Cat

"I felt like I was going to my own execution...."

Cat had listened patiently as the other three girls in Dr. Marlowe's therapy group shared their innermost feelings. They had described their broken families honestly, to the point of pain. If Cat doesn't tell her own tale, the others will see it as a betrayal. So she has no choice.

Or does she? Maybe she could lie--just make something up. Anything would be better than the truth. For Cat has the darkest, most horrifying secret of them all....

I was jealous of them.

Already, I was jealous. They were at each other all the time, but I could see they also respected and, in a funny way, liked each other and liked to challenge and tease each other. I wanted them to like me, too. Who else would like me but these girls? I worried. I could count on the fingers of one hand the friends I had had and lately I had none. I felt like a leper because I saw the way some of the other kids looked at me in school and wherever else they saw me.

It's my own fault, I thought. My face might as well be made of glass and all my thoughts and memories printed on a screen inside my head that anyone could read.

My heart began to pound again....

Setting: California, 1990s
New York Times Bestseller: (not yet available)

© 1999 by the Vanda General Partnership. Published by Pocket Books of New York. Cover design by Tony Greco, front cover illustration by Lisa Falkenstern. 151 pages.