So Mote it Be (2 page)

The locker room was empty, and Kate was relieved to see that there was indeed another shirt in her locker, right there beside the one she wore for practice. It was a white, long-sleeved oxford she'd stolen from her older brother, Kyle, the last time he was home from college, but it would have to do. Removing her sticky T-shirt, she pulled on the fresh shirt and buttoned it up, leaving it untucked. Shoving the dirty T-shirt into her gym bag, she slammed the locker door more forcefully than she meant to and sat down on the long wooden bench that ran between the two rows of lockers. There was a full-length mirror attached to the wall at the end of the row, and she stared angrily at her reflection in it.

Why did I get stuck with such boring looks?
she thought to herself. Her shoulder-length mousy hair was pulled back into the ponytail that she wore to keep it out of her face while she was playing ball. She wished it was curly, like Sherrie's, or dramatically red, like Tara's. She imagined herself with straight blond hair and startling blue eyes, like Jessica had, or with Tara's freckled Irish complexion.
Anything but plain old brownish hair and grayish eyes
, she thought.

She knew she was just indulging in a little self-pity, but she was still smarting from their comments about her and Scott. The truth was, she was just as pretty as her friends were. Her body, lean from all the sports she played, certainly wasn't as filled out as the bodies of some other girls. But she looked good, even in old jeans and an oversized men's shirt.

So why did her friends just assume that a boy like Scott Coogan would never consider going out with her? What was it about her that made the idea of them together so hard to believe? They appeared to be right, though, judging from the fact that she didn't seem to register on Scott's radar, even when he bumped into her. Thinking about how he'd walked away with only a mumbled apology made her even more depressed and angry.

It wasn't like she wasn't popular. She had lots of friends, both on the team and off. She and her three best friends had even been elected to the social events committee of student government, and now they were planning the big Valentine's Day dance together. She was always going to parties, and tons of guys noticed her. So why was she so upset that one guy out of the entire school wasn't paying attention to her? Why did she have to have a thing for him anyway? She didn't even really know him. It was just something about him. It was such a cliché, the sophomore girl falling for the senior football player. She felt stupid even thinking about it.

The ringing of the bell for sixth period interrupted her thoughts. Gathering up her books, she left the gym and walked to her next class. It was history with Mr. Draper, and she wasn't looking forward to it. Today was the day they had to tell him what the topics for their term papers were, and she still had no idea what she was going to do hers on. History was far from her favorite subject, and the period they were studying—Europe in the sixteenth century—was nothing to get excited about.

She made it to class just as the second bell was ringing. Slipping into her seat, she hoped maybe Mr. Draper would forget about the paper topics and spend the forty-five minutes showing them slides of ancient castles or something so that she could think about other things.

But he hadn't forgotten. As soon as everyone had settled down, Mr. Draper closed the door and faced them. “Okay,” he said. “Term paper topics.”

There was a collective groan as everyone slid down in their seats, hoping they wouldn't be called on.

“Please,” said Mr. Draper, holding his hand over his chest as if he were having a heart attack. “Don't show so much enthusiasm. I don't think I can take it.”

Kate smiled in spite of herself. Even though she didn't find his class very interesting, she liked Mr. Draper. He was young—just out of college—and he didn't treat his students like they were stupid. He couldn't help it if he was stuck teaching the most boring subject in the tenth grade.

“Does
anyone
have a topic picked out?” asked Mr. Draper hopefully.

A couple of hands went up tentatively. Mr. Draper called on those students one at a time and wrote down the topic each one had selected. When he was done, he picked up a box that was sitting on his desk.

“I suspected there might be some of you who wouldn't be able to choose from among all the thrilling possibilities available to you,” he said, getting a laugh from the class. “So I took the liberty of drawing up some ideas.”

He handed the box to the girl at the head of the first row of desks. “Inside this box are pieces of paper with various topics written on them,” he explained. “Those of you who haven't chosen a topic may pick one at random out of the box.”

“What if we don't like the topic?” asked Jerry Hoban doubtfully.

“If you could think of one you liked better, Jerry, you wouldn't be picking one out of a box,” said Mr. Draper.

The first girl reached into the box and pulled out a piece of paper. “The life of Shakespeare,” she read, sounding relieved as she passed the box to the next person.

As the box went down the line, Kate listened to the topics chosen by the other students. Suddenly they all seemed fascinating, and she wondered why she hadn't thought to write about the beheading of Anne Boleyn, Magellan's explorations, or the excommunication of Queen Elizabeth I. When the box was passed to her, she hesitated for a moment and then reached inside. Grabbing a piece of paper, she drew it out and opened it.

“The witchcraft persecutions,” she read, frowning.

As the box continued around the room and others chose their topics, Kate kept looking at the slip of paper in her hand. She didn't really know anything about witches, although the class had briefly discussed the fact that a lot of people had been tried and executed for participating in witchcraft during the Inquisition. Writing a report on the subject was going to mean a lot of work, and what with basketball and planning the Valentine's Day dance and everything else she had to do, she didn't have a lot of time to be hanging out in the library.

The box reached the end of the last row, and finally everyone had a topic. A couple of people traded, but no one offered to take Kate's topic, so she was stuck with it. Mr. Draper spent the rest of the period going over material for their upcoming midterm, so Kate was able to zone out and daydream about what she was going to wear to the Valentine's Day dance. Not that it mattered if she didn't have a date. That thought made her even more miserable, so she just sat and drew meaningless pictures in her notebook until the bell rang.

