Free Cat by V. C. Andrews Page A

good. I especially enjoyed the girls' conversation when they made fun of the sisters and our life in the parochial school. For me this was like being in another country. I was shocked by some of the things
said, of course, but I tried not to show it.
"I didn't want to smoke, but they were all doing
it and it seemed impossible not to do something
everyone else was doing. Vaguely, I thought, my
mother was right about peer pressure. It is the
strongest thing, but I shook that idea out of my head
or to be more honest, the rum drowned it.
"Something happened in that confused brain of
mine. Suddenly, everyone looked so silly to me. I
started to laugh at the way Michael rolled his eyes
after sipping his drink and puffing his cigarette, taking
such care to look cool and sophisticated about it. He
raised his eyebrows into question marks and looked at
me, and then I laughed again and it felt like a dam had
broken. I couldn't stop giggling. That struck them
funny and they laughed too, which only made me
laugh harder until tears began to stream down my
face.
"Frankie suddenly sat beside me and slipped his
arm around my shoulders.
"'I better hold her before she breaks apart. She's
jiggling too much!' he cried and they all roared. It
seemed no one could stop the roller coaster. He held
me tighter and tighter and soon I could see the faces
of the other two boys change a little. They stopped
laughing and suddenly looked intensely interested in
me. Kelly, Talia, and Jill drew closer to each other
and watched, whispering. What were they all looking
at? I wondered, and then gazed down and saw that
Frankie had his hand in my blouse. One of the buttons
of my blouse had come undone and he was undoing
another and another.
"For a moment even I was confused about it.
Then his fingers lifted the underside of my bra and
exposed my breast.
"'Let's see if everything's all right,' he declared. "'Stop!' I screamed and pulled away, but when I
rose, I stumbled into Tony's arms, only instead of
catching me, he put his hands on my bosom and held
me up that way, his left hand smack over my naked
breast.
"'It's all right. Yeah,' he declared. Everyone was
laughing, even the girls.
"'My turn!' Michael said coming up behind me.
'There's enough for all of us.'
"He reached over and cupped my breasts,
lifting my bra off the left side, too, and pulled me
back against him I lost my footing and slid down his
body to the floor. Everyone kept laughing, but I
started crying and that finally ended it.
"The girls took me to the bathroom where I
threw up. They helped me clean up and kept assuring
me it was all right and the boys would behave now. I
had such a splitting headache, but all I could think
was my mother would find out everything. I went into
a crying jag.
"The boys left shortly afterward, maybe
because they were afraid of getting in trouble, and
things quieted down. Kelly's parents came home. Her
father looked a little suspicious when he saw me
sitting in practically a coma on the bed, but he didn't
ask any questions, even though I imagined I looked
very pale. The girls assured me they couldn't smell
any rum on me. I went outside with Kelly and Talia
and took deep breaths of air until I felt well enough to
chance calling my mother.
"'I hope you don't say anything about this,'
Kelly warned me. 'You'll get me in a lot of trouble and
you'll only get yourself in trouble, too.'
"'You should have told me what was going to
happen,' I scolded.
"'Don't be a prude,' Talia said. 'You had a good
time, didn't you?'
"I remember looking at her as if she was crazy.
Boys had molested me. I had thrown up. I had a good
time?
" 'No,' I said sullenly.
"I was so frightened when my mother came, I
don't know how I walked out and got into the car. 'How was the dinner?' she asked immediately.
"'Very nice,' I said.
"'Did they serve fish?'
"'No,' I said. At least that wasn't a lie. "'And did you behave? Did you follow all the
rules of etiquette? Oh, did they start with grace?' she
asked quickly