s a great project! I thought you’d be excited. And besides, it’s too late—I already told him this is what I’m doing. I’ll start just as soon as he approves my proposal.”

“Well, we’ll have to talk about it some more,” she said.

“No offense,” Nancy said, “but I doubt you’ll last a week.”

“Why?” I asked.

“The body isn’t meant to take that kind of abuse.”

“It’s not abuse,” I said. “It’s the opposite. I’m going back to the way we’re supposed to live.”

She pointed to my can of Diet Coke. “How many of those do you drink a day?”

“I don’t know, four or five.”

Nancy whistled.

My mother shook her head. “That’s going to be awfully hard, honey.”

“Why?”

“I tried to give up coffee a few years ago,” Nancy said. She lifted her mug in salute. “You see how well that stuck.”

“The withdrawal symptoms can be a little rough,” my mom agreed.

“Rough?” Nancy scoffed. “My husband finally threatened to move into a hotel if I didn’t get in the car with him immediately and go to Starbucks. And I hate to say it, Cat, but it’s going to be even worse for you.”

“How come?”

“Those things are full of artificial sweeteners—that’s a whole separate drug. People really have a hard time getting off it. Are you sure you’re ready?”

Yeah, now that they’d boosted my confidence like that?

“I have to,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry. “That’s my project.”

“Well,” Nancy said with a shrug, “guess all I can say is good luck.”

“We’ll talk about it,” my mother said. Then both phones rang at once. Thank goodness for other people’s crises.

And sure enough, when we got off work my mother spent the whole ride home peppering me with questions just like Amanda had—what about this? What about that? And even though I didn’t have all the answers yet, I knew once I finally sat down and started doing the research tonight, it would all fall into place.

That was the plan, at least.

Except instead it all fell apart.

5

It’s funny how you can be so stupid and not realize it until you’ve already gone too far.

Actually, not funny at all.

I’ve now spent the last several hours researching this, and there’s just no way around it: I have made a monumental mistake.

Because what did Homo erectus eat? Was it tasty fruits and vegetables and nuts and berries?

Um, no.

They ate carrion. Also known as dead and putrefying flesh.

That picture? It doesn’t show the hominins defending their food from the hyenas, it shows them trying to steal it. Because apparently Homo erectus didn’t quite have the whole hunting thing worked out. They mostly lived off of roots and tubers and other plants, and whatever leftover meat they could steal after the predators were done with it. Which usually meant by the time they got to it the meat was nice and ripe and maggoty.

Oh, they ate fresh stuff, too—insects, baby birds they stole out of nests, the occasional rabbit they managed to trap and beat to death with a stick—but mostly they were just skulking around, trying to steal food from other, more successful creatures.

And—AND!—they didn’t have fire yet. No fire! Raw meat! Sweet! I’m going to die!

“Well, you just have to quit,” Amanda said when I called her.

“I can’t quit!”

“So what are you going to do—start Dumpster diving for leftover scraps? Come on, Cat—sometimes you just have to walk away.”

It wasn’t the thought of rancid meat that was making me feel so sick to my stomach. I’ve never ever dropped a class, and I’m certainly not backing away from this one.

“There has to be a way,” I said.

“Yeah, if you’re willing to end up in the emergency room,” Amanda said. “Face it—this isn’t going to happen.”

“I have to do more research,” I told her. “Bye.”

There has to be a way.

Matt does not get to win by default.

6

“Whoa, haven’t seen that in a while.” Amanda pointed to the mass of hair I’d jumbled into a ponytail. Thanks to getting only four hours of sleep last night, I woke up too late to do the full blow-dry and straightening this morning.

“Get used to it,” I said. My voice was hoarse from lack of sleep. “Hominins didn’t have product.”

“So you’re still going through with it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I still have to figure it out. Right now I don’t even have a brain.”

“Here.” Amanda handed me one of the two Diet Cokes she was holding. “Thought you might need it.”

