ELEVEN
The hallway was perfectly quiet. Everyone who lived in Pound Hall was somewhere else, having fun.
Cath stared at her computer screen and heard Professor Piper’s voice again in her head. She kept forcing herself to remember the entire conversation, playing it back and playing it back, all the way through, forcing a finger down her memory’s throat.
Today, at the beginning of class, Professor Piper had passed their unreliable-narrator scenes back. Everybody’s but Cath’s. “We’ll talk after class, okay?” the professor said to Cath with that gentle, righteous smile she had.
Cath had thought this exception must be a good thing—that Professor Piper must have really liked her story. She really liked Cath, you could tell; Cath got more of those soft smiles than just about anybody else in the class.
More than Nick, by far.
And this scene was the best thing Cath had written all semester; she knew it was. Maybe Professor Piper wanted to talk about the piece in more detail, or maybe she was going to talk to Cath about taking her advanced class next semester. (You had to have special permission to register.) Or maybe just … something good. Something.
“Cath,” Professor Piper said when everybody else was gone and Cath had stepped up to her desk. “Sit down.”
Professor Piper’s smile was softer than ever, but it was all wrong. Her eyes were sad and sorry, and when she handed Cath her paper, there was a small, red F written in the corner.
Cath’s head whipped up.
“Cath,” Professor Piper said. “I don’t know what to make of this. I really don’t know what you were thinking—”
“But…,” Cath said, “was it that bad?” Could her scene really have been that much worse than everyone else’s?
“Bad or good isn’t the point.” Professor Piper shook her head, and her long, wild hair swayed from side to side. “This is plagiarism.”
“No,” Cath said. “I wrote it myself.”
“You wrote it yourself? You’re the author of Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir?”
“Of course not.” Why was Professor Piper saying this?
“These characters, this whole world belongs to someone else.”
“But the story is mine.”
“The characters and the world make the story,” the older woman said, like she was pleading with Cath to understand.
“Not necessarily…” Cath could feel how red her face was. Her voice was breaking.
“Yes,” Professor Piper said. “Necessarily. If you’re asked to write something original, you can’t just steal someone else’s story and rearrange
the characters.”
“It’s not stealing.”
“What would you call it?”
“Borrowing,” Cath said, hating that she was arguing with Professor Piper, not ever wanting to make Professor Piper’s face look this cold and closed, but not able to stop. “Repurposing. Remixing. Sampling.”
“Stealing.”
“It’s not illegal.” All the arguments came easily to Cath; they were the justification for all fanfiction. “I don’t own the characters, but I’m not trying to sell them, either.”
Professor Piper just kept shaking her head, more disappointed than she’d seemed even a few minutes ago. She ran her hands along her jeans. Her fingers were small, and she was wearing a large, narrow turquoise ring that jutted out over her knuckle. “Whether it’s legal is hardly relevant. I asked you
to write an original story, you, and there’s nothing original here.”
“I just don’t think you understand,” Cath said. It came out a sob. She looked down at her lap, ashamed, and saw the red F again.
“I don’t think you understand, Cath,” the professor said, her voice deliberately calm. “And I really want you to. This is college—what we do here is real. I’ve allowed you into an upper-level course, and so far, you’ve greatly impressed me. But this was an immature mistake, and the right thing for you to do now is to learn from it.”
Cath locked her jaw closed. She still wanted to argue. She’d worked so hard on this assignment. Professor Piper was always telling them to write about something close to their hearts, and there was nothing closer to Cath’s heart than Baz and Simon.… But Cath just nodded and stood up. She even managed a meek thank you on the way out of the classroom.
Thinking about it now, again, made the skin on Cath’s face feel scorched clean. She stared at the charcoal drawing of Baz pinned up behind her laptop.
He was sitting on a carved black throne, one leg draped over its arm, his head tilted forward in languid challenge. The artist had written along the bottom of the page in perfect calligraphy: “Who would you be without me, Snow? A blue-eyed virgin who’d never thrown a punch.” And below that, The inimitable Magicath.
Cath picked up her phone again. She’d called Wren at least six times since she left class. Every time, the call went straight to voice mail. Every time, Cath hung up.
