The New Girl by Meg Cabot Read Free Book Online Page A

there.”
    “I’d offer to let her stay with me,” Uncle Jay said, “but there’s a reptile living in my spare bathroom.”
    “My mom’s not picky,” Dad said to Mom. “It’s about visiting with family, not the luxury of the accommodations. Besides, she likes microwaved macaroni and cheese. Or she’ll learn to like it, anyway.”
    “Why didn’t you tell me you’d invited your mother to visit?” Mom asked Dad.
    “I forgot,” Dad said with a shrug. “Come on, it won’t be that bad. It’ll just be for a week.”
    “She can sleep in my bed,” I said. “I can sleep in my sleeping bag on the floor. It will be easier to get up to nurse Mewsette there.”
    After dinner, Mom said she had a headache and had to go to bed early. Dad went upstairs to check on her. Uncle Jay helped me rinse the dishes and put them in the dishwasher while Mark and Kevin watched the half hour of family-friendly television we are allowed to view each night.
    “So,” Uncle Jay said. “A premature kitten. That’s a lot of responsibility.”
    “Yes,” I said. “And that’s only if Lady Serena Archibald doesn’t die. I sure hope she doesn’t.”
    “If one life fails, another will take its place,” Uncle Jay said, handing me a bunch of dripping silverware to put in the dishwasher. “At least with death comes a cessation of suffering.”
    “Whatever,” I said. I was used to Uncle Jay’s ramblings. “But I still really want a kitten.”
    “You’ll still get a kitten,” Uncle Jay said. “If it’s meant to be. Lady Serena just may not be your kitten’s mother.”
    But I really wanted Lady Serena to be my kitten’s mom. I loved Lady Serena Archibald’s long silky fur and the way she’d purr as she butted her head against your hand if you held it out to her. Surely her kittens would have the same sort of fur and do the same thing with their heads. I really, really hoped Lady Serena would be okay.
    But Mrs. Hauser didn’t call. And I couldn’t ask Mom to call her, because Mom had gone to bed early.
    It was hard to sleep that night because I kept thinkingabout Lady Serena and praying that she would be okay. In the morning when I woke up, it was almost as if I hadn’t gotten any sleep whatsoever. I felt super draggy, and I didn’t feel like going to school at all. What did school matter when a cat was possibly dying?
    Maybe it was because I was so tired that I didn’t remember until Erica reminded me on the way to school that it was the day of the big fourth-grade spelling bee, when Mrs. Hunter’s fourth-grade class was competing against Mrs. Danielson’s fourth-grade class for spelling champion of our grade. I am not the world’s greatest speller under the best of circumstances…
    …but I guess I had studied a little, looking up the word “ingrate,” and all.
    Still, I didn’t have much faith I was going to perform very well, given how little sleep I’d had and how worried I was over Lady Serena.
    Caroline, Sophie, and Erica tried to comfort me, but there really wasn’t very much they could say or do, even though it was nice of them to try—especially Caroline, because she didn’t feel too well on account of having eatenway too many of Mrs. Harrington’s chocolate-chocolate chip cookies that Erica had brought over for the slumber party (Sophie suggested maybe Caroline’s stomachache was because of a parasite in the dirty dumpling dough, but I pointed out that none of the rest of us were sick, and Caroline had eaten about thirty of those cookies. Even Sophie had to agree this was true).
    I just couldn’t get the picture of beautiful Lady Serena, with her long silver-blue fur, lying on a veterinary hospital gurney with an oxygen mask over her little cat nose, panting for breath, out of my head. If only I knew whether or not she was going to be okay!
    It was hard enough to pay attention during my first class, math, what with wondering whether I was going to get a baby kitten after all. But then there was the