Cat (Wildflowers 4)

I smiled and nodded.

"Cat, you need some friends, and some help." "Maybe we can be her friends," Misty suggested. "Us? We're here because we're screwed up, too, aren't we? That's the blind leading the blind," Star said.

"She needs normal friends."

"I'm normal," Jade said indignantly. "Just as normal as most anyone out there. Maybe even more normal." Star lifted her eyebrows.

"We heard your story; don't try to convince us you're more normal." Before Jade could respond, she added, "And you heard ours. Let's not pretend we don't have problems or excess baggage, okay?"

"We can still be her friends," Jade insisted.

"Maybe she doesn't want us to be her friends." She put her hands on her hips. "You just keep sticking your rich nose into everyone's life all the time, I bet."

"You think you know all about me just because of these sessions? You don't know all about me. You don't know enough to pass judgment on me or anyone. You're the one who's being arrogant."

"Right. You're always right," Star quipped. She turned to me. "Well, you heard us talk about our problems. Do you want anyone here to be your friend?"

"Yes," I admitted. "I would like that."

Jade bit into a cookie and looked gleefully happy. Star rolled her eyes.

"Maybe you're just a lost cause. Maybe we all are. What did you call us, Misty, Orphans With Parents?" Star asked her.

"That's right."

"Okay," Star said. "I nominate Jade here to be president of the OWP."

"I second it," Misty said laughing

"Who says I want to be president?" Jade quipped. "You want to be the standout everywhere you go. It doesn't take a genius to see that."

Jade stared at her for a moment and then nodded. "Okay, I accept. I'm the president," she said.

"Wait, we have to vote. All in favor raise your hand." We all did.

"Done," Star said. "We're the OWP's and Jade is the president."

Everyone laughed as Doctor Marlowe returned. She gazed down at us and smiled.

"Did I miss something important?" she asked. "Just an election," Star said.

Doctor Marlowe's look of confusion made us all laugh again.

I can do this, I kept thinking I drank some more lemonade. I can do it.

5

"When I was in the eighth grade, something terrible happened to me," I continued after everyone had had her lemonade and sat back again. I glanced at Doctor Marlowe. She hadn't given me or anyone else here any instructions about-what to tell and what not to tell. She looked like she wasn't sure herself what we might say and was just as interested in finding out.

"I suppose now when I look back, it wasn't as horrible as I had thought, but at the time . . . It took a while before I could talk about this after it had happened," I continued. "I kept it a secret from my parents, and actually, I still haven't told my mother about it. I knew she would find a way somehow to blame me, and I was afraid that if I told my father, he might tell her even accidentally, so I swallowed it down like bitter medicine and kept it inside even though it came up like rotten eggs almost every night, leaving me in a cold sweat and bringing me to tears of ice."

No one spoke. They hardly breathed. It was so quiet for a moment, we could hear the sound of leafblowers blocks away as gardeners worked behind the high walls of expensive homes. The dull, monotonous sound of their engines seemed to be the proper sound track behind a gray, heavily overcast day.

"What was it already?" Misty blurted. I saw Jade kick her and she sat back, biting down on her lip. "Whenever I was lucky enough to have

someone at school try to be friends with me, my

mother usually found a way to stop it. She had