If she could just talk to Wren, she would feel better. Wren would understand—probably. Wren had said all that mean stuff about Baz and Simon a few weeks ago. But she’d been drunk. If Wren knew how upset Cath was right now, she wouldn’t be a bitch about it. She’d understand. She’d tug Cath back from the edge—Wren was really good at that.
If Wren were here … Cath laughed. It came out like a sob. (What the eff, she thought, why is everything coming out like a sob?) If Wren were here, she’d call an Emergency Kanye Party.
First she’d stand on the bed. That was the protocol back home. When
things were getting too intense—when Wren found out that Jesse Sandoz was cheating on her, when Cath got fired because her boss at the bookstore didn’t think she smiled enough, when their dad was acting like a zombie and wouldn’t stop—one of them would stand on her bed and pretend to pull an imaginary lever, a giant switch set in the air, and shout, “Emergency Kanye Party!”
And then it was the other person’s job to run to the computer and start the Emergency Kanye playlist. And then they’d both jump around and dance and shout Kanye West lyrics until they felt better. Sometimes it would take a while.… I’m authorized to call an Emergency Kanye Party, Cath thought to herself, laughing again. (This time it came out slightly more like a laugh.) It’s not like I need a quorum.
She reached toward her laptop and opened her Kanye playlist. There were portable speakers in one of her drawers. She got them out and plugged them in.
Then she turned the volume all the way up. It was a Friday night; there was nobody in the building, maybe nobody on campus, to disturb.
Emergency Kanye Party. Cath climbed onto her bed to announce it, but she stepped right down. It felt silly. And pathetic. (Is there anything more pathetic than a one-person dance party?) She stood in front of the speakers instead and closed her eyes, not really dancing, just bouncing and whispering the lyrics. After the first verse, she was dancing. Kanye always crawled right under her skin. He was the perfect antidote to any serious frustration. Just enough angry, just enough indignant, just enough the-world-will-never-know-how-ridiculously-awesome-I-am.
Just enough poet.
With her eyes closed, Cath could almost pretend that Wren was dancing on the other side of the room, holding a Simon Snow replica wand for a microphone.
After a few songs, Cath didn’t need to pretend.
If any of her neighbors had been home, they would have heard her shouting the lyrics.
Cath danced. And rapped. And danced. And eventually there was
knocking.
Damn. Maybe the neighbors are home.
She opened the door without looking and without turning down the music (Kanye-impaired thinking), but ready to apologize.
It was just Levi.
“Reagan isn’t here!” Cath shouted.
He said something, but not loud enough.
“What?” she yelled.
“Then who is here?” Levi shouted, smiling. Levi. Always smiling.
Wearing a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves unbuttoned at the wrists.
Couldn’t even be trusted to dress himself. “Who’s in there, listening to rap music?”
“Me,” Cath said. She was panting. She tried not to pant.
He leaned toward her so he wouldn’t have to shout. “This can’t be Cather music. I’d always pegged you as the mopey, indie type.” He was teasing her; only genuine emergencies were allowed to interrupt the Emergency Kanye Party.
“Go away.” Cath started to shut the door.
Levi stopped it with his hand. “What are you doing?” he said, laughing, and pushing his head forward on the “doing.”
She shook her head because she couldn’t think of anything reasonable to say. And because it wouldn’t matter anyway; Levi was never reasonable.
“Emergency dance party—go away.”
“Oh no,” Levi said, pushing the door open and sliding in. Too skinny. Too tall.
Cath shut the door behind him. There was no protocol for this. She’d call Wren for a sidebar consultation if there was any chance Wren would answer the phone.
Levi stood in front of Cath, his face serious (for once) (seriously, for once) and his head deliberately bobbing up and down. “So,” he said loudly.
“Emergency dance party.”
Cath nodded.
And nodded. And nodded.
Levi nodded back.
And then Cath started laughing and rolled her eyes away from him, moving her hips from side to side. Just barely.
And then her shoulders.
And then she was dancing again. Tighter than before—her knees and elbows almost locking—but dancing.
