Chapter One
Moments, described quite simply as a very brief period of time that one experiences. Moments, they occur so often and at such a speed that they pass by the naked eye without so much a second glance. Normally they are so mundane, so mind-numbingly normal that you do not waste your time dwelling on them. But sometimes, if they are interesting enough, they manage to catch your attention ever so slightly, enough that you will actually take a minute to decipher what exactly is occurring.
It's at that exact moment that you wished you hadn't.
For Cat Valentine, she didn't like to waste the precious capacity in her conscious to reside on experiences, she had a short fuse. For an instant she would find herself enthralled by an object or a person, but her mind was like a jigsaw puzzle, that one object would make her think of another and then she was lost. Rambling enthusiastically about an experience, she would locked another piece of the puzzle together which made her connect another experience. It was a never–ending circle for the young girl, one which she never got tired of.
She had a rigorous morning routine which she liked to stick to at all times. At half six on the exact second she would bounce out of bed, she hated sitting still, even in sleep her body refused to stay still. Her mother used to tell as a toddler when she put Cat down to sleep she would stay and watch, because she was frightened that Caterina would accidentally suffocate herself with all of her movements. She would lie on her back, then as quick as a bolt of lightning she would flip onto her stomach, her bottom arched skywards as she drooled on the blankets. Over the course of the night she would twist and turn her body in odd shapes and by the end of the night she would find herself lying at a different section on the bed than the one she started in. Today when she woke up, her head felt fuzzy, her vision blurred as she blinked several times to get it in focus. Half of her body was out of the bed, the tips of her scarlet hair was grazing the soft cream carpet below. Rising, the blood that had drained to her head over the course of her night rush back down, as if the veins in her body were pulling it back with haste.
Joyously she sprang over to her bathroom and continued the routine, showering she lathered her skin in her usual strawberry lotion, then washed her hair with the usual shampoo, which smelt like raspberries. She liked to clutch the remaining shampoo that remained on her hands and slap them together, sending suds and bubbles floating around the steam filled shower. She giggled with delight at them before they exploded into droplets, she would repeat the process until exactly seven minutes had passed. Then Caterina would turn the shower off and jumped out, grabbing a red towel in the process.
Cat loved the colour red, everyday she wore something red, you could not necessarily see it all of the time but it was there. Hastily towelling off, she wrapped up her damp hair in a towel expertly and bounced back into her room. Switching on her television she chortled along with the cartoons that she watched each morning, she shouted back at the television when the narrator demanded.
"Yellow, the colour is Yellow!" she happily replied to the cheery man on the television as he held up a picture of a cute cartoon lion.
Drying her hair, styling and changing normally took the girl about twenty minutes. She was a quick mover, sometimes it surprised even her. Her hands seemed to blur together as they flew across her face, lining her lids with black eyeliner and blotting her cheeks with blusher. Today she was sporting a short white dress with little red heels. Smiling at her reflection in the long mirror on the back of her door she glanced at the clock; 6.47 on the dot. Swinging her arms she merrily skipped down the staircase and picked up her cat in the process, her little black bundle she called Merlin. Her meowed at her as she swung him around, pretending he was a air craft, as she zoomed into the kitchen.
Her brother was already sitting at the table, munching on cereal; it was about the only thing he would eat. Setting down her little cat beside his overflowing bowl, she poured herself a bowl of cereal, filled with all the ingredients Cat loved, sugar being the main one.
"Hey, hey!" she called over to her brother as she joined him at the table, "Did you know that today is the first official day of spring? That means there is going to be new cute baby animals at the zoo!" she rambled excitedly as her brother looked at her darkly.
"Cat you will be seventeen in a week." He regarded, "Will you ever learn to grow up."
Her bottom lip dropped as she glanced back at his cold stare, "Why are you so mean to me?!"
Screwing his eyes up, he rubbed them exasperating as he shook his head, "Don't get upset Cat." He avoided her gaze as he stared down at his bowl, "They kicked me out of my anger support group, yesterday. That's why I'm particularly irate today."
"Why?" Caterina asked, her bad mood had disappeared as quickly as it had appeared, she glanced down at her nails and smiled, today she had dawn little yellow smiley faces on them to amuse her. It was working.
"Because I was too angry." He replied, a small smile playing on his lips.
