Once Upon a Toad (5 page)

Boys can be really dense sometimes.

Rani shot me a sympathetic glance. “Ignore them,” she whispered.

How could I? Anger welled up in me and I stood up, ready to have it out with Olivia, but just then the Tappers swung into a big Broadway finish. My stepsister and her friends ended their number down on one knee in a semicircle around me, one hand flung into the air and one hand pointing toward me as Olivia shouted, “Heeeeeeeeeere's … CATBOX!”

I stood there, frozen, as the cafeteria exploded with laughter.

The day couldn't end fast enough after that.

“Cat?” said Iz when I walked in the front door after school with a face like thunder. “What are you doing home so early? I thought you had Hawkwinds practice.”

I didn't answer, just ran upstairs. I didn't stop until I got to the attic. It was the only place in the house I could think of where I could go to be alone, and right now I didn't want to talk to anyone ever again.

It was cold up there, and I was grateful for the fleece lining on my rain jacket. Zipping it all the way to the top, I looked around the dimly lit space, spotted an old trunk in the far corner, and dragged it over to the window that overlooked the front yard. I slumped down on it and gave in to the tears that had threatened to overflow on the long bus ride home.
Catbox
. Olivia's new nickname for me had gone around school like wildfire. I'd never felt so humiliated in my entire life. The snickering, the whispers—people sidling up to me in the halls and sniffing me. I'd never live it down.

There was no way I was going back.

I stared down at the silver ring on my finger. The aquamarines shone softly in the late-afternoon light that slanted through the window.
What a joke,
I thought bitterly. The words seemed to mock me. They should really read
STEPSISTERS ARE NEVER FRIENDS.

Angrily, I fished my cell phone out of my backpack and punched in my father's number. My call went right to his voice mail, as I knew it would.

“Dad?” I said, my voice cracking. “I need to talk to you as soon as possible. Please call me.”

He wouldn't, though. Not before Sunday night. He'd warned us when he left that he'd be out of cell phone range all weekend.

I heard footsteps on the stairs, then a soft knock on the attic door. “Cat?”

It was Iz.

“Go away,” I said, not caring if I sounded surly.

The door opened a crack. “Honey? What's wrong?”

I shook my head miserably. I didn't want to talk about it.

My stepmother crossed the dusty room and sat down on the trunk beside me. I could hear the sound of the TV downstairs, where Geoffrey was watching
Robo Rooster,
his favorite cartoon. Olivia was still at school. She'd stayed to practice for the talent show, then the Hawk Creek Tappers were all supposed to go to Piper Philbin's for a sleepover. I could only imagine how they were congratulating themselves on their little triumph.

Iz didn't say a word; she just put her arm around my shoulders and waited. Some people have a gift for kindness.
My stepmother was one of those people, and before long my defenses crumbled.

“What's wrong?” she asked again.

“Everything!” I wailed, pouring out the whole story. I didn't leave anything out, not even my own part in escalating things with the sabotaged diorama.

“Oh my,” said Iz faintly when I was done. She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me close. “I'm so sorry, Cat. I should have been more tuned in to what was going on between you two. I've been distracted with work, and I guess I just wanted so much for things to be perfect that I didn't see the warning signs.” She released me and stood up. Her face was grim. “I have to be downtown at a gallery opening in half an hour. I can't get out of it; I'm introducing the guest of honor. But as soon as things wind down, I'll go pick up Olivia. No sleepover for her tonight. The two of us will be having a long talk, I can promise you that.”

She hesitated, and bit her lip. “Are you still okay with babysitting Geoffrey for me? I could call someone else if you're not feeling up to it.”

I shook my head. “I'll be fine,” I told her, wiping my nose on my sleeve.

Iz looked relieved. “I've ordered a pizza for you two. There's money on the table in the front hall.”

I nodded.

“And Cat?”

I looked at her.

“We'll straighten this out, I promise.”

I didn't hold out much hope for that. But it was good to have Iz in my court, and I was feeling a little better by the time she left.

