Free Cat by V. C. Andrews Page B

before I could answer her other
questions.
"I thought for a moment and said, 'Yes. It all
happened the way you told me it might.'
"It was dark in the car so she wasn't able to
search my eyes and see the deception. I bit down on
my lip and held my breath in anticipation.
"However, she liked hearing she was right to
teach me all about dinner etiquette and such and for the remainder of the ride home, she congratulated
herself on being wise enough to prepare me well. "'Your father wouldn't know the first thing
about it,' she told me, 'despite his sophistication in
business.
When he saw all I had done for you, he laughed
and thought it was ridiculous. Now he'll see,' she said
nodding. 'Now we'll see how smug he is.'
"When we arrived home, I was able to go right
upstairs, claiming I was tired. She didn't question it.
She was too eager to tell my father how well she had
prepared me for the dinner. I crawled into bed as
quickly as I could. When I thought about what had
happened, I cried. How embarrassing it was and how
terrible it was that the other girls didn't come to my
defense. It was almost as if I had been invited there
just to be abused. When would I ever have a real
friend, someone who cared about me and my feelings? "It made me feel so dirty to recall their hands
over me. I think that was a major reason why my
stomach turned over and I got so sick, that and the
rum. How much had I drunk? Did the girls know what
the boys were doing to me and let them?"
"I wish we knew you then," Star piped up. "I'd
pay them a visit for you."
"Very immature behavior," Jade commented. "It was cruel," Misty agreed.
"The hardest thing about having something
unpleasant happen to you is having no one to tell at
the time," I told them. "It festers like a sore, an
infection; it buzzes around in your head and your
heart. I tossed and turned and fretted through
nightmares for nights after that and I couldn't face the
other girls at school. I knew they were talking about
me, spreading stories, exaggerating, claiming I had
gotten drunk and exposed myself in front of the boys
and embarrassed them. Kelly avoided me and I felt
even worse because of the way some of the other girls
were now looking at me."
"Why would they lie about her like that?" Misty
asked Jade.
"To protect themselves in case she did tell
someone the truth. Right?" Jade asked Star.
"Sounds like it. I would have pulled out their
tongues at that point," Star said.
"It would only make them look right," Jade
asserted.
"Maybe because of the way things were at
school, my nightmares continued. I had no appetite at
dinner, but I had to force myself to eat so my mother wouldn't ask any questions. The hardest thing was she kept asking me about Kelly's parents, the house, things they said, and I had to make up as much as I could. I got away with it because I told my mother I had followed her directions and not asked too many questions. I kept thinking, Soon, soon she's going to realize I'm lying and the whole horrible thing will
come out.
"That gave me even more nightmares. Many
nights I would find myself awake, practically sitting
up, listening to the scream die in my throat. In dreams
I felt spiders crawling over me, dozens and dozens of
them. They covered my breasts and reached as high as
my chin.
"When I was a little girl and I had bad dreams,
my mother would sometimes come to see me, but she
never held me or kissed me. Instead, she tried to teach
me how to block out unpleasantness. She told me to
count until I was so tired, I would fall asleep again.
Reluctantly, because I begged her, she would leave a
light on in the bathroom.
"One night nearly two weeks after the
disastrous party at Kelly's and all the questions and
lying, I heard my door open and close and my father
stood in the darkness at my bedside.
"'What's wrong?' he asked 'I thought I heard
you cry out when I came up from getting myself a
glass of milk.'
"He did that if he ever had any trouble sleeping.
He once told me that sometimes