Imagine: The List
Fic posted by members of Vo's Imaginings YahooGroup


CHAPTER TWO.



Catherine spent her next few days working herself to sleep each night, so much so that she was unaware that she was still wearing her clothes a few times. When the weekend came, she gladly took the chance to sleep in, until her roommate woke her up. "Get off or die," she mumbled, pulling the blankets up higher.

"Your group is going to town today to pick up any necessities that might have been forgotten," Celia said patiently. She had been shaking her roommate for the last twenty minutes, what did it take to get this girl up? "You can go get more snacks and more socks if you want."

Catherine opened an eye. "Meany. Shopping when I need sleep?"

"The class won't get to go again for a few weeks. You'll have to bribe an upperclassmen to get things for you. You've got an hour to be by the door."

"Okay. Thanks." Catherine pulled herself up and grabbed her usual clothes from the closet, heading for the bathroom. She wandered back in to grab a hair scrunchie, then went to go wake up.

A few hours later, Catherine surveyed the town, three bags already in her hands. She saw a small shop on the corner and headed that way, it looked interesting enough. Through the window she could see all the sweets lining the walls, and felt her mouth water. She breezed in and smiled at the older woman manning the counter. "Hi, do you sell to students?"

"Most of them," she said, looking her over. "What group are you in?"

"Um, scarlet. Why? Is that a bad thing?" she asked as the woman stepped away from her. "What? I'm a first year!"

The woman shook her head. "I don't sell to you." She pointed at the door. "Go."

Catherine scowled but she walked out, heading for the small grocery store she had already visited once. The woman behind the counter was gossipy, it had taken her ten minutes to get through the register. She walked in and looked around, heading for a girl she knew was a scarlet too. "Have you had any problems with people?" she asked quietly. "The woman at the candy shop wanted to know my group and then acted like I had the plague."

The other girl nodded. "Had that happen a few times. I'm going to ask Pierson tonight. You?"


"I've got Rayne on my floor, I guess I could ask him." She looked at the meager supply of candy available. "They had some pretty nice things over there," she sighed. She picked up six of the candy bars and walked back to the counter, giving the woman a smile. "I forgot something," she said brightly.

The woman looked her over. "That will ruin your figure," she said as she rang her up. "Then what'll you do to get a man?"

Catherine shuddered. "I'm much too young to be thinking about that yet, but I have low blood sugar." She handed over some money and took the small bag, hiding it inside the one with her socks. She took her change back and grinned. "Thanks." She leaned closer. "Why didn't the lady at the candy shop want to sell to me?"

The older woman put a hand on her throat and shook her head. "She's not all there," she said quietly. "You're a scarlet, right?" Catherine nodded. "There's strange rumors about some of you up there in that school, mostly about you scarlet wearing girls. She's believed them, that's all."

"Ohh." Catherine stood back up. "Thank you. I'd never heard anything. Of course, I've only been there for a week." She shrugged and smiled again. "Thanks. Bye. Shelby, the bus is going to leave in ten minutes," she called out. The other girl came around the end of the aisle. "I can see Ms. Pierson herding the girls back onto it."

"Okay." She waved a hand. "If I have to, I'll walk. I need food." She headed down another aisle, going to find some munchies.

Catherine walked out, heading for the bus. She stopped beside Ms. Pierson, waiting to get a moment of her attention. "Shelby's in the market," she said quietly.

"Good to know. I'll go round her up in a moment then. Did you get everything?"

"Everything except some really good chocolate," she pouted. "The lady didn't like me."

"Ah." Ms. Pierson's eyes had gone cold, but otherwise she seemed normal. "Get on the bus, dear, unless you have contraband."

"Do socks and chocolate count?" she asked saucily.

"The chocolate might," she said, holding out a hand.

"But I have low blood sugar."

She sighed. "All right. Keep it out of sight and away from your housekeeper. She can't resist a good candy bar and they put her to sleep."

