“Yes,” Professor Piper laughed. It was a fairy laugh, Cath thought. “That’s why I write, definitely. That’s why I teach.” They all laughed with her. “Why else?”

Why do I write? Cath tried to come up with a profound answer—knowing she wouldn’t speak up, even if she did.

“To explore new worlds,” someone said.

“To explore old ones,” someone else said. Professor Piper was nodding.

To be somewhere else, Cath thought.

“So…,” Professor Piper purred. “Maybe to make sense of ourselves?”

“To set ourselves free,” a girl said.

To get free of ourselves.

“To show people what it’s like inside our heads,” said a boy in tight red jeans.

“Assuming they want to know,” Professor Piper added. Everyone laughed.

“To make people laugh.”

“To get attention.”

“Because it’s all we know how to do.”

“Speak for yourself,” the professor said. “I play the piano. But keep going—I love this. I love it.”

“To stop hearing the voices in our head,” said the boy in front of Cath. He had short dark hair that came to a dusky point at the back of his neck.

To stop, Cath thought.

To stop being anything or anywhere at all.

“To leave our mark,” Mia Farrow said. “To create something that will outlive us.”

The boy in front of Cath spoke up again: “Asexual reproduction.”

Cath imagined herself at her laptop. She tried to put into words how it felt, what happened when it was good, when it was working, when the words were coming out of her before she knew what they were, bubbling up from her chest, like rhyming, like rapping, like jump-roping, she thought, jumping just before the rope hits your ankles.

“To share something true,” another girl said. Another pair of Ray-Bans.

Cath shook her head.

“Why do we write fiction?” Professor Piper asked.

Cath looked down at her notebook.

To disappear.

He was so focused—and frustrated—he didn’t even see the girl with the red hair sit down at his table. She had pigtails and old-fashioned pointy spectacles, the kind you’d wear to a fancy dress party if you were going as a witch.

“You’re going to tire yourself out,” the girl said.

“I’m just trying to do this right,” Simon grunted, tapping the two-pence coin again with his wand and furrowing his brow painfully. Nothing happened.

“Here,” she said, crisply waving her hand over the coin.

She didn’t have a wand, but she wore a large purple ring. There was yarn wound round it to keep it on her finger. “Fly away home.”

With a shiver, the coin grew six legs and a thorax and started to scuttle away. The girl swept it gently off the desk into a jar.

“How did you do that?” Simon asked. She was a first year, too, just like him; he could tell by the green shield on the front of her sweater.

“You don’t do magic,” she said, trying to smile modestly and mostly succeeding. “You are magic.”

Simon stared at the 2p ladybird.

“I’m Penelope Bunce,” the girl said, holding out her hand.

“I’m Simon Snow,” he said, taking it.

“I know,” Penelope said, and smiled.

—from chapter 8, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir, copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie

THREE

It was impossible to write like this.

First of all, their dorm room was way too small. A tiny little rectangle, just wide enough on each side of the door for their beds—when the door opened, it actually hit the end of Cath’s mattress—and just deep enough to squeeze in a desk on each side between the beds and the windows. If either of them had brought a couch, it would take up all the available space in the middle of the room.

Neither of them had brought a couch. Or a TV. Or any cute Target lamps.

Reagan didn’t seem to have brought anything personal, besides her clothes and a completely illegal toaster—and besides Levi, who was lying on her bed with his eyes closed, listening to music while Reagan banged at her computer. (A crappy PC, just like Cath’s.)

Cath was used to sharing a room; she’d always shared a room with Wren. But their room at home was almost three times as big as this one. And Wren didn’t take up nearly as much space as Reagan did. Figurative space. Head space. Wren didn’t feel like company.

Cath still wasn’t sure what to make of Reagan.…

On the one hand, Reagan didn’t seem interested in staying up all night, braiding each other’s hair, and becoming best friends forever. That was a relief.

On the other hand, Reagan didn’t seem interested in Cath at all.

Actually, that was a bit of a relief, too—Reagan was scary.

She did everything so forcefully. She swung their door open; she slammed it shut. She was bigger than Cath, a little taller and a lot more buxom (seriously, buxom). She just seemed bigger. On the inside, too.

When Reagan was in the room, Cath tried to stay out of her way; she tried not to make eye contact. Reagan pretended Cath wasn’t there, so Cath pretended that, too. Normally this seemed to work out for both of them.

But right at the moment, pretending not to exist was making it really hard for Cath to write.

She was working on a tricky scene—Simon and Baz arguing about whether vampires could ever truly be considered good and also whether the two of them should go to the graduation ball together. It was all supposed to be very funny and romantic and thoughtful, which were usually Cath’s specialties. (She was pretty good with treachery, too. And talking dragons.)

But she couldn’t get past, “Simon swept his honey brown hair out of his eyes and sighed.” She couldn’t even get Baz to move. She couldn’t stop thinking about Reagan and Levi sitting behind her. Her brain was stuck on INTRUDER ALERT!

Plus she was starving. As soon as Reagan and Levi left the room for dinner, Cath was going to eat an entire jar of peanut butter. If they ever left for dinner—Reagan kept banging on like she was going to type right through the desk, and Levi kept not leaving, and Cath’s stomach was starting to growl.

She grabbed a protein bar and walked out of the room, thinking she’d just take a quick walk down the hall to clear her head.

But the hallway was practically a meet-and-greet. Every door was propped open but theirs. Girls were milling around, talking and laughing. The whole floor smelled like burnt microwave popcorn. Cath slipped into the bathroom and sat in one of the stalls, unwrapping her protein bar and letting nervous tears dribble down her cheeks.

God, she thought. God. Okay. This isn’t that bad. There’s actually nothing wrong, actually. What’s wrong, Cath? Nothing.

She felt tight everywhere. Snapping. And her stomach was on fire.

She took out her phone and wondered what Wren was doing. Probably choreographing dance sequences to Lady Gaga songs. Probably trying on her roommate’s sweaters. Probably not sitting on a toilet, eating an almond-flaxseed bar.

Cath could call Abel … but she knew he was leaving for Missouri Tech tomorrow morning. His family was throwing him a huge party tonight with homemade tamales and his grandmother’s coconut yoyos—which were so special, they didn’t even sell them in the family bakery. Abel worked in the panadería, and his family lived above it. His hair always smelled like cinnamon and yeast.… Jesus, Cath was hungry.

She pushed her protein-bar wrapper into the feminine-hygiene box and rinsed off her face before she went back to her room.

Reagan and Levi were walking out, thank God. And finally.

“See ya,” Reagan said.

“Rock on.” Levi smiled.

Cath felt like collapsing when the door closed behind them.