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  “Who wants you to go to frat parties? I was just kidding. Don’t hang out with frat guys, Cath, they’re terrible. All they do is get drunk and watch 90210.”

  “Dad, how are you?”

  “I’m fine, honey.”

  “Are you lonely?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you eating?”

  “Yes.”

  “What are you eating?”

  “Nutritious food.”

  “What did you eat today? No lying.”

  “Something ingenious I discovered at QuikTrip: It’s a sausage wrapped in a pancake, then cooked to perfection on a hot dog roller—”

  “Dad.”

  “Come on, Cath, you told me not to lie.”

  “Could you just go to the grocery store or something?”

  “You know I hate the grocery store.”

  “They sell fruit at QuikTrip.”

  “They do?”

  “Yes. Ask somebody.”

  “You know I hate to ask somebodies.”

  “You’re making me worry about you.”

  “Don’t worry about me, Cath. I’ll look for the fruit.”

  “That is such a lame concession.…”

  “Fine, I’ll go the grocery store.”

  “No lying—promise?”

  “I promise.”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Tell your sister I love her.”

  ___

  “Cath, it’s your dad. I know it’s late, and you’re probably asleep. I hope you’re asleep! But I had this idea. It’s a great idea. Call me.”

  ___

  “Cath? It’s your dad again. It’s still late, but I couldn’t wait to tell you this. You know how you guys want a bathroom upstairs? Your room is right over the bathroom. We could put in a trapdoor. And a ladder. It would be like a secret shortcut to the bathroom. Isn’t this a great idea? Call me. It’s your dad.”

  ___

  “Cath! Not a ladder—a fireman’s pole! You’d still have to use the stairs to get up to your room—but, Cath, a fireman’s pole. I think I can do this myself. I mean, I’ll have to find a pole.…”

  ___

  “Dad? Call me.”

  ___

  “Call me, okay?”

  ___

  “Dad, it’s Cath. Call me.”

  * * *

  It was Friday night, and Cath had the dorm room to herself.

  She was trying to work on Carry On, Simon, but her mind kept wandering.… Today in class, Professor Piper had handed back the story that she and Nick wrote together. The professor had filled the margins with A’s and drawn a little caricature of herself in the corner, shouting, “AAAAAA!”

  She had a few of the writing teams—the people who had done really well—read their stories out loud in class. Cath and Nick went last, trading paragraphs so they were always reading what the other person had written. They got tons of laughs. Probably because Nick acted like he was doing Shakespeare in the park. Cath’s cheeks and neck were burning by the time they sat down.

  After class, Nick held up his pinkie to her. When she stared at it, he said, “Come on, we’re making an oath.”

  She curled her finger around his, and he squeezed it. “Partners, automatically, any time we need one—deal?” His eyes were set so deep, it made everything he said more intense.

  “Deal,” Cath said, looking away.

  “Goddamn,” Nick said, his hand already gone. “We are so fucking good.”

  “I don’t think she has any A’s left after our paper,” Cath said, following him out of the room. “People will be getting B-pluses for the next eight years because of us.”

  “We should do this again.” He turned, suddenly, in the doorway.

  Cath hip-checked him before she could stop herself. “We already swore an oath,” she said, stepping back.

  “Not what I mean. Not for an assignment. We should do it just because it was good. You know?”

  It was good. It was the most fun Cath had had since … well, since she got here, for sure. “Yeah,” she said. “All right.”

  “I work Tuesday and Thursday nights,” Nick said. “You want to do this again Tuesday? Same time?”

  “Sure,” Cath said.

  She hadn’t stopped thinking about it since then. She wondered what they’d write. She wanted to talk to Wren about it. Cath had tried calling Wren earlier, but she hadn’t picked up. It was almost eleven now.…

  Cath picked up the phone and hit Wren’s number.

  Wren answered. “Yes, sister-sister?”

  “Hey, can you talk?”

  “Yes, sister-sister,” Wren said, giggling.

  “Are you out?”

  “I am on the tenth floor of Schramm Hall. This is where … all the tourists come when they visit Schramm Hall. The observation deck. ‘See the world from Tyler’s room’—that’s what it says on the postcards.’”

  Wren’s voice was warm and liquid. Their dad always said that Wren and Cath had the same voice, but Wren was 33 rpm and Cath was 45.… This was different.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “I was drunk,” Wren said. “Now I think I’m something else.”

  “Are you alone? Where’s Courtney?”

  “She’s here. I might be sitting on her leg.”

  “Wren, are you okay?”

  “Yes-yes-yes, sister-sister. That’s why I answered the phone. To tell you I’m okay. So you can leave me alone for a while. Okay-okay?”

  Cath felt her face tense. More from hurt now than worry. “I was just calling to talk to you about Dad.” Cath wished she didn’t use the word “just” so much. It was her passive-aggressive tell, like someone who twitched when they were lying. “And other stuff. Boy … stuff.”

  Wren giggled. “Boy stuff? Is Simon coming out to Agatha again? Did Baz make him a vampire? Again? Are their fingers helplessly caught in each other’s hair? Have you got to the part where Baz calls him ‘Simon’ for the first time, because that’s always a tough one.… That’s always a three-alarm fire.”

  Cath pulled the phone away so that it wasn’t touching her ear. “Fuck off,” she whispered. “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

  “Okay-okay,” Wren said, her voice an edgy singsong. Then she hung up.

  Cath set the phone on her desk and leaned back away from it. Like it was something that would bite.

  Wren must be drunk. Or high.

  Wren never … would never.

  She never teased Cath about Simon and Baz. Simon and Baz were …

  Cath got up to turn off the light. Her fingers felt cold. She kicked off her jeans and climbed into bed.

  Then she got up again to check that the door was locked, and looked out the peephole into the empty hallway.

  She sat back on her bed. She stood back up.

  She opened her laptop, booted it up, closed it again.

  Wren must be high. Wren would never.

  She knew what Simon and Baz were. What they meant. Simon and Baz were …

  Cath lay back down in bed and shook out her wrists over the comforter, then twisted her hands in the hair at her temples until she could feel the pull.

  Simon and Baz were untouchable.

  * * *

  “This isn’t any fun today,” Reagan said, staring glumly at the dining hall door.

  Reagan was always cranky on weekend mornings (when she was around). She drank too much and slept too little. She hadn’t washed off last night’s makeup yet this morning, and she still smelled like sweat and cigarette smoke. Day-old Reagan, Cath thought.

  But Cath didn’t worry about Reagan, not like she worried about Wren. Maybe because Reagan looked like the Big Bad Wolf—and Wren just looked like Cath with a better haircut.

  A girl walked through the door wearing a red HUSKER FOOTBALL sweatshirt and skinny jeans. Reagan sighed.

  “What’s wrong?” Cath asked.

  “They all look alike on game days,” Reagan said. “I can’t see their ugly
, deformed true selves.…” She turned to Cath. “What are you doing today?”

  “Hiding in our room.”

  “You look like you need some fresh air.”

  “Me?” Cath gagged on her pot roast sandwich. “You look like you need fresh DNA.”

  “I look like this because I’m alive,” Reagan said. “Because I’ve had experiences. Do you understand?”

  Cath looked back up at Reagan and couldn’t help but smile.

  Reagan wore eyeliner all the way around her eyes. Like a hard-ass Kate Middleton. And even though she was bigger than most girls—big hips, big chest, wide shoulders—she carried herself like she was exactly the size everyone else wanted to be. And everyone else went along with it—including Levi, and all the other guys who hung out in their room while Reagan finished getting ready.

  “You don’t get to look like this,” Reagan said, pointing at her gray day-after face, “hiding in your room all weekend.”

  “So noted,” Cath said.

  “Let’s do something today.”

  “Game day. The only smart thing to do is stay in our room and barricade the door.”

  “Do you have anything red?” Reagan asked. “If we put on some red, we could just walk around campus and get free drinks.”

  Cath’s phone rang. She looked down at it. Wren. She pushed Ignore.

  “I have to write today,” she said.

  * * *

  When they got back to their room, Reagan took a shower and put on fresh makeup, sitting on her desk, holding a mirror.

  She left and came back a few hours later with Target bags and a guy named Eric. Then she left again and didn’t come back until the sun was setting. Alone, this time.

  Cath was still sitting at her desk.

  “Enough!” Reagan half shouted.

  “Jesus,” Cath said, turning toward her. It took a few seconds for Cath’s eyes to focus on something that wasn’t a computer screen.

  “Get dressed,” Reagan said. “And don’t argue with me. I’m not playing this game with you.”

  “What game?”

  “You’re a sad little hermit, and it creeps me out. So get dressed. We’re going bowling.”

  Cath laughed. “Bowling?”

  “Oh, right,” Reagan said. “Like bowling is more pathetic than everything else you do.”

  Cath pushed away from the desk. Her left leg had fallen asleep. She shook it out. “I’ve never been bowling. What should I wear?”

  “You’ve never been bowling?” Reagan was incredulous. “Don’t people bowl in Omaha?”

  Cath shrugged. “Really old people? Maybe?”

  “Wear whatever. Wear something that doesn’t have Simon Snow on it, so that people won’t assume your brain stopped developing when you were seven.”

  Cath put on her red CARRY ON T-shirt with jeans, and redid her ponytail.

  Reagan frowned at her. “Do you have to wear your hair like that? Is it some kind of Mormon thing?”

  “I’m not Mormon.”

  “I said some kind.” There was a knock at the door, and Reagan opened it.

  Levi was standing there, practically bouncing. He was wearing a white T-shirt, and he’d drawn on it with a Sharpie, adding a collar and buttons down the front, plus a chest pocket with The Strike Out King written above it in fancy script.

  “Are we doing this?” he said.

  * * *

  Reagan and Levi were excellent bowlers. Apparently there was a bowling alley in Arnold. Not nearly as nice as this one, they said.

  The three of them were the only people under forty bowling tonight, which didn’t stop Levi from talking to absolutely every single person in the whole building. He talked to the guy who was spraying the shoes, the retired couples in the next lane, a whole group of moms in some league who sent him away with ruffled hair and a pitcher of beer.…

  Reagan acted like she didn’t notice.

  “I think there’s a baby in the corner you forgot to kiss,” Cath said to him.

  “Where’s a baby?” His eyes perked up.

  “No,” she said. “I was just…” Just.

  Levi set down the pitcher. He was balancing three glasses in his other hand; he let them drop on the table, and they landed without falling over.

  “Why do you do that?”

  “What?” He poured a beer and held it out to her. She took it without thinking, then set it down with distaste.

  “Go so far out of your way to be nice to people?”

  He smiled—but he was already smiling, so that just meant that he smiled more.

  “Do you think I should be more like you?” he asked, then looked fondly over at Reagan, who was scowling (somehow voluptuously) over the ball return. “Or her?”

  Cath rolled her eyes. “There’s got to be a happy medium.”

  “I’m happy,” he said, “so this must be it.”

  Cath bought herself a Cherry Coke from the bar and ignored the beer. Reagan bought two plates of drippy orange nachos. Levi bought three giant dill pickles that were so sour, they made them all cry.

  Reagan won the first game. Then Levi won the second. Then, for the third, he talked the guy behind the counter into turning on the kiddie bumpers for Cath. She still didn’t pick up any strikes. Levi won again.

  Cath had just enough money left to buy them all ice cream sandwiches from the vending machine.

  “I really am the Strike Out King,” Levi said. “Everything I write on my shirt comes true.”

  “It’ll definitely come true tonight at Muggsy’s,” Reagan said. Levi laughed and crumpled up his ice cream wrapper to throw at her. The way they smiled at each other made Cath look away. They were so easy together. Like they knew each other inside and out. Reagan was sweeter—and meaner—with Levi than she ever was with Cath.

