Free Moving Day by Meg Cabot Page B

Reach for the Stars! And the secret castle and the game of queens. I had to forget about Erica and Caroline and Sophie. I had to harden my heart against them, because the important thing was that I had to keep us from moving. Lives were at stake!
    “I hated Pine Heights,” I lied. “I hated it a lot.”
    “Allie,” Mom said, sounding hurt. “We met Mrs. Hunter. She seemed really nice. I know the principal is doing everything she can to get you into her class.”
    “She is?” I didn’t mean to sound hopeful. “I mean…I don’t care.”
    “And you seemed to like those girls we saw you with at recess,” Dad said.
    “Yeah,” I said with a shrug. “They were…okay.”
    “What about your kitten?” Mom asked. “Don’t you want a kitten anymore?”
    That was the thing. Of course I still wanted a kitten. More than anything. Every time anyone said the word “kitten,” my heart gave a pang.
    But was having a kitten worth suffering the fate of the ZOMBIE HAND?
    No. No, no, no. And also, no.
    And I couldn’t let nice, pretty teachers and fun new girls distract me from the fact that I still had a war to win.
    The war on my family moving.

RULE #8
Don’t Put Your Cat in a Suitcase
    On the day of the open house, Mom and Dad dropped each of us kids off at different people’s homes to play, so we wouldn’t be in the way. They even took Marvin to stay with Uncle Jay at his apartment on campus so he wouldn’t bark at all the people coming in and out of our house or get muddy paw prints on the newly shampooed carpets.
    I got dropped off at Brittany Hauser’s. Even though Brittany has no best friend potential because she’s a bat thrower, she’s fun to play with sometimes because she has two older sisters and thus owns every Barbie and Bratz (plus all their accessories) known to humankind.
    Plus, the Hausers have very excellent snack foods attheir house that we aren’t allowed to have at mine, including Coca-Cola of the non-diet variety and homemade brownies, because Mrs. Hauser stays home all day making delicious baked goods.
    On top of which, there was Brittany’s mom’s new cat, specifically, her show cat, meaning the kind you take around the country and get judged in contests. Only not like the county fair. Important national cat-judging contests like they have on TV.
    Mrs. Hauser, who is a mom who wears high heels to pick up her daughter from school, instead of jogging shoes like all the other moms, really wanted a show cat, so finally, for their anniversary, Mr. Hauser bought Mrs. Hauser one of her own. Mrs. Hauser was very proud of it, and when she found out I might be getting a kitten—because I did my informal oral essay on it in class as soon as I knew I was getting one (but before I’d found out about the zombie hand), and Brittany heard it and told her mom—she told Brittany to invite me over to meet her registered purebred long-haired blue colorpoint Persian, Lady Serena Archibald.
    Even though I knew I wouldn’t be getting a kitten anymore (especially not after what I knew was going to happen at the open house), I was very excited to meet Lady Serena Archibald. It is not every day you get to meet a registered show cat. When I had found out I might be getting a kitten, I had checked out all the books on cats that were available in my school library, so I had read quite a lot on Persians and I knew that they were one of the oldest breeds of domestic longhairs.
    So I couldn’t wait to go to Brittany’s house.
    I was also a little bit excited not to be spending time with my brothers and parents. It was going to be nice to be away from my own worries about moving and the attic and to have someone my own age to talk to outside of a school setting for a change.
    At least, that’s what I was thinking until Mom and Dad dropped me off at Brittany’s house. When I walked in the door, I stopped thinking my time hanging out with Brittany was going to be so fun.
    That’s because as soon as I walked in, I