When she looked back at Levi, he was dancing, too. Exactly the way she would have imagined him dancing if she’d ever tried. Too long and too loose, running his fingers through his hair. (Dude. We get it. Extreme widow’s peak.) His eyes were absolutely gleaming with mirth. Putting out light.
Cath couldn’t stop laughing. Levi caught her eyes and laughed, too.
And then he was dancing with her. Not close or anything. Not any closer, actually—just looking at her face and moving with her.
And then she was dancing with him. Better than him, which was nice. She realized she was biting her bottom lip and stopped.
She started rapping instead. Cath could blow these songs backwards. Levi raised his eyebrows and grinned. He knew the chorus and rapped with her.
They danced into the next song and through it and into the next. Levi stepped toward her, maybe not even on purpose, and Cath whirled up onto her bed. He laughed and jumped up onto Reagan’s, practically bumping his head on the ceiling.
They kept on dancing together, imitating each other’s goofiest moves, bouncing at the end of the beds.… It was almost like dancing with Wren. (But not, of course. Really, really not.) And then the door swung open.
Cath jumped back away from it and fell flat on her mattress, bouncing and rolling onto the floor.
Levi was laughing so hard, he had to lean against the wall with both hands.
Reagan walked in and said something, but Cath didn’t catch it. She reached up to her desk and closed the laptop, stopping the music. Levi’s laughter rang out in the sudden quiet. Cath was completely out of breath, and she’d landed wrong on her knee.
“What. The. Major. Fuck,” Reagan said, more shocked than angry—at least Cath didn’t think she seemed angry.
“Emergency dance party,” Levi said, jumping off the bed and reaching out to help Cath. Cath held on to the desk and stood up.
“Okay?” he asked.
She smiled and nodded her head.
“Have you met Cather?” Levi said to Reagan, his face still shining with amusement. “She spits hot fire.”
“This is exactly the sort of day I’m having,” Reagan said, setting down her bag and kicking off her shoes. “Weird shit around every corner. I’m going out. You coming?”
“Sure.” Levi turned to Cath. “You coming?”
Reagan looked at Cath and frowned. Cath felt something sticky blooming again in her stomach. Maybe the scene with Professor Piper was coming back to her. Or maybe she shouldn’t have been dancing with her roommate’s boyfriend. “You should come,” Reagan said. She seemed sincere.
Cath tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. “Nah. It’s already late. I’m just gonna write.…” She reached for her phone out of habit and checked it. She’d
missed a text message—from Wren.
“at muggsy’s. COME NOW. 911.”
Cath checked the time—Wren had texted her twenty minutes ago, while she and Levi were dancing. She set her phone on the desk and started putting
her boots on over her pajama pants.
“Is everything okay?” Levi asked.
“I don’t know.…” Cath shook her head. She felt ashamed again. And scared. Her stomach seemed thrilled to have something new to twist about.
“What’s Muggsy’s?”
“It’s a bar,” he said. “Near East Campus.”
“What’s East Campus?”
Levi reached around her and picked up her phone. He frowned at the screen. “I’ll take you. I’ve got my car.”
“Take her where?” Reagan asked. Levi tossed her Cath’s phone and put on his coat. “I’m sure she’s fine,” Reagan said, looking at the text. “She
probably just had too much to drink. Mandatory freshman behavior.”
“I still have to go get her,” Cath said, taking back the phone.
“Of course you do,” Levi agreed. “Nine-one-one is nine-one-one.” He looked at Reagan. “You coming?”
“Not if you don’t need me. We’re supposed to meet Anna and Matt—”
“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said.
Cath was already standing by the door. “Your sister’s fine, Cath,” Reagan said almost (but not quite) gently. “She’s just being normal.”
* * *
Levi’s car was a truck. A big one. How did he afford the gas?
Cath didn’t want any help getting in, but the running board was missing— it was an especially shitty truck, she noticed now that she was up close—and she would’ve had to climb in on all fours if he hadn’t taken her elbow.
The cab smelled like gasoline and roasted coffee beans. The seat belt was stuck, but she still managed to get it buckled.
