In fourth period, I had science finals, which were held by the only other nice teacher that I had besides Shima , Professor Bonum. He was a an extremely tall man with angled shoulders and a soft face surrounded by his shaggy brown hair. He had a positive attitude that I admired, and always expected the best of his students. Bonum looked like an average man until you saw his hands, which were long and slender with pointed fingernails that curled into talons.

The test itself was very easy, consisting primarily of writing an essay about one of Newton's gravitational laws and how it affected our daily lives (they kept glued to this planet, duh) , but then when he gave us a multiple choice quiz, I completely blanked out. I kept thinking about the soft lavender curls that caressed her white neck ever so gently, the light scent of chalk lingering over her fur...

"Renee?" asked the professor in a sympathetic tone. "Everything alright? You only have ten more minutes to finish the quiz, and I expected a full supporting paragraph along with your choice answer" he said with a wink.

I blushed mildly and pulled at my bangs."I'm fine, sir. Thanks for the heads up."

He smiled and walked back to his desk. Some other students had already finished and were throwing paper airplanes across the room, or playing on their icoffins discretely.

I finished the test quickly , adding only one supporting sentence to each answer in my hurry. Bonum smiled as he gingerly placed the exam on the neat pile in the far corner of his scratched, dark green granite desk.

Luma NeScent, my dorm neighbor was bouncing up and down in her chair. As usual, it seemed as if she was on a caffeine rush. She wasn't a monster, just involved in some freak toxic-waste disaster at her father's power plant. As a result, her skin glowed an eerie green and her eyes were a toxic neon.

"Hey kitty-cat! How were finals?" She asked in a high pitched voice. Her black messy bun was flopping around wildly with all her excitement. Before I could even open my mouth she squealed "Oh I'm sure you got a perfect score, as always! I thought it was kinda hard myself, but then I thought , if Renee can pass this test with awesome grades, I can at least try my best to live up to her legend. Not that you're a legend or anything- but you aren't not a legend either! Sorry .Anyways, I thought that one question about the Newton guy-isn't that the name of a fig cookie, 'cause I really like those-was really hard. '" She breathed in deeply as she waited my response, but then kept going "Like, I don't remember what his stupid law was, did he even teach us half of that stuff?-

"He did. We studied Newton four weeks ago, Luma." I interjected, defending one of my favorite teachers. She brushed her straight bangs back in embarrassment.

"Well I still thought it was pretty tough!" she pouted.

I sighed as I sunk deeper into my seat. I delicately smoothed out my grey pencil-skirt and polished the gold fleur de lis honors badge from my old high school.

Luma leaned over to inspect it. "Oh, pretty. What is that?"

Smiling fakely, I unpinned it and dropped it into her glowing hands. She turned it around as if she were in a trance.

"This is from your old school?" she asked, still tracing the outlines of the badge.

"Yes. Each ear we received a pin- if you were in honors." I said, suddenly feeling homesick. I heard the laughter and friendly teasing of my old friends, and felt the embrace of my mother before I boarded the plane. She smelled of freshly baked pastries,lavenders, and old books. All of my favorite things. I remembered the kind and proud look in her eyes on that beautiful morning. The sky was a sapphire blue canvas painted with the swirls and curves of puffy white clouds. Birds called from the trees, and the cobblestone sidewalk shimmered with the heat of the August sun.

Je suis fier d'avoir une fille aussi forte et indépendante comme vous. Je t'aime, Renee, sait toujours ça.

Luma waved frantically in front of me. "I was losing you there! Though I wouldn't mind to keep this... Just kidding!" she placed it back on my lap. Luma then took out her icoffin and showed me a picture of she and her father. They looked very much alike, same short pudgy body and almond shaped eyes. But where Luma has a small pointed nose, he had a big round one, and where the energy and spark in her eyes were, in his were a flash of annoyance.I couldn't blame the man. "I went to highschool in Korea until I moved here. I like it a lot better."

"Here or Korea?"

She rolled her eyes and pushed my bony shoulder playfully "Here of course, dummy! Its so hard over there, it was impossible to even pass P.E.!"

I laughed lightly. The badge still glimmered on my waist and my hand was brushing it gently.

"So do you like it better here, or over there?"

"To be honest, I like some of the teachers better here than there, but none of the students can compare to my old friends."

She looked a bit hurt. "You haven't made any new friends here? I thought I was your friend."

