by Mary E. Lowd
An excerpt from Discovery of the Wanderlust. If you’d prefer, you can start with Chapter 1, or skip ahead to the next chapter.
The next day, Katasha felt like a whole new cat. On the outside, she looked like the same angularly boned, strikingly colored, somberly dressed (the only colors Katasha wore were black and gray) Siamese cat, but on the inside she carried her secret — her new identity, the future engineer who would attend Isleywood College and splash those dogs right out of the water. Metaphorically, speaking, of course. Literally, she had very little interest in water. She was a lot more interested in space, and she had every intention of taking that engineering degree and becoming one of the first cats in the space program.
At one level, Katasha had a lot in common with her brother Dominic. Only, while Dominic liked fixing up cars, Katasha had her sights set on designing spaceships. It was two sides of the same interest in vehicular mechanics. She found herself thinking about that as Dominic broke in his newly revamped and souped-up Cherry Racer by driving them all to school that morning.
“This car is a dream,” Corina purred, exultantly sitting in the passenger side of the front seat. She’d won the competition for shotgun through a combination of sharp claws and pleading eyes. Katasha didn’t care, but Dmitri grumbled about it. Even so, Corina clearly cared the most.
Dominic dropped his littermates off in front of the school and cruised off to find a parking space. “He shouldn’t have too much trouble,” Dmitri pointed out. “A car designed expressly for felines like that is a lot smaller than those massive dog caravans. Anyway, Katasha, do you want to come with us?”
“Where to?” Katasha asked, though she already knew she wouldn’t go with them. If Corina and Dmitri were busy before the first bell that might be her only opportunity to slip away all day, and, though it petrified her, there was a dog she wanted to talk to. They wouldn’t understand, so she needed to do it alone. Besides, if her courage failed her, she didn’t want them to know she’d failed. Katasha might find feline pride ridiculous, but she still felt it.
“Our debate class is organizing an extracurricular debate about whether First Race doctrine should be taught in schools or whether idiotic dog theologies venerating extinct primates to the level of gods should be kept inside dog churches where they belong,” Dominic said, leaving no doubt where he stood on the issue.
“Even though you’re not in the class,” Corina, “You’d be welcome to come.”
Katasha skewed one ear to the side. Did they seriously think a religious debate would interest her? “You realize that I already got my college acceptance letter, right? I don’t have to do random extracurricular things anymore.”
Dmitri lashed his tail and said, “Suit yourself.” Corina shrugged as if to say that she’d genuinely thought Katasha might find it fun. Then the two of them headed towards the cafeteria, leaving Katasha alone in front of the school.
It was early morning, and the sun hadn’t melted all the mist away yet. Katasha could feel the dampness of the pavement under her paw pads. She scratched the ground with an extended claw, building up her courage. Then she set off for the scramball court. That’s where the dogs on student council hung out before school, and that’s where she knew she could find Hickory, the gorgeous Siberian Husky who was senior class president. He was also a dog who’d made a lot of noise about applying to Isleywood College. If she’d received her acceptance letter yesterday, then maybe he’d received his as well.
Sure enough, in addition to several dogs throwing a scramball around while the coach watched, a whole knot of dogs hung out on the bleachers. Katasha recognized them all. They were the popular kids, the club organizers, the student council members, and all of them were dogs. Except for her, there wasn’t a cat in sight.
Katasha wasn’t sure if a cat would have any sort of fair chance at winning a student election, but it certainly couldn’t help the chances that no cats hung out with the popular dogs. They kept to their own small cliques instead. The same seemed to hold true with real political elections. The news was always filled with powerful, successful dogs. Everywhere Katasha looked in life, she saw them — canines wearing suits, barking their opinions, and making decisions for everyone else. Cats were every bit as smart and capable, yet it was always the dogs in charge.
Katasha didn’t want any part of that. Katasha steeled her nerves and edged toward the group of dogs hanging out and chatting on the bleachers. When Hickory dropped out of the conversation for a bit to rummage through his backpack, Katasha stepped up to him. He was so much larger than her, more than twice her size. It was easy to see why cats found dogs intimidating, but Katasha wasn’t going to fall into that trap. She was going to be an Isleywood engineer.