Levi swung into his seat smoothly and smiled at her. He was trying to be
encouraging, Cath figured.
“What’s East Campus?” she asked.
“Are you serious?”
“Why wouldn’t I be serious right now?”
“It’s the other part of campus,” he said. “Where the Ag School is?”
Cath shrugged impatiently and looked out the window. It had been sleeting since this afternoon. The lights looked like wet smears on the streets.
Fortunately, Levi was driving slow.
“And the law school,” he said. “And there are dormitories and a perfectly adequate bowling alley. And a dairy. Seriously, none of this is ringing any bells?”
Cath let her head rest on the glass. The truck’s heater was still blowing cold air. It had been a half hour now since the text. A half hour past 911.
“How far is it?”
“A few miles. Ten minutes from here, maybe longer with the weather. East Campus is where most of my classes are.…”
Cath wondered if Wren was alone. Where was Courtney? Weren’t they supposed to be skinny-bitching together?
“There’s a tractor museum,” Levi said. “And an international quilt education center. And the food in the residence halls is outstanding.…”
It wasn’t right. Having a twin sister was supposed to be like having your own watcher. Your own guardian. BUILT-IN BEST FRIEND—their dad had bought them shirts that said that for their thirteenth birthday. They still wore them sometimes (though never at once) just to be funny. Or ironic or whatever.
What’s the point of having a twin sister if you won’t let her look out for you? If you won’t let her fight at your back?
“East Campus is just so much better than City Campus in every way. And you don’t even know that it exists.”
The light ahead turned red, and Cath felt the tires spin beneath them. Levi shifted gears, and the truck rolled to a perfect stop.
* * *
They had to park quite a ways from the bar. This whole street was bars, block after block of them.
“They’re not going to let me in,” Cath said, wishing Levi would walk
faster. “I’m underage.”
“Muggsy’s never checks.”
“I’ve never even been in a bar.”
A dozen girls spilled out of the doorway ahead of them. Levi grabbed Cath’s sleeve and pulled her out of the way. “I have,” he said. “It’s going to be fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Cath said, more to herself than to Levi. “If it was fine, she wouldn’t need me.”
Levi pulled on her sleeve again and opened a heavy, black, windowless door. Cath glanced up at the neon sign over their heads. Only the UGGSY and a four-leaf clover lit up. There was a big guy sitting just inside on a stool, reading a Daily Nebraskan with a flashlight. He flipped the light up at Levi and smiled. “Hey, Levi.”
Levi smiled back. “Hey, Yackle.”
Yackle held a second door open with one hand—he didn’t even look at Cath. Levi patted him on the arm as they walked past.
It was dark inside the bar and crowded, people pressed shoulder to shoulder. There was a band playing on a couch-sized stage near the door.
Cath looked around, but she couldn’t see past the crush of bodies.
She wondered where Wren was.
Where had Wren been forty-five minutes ago?
Hiding in the bathroom? Crouched against a wall?
Had she been sick, had she passed out? She did that sometimes.… Who had been here to help her? Who had been here to hurt her?
Cath felt Levi’s hand on her elbow. “Come on,” he said.
They squeezed by a high-top table full of people doing shots. One of the guys fell back into Cath, and Levi propped him back up with a smile.
“You hang out here?” Cath asked when they were past the table.
“It’s only douchey like this when there’s a band playing.”
She and Levi moved farther from the stage, closer to the bar. A movement near the wall caught Cath’s eye—the way someone flipped back her hair.
“Wren,” Cath said, surging forward. Levi held her arm and pushed in front of her, trying to clear the way.
“Wren!” Cath shouted over the crowd, before she was even close enough for Wren to hear. Cath’s heart was pounding. She was trying to make out the situation around Wren—a big guy was standing in front of her, his arms caging Wren against the carpeted wall.
“Wren!” Cath knocked one of the guy’s arms away, and he pulled back, nonplussed. “Are you okay?”
“Cath?” Wren was holding a bottle of dark beer halfway up to her mouth like her arm was stuck there. “What are you doing here?”
“You told me to come.”