Kate's next period was phys ed. Because she was on the basketball team, she got to spend her time in the gym practicing with other members of the team who had p.e. then too. When she arrived, Tara and Jessica were practicing free throws along with a few other girls. Kate changed into shorts and her practice T-shirt and joined them.

“You in a better mood?” Jessica asked as she tossed Kate a ball.

“Give me a few minutes and I will be,” Kate said as she attempted a shot and watched the ball bounce off the rim. “Or maybe I won't.”

“Still mooning over jock boy?” her friend teased.

“No, it's Mr. Draper,” Kate answered, retrieving the ball.

“I don't think Mr. Draper would go with you to the dance,” Tara commented. “But it's a nice thought.”

“Cute,” said Kate, making another throw and feeling slightly better when the ball swished through the net. “I got a lame topic for his term paper.”

“It can't be any worse than trying to come up with an idea Sherrie likes for the dance,” said Jessica. “She's been on a rampage since lunch.”

“That's Sherrie,” said Kate. “She
lives
for planning things like this. Once she picks something, she'll be fine. You know she always asks us for ideas and then does exactly what she wants to anyway.”

“I know,” said Tara. “But now she's talking about doing some kind of doomed lovers theme. You know, Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, those whiners from
Titanic
. We have to stop her.”

“We'll talk her out of it,” said Kate, taking the ball and passing it to Jessica.

“We'll get a chance after school,” Jessica said. “She wants us to meet at her house when she's done with cheerleading.”

“Maybe,” Kate said as the ball returned to her. “I've got to go to the library and do some research for Draper's paper. It's going to take a while.”

“Are you hoping to run into Scott?” Jessica asked slyly.

“Like he'd be in the library,” Kate replied sarcastically. “Besides, Jess, as you all pointed out so thoroughly at lunch, I'm most definitely not his type.” She'd pretty much forgiven her friends for their comments, but she was still stung by the truth of them, and she really wanted to change the subject. “Let's just play,” she said.

The girls formed two teams, and moments later Kate was racing down the court, her mind emptied of everything except the way the ball was moving and where the other players were. As the game went on, Kate forgot about Scott and about her history paper. The score was close, but just as the bell signaling the end of the period rang, Kate sank the shot that carried her team over the edge. She felt great as they went into the locker room to shower and change. As she walked out of the gym with Jessica and Tara, she felt as if the day wasn't nearly as bad as she'd thought it was forty-five minutes before. Kate's last period class was study hall, but the library was an option when needed, so that's where she headed.

“We'll be at Sherrie's if you finish early,” Jessica told her as they parted at the library doors. “See you later.”

Kate went into the library and put her backpack on a table in a corner. Going over to one of the computers, she sat down and started to search for anything she could find on her assigned history topic. Typing “witchcraft” into the search engine, she waited to see what the library's collection would come up with. To her surprise, there were quite a number of books on the list. She jotted down their locations and went to find them.

Seated on the floor between the shelves, Kate scanned the row of books in front of her, reading some of the titles:
Witchcraft Through the Ages, The Devil's Hiding Place, The Witch Trials of Europe
. There were more books than she had expected to find, and she didn't know where to start. Eventually she pulled a book out at random and flipped through it. It was filled with old engravings of people being burned at the stake, hung from gallows, and tied to strange torture devices. The images made her uncomfortable, and she quickly shut the book and picked up another one.

For the next half hour Kate browsed the books, trying to decide if witchcraft was something she could write about. Some of the stuff she found seemed sort of interesting, but nothing really grabbed her. Plus her left leg was asleep from sitting on the floor. She stood up and tried to walk it out. As she stumbled out from the shelves, the library doors opened and two people came in, talking loudly. When she saw Scott Coogan coming toward her with Evan Markson, her heart jumped in her chest. Suddenly, everything bad about the day came back to her, and Scott was the last person she wanted to see. All she wanted to do was get out of the library and go home. Gathering up the books around her, and ignoring the monstrous pins-and-needles traveling up and down her left leg, she carried them as quickly as she could to the front desk to check them out.

“Looks like you're doing a paper,” the person behind the desk said as she took the circulation cards out of the books and stamped them with a due date.

“Yeah, it's for my history class,” Kate answered, glancing up. When she saw who it was, she froze. Of all the people she didn't want to see, she'd thought Scott was number one. Now she realized he was number two—next to his alleged dream girl, Terri Fletcher. As Kate stared at Terri, all she could think was that she would never be as pretty as her, that Scott would never ask her out, and that she was a social failure. Then, to make things worse, she heard Scott's voice coming toward her.

“Could you hurry?” she said, anxiously watching Terri stamp each book methodically. “I really need to get home.”

“I'm almost done,” Terri said. “Just one more to go.” She stamped the last card, put the book on top of the others, and pushed the stack toward Kate. “There you go.”

“Thanks,” Kate said hurriedly. She picked up the pile of books and moved away from the desk as quickly as she could, trying to keep her back to Scott. She didn't want to bump into him again—and, even more, she didn't want to see him smiling at Terri.

Dumping the books into her backpack and grabbing her coat, Kate took off, deliberately not glancing at the circulation desk, where Scott was leaning over the counter, talking to Terri. Instead, she focused on the doors as if they were the net in a basketball game. The goal was to get to them and out into the hallway without looking anywhere but straight ahead.

When she felt the door handle beneath her fingers, she pushed hard and practically burst into the hallway. Then she ran down the hall to the front doors and out into the cold January afternoon. As she began her walk through town and toward home, she couldn't help but think about how she wished she was the one Scott had come into the library to talk to instead of Terri. As much as she hated to admit it, her friends were right. She would give almost anything to have him be interested in her. If only she could find some way to make him notice her.

CHAPTER 2