relying on soulless machines for communication is destroying the delicate interplay of social intercourse!â
Cathy said the words as if they carried real meaning for her. I barely managed to stop myself from sniggering at the idea of Francis saying intercourse .
âIâm sure he left for a good reason,â Cathy continued. âOrâor he realized that he no longerâfelt anything for me, that heâd made a mistake.â
âOr consider again my theory: Heâs a jackass!â
âHeâs beautiful, and heâs intelligent, and when he comes into a room, nobody can help but look at him,â Cathy said. âIâm ordinary. Itâs perfectly understandableââ
âYou are not ordinary!â
âCompared to himââ
âHe told me you were special,â I burst out.
Besides vampire, another career I should probably not go in for is spy.
Luckily for me, Cathy is a trusting soul.
Her eyes shone for a moment, and I thought she was pleased to hear what Francis had said. Until I saw that her eyes were bright with tears.
âWith him, I felt special,â she whispered. âBut I donâtâI donât feel special anymore.â
âYou still are!â I told her fiercely. âYouâre brilliant in school, and youâre going to Oxford, and your friends all love you. Youâre awesome and your life is awesome. Your life without that vampire jackass is going to be more awesome.â
âItâs just that nothing seems to matter much anymore,â Cathy said in that low, wounded voice. âI canât even write in my diary. Francis and I promised each other that we would both write in our journals every day, for years and years, and learn about each other by reading the entries.â
âSounds like sexy good times,â I said. âWhen did you, uh, start this diary?â
âLast Tuesday,â Cathy told me. âBut itâs become really important to me in a short space of time. It was going to contain years of memories.â
I knelt down by Cathyâs chair and took her hand.
âEverything else still matters,â I told her. âExcept possibly the diary with its five minutesâ worth of memory. Cathy, this was not your life. This was some guy.â
âYes, I know,â said Cathy. She kept staring out the stupid window. âBut he was a life-changing kind of guy.â
I hadnât known Cathy wanted her life to change so much.
âWhat if,â I asked tentatively, âwhat if Francis had to go becauseâbecause heâd done something wrong, and he couldnât face you? Maybe he, ahâcheated on his geography quiz.â
âFrancis has traveled all over the world! Heâs been to countries Iâd never even heard of. Abyssinia! Champa! Prussia! Sikkim! Zanzibar! When he was seventeen, he went on a Grand Tour of Europe. Why would he cheat on his geography quiz?â
I stared at the carpet, wondering if heâd made those countries up. âYou know what I mean, Cathy. What if Francis wasnât the guy you thought he was?â
âMel,â Cathy said, âFrancis is gone. He canât defend himself. I really donât want to hear anything against him. Iâm sure he left for a good reason. I just wishâI wish he could have told me what it was.â
But weâd both decided, me and Francis, that she didnât get to know.
For her own good.
âI feel like I should tell her the truth,â I told Kristin. âSheâs really upset. She hasnât left her room in three days. Iâm not sure sheâs left her chair in three days. She canât sleep.â
âNo wonder, if sheâs trying to sleep in a chair,â Kristin said, her voice echoing for a second.
I lay stretched out on my bed, in tracksuit bottoms and a holey T-shirt with a picture of a saber-toothed tiger that said SABERS: BETTER THAN YOURS that