Fat Cat (6 page)

At one point Amanda had to warn me to be a little quieter. "You're moaning. People are looking."

But when you're in the midst of bliss like that, who cares what anyone thinks?

Lunch was over far too soon. The minute Jordan took his thumbs away, the pain came rushing back in. But at least I knew where to push from then on.

"I think I love him," I whispered to Amanda.

"Der."

All was going as well as it could, under the circumstances--which means terribly--until I got to Mr. Fizer's class. I was sitting at
my lab table, eyes closed, kneading the back of my neck, when suddenly I heard his voice.

"What happened?"

I squinted up at him. "Nothing happened."

"Why do you look like they just pulled you out of the morgue?"

"Oh, thank you, Matt," I said with fake sweetness. "You always know just what to say."

"'S'what I'm here for."

I groaned. "Would you please go away?"

"Give me your hand first."

"What?"

"Cat, just give me your hand."

I felt too weak to resist. Matt picked up my hand and pinched it hard on the webbing between my thumb and index finger. "Here," he said, "you do it." He moved my other hand to where his was and showed me where to squeeze. "It's a pressure point. It takes away headaches."

He let go of my hand and walked away.

I didn't want to, but I muttered, "Thanks," because it seemed like the polite thing to do. I don't think he heard me, which is just as well. The less conversation with him, the better.

For about ten minutes I concentrated on keeping pressure on that point. And then I sort of got distracted, and I don't know when I stopped pressing, but when I thought about it again the pain was gone.

He was right. Again.

It almost would have been worth having the headache back just to prove him wrong.

13

A
fter school I walked to work
. And I'm shocked to say it actually felt good. The fresh air, the quiet, the sun beating down on me--it all made my head feel a lot better. By the time I got there I was bone-tired, but I almost wished I could have kept on walking. As soon as I stopped, the headache came rushing back.

I hobbled down the stairs (no more elevators for this hominin), made it to Poison Control, and then slumped into a chair.

"You look terrible," Nancy said.

"Oh, honey," my mom agreed.

"Is it possible to die of reverse poisoning?" I asked them.

"Only two ways to handle it," Nancy said. "Either go back on caffeine and the chemicals or ride it out."

"I don't have a choice," I said. "I have to do this."

My mother typed something into her computer, and read what she found. "'Symptoms of caffeine withdrawal are most acute within the first twelve to twenty-four hours.' How long has it been?"

"I can't do math right now."

She read on. "'Symptoms may include headache, muscle aches--'"

"Yep."

"'--nausea--'"

"Oh, yeah."

"'--and a general feeling of malaise.'"

"Does that mean wanting to die?" I asked.

"'Symptoms may last two to nine days.'" She typed something more. "Let's see what it says about withdrawal from artificial sweeteners."

"Mom, this isn't helping."

"Oh, sorry. Want some aspirin?"

"Can't." If one more person offered me that, I was going to cry.

I wasn't much use to them today, both my hands being occupied most of the time (damn Matt--that pressure-point thing really does work). The most I did was put postage on a few brochures. My mother offered to go get me some soup or something from the cafeteria, but I couldn't be sure it would pass my rule of being made of only hominin food, so I had to decline. I went up there to look around for myself.

I brought back a banana, an apple, a plum, and a bag of nuts. Nancy took one look and said, "That ought to make some interesting bowels."

No point in acting embarrassed--nothing is off-limits to talk about in a hospital.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You'll see. You ought to have an interesting few days adjusting to all that. When I gave up coffee, I was constipated the whole time. But with all the fruit you're eating--not to mention the nuts--hmm, should be interesting."

"You keep saying 'interesting.'"

"No better way to describe it," she said. "You'll see."

My bowels were the least of my worries this afternoon. I had zero energy. I felt like death. I was finally hungry, but I didn't feel like eating what I could eat, and couldn't eat what I wanted to (like that nice big cinnamon roll I saw up in the cafeteria).

