Chapter 7: Beware the Talking Cats
“Jacey, can you ever be not late?” Griffin yelled up to her window. He could see her buttoning her shirt wrong and he laughed. “How many times do I have to tell you to close those blinds?”
Jacey ran to the window. “Griffin, you horn dog!” She threw her shoe at him and laughed.
“Get down here! School starts soon,” he called throwing it back through the window. He walked around to the front of the house and waited for about a minute. Jen saw him in the window and waved.
It had been ten years since Jacey had come over from Japan and every day Griffin fell deeper and deeper into love with her.
***
“Now listen,” 6-year-old Griffin said to Jacey. “I gotta show you the ropes here. NYC Academy will eat you alive if you let it.”
Jacey’s eyes grew wide at that. “Does it really?” she asked.
“No, it’s a figure of speech. Just stick with me and you’ll be fine,” he said. Miriam and Jen came outside to begin the 3-block walk to the NYC Academy, a Pre-K through 12th grade school for kids of newspaper and magazine employees. Miriam and Jen both were editors for the New York Times.
“It’s a beautiful day to start school on, Jacey,” Miriam said as they strolled down the block.
“Yup,” she said. “And Griffin said he’s gonna show me the ropes. I hope they aren’t hard to find.” Miriam, Jen, and Griffin all burst out into hysterical laughter at that. Jacey looked up at them quizzically, and then chalked it up to adult humor.
***
Griffin had been smitten with her since that day. He had spent 10 long years watching her grow up and date other guys, but he knew his time would come. Eventually.
In the middle of his moment of silent reflection, Jacey came bounding out the door. She grabbed his hand and took off down the street, her breakfast still hanging out of her mouth.
Griffin yanked on her arm, causing her Pop-Tart to fall to the ground. She glared at him when she stopped. “I came and got you early,” he laughed. “We have plenty of time.”
“Wow, I can’t believe it took you 10 years to think of picking me up 15 minutes early,” she smiled coyly. She paused, thinking hard, then looked at the ground. “You made me drop my Pop-Tart!” she pouted.
Griffin looked at her in mock amazement. “Me? I wasn’t the one who was late. You should really invest in an alarm clock.”
She just smiled and began walking to NYC Academy. Griffin caught up with her and adjusted his black shoulder backpack. He chuckled a little and looked at her. She looked thoughtfully at him, “Why do you put up with me?”
He laughed, but her look never changed. “Why do you want to know that?” he said in a more serious tone.
“Because I want to know if you love me!” she thought looking at him. “Well, I’m just such a pain in the rear end and I don’t really see what’s in it for you,” she said out loud.
“Well,” he said. “There doesn’t have to be anything in it for me. That’s not what friendship is about. And you listen well, that’s a plus.” She laughed but he knew something else was up. “Why do you really want to know?”
Her face fell. “You see, you offer me so much strength and protection and guidance. My life wouldn’t be the same without you. I wanted to know if I impacted your life.”
“It wasn’t ‘I love you’” he thought. “But it’s good enough.” They walked for a block before he said, “You’ve probably changed my life more than anyone else. I’d be lost without you!”
Jacey started to giggle and Griffin scooped her up in his tan muscular arms. “Oh, Grif, this is so scandalous! What would my boyfriend think?” she said in her sexy voice.
“I don’t care!” he said in his deep rich voice. “Run away with me!”
She gasped and smiled. “Run away with you? I would, but what car were you planning on taking on our little voyage?”
Griffin put her down and laughed. “Forgot I have no car. Oh well, we’ll get around to running away together one of these days.”
They were both laughing when they walked into school. Both of them stopped when they came to the stairway that Jacey had to go up. “Bye!” she said hugging him and kissing him on the cheek.
“See you in study hall!” he said as he turned and went down the hall. She watched him go for a minute then ran up the stairs to biology.
***
“The nerve impulse travels through the stem of the nerve into the dendrites. . .” Jacey’s bio teacher rattled on. She had been sitting in class for only 10 minutes and was already bored out of her mind.
“Jace,” her friend Liz said tapping her on the shoulder. Jacey turned around to face her when the teacher had her back turned. Liz handed her a note and Jacey turned back around, thankful for the distraction. She opened the note.
Jace-
Hey G! Isn’t Mrs. Appel so totally boring? I’d rather be studying bio with someone cute, like Griffin. That boy is soooo fine! You are so lucky to be friends with him. By the way, I saw the 2 of you this morning. You 2 look so cute together! I’m beginning to think that you 2 are more than just friends! What would Mike think? I’m sure he wouldn’t approve. Anyway, if you don’t want Grif, you can set me up with him! Gtg, w/b!
Kisses-
Liz Anne
Jacey sighed. “I wish we were more than just friends,” she thought.
***
“Liz, you should have seen it!” nine year old Jacey laughed as she and Liz walked down an empty hall in the school. “Charlie had chocolate milk coming out of his nose and it went all over the place!”
Liz giggled, “I wish I had your lunch today!”
They continued to walk and gossip for a while until Jacey heard a noise. “What was that?” she asked Liz.