Wren huffed. Her face was flushed, and she had drunk, droopy eyelids. “I didn’t tell you anything.”
“You sent me a text,” Cath said, glowering up at the big guy until he took another step back. “‘Come to Muggsy’s. Nine-one-one.’”
“Shit.” Wren pulled her phone out of her jeans and looked down at it. She had to stare at it for a second before she could focus. “That was for Courtney.
Wrong C.”
“Wrong C?” Cath froze, then threw her hands into the air. “Are you
kidding me?”
“Hey,” somebody said.
They both turned. A fratty-looking guy was standing a foot away, nodding his head at them. He curled his lip and grinned. “Twins.”
“Fuck off,” Wren said, turning back to her sister. “Look, I’m sorry—”
“Are you in trouble?” Cath asked.
“No,” Wren said. “No, no, no…”
“Pretty hot,” the guy said.
“Then why the nine-one-one?” Cath demanded.
“Because I wanted Courtney to come quick.” Wren waved her beer bottle toward the stage. “The guy she likes is here.”
“Dude, check it out. Hot twins.”
“Nine-one-one is for emergencies!” Cath shouted. It was so loud in here, you had to shout; it made it way too easy to lose your temper.
“Do you really think that’s appropriate?” Cath heard Levi say in his smiling-for-strangers voice.
“Fucking twins, man. That’s the fantasy, right?”
“Take a pill, Cath,” Wren said, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.
“It’s not like I actually called nine-one-one.”
“You realize that they’re sisters, right?” Levi said, his voice getting tighter.
“You’re talking about incest.”
The guy laughed. “No, I’m talking about buying them drinks until they start making out.”
“Is that what happens with you and your sister?” Levi stepped away from Cath, toward the guy and his friend. “Who fucking raised you?”
“Levi, don’t.” Cath pulled on his jacket. “This happens all the time.”
“This happens all the time?” His eyebrows jerked up in the middle, and he turned on the guy.… “These two girls have parents. They have a father. And he should never
have to worry that they’re going to end up in a bar, debasing themselves for some pervert who still jerks off to Girls Gone Wild videos. That’s not something a father should ever have to think about.”
The pervy guy wasn’t paying attention. He leered drunkenly over Levi’s shoulder at Cath and Wren. Wren flipped him off, and he arched his lip again.
Levi stepped closer to the guy’s table. “You don’t get to look at them that way, just because they look alike. You fucking pervert.”
Another fratty guy stepped up, carrying three beers, and glanced over. He grinned when he saw Cath and Wren. “Twins.”
“Fucking fantasy,” the first guy said.
Then, before anyone saw him coming, the guy standing next to Wren—the big one who had been caging her in—stepped past Levi and plowed the drunk pervert right in the chin.
Levi looked up at the big guy and grinned, clapping him on the shoulder.
Wren grabbed his arm—“Jandro!”
The pervy guy’s friends were already helping him off the floor.
Levi took Cath’s sleeve and started pushing Jandro into the crowd. Jandro dragged Wren behind him. “Come on,” Levi said, “out, out, out.”
Cath could hear the perv shouting curses behind them.
“Oh, fuck you, Flowers in the Attic!” Levi shouted back.
They practically fell through the front door. The bouncer stood up.
“Everything cool, Levi?”
“Drunks,” Levi said, shaking his head. Yackle headed back into the bar.
Wren was already out on the sidewalk, shouting at the big guy. At Jandro.
Was he her date, Cath wondered, or was he just somebody who threw a punch for her?
“I can’t believe you did that,” Wren said. “You could get arrested.” She hit his arm, and he let her.
Levi hit Jandro’s other arm in a kind of salute. They were about the same height, but Jandro was broader, a dark-haired guy—probably Mexican, Cath thought—wearing a red Western shirt.
“Who’s going to get arrested?” someone asked. Cath spun around.
Courtney. Clomping toward them in five-inch pink heels. “Why are you guys
standing outside in this shit?”
“We’re not,” Cath said, “we’re leaving.”
“But I just got here,” Courtney whined. She looked at Wren, “Is Noah in there?”
“We’re leaving,” Cath said to Wren. “You’re drunk.”
