Catfishing on CatNet Naomi Kritzer (reading strategies book txt) 📖

Rachel looks at her, looks at me, and then stands up and clutches her stomach. “Oh no, I think I’m going to throw up,” she wails.

Everyone’s staring at her, scooting chairs and snatching art projects out of her way, and I leap to my feet. “I’ll get you to the bathroom,” I say, grabbing her elbow and scooping up my own backpack. “I’ll get her to the bathroom,” I say to the teacher as we bolt out into the hallway, and he lets us go because no one wants to stand in the way of someone who’s about to vomit, especially if they might be the one stuck cleaning it up.

We scoot around the corner and out of sight.

“You’re really good at faking illness,” I say.

“I had this never-ending case of the pukes back when I was in third grade,” she says. “It’s been years, but everyone still remembers. Let’s head to the side door and we can get to my car, okay? I haven’t heard anything from CheshireCat, and I swear I’ve been checking—”

“Me, too. But the way the secretary was looking at me—”

“Yeah, okay. You know what? Let’s just get out of here.”

We sprint across the parking lot to the car, and that’s when Rachel realizes that she’s forgotten her key. It’s back in the classroom, in the bag she didn’t grab when she faked illness. The car’s not locked—no one here ever locks their car—so we can get in, but we can’t go anywhere. “Shit,” Rachel mutters. We climb in, anyway, and she sends a text to Bryony.

“Better here than in the school,” I say, although I’m looking at the edges of the parking lot, wondering if I should go take my chances hiding … well, if the cornfields were still there, they’d make a good place to hide, but cut down post-harvest, not so much.

Rachel pops her trunk, goes around to the back, and flips down something to open up the trunk into the back seat. “If you get in the back,” she says, “and you really need to hide, you can climb into the trunk. Or you could just climb back there right now.”

I get into the backseat but don’t climb into the trunk, because I want to be able to keep an eye out for my father. It’s still full of my stuff from the apartment. “Do you remember what he looks like?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Rachel says.

“Do you think you’d recognize him from the picture?”

“Yes,” Rachel says. Her phone buzzes, and she looks at it. “Bryony says she’ll go get the key and bring it out. Also, I sent a message to CheshireCat saying I think he might be here. CC says that makes no sense and am I sure it’s him, that his phone is still in California.”

“Unless he has a burner phone, like Marvin said.”

“I’ll point that out.”

“Maybe I’m just really paranoid. Like my mom.” I think about all the times mom made us move because of a “bad feeling.” But then I think back to how the secretary was looking at me. She was looking at me. I didn’t imagine that.

Rachel’s phone buzzes.

“Bryony says they’re really upset that no one can find you; there’s someone at the school who came looking. Jesus, Steph. You’re right. I’m sure it’s him. Who the hell else would it be?”

“I … maybe Mom got out of the hospital?” I check my phone again for texts.

“Someone’s coming out, Steph, get down.”

The door to the school is swinging open. I duck down.

“I can’t tell if it’s your father,” Rachel says. “He’s too far away. Bryony says she’s got the key; she just walked in and grabbed it while people were arguing in the art room and no one stopped her, and she’ll be out in another minute.”

“Can’t be soon enough,” I say. My heart is pounding.

“Shit,” Rachel says. “Get in the trunk, get in the trunk, quick, get in the trunk.”

I’m squeezing through the gap in the backseat even as she’s talking. “Why? What’s happening?”

“Whoever it was is driving around the parking lot. He’s still looking. Shhhh.”

It’s dark in the trunk, and really cramped, and I suppose it should not have come as a surprise that there’s a lot of random stuff in here, all of which is jabbing me. There’s also a glow-in-the-dark handle that says PULL HERE IF TRAPPED TO OPEN TRUNK, that is apparently a safety feature for kidnap victims. I definitely do not want to pull this handle. That would not be in my interests at the moment.

I’m lying on what feels like a crowbar, and I squirm around enough to get a grip on it. At least that’s some sort of weapon, if I need it, although I’m in a really bad position to use any sort of weapon right now.

“Yeah?” Rachel says. “You want something?”

“Are you Rachel Adams?” a voice asks. He has to shout because Rachel’s windows are rolled up. Hopefully he’ll assume she’s keeping them rolled up because she’s hiding pot smoke.

“No,” she says in a sort of sarcastic, who-are-you-to-ask-me tone.

“Do you know a girl named Stephanie?”

“The new kid? I know who she is.”

“Do you know where I can find her?”

“Nope.”

It occurs to me that when Bryony comes out, she might say, “Hey, Rachel,” or in some other way give away the game here. I tighten my grip on the crowbar and try to figure out a way that I could pull the release and jump out of the trunk really quickly so he doesn’t see me coming. Since my leg is in the process of going to sleep, I am not optimistic about my chances. I try to shift position without making noise, since “What the hell is in your trunk?” is not a question I want Rachel to have to answer.

“Is there something in your trunk?” he asks. Shit.

“Yeah,” Rachel says. “I have a live raccoon in a cage that my friends and I are going to