After dinner Geoffrey and I watched a
Robo Rooster
DVD, then I promised to read him a bedtime story if he didn't hassle me about taking a bath. He'd gotten over his earlier bout of spaghetti leg, fortunately, and he hopped happily into the tub, and from there into his jammies.

“Do you want to choose a book?” I asked, and he nodded.

Dragging his limp rag of a blanket, he scuffed over to his bookshelf, careful to follow the traffic lanes on his rug. He picked out a book, then clambered up onto the bed and snuggled down next to me with a contented sigh, spreading his smelly blanket over both of us. I leaned down and kissed the top of his head. It's fun having a little brother.

Technically, I'm an only child. I was in first grade when my parents split up and Dad moved back to Oregon. My mother has never remarried—she says she's married to her job for now—but Dad met Iz a year after the divorce, and they got married and had Geoffrey a year later.

“It's a case of yours, mine, and ours,” Dad always says when people ask him which kids belong to which parents.

I think maybe there are a few too many last names floating around, though. Dad and Geoffrey and I are Starrs. Olivia is a Haggerty, of course, because of her father. Iz didn't want Olivia to feel left out, so she went with Haggerty-Starr. Mom doesn't have a hyphen, but her professional name has always been Fiona MacLeod Starr, and she kept it after the divorce. She says this way people know that the two of us are related, plus what better name could there be for an astronaut than Starr? It's all a bit much.

Geoffrey may only be my half brother, but his looks are all Starr. He has straight light brown hair and greenish blue eyes,
just like Dad and me. Olivia, on the other hand, looks a lot like her mother, with the same curly blond hair and brown eyes.

“Cat,” said Geoffrey, taking his finger out of his mouth. “Cat, Cat, Cat, Cat, Cat.” He loves my name.

And I love him. Geoffrey is one of the best things about being here in Oregon.

After we finished reading, I tucked him into bed and we said good night to all the zoo animals on his wall mural. Then I sang him the lullaby that my mother always used to sing to me when I was little:

 

“Bed is too small for my tired head,

Give me a hill soft with trees.

Tuck a cloud up under my chin,

Lord, blow the moon out, please!”

 

Geoffrey and I blew in each other's faces when I finished, and Geoffrey giggled. He gave me an angelic smile and whispered “Cat” again, then plugged his finger back into his mouth and closed his eyes.

“Good night, G-Man,” I whispered, kissing his cheek. Checking to be sure his night-light was on, I left the room. He was already snoring by the time I closed his door.

Geoffrey's snoring is a big joke in our family. Iz says that all the breath he saves by not talking during the day comes out at night. It's hard to believe that such a little kid can make such a loud sound. We have to take earplugs with us whenever we all go camping.

I went downstairs, looking forward to having the house to
myself. I planned to read a little, practice my bassoon a little, and maybe IM with A.J.

My peaceful evening was short lived, though.

A few minutes later, I heard the car door slam. Then the front door flew open and Olivia stormed in.

“Thanks for tattling,
Catbox
,” she snarled.

“Olivia!” said Iz, who was right on her heels.

My stepsister ignored her and stomped upstairs.

Iz sighed deeply. “Sorry about that,” she said to me, then followed Olivia to her room. I heard the door close and then the sound of muffled voices—Iz's low-pitched murmur playing a steady counterpoint to Olivia's indignant staccato tones. Like a cello and a piccolo, maybe.

After a while I heard the door open again as Olivia went down the hall to the bathroom. Iz came back downstairs. She was holding something in her hand, and I spotted a telltale flash of silver as she tucked it into the pocket of her skirt—it was Olivia's sister ring.

“I'm knackered,” she said wearily. “I think the message finally got through to Olivia, though. She's going to bed, and I guess I will too. Don't stay up too late, okay?”

“I won't.”

I waited, listening for a while to the duet between Geoffrey's rhythmic snores upstairs and the steady ticking of the grandfather clock in the front hall downstairs. I wanted to be sure Olivia was asleep before I went up to our room.