“Yes—” Wren held up her beer bottle. “—finally.”
“Whoa, there,” Levi said, snagging the bottle and dropping it into a trash
can behind her. “Open container.”
“That was my beer,” Wren objected.
“A little louder there, jailbait. I don’t think every cop on the street heard you.” He was smiling.
Cath wasn’t. “You’re drunk,” she said. “You’re going home.”
“No. Cath. I’m not. I’m drunk, and I’m staying out. That’s the whole fucking point of being out.” She swayed, and Courtney giggled and put her arm around her. Wren looked at her roommate and started giggling, too.
“Everything’s ‘the whole fucking point’ with you,” Cath said quietly. The sleet was hitting her cheeks like gravel. Wren had tiny pieces of ice in her hair. “I’m not leaving you alone like this,” Cath said.
“I’m not alone,” Wren replied.
“It’s okay, Cath.” Courtney’s smile couldn’t be more patronizing. Or more coated in pink lipstick. “I’m here, Han Solo’s here—” She smiled up flirtily at Jandro. “—the night is young.”
“The night is young!” Wren sang, laying her head against Courtney’s arm.
“I can’t just…” Cath shook her head.
“It’s fucking freezing out here.” Courtney hugged Wren again. “Come on.”
“Not Muggsy’s,” Jandro said, starting to walk away. He glanced back at Cath, and for a second she thought he was going to say something, but he kept on walking. Wren and Courtney followed him. Courtney clomped. Wren didn’t look back.
Cath watched them walk up the block and disappear under another broken neon sign. She wiped the ice off her cheeks.
“Hey,” she heard someone say after a cold, wet minute. Levi. Still standing
behind her.
“Let’s go,” Cath said, looking down at the sidewalk. On top of everything else that was going wrong right this minute, Levi must think she was an idiot.
Cath’s pajama pants were soaked, and the wind was blowing right through them. She shivered.
Levi walked past her, taking her hood and pulling it up over her head on his way. She followed him to his truck. Now that she realized how cold she was, her teeth were starting to chatter.
“I’ve got it,” she said when Levi tried to help her in. She waited for him to walk away before heaving herself up onto the seat. Levi slid behind the wheel and started the truck, cranking up the heat and the windshield wipers, and holding his hands up to the vents. “Seat belt,” he said after a minute.
“Oh, sorry…” Cath dug for the seat belt.
She buckled up. The truck still didn’t move.
“You did the right thing, you know.”
Levi.
“No,” Cath said. “I don’t know.”
“You had to go check on her. Nine-one-one is nine-one-one.”
“And then I left her—completely wasted—with a stranger and a moron.”
“That guy didn’t seem like a stranger,” Levi said.
Cath almost laughed. Because he hadn’t argued with the moron part. “I’m her sister. I’m supposed to look out for her.”
“Not against her will.”
“What if she passes out?”
“Does that happen a lot?”
Cath looked over at him. His hair was wet, and you could see the tracks where he’d pushed his fingers through it.
“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” she said.
“Okay … Are you hungry?”
“No.” She looked down at her lap.
The truck still didn’t move.
“Because I’m hungry,” he said.
“Aren’t you supposed to meet up with Reagan?”
“Yep. Later.”
Cath rubbed her face again. The ice in her hair was melting and dripping into her eyes. “I’m wearing pajamas.”
Levi put the truck into reverse. “I know just the place.”
* * *
The pajama pants weren’t a problem.
Levi took her to a twenty-four-hour truck stop near the edge of town. (Nothing in Lincoln was too far from the edge of town.) The place felt like it hadn’t been redecorated ever, like maybe it had been built sixty years ago out of materials that were already worn and cracking. The waitress started pouring them coffee without even asking if they wanted any.
“Perfect,” Levi said, smiling at the waitress and shuffling out of his coat.
She set the cream on the table and brushed his shoulder fondly.
“Do you come here a lot?” Cath asked, when the waitress left.
“More than I go other places, I guess. If you order the corned beef hash, you don’t have to eat for days.… Cream?”