"You are." I said quickly. "You are a great new friend. I just really do miss my old ones. I still have my brother, but he's more of an ass than a friend. "

Luma giggled. "Francis, right? Yep, he looks like a real furball."

The bell rang for lunch. Mr. Bonum dismissed us with a wave of his claws. " Have a nice day, class."

Luma picked up her silky electric blue purse, and crammed her icoffin into a sidepocket. "I have lunch with my boyfriend today. Maybe later we can have a sleepover, to celebrate the end of finals!"

Boyfriend? Maybe she talked them into their relationship.

I snatched up all my belongings and walked to my locker, which was conveniently right outside of professor Bonum's class. Most days , I spent my lunch in the library and snacked on little domestic cat treats (I liked the steak flavor), but today was lovely day to be spent outside , for a quick sketch . Even though I was lacking the skills of a proper artist, my sketches looked decent.

I sat dawn in the shade of a willow tree, next to a boy with rectangular glasses ,a blue bow-tie, and very saturated jeans. His hair was a coffee-brown, but he had a bleached streak running down his front. He was immersed in coloring something violently with an amber color.

My favorite pencil was this one purple mechanical pencil I felt that I had bonded with. It fit nicely in between my fingers. Whenever I used it, the lines came out straighter and darker than any other pencil produced, and it made an adorable clicking noise whenever I needed more lead. Maybe my cat instincts really grew to love that noise. .Click. Music to my ears. I secretly had named it Tom .

The boy next to me glanced over at my sketchbook and then retreated back to his own.

I opened up my bag of cat treats and inhaled sharply. This was what heaven smelled like.

I crunched on some cat treats and nibbled on a brioche biscuit filled with turkey leftovers. The sketchbook snapped open to a perfectly blank and clean page, and I was soon lost in a whirl of lines and curves, with a grace that only he possessed. A bit darker here, less here... no curve here...

"Are you drawing Harmony Gracer from the latest Harriet Plotter book?" the boy asked me.

I turned my head to the side and squinted at the drawing. It did look like her. Yes, it was Harmony. I nodded at the boy. He handed me his sketch book with a smile.

He had drawn Reg Weasler, Harmony's love interest since the first book ,(and Reg himself had not realized this own feelings for her until the fourth). He had a nice, simple style of drawing the characters, but you could see all their emotions in their eyes.

"It's a very simple drawing of Reg, but I think it really shows how he feels for Harmony." he said in a calm quiet voice.

I nodded. "I like it."

He looked at me , then took his glasses off, and looked at me again."Near sighted," he explained "I don't know you, but you remind me of someone in my science class."

Then I remembered who he was. He was the quiet kid who sat two rows away from me, in the front of the class. I knew his streak of hair looked familiar."Im in your science class, fourth period, Bonum."

" Oh yeah! You're the one who always gets the perfect scores and extra credit. Congrats." he said with a beaming smile"I'm Jackson, by the way."

"Renee Chattreux," I tell him "I mean, that's my name."

Jackson paused for a moment, looking at something invisible above his head. " Renaissance Talkingcat?"

That was what my name translated to apparently, in some weird Jackson language. I laughed and shook my head."Not really. Re-ne Chat-te-row."

"Caterow?"

"Chat-te-row"

He laughed and took back his sketchbook. "It sounds much better when you say it. I took french as an elective last year. It was mediocre and taught me the farm animals, and a cat was one of them."

"Nice." I whisper. I turn back to my biscuit and split in in half. "Would you like some brioche with turkey?"

Jackson looked confused.

"Biscuit." I clarified.

He took it from my hand and inspected it carefully. "Are you sure you don't want it?"

"When one has these as often as I do, one will develop a love-hate relationship with the taste."

He bit into it cautiosly, then looked surprised."This is really good! My complements to the chef."

I shrugged, nibbling at the crust of my half. "Thank you."

After a few minutes of chewing and scrapes of graphite over paper, we saw a group of girls heading towards were the glamorous and high ranking elite group of MH. Their pumped stilleto high heels, to their multicolored hair and perfectly painted faces, they radiated an aura of ravishment. My least favorite of all , Cleo DeNile, whose ego was as thick as the makeup she wore and as tall as her high heels, was making "googly-eyes" with her boyfriend, Deuce Gorgon. Frankie and Draculaura waved as they approached us. Clawdeen smirked as she sunk her fangs into a dripping piece of venison.

This lovely lunch was coming to a conclusion.