“Hey, Hickory,” she said, purring deep in her throat, a habit that she couldn’t kick when she was nervous. “Have you heard from Isleywood College yet?”
Hickory stopped digging through his backpack and looked down at Katasha with his giant ears pointed forward. Katasha could feel the fur along her spine prickle under her black tunic. She tried to arrange her tail behind herself so that Hickory wouldn’t see it fluff out.
“Not yet,” he said, his wolfish face showing his disappointment. “Why?”
“I…” Katasha started in a high squeak. She quickly got her voice under control and continued in her deep Siamese baritone, “I applied there too.”
“Oh yeah?” Hickory woofed, looking surprisingly delighted. Maybe, Katasha thought, he’d finally realized how much they had in common. Then he said, “You know, I’ve been following the Isleywood event listings, and there’s a cat mixer next weekend in Portcouver.”
“A cat-mixer?” Katasha said. The tip of her tail twitched in irritation. She was trying to talk to a dog about a dog school, and all he could think about was that she was a cat.
“You know, for cats who’re interested in going to Isleywood,” Hickory said. “You should go to it!” With that brush-off, Hickory jumped right back into the boisterous conversation on the bleachers with the other dogs. Their raucous barking was so loud, Katasha couldn’t have made herself heard over it if she tried. She found herself standing, silent and ignored, on the outside like usual.
Never mind, Katasha thought. This was high school not college. She was used to the dogs ignoring her because she was small and quiet here. It would be different when she got to college. Everyone there would be serious students like herself, studying science and engineering, listening for discoveries about the truth and structure behind the universe, wherever observations on it might come from. Besides, if Hickory hadn’t received an acceptance letter, well, he might not be one of her classmates next year anyway.
Katasha tried not to be disappointed. Nonetheless, she spent most of her computer archeology class worrying about whether things really would be different at Isleywood College after all. She’d been acing science classes and doodling designs for rocket ships, spacesuits, and other zero-gee gear for years, but what if her family was right, and all her work didn’t matter? No one would hear her because she was a cat; her ideas would go unnoticed; and, she’d never get to work on designing a real spaceship.
That couldn’t be right. Science was blind to species. It had to be.
Nonetheless, at lunch, Katasha decided to mention the cat-mixer to her littermates. She didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into a segregated clique of cats at Isleywood, but it couldn’t hurt to meet a few fellow students, even if they were only the felines.
“That’s wonderful!” Corina said, clapping her paws. “We’ll get Mama to drive us up, and I’ll go with you! I can go with you right?” Corina’s blue eyes schemed. “We’ll help you figure out which tom is the nicest, and maybe you can get a date to the prom after all!”
The bottom fell out of Katasha’s stomach. She’d known her sister would make her go to the cat-mixer if she heard about it, but Katasha hadn’t foreseen this. “Corina, I’m not sure I want to go to the prom.”
“I know, I know! You’re not interested in dating, but it’s not about dating. It’s about a memory that’ll mean something to you some day.” Corina’s blue eyes lost their scheming edge and went all dreamy. Then her gaze snapped fiercely back to Katasha. “Or, at least, it’ll mean something to me. So, if we can possibly arrange it, you’re going.”
Corina had already tried to convince Katasha to come to prom stag, but she’d begged off, claiming it would be too sad to be the only one in the litter without a date. Then Corina had tried convincing either Dmitri or Dominic to break off their dates so Katasha wouldn’t be alone in going stag, but since Katasha didn’t really want to go, both brothers had declined. Finally, Corina had resorted to begging her boyfriend Erik to provide one of his littermates for Katasha. Fortunately, he’d agreed with Katasha that it would just be too weird.
Katasha sighed. If it meant that much to Corina, she wouldn’t deny her this last chance. Besides, it would be nice to get to know another one of her Isleywood classmates before the summer.
The summer was going to be so very long this year. She didn’t know how she could possibly wait three whole months to start her new life as a college girl.
Continue on to Chapter 3…