Cath didn’t usually order coffee, but she nodded anyway, and he topped off her cup. She pulled her saucer back and stared down at it. She heard Levi exhale.
“I know how you feel right now,” he said. “I have two little sisters.”
“You don’t know how I feel.” Cath dumped in three packs of sugar. “She’s not just my sister.”
“Do people really do that to you guys all the time?”
“Do what?” Cath looked up at him, and he looked away.
“The twin thing.”
“Oh. That.” She stirred her coffee, clacking the spoon too hard against her cup. “Not all the time. Only if we’re around drunks or, like, walking down
the street.…”
He made a face. “People are depraved.”
The waitress came back, and Levi lit up for her. Predictably. He ordered corned beef hash. Cath stuck with coffee.
“She’ll grow out of it,” he said when the waitress walked away from their
booth. “Reagan’s right. It’s a freshman thing.”
“I’m a freshman. I’m not out getting wasted.”
Levi laughed. “Right. Because you’re too busy throwing dance parties.
What was the emergency anyway?”
Cath watched him laugh and felt the sticky black pit yawn open in her stomach. Professor Piper. Simon. Baz. Neat, red F.
“Were you anticipating an emergency?” he asked, still smiling. “Or maybe
summoning one? Like a rain dance?”
“You don’t have to do this,” Cath said.
“Do what?”
“Try to make me feel better.” She felt the tears coming on, and her voice wobbled. “I’m not one of your little sisters.”
Levi’s smile fell completely. “I’m sorry,” he said, all the teasing gone.
“I … I thought maybe you’d want to talk about it.”
Cath looked back at her coffee. She shook her head a few times, as much to tell him no as to shake away the stinging in her eyes.
His corned beef hash came. A whole mess of it. He moved Cath’s coffee cup to the table and scooped hash onto her saucer.
Cath ate it—it was easier than arguing. She’d been arguing all day, and so far, no one had listened. And besides, the corned beef hash was really good, like they made it fresh with real corned beef, and there were two sunny-side-
up eggs on top.
Levi piled more onto her plate.
“Something happened in class,” Cath said. She didn’t look up at him.
Maybe she could use a big brother right now—she was currently down a twin sister. Any port in a storm, and all that …
“What class?” he asked.
“Fiction-Writing.”
“You take Fiction-Writing? That’s an actual class?”
“That’s an actual question?”
“Does this have something to do with your Simon Snow thing?”
Cath looked up now and flushed. “Who told you about my Simon Snow thing?”
“Nobody had to tell me. You’ve got Simon Snow stuff everywhere.
You’re worse than my ten-year-old cousin.” Levi grinned; he looked relieved to be smiling again. “Reagan told me you write stories about him.”
“So Reagan told you.”
“That’s what you’re always working on, right? Writing stories about Simon Snow?”
Cath didn’t know what to say. It sounded absolutely ridiculous when Levi
said it.
“They’re not just stories…,” she said.
He took a giant bite of hash. His hair was still wet and falling (wetly, blondly) into his eyes. He pushed it back. “They’re not?”
Cath shook her head. They were just stories, but stories weren’t just anything. Simon wasn’t just.
“What do you know about Simon Snow?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Everybody knows about Simon Snow.”
“You’ve read the books?”
“I’ve seen the movies.”
Cath rolled her eyes so hard, it hurt. (Actually.) (Maybe because she was still on the edge of tears. On the edge, period.) “So you haven’t read the
books.”
“I’m not really a book person.”
“That might be the most idiotic thing you’ve ever said to me.”
“Don’t change the subject,” Levi said, grinning some more. “You write
stories about Simon Snow.…”
“You think this is funny.”
“Yes,” Levi said. “But also sort of cool. Tell me about your stories.”
Cath pressed the tines of her fork into her place mat. “They’re just, like … I take the characters, and I put them in new situations.”
“Like deleted scenes?”
“Sometimes. More like what-ifs. Like, what if Baz wasn’t evil? What if Simon never found the five blades? What if Agatha found them instead?
What if Agatha was evil?”
“Agatha couldn’t be evil,” Levi argued, leaning forward and pointing at
Cath with his fork. “She’s ‘pure of heart, a lion of dawn.’”