“What was what?” Liz said keeping her ears open.
“That!” she shrieked when they both heard the noise. The girls tensed up and Jacey slowly turned around. Behind her stood Max Froid, a 5th grader and the meanest 10-year-old at NYC.
“Hey girls,” he said intimidatingly.
Liz shrank back in fear, but Jacey stood her ground. “What are you up to? Nothing good I’m sure.” She crossed her arms across her chest and glared.
“Your lunch money,” he said pointedly.
“Already spent it,” Jacey said impatiently. He growled at her and his face turned red. “You don’t have any business here,” she said. “So why don’t you just leave.”
“You little brat!” he yelled lunging at her. Jacey screamed and ducked. She thought for sure she was lunchmeat, but Max never hit her.
She heard fighting and she opened her tightly shut eyes. There, about 10 feet in front of her, stood 11-year-old Griffin over a dazed max. “Grif!” she squeaked.
He turned around to see Jacey. No sooner than he did, Max lunged at him. With the boys grappling in front of her, she looked around frantically. Liz was curled up in a corner crying. “Go get a teacher and tell them what happened!” Jacey screamed at her. Liz nodded and ran away.
Jacey screamed at the boys to stop, but they didn’t. Only a minute later, Liz came back with a teacher and Max stopped. Griffin started to stand up, but Max punched him in the eye and ran away. The teacher ran after Max, leaving Griffin alone with the girls.
“Why did you do that?” Jacey said lightly touching his swollen eye.
He winced in pain. “Did you really think I’d let that bully take you lunch money then beat you up?”
***
Jacey’s eyes clouded at the memory. “That’s when I admitted to myself that I loved him,” she thought. Jacey quickly snapped back to reality and quickly scrawled a note to Liz.
Liz~
We’re just friends. We like to joke around, though. Nothing big. Mike and I have been going out for 2 weeks, he doesn’t own me. Gtg, class is almost over.
~Jace
Jacey dropped the note on Liz’s desk. The bell rang and Jacey ran to study hall.
***
“Promise you’ll stop by after rehearsal!” Jacey called out to Griffin as she started down the steps of NYC.
“All right!” he called back picking his trumpet case off of the steps. He waved and went back into the building.
It was a beautiful spring afternoon and Jacey began to skip down the street towards her house. She had broken up with Mike earlier that day, tired of pretending to be in love with him.
She began to approach a small ally behind a restaurant when she heard a man and a woman’s voices arguing. “This has to be the right city! Why would they send us to the wrong place?” the man screamed.
“I don’t know! You can’t exactly ask, ‘Oh, excuse me, have you seen any Moon Princesses lately?’” the woman retorted.
Jacey raised an eyebrow at the weird topic of conversation. “I’ll just go see if they need directions,” she thought. Jacey put on a bright smile and turned into the ally. “Hi, sorry to interrupt, but I wanted to see if you were all. . .”
Jacey’s jaw dropped and her eyes grew wide with fear. “You. . .you. . .” she stammered pointing at the source of the argument. There stood two identical black, white, and orange calico cats. They had been the ones talking.
The cats looked at each other frightenedly. Then Jacey began to scream. Out of her extreme fear, tears ran down her face and she screamed. A symbol, a circle with a cross through it, appeared in aquamarine on her forehead.
In seeing this, the cats gasped and dashed off, leaving Jacey there to scream.
Griffin, meanwhile, was walking down the street towards home when he heard Jacey scream. He ran to the ally and two calico cats jumped at him. He quickly dodged them and ran to Jacey’s side. “Jace!” he said hugging her.
“Griffin, oh Griffin!” she said hugging him back. The symbol vanished from her head as she calmed down.
“Are you all right? What happened?” he asked running his hand over her arm.
“I fell. There was a big dog and he scared me and I fell,” she stammered.
Griffin helped her to her feet. “It’s all over. You’re okay and we’re gonna go home.”
As they walked down the street, Jacey began to ease up. “Why were you out walking, Grif? Don’t you have practice?”
“It was canceled,” he said.
Griffin escorted Jacey to her front door and left her in the care of her aunt. “Thank you, Grif,” Jen said when she opened the door. “I appreciate you taking care of her.”
***
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Jen asked for the thousandth time.
“Yes,” Jacey said walking upstairs to her room. “I’m going to bed now. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Jen walked away shaking her head.
Jacey brushed her teeth and put on her pajamas. She looked at a picture of her and Darien and their parents when they were at a picnic. She took it off her dresser and kissed Darien and both of her parents.
Then Jacey took a picture of her, Griffin, Jen, Miriam, and Jake, Miriam’s husband, at the school concert and looked at it. She kissed Jen, Griffin, and Griffin’s parents.
Exhausted from her day, Jacey climbed into bed. She pulled the covers up around her neck, trying to force out the memory of the cats. She closed her eyes and prayed, “Dear God, thank you for my life. Thank you for Darien not letting me get in that car. I thank you for my second chance at life and two families that love me. But please, God, make the cats go away.”