Catherine nodded and got onto the bus, heading for the same seat she had sat in on the way down the hill. Marna tried to get in her way, but she kneed her. "Move your enormous butt," she muttered, pushing past her. She flopped down and looked inside her bags, frowning when she saw the blue pendant in it. "Um, Ms. Pierson," she called, standing up. The teacher came back to her seat. "I didn't see this and I don't know whose it is. I didn't take it," she defended as her teacher looked at it coldly.

"No, I know what it is," she said, taking it and putting it in her pocket. "I'll deal with it later. It's something one of the townspeople put in your bag." She looked the girl over. "Who asked you what your color was?"

"The lady at the candy shop, right before she looked at me like I was dirt and refused to let me buy anything. Then I went to the grocery store."

"All right. I'll deal with this." She walked back to the front of the bus and got off, going to find the missing members of the party hopefully. She came back with Shelby and another girl, who was trying hard to tuck her shirt in again. Ms. Pierson got on the bus behind them and counted heads, frowning. "Has anyone seen Thalia?"

Shelby looked up. "Yeah, she was in the candy shop last time I knew. She said she was heading to buy socks next."

Ms. Pierson started to get off the bus but the errant girl was running toward them, her bags swinging wildly. She was let on the bus and Ms. Pierson did another head count just to make sure. "All right," she said, tapping the driver on the shoulder. Someone approached the bus and she stepped down to talk to them. She came back up and looked around. "Who went into the clothier's shop? The one without the socks?" Three girls raised their hands. "I need to see your bags." She walked back and looked through them, confiscating something that looked like the pendant she had taken off Catherine earlier. She walked back to the front and said something to the man standing out there, who nodded and walked into the woods. "Let's go," she told the driver, who closed the doors and started the engine, pulling away from the town. "Girls, and boys," she said with a smile for the two boys on the trip, "a word of advice, never tell anyone you're anything but red. The natives have some very strange ideas based on some lies other students have told and we don't want you to be hurt." She smiled reassuringly and sat down in her seat. Every so often, her hand would stray to her pocket to touch it.

***


Celia followed Catherine in, looking at the bags. "Who'd you run into?" she asked brightly, seeing the sour look.

"The candy lady." Catherine turned to look at her. "She refused to sell to me because of what color I wear."

"Yup, they can be like that. I learned early on not to say I wore blue. The natives hate us up here, but they like our money. So they spread strange rumors about us and then they screw themselves by not selling to us and taking our money." She shrugged. "It sucks but it happens."

"Yeah, but someone snuck a necklace into my bag," Catherine said darkly, sitting down hard on the end of her bed.

"You turned it in, right?" Celia said quickly. Catherine nodded. "As long as you did, you're all good. You might want to check your packages for anything else though. I got a love charm last year." She hurried over to the door and walked out into the hallway, slamming the door behind her.

Catherine dumped her bags out and looked through everything, coming up with a strange figure made of straw. She considered it for a minute then stood up and went to find Mr. Rayne, she could give it to him. She tapped on his door, holding out the straw thing as soon as he opened it. He flinched away from it. "Um, sorry, I found this in my bag and Celia said to give it to you right away."

He carefully took it and tossed it onto a table as fast as he could. "Thank you, Catherine. Do you know where it came from?"

"It was in with my socks."

"I wouldn't worry about it. Oh, and hide your candy, whatever sort you bought. The housekeeper's diabetic and she can't keep herself away from chocolate."

Catherine nodded. "Ms. Pierson told me that before I gave her the pendant I found." He went a little more pale. "Are you all right? Should I go find her?"

"No, dear, I'm fine. Why don't you go play with the horses or something." He gave her a smile and closed the door.

"Weird," she told herself as she headed back to her room. She was stopped by two of the older boys blocking her way. "Um, guys, I've got more important things to do than to play with you." She pushed through them, heading back to her room. There, she found another boy waiting on her. "Yeah, enough, out," she said, pointing at the door.

He stood up and oozed over to her, his whole manner oily. "It'd be best if you liked us," he said, reaching out to stroke across her chin. "It really would."