Cath narrowed her eyes. “How do you know that?”
“I told you, I’ve seen the movies.”
“Well, in my world, if I want to make Agatha evil, I can. Or I can make her a vampire. Or I can make her an actual lion.”
“Simon wouldn’t like that.”
“Simon doesn’t care. He’s in love with Baz.”
Levi guffawed. (You don’t get many opportunities to use that word, Cath
thought, but this is one of them.)
“Simon isn’t gay,” he said.
“In my world, he is.”
“But Baz is his nemesis.”
“I don’t have to follow any of the rules. The original books already exist;
it’s not my job to rewrite them.”
“Is it your job to make Simon gay?”
“You’re getting distracted by the gay thing,” Cath said. She was leaning forward now, too.
“It is distracting.…” Levi giggled. (Did guys “giggle” or “chuckle”? Cath hated the word “chuckle.”) “The whole point of fanfiction,” she said, “is that you get to play inside somebody else’s universe. Rewrite the rules. Or bend them. The story doesn’t have to end when Gemma Leslie gets tired of it. You can stay in this world, this world you love, as long as you want, as long as you keep thinking of new
stories—”
“Fanfiction,” Levi said.
“Yes.” Cath was embarrassed by how sincere she sounded, how excited she felt whenever she actually talked about this. She was so used to keeping it a secret—used to assuming people would think she was a freak and a nerd and a pervert.… Maybe Levi thought all those things. Maybe he just found freaks and
perverts amusing.
“Emergency dance party?” he asked.
“Right.” She sat back in the booth again. “Our professor asked us to write
a scene with an untrustworthy narrator. I wrote something about Simon and Baz.… She didn’t get it. She thought it was plagiarism.” Cath forced herself to use that word, felt the tar wake up with a twist in her stomach.
“But it was your story,” Levi said.
“Yes.”
“That’s not exactly plagiarism.…” He smiled at her. She needed to come up with more words for Levi’s smiles; he had too many of them. This one was a question. “They were your words, right?”
“Right.”
“I mean, I can see why your professor wouldn’t want you to write a Simon Snow story—the class isn’t called Fanfiction-Writing—but I wouldn’t call it plagiarism. Is it illegal?”
“No. As long as you don’t try to sell it. GTL says she loves fanfiction—I mean, she loves the idea of it. She doesn’t actually read it.”
“Is your professor reporting you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Is she reporting you to the Judicial Board?”
“She didn’t even mention that.”
“She would have mentioned it,” he said. “So … okay.” He waved his fork in a straight line between them, holding it like a pencil. “This isn’t a big deal.
You just don’t turn in any more fanfiction.”
It still felt like a big deal. Cath’s stomach still hurt.
“She just … she made me feel so stupid and … deviant.”
Levi laughed again. “Do you really expect an elderly English professor to be down with gay Simon Snow fanfiction?”
“She didn’t even mention the gay thing,” Cath said.
“Deviant.” He raised an eyebrow. Levi’s eyebrows were much darker than his hair. Too dark, really. And arched. Like he’d drawn them on.
Cath felt herself smile, even though she was trying to hold her lips and face still. She shook her head, then looked down at her food and took a big bite.
Levi scraped more eggs and hash onto her plate.
Sneaking around the castle, staying out all night, coming home in the morning with leaves in his hair … Baz was up to something; Simon was sure of it. But he needed proof—Penelope and Agatha weren’t taking his suspicions seriously.
“He’s plotting,” Simon would say.
“He’s always plotting,” Penelope would answer.
“He’s looming,” Simon would say.
“He’s always looming,” Agatha would answer. “He is quite tall.”
“No taller than me.”
“Mmm … a bit.”
It wasn’t just the plotting and the looming; Baz was up to something. Something beyond his chronic gittishness. His pearl grey eyes were bloodshot and shadowed; his black hair had lost its luster. Usually cold and intimidating, lately Baz seemed chilled and cornered.
Simon had followed him around the catacombs last night for three hours, and still didn’t have a clue.
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T.
Leslie