I took one bite of banana, then put it aside.

"Honey," my mom said, "are you sure about this?"

I put my head down on the desk and moaned, "No."

Day 2 (cont.)

Total food intake:
One bite banana, one slice dry toast (bread processed and full of preservatives, but safety exception, since subject appears to be dying).

14

Day 3, Saturday, August 23

A little more human. Barely.

I opened one eye, testing the situation.

Head? Still attached. Still achy, but not nearly as bad as yesterday.

Stomach? Still a little queasy, but also so empty I could eat a whole boatload of bananas.

Mood? Hmm ... hard to tell. It might take some interaction with my little brother to really test that out. Last night he got on my last nerve by asking me, "You sure I can keep your TV? You're not kidding? You swear?"

"YES!" And then I cradled my poor head in my hands because some unthinking person had just shouted.

I think I fell asleep around seven-thirty last night. One minute I
was reading about the Abolitionists and the next it was morning. That combo of starvation and caffeine deprivation must do wonders for insomniacs.

But now it was morning and it was time to test my legs. I swung them over the edge of the bed and stood. Tried to stand, I mean. My head got all squirrelly, and I had to collapse back onto the pillows or I would have pitched straight down to the floor. I lay on my back for a few minutes and waited for everything to stop feeling like a bad carnival ride.

And that's when I knew I can't keep living like this. Either I have to give up and go back to my modern ways--Diet Coke (bless you!) and all--or I need to figure out a way to get through the next seven months without suffering every day. Otherwise there's no way I'll make it.

The fact was I needed food. A LOT of it, and NOW. Fruit and water for breakfast just weren't going to cut it. I was truly dying.

What would Hominin Woman have done? Saturday morning, 1.8 million years ago. She'd been scavenging all week, running with the men, maybe supervising a kid or two, but this particular morning she decided to kick back and do a little cooking.

Was it going to be nuts and berries again? No way. They could have that any day. No, I think today she woke up starving, and she decided to make something special.

Like maybe an early version of pancakes--without the butter and syrup, of course. Or how about some bread? They did have this kind of wild-growing grain called goat grass back then, even though it's not exactly like what we have right now. But I can adapt.

The closest I could find to a natural grain in our kitchen was a box of plain oatmeal. So I treated myself to two bowls of it--just oats and water--with sliced bananas and walnuts and raisins on top. BLISS.

But it wasn't enough. I'd been almost entirely without bread of
any kind for two days already (except for the emergency toast), and there was a hole in my stomach the size of a loaf.

Which led me to my first big ethical question: Am I allowed to make bread or not? Even if my cave woman had grain, it's a separate step to say she figured out how to mill it into flour. And then another step to say she knew how to combine it with other ingredients to make some sort of bread. Not to mention figuring out how to bake it.

But I do know how to do that, right? If I were transported back there in a time machine, I'd know to gather up grains and start smashing them into a powder. I'd know to add some water, mix in a little honey (they had bees back then--I checked), maybe add a stolen bird egg or two, and then cook the thing on top of a hot rock. I would be the most popular cave girl in the region.

So that's what I decided: I'm not going to penalize myself for my skills, I'm going to take advantage of them.

I mean, what's the point of knowing how to cook if you can't actually save your life with it? Cooking is just chemistry. You take a little of this, a little of that, you keep tasting it and adding a little more, and pretty soon you're feeding your entire cave family a nice, nutritious meal of fried insects and leftover rabbit and a soft slab of bread. Right? It's just science.

Not that I'm going to start cooking insects and rabbit. The point is I can do this. I, more than anyone I know, should be able to live for seven months without a food processor, a mixer, a microwave, and normal ingredients like sugar, butter, and premade salsa. Throughout all of history, the great cooks have had to take what they found around them and make the absolute best of it. We've all just gotten lazy since then.

I can do this.

Cave Girl Cafe, now open for business.