She backed away from him. "I do happen to like men, not boys like you, but I've got more important things to worry about than the likes of you. Get out or I'm pushing my panic button."

He looked her over and sneered. "A girl like you could get hurt around here, very easily, and then where would you be?"

"Suing you for making threats," she said coldly, looking him over. "Listen, you're obviously not of the women-liking variety so why don't you get out of my room and never come near me again and we'll forget about this. Before I'm forced to report you."

"I agree," Celia said as she walked in with a bag. "Hey, got you a truffle." She handed the bag over and grabbed the older boy, pushing him out of the room. "And stay out!" she yelled as she slammed the door. "Stupid ass. His mother's not that strong around here." She smiled at the absolute look of pleasure on her roommate's face. "Good, huh? I'll let you bribe me next time I go into town and I'll pick you up some more." She threw herself down onto the couch and put her feet up, turning on the TV. "Wow, nothing on again," she said after flipping through the channels. She looked up and Catherine was still there, savoring her treat. "Go be gooshy in your room, okay?"

Catherine jumped and looked down, wiping her mouth off with a finger. "Sorry, but that was *great*."

"Cool, you can bribe me next weekend to get you some more."

Catherine leaned down and gave her a hug. "Thank you." She wandered back into her room, going to email her mother, finally.


***


Catherine looked up at her physics teacher and slowly raised her hand. "Sir, about the question you just asked. Why is someone being able to change their form, which is from the purest fantasy novels I know, being taught in a physics class?"

"Because any transmutation would be taught in here, as long as it wasn't purely chemical in nature," he said brightly, giving her a smile. "What would it take for a person to change their form to, say, a bird?"

"Well, you'd have to change your body mass, or you'd be one *big* bird. You'd have to change your form of course. Also, some of the external characteristics."

"And some of your sensory options," a boy in the back put in. "Beaks have a different sort of nose if I remember right."

"Very good," the teacher said, nodding. "What else would you have to change?"

"It depends," Catherine said, blinking hard. "You'd almost have to be able to change your mind into a simpler form. Humans don't believe that they can fly and that's a very built-in belief. You'd either have to get past that or change your brain so that you don't have to worry about higher thought functions. Of course, I've never heard of a bird doing logic puzzles."

"No, you're quite right. How many of those items fall under physics?" Catherine looked scared and he gave her a sympathetic look. "All of them actually. Most of them would have some chemical components, but most of those changes are physical, which would be part of our studies. As for the belief part, don't you think that you'd be able to reprogram yourself when you figured out you could change into a bird?"

Catherine shrugged. "I'm not that good with people," she admitted. "I'm much better at theory and its applications."

"Well, then let's do that, shall we?" He walked over to his overhead projector and turned it on, flipping a new set of notes on. "What about this theory, Catherine? Would this account for the shape-changing effects?"

She looked it over carefully. "It would account for the after effects, but not for the actualization of the change itself. To change yourself so fully would take a more comprehensive theory. This one would allow that you might be able to do it, but it looks like it has a mass restriction. It seems to say that you can get bigger, but not smaller."

"Oh, it does," he said, giving her another smile. "Very good. Why is that?"

"You'd be too dense to fly?" the boy suggested.

"Also very good. What form would this account for a human changing into then?"

"An elephant," Catherine said suddenly, "or something of that sort of mass. If we're going the fantasy route, I'd say something like a dragon."

He patted her on the head as he walked past her. "This theory was found in Church documents a few hundred years ago. We've had a person on staff studying it for years now, not me unfortunately, but they think it can be done."

Catherine shook her head. "The theory calls for a catalyst. There's no power on earth that can be that strong, not enough to force a human to change."

"Not even a severe trauma?" the teacher suggested lightly. "Or say, if you wish to stick to the fantasy realms, magic?"

"All right, magic I could agree with," she agreed lightly, "but a trauma would have to be strong enough to destroy the person. That's what this theory says, that you destroy the old form to gain the new one, but that you store your old form's template away somewhere while you're in the secondary form. Can we do this?"