“Bless you.” I took a long deep gulp of it. I needed all the caffeine I could get. My first class on Tuesdays is AP American History with Mr. Allen, the world’s only living zombie teacher. Amanda managed to avoid him this year because he didn’t fit into her schedule. Lucky.

“So what are you going to do?” Amanda asked. “If you can’t figure it out?”

“I don’t know. Beg. Cry. Fail.”

The bell rang and we downed the last of our caffeine.

“See you in English,” Amanda said, then she gently took me by the shoulders, turned me around, and pushed me in the direction of Mr. Zombie’s room. I sat in his class for over an hour, and I have no memory of a single thing he said. I think he was talking about toast.

At least the class after that is always going to be good—Amanda and Jordan are in there. So is Matt, unfortunately, but there’s nothing I can do about that. There are only so many AP classes to go around.

Amanda and Jordan were definitely the superstars in English today. Both of them have already been published—Amanda in some poetry journals and a contest in Seventeen, Jordan in a few snowboarding and swimming magazines—so our teacher, Ms. Sweeney, asked them to make short presentations about how they got published and what it’s like.

The thing I appreciate about both of them—actually, there are tons of things I appreciate about both of them, but we’ll start with this one—is that neither Jordan nor Amanda is the least bit conceited about their accomplishments. I’m sure if Matt McKinney had been published in a national magazine, we’d never hear the end of it. But it took Ms. Sweeney more than a little coaxing to get the two of them to talk about their experiences, and then they were both incredibly humble about what had happened.

Matt made this big show of going up to Jordan after class and giving him one of those fist-bumping handshakes guys use and telling him congratulations. He looked like he wanted to say something to Amanda, too, but she just froze him out. My girl always has my back.

As we left class, Amanda signed to me, “See you in Sign Language.”

I nodded my fist “Yes” and headed for homeroom.

I was halfway down the hall before I realized Matt was following me.

“So,” he said, “you ready with your proposal?”

“No.” Of course he had to rub it in. Knowing him, he probably finished his last night and still had time to read a book and watch TV. I tried to ignore him as I kept on weaving through the crowd.

He stayed right with me. “Do you like the picture you chose?”

“No.” As if it were any of his business. And I could tell he wanted me to ask if he liked his picture, but I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction.

“Okay,” he said, “see ya,” and I didn’t say anything back. I swear, it’s been like that since junior high. He knows I don’t want to talk to him, but he keeps on bothering me. I think it gives him some kind of sick pleasure just to get on my nerves.

But then for some reason it clicked: Jordan and Matt talking after class, Matt pretending to be all friendly just now, Amanda saying Jordan wanted to fix me up with someone from the swim team.

I would have texted Amanda right that second if I could, but our cells are off-limits on campus. So I had to sit through homeroom, lunch, and Piano before I could finally get to the bottom of it. Who cares about arpeggios when your best friend’s boyfriend has just betrayed you to the enemy?

The rule in Sign Language is that the minute you cross the threshold of the classroom, you have to sign everything you say—even if you’re just talking to your friend. Amanda was already in there. My hands started flying right away.

“Jordan try make me go Matt?” That’s what my hands said, while my lips formed the full sentence, “Is Jordan trying to make me go out with Matt?”

Amanda wrinkled her brows and scratched her index finger down the palm of her other hand. “What?”

“You said,” I began, then paused. I had to think about how to phrase it, based on the words I know how to sign. The two of us only started taking American Sign Language last year, so my vocabulary isn’t terribly huge. Amanda, on the other hand, was obviously born with some kind of language chip in her brain, because she picks this stuff up so easily it’s shocking. After just a semester of freshman Spanish, they booted her up to advanced. This year she’s taking AP Spanish with the seniors in addition to our second-year Sign Language class.

I went with, “Jordan ask Matt eat tonight?”

“No,” she answered. “Why?” She keeps her sentences easy for me so I can understand them. It’s only when I see her signing with our teacher that I get a true flavor for how exceptional Amanda’s skills really are.

“Not friend you said?” I finger-spelled, “Date?”

Amanda’s eyes widened. Then she laughed. Her hand gave an emphatic, “No!”