15

"W
hat if I hadn't stopped by?"
Amanda asked, slathering another slice of bread with that forbidden ingredient, butter. "Were you going to tell me?"

"How?" I said. "I can't use the phone."

"We need to work out smoke signals or something," she said. "Two puffs for 'fresh eats.'" She propped her high heels up on the chair next to her and closed her eyes while she savored another mouthful. "I think I'll just skip work and stay here."

She always dresses so elegantly for her job. She's the hostess at the fancy Greek restaurant downtown, and even though the only requirement is that all the workers wear black and white, Amanda always takes it up a notch.

This afternoon it was a knee-length black skirt, high heels, and a crisp white button-down shirt open just enough to show a light pink cami underneath. A long gold chain, a few gold bangles, gold hoop
earrings--the whole outfit looked stunning. She'd swept her brown hair up into a loose bun so the tendrils wisped down around her face. And her makeup was just perfect.

The thing is Amanda never busts out that look for school. She's strictly a cargo pants, flip-flops, and T-shirt kind of girl, with very minimal makeup. She and Jordan had already been going out for a month before he stopped by the restaurant and saw that his girlfriend actually looks like a model. If he hadn't noticed the cool poet girl in his class before then, that certainly would have done it.

Every girl needs a friend who really knows about being a girl. Until I met Amanda, I was just a science-geek tomboy hanging out with the boys--well, one boy. She's the one who taught me everything I know about bringing my scary mane of curls under control and highlighting the good features on my face while concealing the bad. Now I may not be any better-looking in my natural state, but at least I know how to hide more of my flaws. When I can use makeup. Which, I have to say, I really, really miss.

Amanda helped herself to a fourth slice of bread. That's the other thing about her--she can eat whatever she wants and never gain an ounce. She's got the metabolism of a wood chipper. If she weren't so nice and completely unconceited, it would be easy to hate her.

"What's for dinner?" Amanda asked, getting up to snoop in the pots.

"Pasta, veggies, and I guess I'll be making another loaf of bread--"

"Cave people had pasta?"

And there it was--my second ethical dilemma.

Because here was the situation: I needed to get groceries this afternoon. There was hardly anything I could eat in the house, and so I needed to stock up. And while I was at it, I thought I could pick up a
few ingredients and make dinner for my whole family tonight. Kind of as an apology for what a monster I've been to live with these past few days.

The grocery store is only a few miles from my house. It was daytime. So even though it was furnace-hot outside, I didn't really have an excuse for not walking. I brought my backpack with me to carry the groceries home.

By the time I got to the store, I was hot, tired, and hungry. And even though I really intended to just get fruits and vegetables and some dried beans or something, I got lured away.

Because right next to the dried beans were all these beautiful packages of pasta. Curly ones, flat ones, spinach ones, whole wheat ones--all of them so lightweight and easy to carry home and cook up once I got there.

And some of them were made of just flour and sea salt--no fancy chemicals or preservatives. That was okay, right?

Except it wasn't. Because premade pasta clearly violated rule #1: no manufactured or processed foods.

But I bought it anyway. Even though I know how to make my own pasta--something I learned during Italian Week at Amanda's and my cafe. But making it from scratch takes a long time, and it doesn't always come out right, and I was tired and hot today and didn't feel like it.

There. That's my reason.

I explained all that to Amanda.

"Whatever," she said. "This whole thing is already crazy. I say anything you can do to dial it back must be right."

"You're not disappointed in me?" I asked.

She scoffed. "Kitty Cat, the only thing you ever do that disappoints me is live the life of a hermit. Other than that, you can do no
wrong. And one day, when you actually allow yourself to have a boyfriend, you will have reached perfection as far as I'm concerned." She checked her watch. "Gotta go."

That conversation really made me feel a lot better. But the true test is going to be hearing what Mr. Fizer has to say. He wants to see our research notebooks every Monday. I'll have to give him a full and detailed confession in there and just hope I haven't violated the spirit of the project already before the first week is even over.