"Oh." Was all Caterina said as before she began munching on her breakfast, "Then maybe you should start taking the medication the nice doctor put you on."
Her brother stiffened, a spoon full of cereal hovering by his lips as he powerfully muttered, "No."
"But they may help—" she began, squealing slightly as his hand slammed down on the table, making the vase of flowers in the centre shudder.
"No they numb my senses." He started as he rose from the table throwing his bowl in the sink, "They make me weak." He spat out as his dark eyes stared down at the shards of the flower patterned bowl in the sink.
Caterina rose as she glanced at the clock, 7.01, she was one minute behind schedule. Gasping she grabbed her backpack.
"Fighting with you is not a part of my routine!" she said as she pulled him into a hug, she felt him lightly tap her back, that was the most affection she ever got from her temperamental brother, "Bye!" she cheerfully called back as she rushed out the door and into the LA heat.
As she skipped down the road, making the relatively short journey to her school she thought about her family as she shoved her music player headphones into her ears. People though the Valentines were a peculiar family, well the children were at least. Caterina parents were normal, if she knew what that even meant. They had regular jobs, Emily Valentine was a dentist while her father, Frank Valentine was a banker. They paid their taxes on time, made them all have dinner together each night so they could talk about their days and they were firm but fair with their children, all around they were just... Normal. It was the children people worried about, over the past seven years the Valentine's had over ten different next door neighbours, the others surrounding their little house placed bets on how long the new ones would last. You see, Cat's older brother was... unpredictable. But he was not dangerous, at least not to Caterina, she seemed to be the only one who could keep him grounded and she loved him more than anyone else in the whole world. To Cat her brother was just misunderstood, it was not his fault he had a bad temper and that he liked to make explosions happen in his room. Every time an explosion occurred Cat would rush over to his room, the door that was plastered with "keep out" signs and words that were too foul for her innocent lips. She would pound on the door asking him to let her in, and every time he would open the door a slither, just so one golden-brown eye was visible. He would mumble that he was fine, and then slam the door in her face.
Then there was Caterina herself, she had psychological problems, well according to the court-ordered psychiatrist she had problems. Just because over three years ago, a pair of police officers had found her one night in the park across the street in her underwear drawing strange shapes in the dirt, that was reason enough to believe that she was strange. She did not see it, she was only young and she did not want to age, the thought of not being able to play with her toys or watch cartoons anymore scared her; responsibility frightened her. So therefore, she never took responsibility for her actions. Countless times her psychiatrist had asked her why she thought it was appropriate for a thirteen year old girl to sit in the park at midnight, barely dressed and mumbling incoherently to herself and every time Caterina came up with the same answer: It's what every fibre in her body told her to do... well okay, even she would admit that maybe she could have been more clothed when she went to the park. But she was wearing a dressing gown, it had got snagged in a branch and in the darkness she could not find it. Cat knew that her therapist did not like her very much, she gave her no direction to find the cause of Caterina's problems, but Cat did not care, she liked being strange, if feeling this strange made her happy then why should she stop?
Spinning around in a circle she squealed as she approached the familiar Hollywood Arts building. She loved school so much and she hated weekends, in that respect she could see why people thought she was strange; no sane teenager liked education. Bursting through the door she skipped over to her locker and used her special lock she had installed, hitting the right note would open the door. Singing into the locker it sprang open and she clapped with delight. Grabbing her theatre text book, she closed over her locker and sat, cross-legged on the floor below it. Tapping on her phone consistently she giggled as she sent a cow flying through space in her new game; Space Cows. She pouted when she lost, her cow tumbling off the screen, his eyes now replaced with two "x" marks.
"Poor cow." She mumbled as she threw her phone into her backpack.
Leaning against the lockers she watched as the corridors began to fill with different students, they all greeted each other warmly, some set down large speaker and began to dance to the music that flooded out of them. Crowds would form around them and cheer in admiration. Other students where frantically scribbling down late homework or learning lines for the upcoming play, Caterina spotted one of the seniors, Trina Vega, push over one of the lesser liked students causing him to fall down the staircase, his limbs where splayed out like a starfish by the time he reached the bottom; a usual incident for Sinjin Van Cleef. Caterina frowned as she glanced at the side door beside her locker, waiting for her friends to walk through the door.