"With quantum physics many things are possible. Remember, there are theories that state that we change an object just by observing it."

"Yes, but it doesn't change itself by observing itself," the boy in the back argued.

"Why not?" the teacher said lightly. "We can observe ourselves at that level, why wouldn't it change us somehow?" He went back to the overhead and changed notes. "Let's get back to the hydro lecture, shall we?" He smiled at the two students he had been arguing with. "You two, I would like an idea of what sort of force you think it'd take to allow this sort of change. Anyone else who thinks that they have one can do one also for extra credit." He looked directly at Catherine. "You'll get extra credit also, but yours is mandatory."

She nodded and made a note in her planner.

***


Catherine sat down next to her roommate in the cafeteria, giving her a 'help me' look. "I don't know where to look to do an assignment," she said casually. "I don't think any book in the library would be able to help me."

"You'd be surprised what's in that library on some of those dusty back shelves," Celia said. She looked at the open planner, frowning at the note on the page. "Hmm, physics?" Catherine nodded. "Well, for one, I'd look at the big blue book on the middle shelf on the east wall. It's got a lot of things in there that no one wants to really read about, including that theory. Mostly, he wants your opinion though. This is all about how good you deal with the strange and unusual." She patted her on the shoulder. "Shelby, Liana, Cody, this is my roommate Catherine. Catherine, these are a few of my group. Cody is another blue like I am, but Shelby is a scarlet like you and Liana is a red girl."

Catherine smiled at them. "I've met Shelby, she's my class's helper when we get lost."

"Yeah, she saved me from gorging in the grocery store the other day," Shelby said before she ate a bite of salad.

Liana smiled at the first year. "How are you getting along so far?"

"I'm finding it challenging, which is the most important thing to me," Catherine said slowly, thinking about her answer. "I'm also finding some of the older girls to be more of a hindrance to my learning anything useful. I've found a few that want me to fail because I'm not from a so-called good family."

Liana nodded. "That's why we cut out all last names in the school, so that no one can pull the 'I'm from such-and-such a family' routine. But I'm guessing someone told you that?"

"It was in the information packet. My mother really liked that idea. She went to Vassar with a few girls that did that all the time." She looked around, frowning when she saw Marna and a girl that looked a lot like her staring at her. "There's one of them now."

Liana and Shelby both looked over. "Oh, Marna and Estinia. We know *all* about them," Shelby said, nodding. "Watch out for the older one. She's a good player of practical jokes."

"We already got that," Celia said lightly and fake-sweetly. "Guess who got a fake letter saying she was in the remedial classes?"

Shelby's fork dropped. "They didn't?"

"I gave it to Ms. Pierson but she didn't say who sent it," Catherine said quietly. "I got my letter an hour early because I went down to talk to her about that one." She looked down at her supper. "Why do they hate me so much? I could understand the whole 'good family' thing, but I'm not that far out of their class."

"No, you're not," Shelby said, "but you're also something that they're not. Their mother had to petition to get them in, she's a former student here herself. You, on the other hand, the school went looking for. You're counted as someone special and all you had to do was accept the offer. They had to prove that they belonged here. You only had to show up to prove yourself worthy."

Liana sighed. "It's just like what Jamie and Perry went through a few years ago. Those two girls were never left alone by some of the reds because they were sought out to come here."

"I won a scholarship," Catherine said in confusion.

"Yes, but you were offered the chance to apply to take the test," Celia told her, reaching over to squeeze her shoulder. "Those girls didn't have to take a test, they had to prove that they were worthy of the goals that the Order that runs the school upholds. All progeny have to. Girls like you are weeded out even before you're asked to take the test. Someone at home must have heard about you and suggested you to the board just for you to be offered the test to come here. It's all some big political thing in the end, but it's necessary for some girls to be more qualified than others."

"And I'm one?" Catherine asked. "Why? I'm good with theories, but I'm not good for much else."

"Oh, I think you'd be surprised," Celia said, looking over at Shelby. "You'll find out what within the next year, we all did. