What Curiosity Kills (20 page)

  Country Club plunges down the well like a white bowling ball.

  I bag him with my sweater.

  I don't know how I manage it. I wanted him; the King of the Strays is in my sweater.

  I swing him against a hard oak shelf with all my might.
Thwack!
The sound is wet and bone-crunching. I've stunned him. Bagged, he barely fights. All his senses are cut off. His claws are pinned against his body. His weight is his only defense. My arms burn as I swing him over and over, rotating my hits against all four surrounding bookcases. The others duck. Blood sprays out of the sack over their heads and splatters my face.

  "Enough!" Nick shouts.

  When I drop Country Club, he doesn't fight to get out of his swaddling. Standing over him, the lump that is his body looks surprisingly smaller than he looked on the library roof; smaller than he felt on my neck. Nick peels away the cardigan to expose his front legs and belly. Country Club's back is broken in several places. Don't ask me how I know. I can tell just by looking at him.

  Nick says, "He'll be dead in a minute, Mary. Drink."

  Octavia says, "He's already dead."

  Nick falls on the cat's unmoving chest and listens. He flicks a limp paw. He shakes him. "No!" Country Club's head lolls. "No! She has to drink before he dies!"

  "Nick, stop!" Octavia says, "Let that dead cat alone. Look at her—she swallowed plenty!"

  It's true. My school shirt is pasted to my body. I'm painted in Country Club's blood. My chin and lips are slick. I taste that coppery liquid on my tongue. It is in between my teeth, soaking into my gums. I can't believe my carelessness. I was so caught up in killing him, I forgot not to swallow what—as a result of killing him—wound up in my mouth. Any second now, the orange on my arms, back, throat, and forehead will petrify like pins and sink into my flesh. It's going to hurt so much. My eyes well up in anticipation. I tell myself I'll be fine. But I won't be fine.

  I wail, "I didn't want to stop the turning!"

  Blessedly, Nick can't stand it when half-girls/half-cats cry. He's not happy with my admission that I didn't want to get fixed, but he's happy that I fixed myself, whether I meant to or not. He wraps his arms around me. I'm shivering, awaiting the pain. He moves behind me and cradles me like he did on the twins' terrace lounge chair and the library handicap ramp. His arms align with mine. This time, he holds my hands.

  Yoon looks disappointed, but he pecks my cheek. He wipes his mouth on his shirt collar. He presses his lips to my bloody cheek again. He is cleaning me. When my fur pierces my skin, he'll help me through it like he did the first time.

  Ling Ling looks on, jealous but respectful. She holds her bag close and strokes Ben's kitten head.

  Octavia frowns. The youngest captain ever of the PurserLilley debate team is struggling with what to say. And say something she must because she still won't come near me while I'm in this state.

  Finally, Octavia breathes, "As soon as this is over, I'll make it up to you."

  But my orange doesn't go anywhere.

  I ask, "Why isn't the antidote working?"

  Ling Ling says, "Country Club's blood was diluted with yours, so maybe it's slower to take effect like it was with what was under my nails."

  "Mraw!"

  Ben jumps from Ling Ling's purse. He tiptoes through a puddle of blood and props his paws on the tomcat's ribs that lie underneath the death shroud of my sweater. On his hind legs, he's tall enough to bite a cardigan button. He tugs the button, his back feet slipping and sliding in the goopy redness, which turns his blue feet purple. But he persists until the cardigan falls away to reveal Country Club's pelvis and hindquarters.

  What's round and white and fuzzy all over? This dead tomcat has got them.

  "Nuts," marvels Octavia.

  Yoon looks shocked and then stricken. "Mary, this isn't Country Club."

  Nick cries, "But drinking his blood still counts. A cat's a cat!"

  No, not this one.

  We know we've made a mistake when the dead cat's freshly marred ear turns human. The rest of him transforms finger by finger, limb by limb, until before us lies the naked, crooked corpse of a teenage boy.

  Yoon says, "It's a Saddam!"

  The fire ants attack. They spool my body and fill in the fur. Their bites sting like venom, but I give myself over to the turning. I'm shrinking. Down, down, down I go! Above me, I see so many faces, so many moons.

  Nick says, "Mary, (fill in the blank with how they're going to get rid of the dead turn-cat's body). Mary, (fill in the blank with bullshit about how nobody will miss him because he's a runaway stray)." Mary, (I'll learn to live with remorse because war is part of being Queen)."

  But it is Octavia who gathers me up off the floor. She raises me to eye level. Her look says: What's happened has happened.

  Whatever our future, good or bad, she is with me. She caresses my tiny body against her cheek. I curl up in the safety of her hands. Her voice gives me tingles. I am named.

  She says, "Call her Kitty."

Thank you to my editor, Dan Ehrenhaft, who lit a Sourcebooks Fire under my butt and gave me back my writing life.

  Thank you to Susanna Einstein, who has always been an excellent advisor, but with this book also became my agent, proving that friendship and business can mix.

  Thank you to Martin Wilson, who opened the door to YA and welcomed me in.

  Thank you to Nina Delianides and Devi Rasaili, who reminded me that reading is supposed to be an escape.

  Thank you to Vicki, Laura, Ellen, and Heather, who over a summer weekend at Myrtle Beach reminded me who I was at seventeen.

  Thank you to Patti, Elizabeth, Laurie, Koula, and Joanie for never letting me go.

  Thank you to the D.A. poker game for calling me Kitty.

  Thank you to my parents, who, despite my failures, still tell me I can do anything. And to my sister, Elizabeth, who told me specifically that I could do this.

  Thank you to my writing workshop of well over a decade: Ann Napolitano and Hannah Tinti, amazing authors and friends who always understand exactly what I am going through.