Finally a raven haired girl with a habitual sour expression stormed in, a cold wind seemed to follow her as she stomped over to her pointy, scissor-covered locker. Forcing it open she slammed some books in and yelped in surprise as Cat, pounced over like, well like a cat, and wrapped her paper-thin arms around the pale Goth's leg.
"Hi Jadey!" she cried as Jade West tried to walk away, dragging Cat along the relatively clean laminated floor, "This is like a rollercoaster ride!"
"Beck!" she screeched, "Can you get our pet off of me!" she demanded as her boyfriend walked over to the pair.
Beck was by far the nicest boy that Cat had ever met, she liked him because he was patient with her, he listened to all of her stories about her brother and laughed at her unending lists of randoms facts. As a couple she liked Beck and Jade, even though they were like combining oil and water. They constantly had different opinions and Jade always accused him of cheating on her. She would never admit it to anyone but Cat knew that when it came to Beck she was vulnerable. He was the only one who could calm her down. Kissing Jade on the cheek, he smiled lovingly at her before leaning down to balance on his knees.
"Hey kitty." He said warmly as he looked the redhead in her deep brown eyes, "Do you mind getting off Jade? I heard they are selling cotton candy in Sikowitz's room today."
Immediately Cat scrambled to her feet and bounded away from the pair, "Yay! I love candy!" she screamed as she rushed around the corner, "Tori, André there is candy!" she told them as she sped past them.
It was when she raced around the corner that Caterina had her moment, the one that she just could not easily forget about. Not paying attention she ran straight into a boy, one that she had never seen before. Together they toppled to the ground, Cat landing on his surprisingly firm stomach. He groaned as he grabbed her by the shoulders and slid her from him. For a moment, their eyes met and Caterina gasped at the intense brown of his eyes, they were a kaleidoscope of colour, as each second past they changed, from brown, with speckles of green, purple, red, blue... it seemed endless. Then she noticed the gentle curve of his cheekbones that defined his face, if you followed them they led down to his plush red lips, that Cat instantly found appealing. She stammered trying to think of something to say, which surprised her, she always had something to say. Without saying a word the boy grabbed something that had been thrown away from them in the collision, which she now realised was a puppet. Rising to his feet, the boy walked away, not even offering to help Cat to her feet.
Tori ran to her side and leaned over her, "Are you okay Cat?" she asked, her voice thick with concern as she pulled the small girl up, setting her carefully on her feet.
"Did you know the most money ever paid for a cow in an auction was $1.3 million?" she replied as she smoothed down her dress that had ridden slightly up her thigh.
"I'll take that as a yes." Tori responded, her voice amused as she gestured to the door down the hall, "You coming to Sikowitz's class. I heard a rumour that there is cotton candy there."
Cat could not keep her eyes from the boy who was walking away from them, who was he? She could not place a name to his face. So many questions plagued her mind as she let Tori turn her around and led her into her next class. She was disappointed when she arrived to find that there was no candy. A ploy, she had only just realised, to pry her away from Jade. Quietly she took her seat and rummaged through her bag for her toy. Pulling out Mr. Purple, she clutched the giraffe in her arms and stared at the door, wondering if the unknown boy would burst into the room and make himself known to her.
Caterina Valentine never let small things possess her, her mind was filled with cotton clouds and bright colours, things that made it difficult to focus. But this moment had rebelled against her normal routine, she only half-listened to Sikowitz's teaching, occasionally throwing out an obscure comment to try and quell her thoughts. But she found that she could not stop.
She could not stop thinking about the boy with the puppet.
Yes I know, what are you doing you have two stories going on that you have yet to finish! But I had an idea and I just had to write it down before I forgot about it. So, I do not know when this will be continued. But rest assured that I will finish all of my stories you know that I will!
But at the moment while I want to continue Lady and the Scamp I am not inspired by it, and I want to do it justice, instead of writing terrible chapters.
Anyway yes I am actually trying to keep them in character this time! With a twist of course, this will not be a normal high school story! There is so many of them that I would be worried that I would just be stealing ideas!
And as you know, or maybe don't know if you are new to me, if so hello! That I hate titles, I am terrible at titles so if I think of a better one it will be changed! :P
Anyway, please read and review!
Love you all, xoxoxo