  Someone pulled on Cath’s ponytail, and her chin jerked up.

  “You’re coming with us,” Levi asked, “right?”

  “Where?”

  “Out. To Muggsy’s. The night is young.”

  “And so am I,” Cath said. “I can’t get into a bar.”

  “You’ll be with us,” he said. “Nobody’ll stop you.”

  “He’s right,” Reagan said. “Muggsy’s is for college dropouts and hopeless alcoholics. Freshmen never try to sneak in.”

  Reagan put a cigarette in her mouth, but didn’t light it. Levi took it and put it between his lips.

  Cath almost said yes.

  Instead she shook her head.

  * * *

  When Cath got back up to her room, she thought about calling Wren.

  She called her dad instead. He sounded tired, but he wasn’t trying to replace the stairs with a water slide, so that was an improvement. And he’d eaten two Healthy Choice meals for dinner.

  “That sounds like a healthy choice,” Cath told him, trying to sound encouraging.

  She did some reading for class. Then she stayed up working on Carry On until her eyes burned and she knew she’d fall asleep as soon as she climbed into bed.

  “Words are very powerful,” Miss Possibelf said, stepping lightly between the rows of desks. “And they take on more power the more that they’re spoken.…

  “The more that they’re said and read and written, in specific, consistent combinations.” She stopped in front of Simon’s desk and tapped it with a short, jeweled staff. “Up, up and away,” she said clearly.

  Simon watched the floor move away from his feet. He grabbed at the edges of his desk, knocking over a pile of books and loose papers. Across the room, Basilton laughed.

  Miss Possibelf nudged Simon’s trainer with her staff—“Hold your horses”—and his desk hovered three feet in the air.

  “The key to casting a spell,” she said, “is tapping into that power. Not just saying the words, but summoning their meaning.…

  “Now,” she said, “open your Magic Words books to page four. And Settle down there, Simon. Please.”

  —from chapter 5, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Hei
r, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie

  SEVEN

  When Cath saw Abel’s name pop up on her phone, she thought at first that it was a text, even though the phone was obviously ringing.

  Abel never called her.

  They e-mailed. They texted—they’d texted just last night. But they never actually talked unless it was in person.

  “Hello?” she answered. She was waiting in her spot outside Andrews Hall, the English building. It was really too cold to be standing outside, but sometimes Nick would show up here before class, and they’d look over each other’s assignments or talk about the story they were writing together. (It was turning into another love story; Nick was the one turning it that way.)

  “Cath?” Abel’s voice was gravelly and familiar.

  “Hey,” she said, feeling warm suddenly. Surprisingly. Maybe she had missed Abel. She was still avoiding Wren—Cath hadn’t even eaten lunch at Selleck since Wren drunked at her. Maybe Cath just missed home. “Hey. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” he said. “I just told you last night that I was fine.”

  “Well. Yeah. I know. But it’s different on the phone.”

  He sounded startled. “That’s exactly what Katie said.”

  “Who’s Katie?”

  “Katie is the reason I’m calling you. She’s, like, every reason I’m calling you.”

  Cath cocked her head. “What?”

  “Cath, I’ve met someone,” he said. Just like that. Like he was in some telenovela.

  “Katie?”

  “Yeah. And it’s, um, she made me realize that … well, that what you and I have isn’t real.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean our relationship, Cath—it isn’t real.” Why did he keep saying her name like that?

  “Of course it’s real. Abel. We’ve been together for three years.”

  “Well, sort of.”

  “Not sort of,” Cath said.

  “Well … at any rate”—his voice sounded firm—“I met somebody else.”

  Cath turned to face the building and rested the top of her head against the bricks. “Katie.”

  “And it’s more real,” he said. “We’re just … right together, you know? We can talk about everything—she’s a coder, too. And she got a thirty-four on the ACT.”

  Cath got a thirty-two.