Nancy smiled. She had only been in Waverly for five minutes, and the case was practically solved. The mysterious Black Cat only targeted valedictorian candidates. The valedictorian that year would get a huge scholarship. Clearly, someone wanted the huge scholarship, and she was using underhanded tactics to get rid of the competition.

Nancy took a moment to confirm this theory. "You mean the only girls to get notes from this Black Cat person are girls who're in the running to be valedictorian?"

"I hadn't really thought of it that way, but yeah," Corine said. "I guess that's right. Maybe somebody's jealous of us smart kids or something. Or maybe it's one of us. Maybe somebody's trying to scare off her competition."

Hey, I thought of that first! Nancy thought. No stealing my idea!

"Whatever. It's not gonna work on me," Corine said confidently.

"Really?" Nancy asked. "Have you ever gotten one of these Black Cat notes?"

"Yeah, I got one about three days ago," Corine said calmly.

Evidence! Nancy thought. "No kidding. May I see it?"

"Sorry," Corine said. "I took one look at it and tore it up. But if you'd like to see the note my ex-roommate got, that one's right here."

Corine pulled out the note. There was a black pawprint on the paper, with blood-colored scratches. The Black Cat is watching. was written on top. All in all, it was kind of creepy.

"When she got this, how did she react?" Nancy asked.

"She tried to laugh it off, but I think she was really scared," Corine said. "She was pretty neurotic."

Um...your roommate gets sent home after having a panic attack, and you get rid of all of her things except the threatening note she received? Who's the neurotic one again?

"Did she talk to you a lot?" Nancy asked.

"No, not really," Corine said. She tried to fake a laugh. "I mean, you've probably said more to me now in the past five minutes that Danielle said to me in the past month!"

Uh...no comment, Nancy thought.

"What're you working on?" Nancy asked Corine. "You look so busy."

"Busy? That's the understatement of the year," Corine said. "I've got four days to write a thirty page research paper utilizing a bibliography that has to include at least six published—no online stuff—published sources. Any other student would hate having you bug them like this. But then, I'm not all that normal, so you can bug me all you want. Not that you're bugging me. Well, you are, technically, but you're not really because I'm so—Never mind."

The conversation with Corine had proven one thing, at least: Corine was Captain Awkward. The somewhat depressing cello music playing in the background fit the situation perfectly.

Nancy frowned. That wasn't background music, coming from Corine's laptop. Someone was actually playing a cello nearby.

"Where's that cello music coming from?" Nancy asked.

"Next door. That's Mel Corbalis."

"Does she ever stop playing?" Nancy asked.

"Depends on her mood," Corine said. "When she's really, really down, I'll bet if they didn't give demerits for make noise after hours, she'd play that thing 24-7."

Interesting... Nancy thought. A depressed cellist.

"Well, guess I'd better go start meeting people," Nancy said.

"Yeah, guess you'd better," Corine said wistfully. Her royal awkwardness seemed upset to end a conversation with the only person who was willing to talk to her. "I'm not so bad, right?"

"What do you mean?" Nancy asked politely, pretending she didn't know that Corine was talking about her social awkwardness.

"It's just that...well, you're about to find out that I'm not exactly the most..." Corine sighed. "Never mind. You'll see soon enough."

With that, Corine turned around and returned to her research paper.