Fangirl

“You don’t want me to meet your dad?”

“I haven’t even thought about you meeting my dad.”

“You haven’t?” He sounded wounded. (Mildly wounded. Like, hangnail-wounded—but still.)

“Have you thought about introducing me to your parents?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “I figured you’d go with me to my sister’s wedding.”

“When is it?”

“May.”

“We’ve only been dating for three and half weeks, right?”

“That’s six months in freshman time.”

“You’re not a freshman.”

“Cather…” Levi hooked his feet on her chair and pulled it closer to the bed. “I really like you.”

Cath took a deep breath. “I really like you, too.”

He gri

Cath nodded.

“That does it,” Simon said, charging forward, climbing right over the long di

Basil didn’t move. “Good fences make good neighbors,” he whispered, just barely tipping his wand.

Simon’s fist slammed into a solid barrier just inches from the other boy’s unflinching jaw. He pulled his hand back, yelping, still stumbling against the spell.

This made Dev and Niall and all the rest of Basil’s cronies cackle like drunk hyenas. But Basil himself stayed still. When he spoke, it was so softly, only Simon could hear him. “Is that how you’re going to do it, Snow? Is that how you’re going to best your Humdrum?” He dropped the spell with a twitch of his wand, just as Simon regained his balance. “Pathetic,” Basil said, and walked away.

—from chapter 4, Simon Snow and the Five Blades, copyright © 2008 by Gemma T. Leslie

TWENTY-SIX

Professor Piper held out her arms when Cath walked in. “Cath, you’re back. I wish I could say that I knew you would be, but I wasn’t sure—I was hoping.”

Cath was back.

She’d come to tell Professor Piper that she’d made up her mind. Again. She wasn’t going to write this story. She had enough to write right now and enough to worry about. This project was leftover crappiness from first semester. Just thinking about it made Cath’s mouth taste like failure (like plagiarism and stupid Nick stealing her best lines); Cath wanted to put it behind her.

But once she was standing in Professor Piper’s office, and Professor Piper was Blue Fairy–smiling at her, Cath couldn’t say it out loud.

This is so obviously about me needing a mother figure, she thought, disgusted with herself. I wonder if I’m going to get swoony around middle-aged women until I am one.

“It was really kind of you to offer me a second chance,” Cath said, following the professor’s gesture to sit down. This is when she was supposed to say, But I’m going to have to say no.

Instead she said, “I guess I’d be an idiot not to take it.”

Professor Piper beamed at her. She leaned forward with an elbow on the desktop, resting her cheek against her fist like she was posing for a senior picture. “So,” she said, “do you have an idea in mind for your story?”

“No.” Cath squeezed her fists shut and rubbed them into her thighs. “Every time I’ve tried to come up with something, I just feel … empty.”

Professor Piper nodded. “You said something last time that I’ve been thinking about—you said that you didn’t want to build your own world.”

Cath looked up. “Yes. Exactly. I don’t have brave new worlds inside of me begging to get out. I don’t want to start from nothing like that.”

“But Cath—most writers don’t. Most of us aren’t Gemma T. Leslie.” She waved a hand around the office. “We write about the worlds we already know. I’ve written four books, and they all take place within a hundred and twenty miles of my hometown. Most of them are about things that happened in my real life.”

“But you write historical novels—”

The professor nodded. “I take something that happened to me in 1983, and I make it happen to somebody else in 1943. I pick my life apart that way, try to understand it better by writing straight through it.”

“So everything in your books is true?”

The professor tilted her head and hummed. “Mmmm … yes. And no. Everything starts with a little truth, then I spin my webs around it—sometimes I spin completely away from it. But the point is, I don’t start with nothing.”

“I’ve never written anything that isn’t magical,” Cath said.

“You still can, if that’s what you want. But you don’t have to start at the molecular level, with some sort of Big Bang in your head.”

Cath pressed her nails into her palms.

“Maybe for this story,” Professor Piper said delicately, “you could start with something real. With one day from your life. Something that confused or intrigued you, something you want to explore. Start there and see what happens. You can keep it true, or you can let it turn into something else—you can add magic—but give yourself a starting point.”

Cath nodded, more because she was ready to leave than because she’d processed everything the professor was saying.

“I want to meet again,” Professor Piper said. “In a few weeks. Let’s get back together and talk about where you are.”

Cath agreed and hurried toward the door, hoping she wouldn’t seem rude. A few weeks. Sure. Like a few weeks will fix the hole in my head. She pushed her way through a mob of gaudy English majors, then escaped out into the snow.

*   *   *

Levi wouldn’t put her laundry hamper down.

“I can carry it,” Cath said. Her head was still in Professor Piper’s office, and she wasn’t in the mood for … well, for Levi. For the constant good-natured game of him. If Levi were a dog, he’d be a golden retriever. If he were a game, he’d be Ping-Pong, incessant and bouncing and light. Cath didn’t feel like playing.

“I’ve got this,” he said. “You get the door.”

“No, seriously,” she said. “I can carry it.”

Levi was all smiles and fond glances. “Sweetheart, get the door. I’ve got this.”

Cath pressed her fingertips into her temples. “Did you just call me ‘sweetheart’?”

He gri

“Sweetheart?”

“Would you prefer ‘honey’? That reminds me of my mom.… What about ‘baby’? No. ‘Loveboat’? ‘Kitten’? ‘Rubber duck’?” He paused. “You know what? I’m sticking with ‘sweetheart.’”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Cath said.

“Start with the door.”

“Levi. I can carry my own gross, dirty laundry.”

“Cath. I’m not going to let you.”

“There’s no letting. It’s my laundry.”

“Possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

“I don’t need you to carry things for me. I have two functioning arms.”

“That’s not the point,” he said. “What kind of creep would I be if I let my girl carry something heavy while I walked along, swinging my arms?”

Your girl? “The kind that respects my wishes,” she said. “And my strength, and my … arms.”

Levi gri

“You’re making me feel fragile and limp. Give me the laundry.” She reached for it.

He stepped back. “Cather. I know you’re capable of carrying this. But I’m not capable of letting you. I literally couldn’t walk next to you empty-handed. It’s nothing personal; I’d do this for anyone with two X chromosomes.”

“Even worse.”

“Why? Why is that worse? That I’m respectful to women.”

“It’s not respectful, it’s undermining. Respect our strength.”

“I do.” His hair fell in his eyes, and he tried to blow it away. “Being chivalrous is respectful. Women have been oppressed and persecuted since the begi