WHEN KAT GOT on the bus for school the next day, her friends from St. Paul's looked up at her and smiled, but no one moved over to give her a place to sit. Flushing pink with embarrassment, she scanned the seats to see if there was anyone else she knew who might make a place for her. The Goth she'd met the day before was sitting in the last seat beside a girl dressed in equally unusual clothing. He smiled encouragingly to her and gestured that there was room beside them. Kat hesitated.
"There's room here," said a voice from one of the seats nearby.
Kat looked over and saw a vaguely familiar face. She was pretty sure it was one of the guys who had helped get the platform into place in her art class the day before.
"Thanks," she said, sitting down. "You're in my visual arts class, right?" she asked.
"That's right. My name's Michael Vincent."
He was an unremarkable looking guy, thought Kat, as she regarded him through the corner of her glasses. A bit on the nerdy side. But it was thoughtful of him to let her sit there and end her embarrassing moment.
At lunch that day, Kat got her food and then walked into the cafeteria looking for a place to sit. Beth and Callie and Michael were sitting together. There were a few other kids from visual arts sitting in the same general area too, although she didn't know all their names yet. She walked up to the table where her three new acquaintances sat. "Is this seat taken?" she asked.
"We were saving it for you," said Callie with a grin.
Kat sighed with relief and set down her tray.
She listened passively to the buzz of conversation and ate her egg salad sandwich. As she chewed she looked around the cafeteria. At St. Paul's it had been harder to notice the cliques because of the uniforms. Here, it was quite apparent.
The tables in the cafeteria were occupied not only according to grade level, but by specialty too. There were a few mixed-specialty tables, most notably the black table. Most students at Cawthra were white and a few were Asian. The handful of black students mingled freely with everyone else during class time, but they seemed to take refuge with each other during lunch.
Another exception was the Goth table, where Kat could see Ian and the girl he'd been on the bus with that morning. Kat knew that Ian was only in grade 10, and the girl couldn't be more than 15, yet they sat with a small group of other Goths who were obviously much older. Kat tried not to stare as she munched on her sandwich and evaluated the girl. She was tiny with fragile Vietnamese features, but half of her head was shaved and the other half had chin-length poker-straight hair dyed blue-black. She wore a sheer powder on her face that made her flawless complexion look unnaturally white, and her lips were carefully penciled and painted a stark blood black. She had drawn thick kohl lines on her upper and lower eyelids à la Cleopatra. Today she had come to school in a skin-tight black leather miniskirt, black net stockings with runs, and heavy hobnailed boots. Kat considered the whole group a pretty scary bunch, with their pierced noses and eyebrows and ever evolving outrageous hair, but this girl's underlying prettiness made her seem even more grotesque: a parody of sweetness.
Ian looked up and caught her staring at his friend. Embarrassed, Kat quickly looked away. Out of the corner of her glasses, she peaked over again and was startled to see that Ian was getting up from his table and walking towards her. Worse yet, he had the girl in tow.
"Hey there," he said, his turquoise hair gelled stiff above his kohl-blackened eyes. "This is my friend, Lisa. Isn't she beautiful?"
Lisa smiled.
Kat hesitated for a moment, then said, "Hi Lisa, I'm Kat. And this is Michael, Callie and Beth."
As she made the introductions, Kat was embarrassed by the giggling she heard erupting beside her. Callie and Beth were both killing themselves laughing.
"Where did you get that outfit?" asked Beth, her eyes sparkling maliciously above the hand she held in front of her mouth to hide her braces.
"Not the Gap," replied Lisa coolly, giving Beth's outfit the once-over.
Michael had been quiet during this exchange, but he obviously didn't like the cattiness in Beth's question to Lisa. "I think you both look nice," he said lamely.
Kat looked at him and smiled.