She wasn't, though. She was lying in wait for me, still furious.

“You ruined everything!” she whispered as I climbed into bed. “I wish you'd never come to Portland!”

The flame of anger I'd felt earlier today in the cafeteria rekindled. “I wish I'd never come too!” I whispered back hotly.

“Why don't you just leave, then?”

“I would if I could!”

“I hate you!”

“I hate you back!” Seething, I flung one last retort at her. “And by the way, I dunked your toothbrush in the toilet.”

Olivia let out a howl of rage. “You stupid, rotten …
Catbox
!” she sputtered, hurling her pillow at me.

“Girls!” Iz flung our door open and flipped on the light. “What in heaven's name is going on in here?”

Bursting into tears, I grabbed my quilt and pillow and fled downstairs to the living room. I was blowing my nose when my stepmother came down to check on me a few minutes later.

“I'm sleeping down here,” I told her stiffly.

She smoothed my hair back from my face. “I guess that's okay,” she said, then added with a sigh, “I wish your dad were here.”

I did too. But he wasn't, and my mother was a million miles away. Okay, not really a million—more like 220, straight up—but it might as well have been a million. It sure felt like it. My fingers found their way to the gold charm on the necklace she'd left for me.
HOLD FAST,
it said. To what?

Iz gave me a kiss and tucked the quilt around me, then went back upstairs to bed.

I lay there until the house was quiet again—well, as quiet as it could be with my little brother's elephantine snores—then slipped my cell phone from the pocket of my pajamas, where I'd
placed it earlier. It was time to put my emergency plan into action.

Desperate times call for desperate measures,
I texted to A.J.

What's up?
he texted back.

The reign of terror continues,
I wrote, quickly hitting the highlights of the day's events.

Ouch!
he replied.
Catbox? Really?

Uh-huh.

So you're going to do it?

Yeah,
I told him.

Good luck,
he texted back.
Let me know what happens.

I stared at my phone. My mother had given me an emergency number before she left, but she'd also pounded into me the importance of not using it unless I absolutely, positively had to.

This qualified as an emergency, didn't it? How was I supposed to show my face at school after this?

I got up from my makeshift bed and crept into my dad's study. After closing the door, I sat down in the leather chair at his desk and dialed the number my mother had given me.

“This is Mission Control,” said a voice a few seconds later.

“Uh,” I replied, feeling really, really stupid all of a sudden. For some reason I had it in my head that my mother had given me the direct line to the International Space Station. But of course there was no such thing. What was I thinking? I was talking to NASA in Houston. “This is Catriona Starr,” I finally managed to stammer. “I'd, uh, like to speak to my mother, sir.”

There was a long, long pause on the other end.

“Catriona Starr, did you say?”

“Yessir.”

“You're Fiona MacLeod Starr's daughter?”

“Yessir.”

Another long pause.

“That's a long-distance call, young lady.” The operator paused again, then laughed.

Just my luck. A comedian. “Yessir,” I replied. “But I
really
need to talk to her.”

“Okay, honey, let me see what I can do,” he said, finally taking pity on me. “This may take a bit, so hang on.”

I sat there, swiveling idly back and forth in my dad's chair and playing with the chain of my necklace. A minute or two later the phone line got all crackly and hollow-sounding. “Cat?”

It was my mother.

“Mom!” A wave of relief washed over me at the sound of her voice. I hadn't realized how much I missed her.

“Is everything okay? Nobody's hurt or anything, are they?” She sounded sleepy. I'd checked the map of the world this morning, the one Dad had put up on the bulletin board over the breakfast table—we'd been using a little American flag pushpin to track the space station's progress—but for the life of me I couldn't remember where she was right now. Probably over Outer Mongolia or something. Obviously, I'd woken her up.

“No,” I assured her, then blurted out the whole humiliating story about the Hawk Creek Tappers and their “Catbox” number in the cafeteria, ending with all the reasons that I needed to go home, right now.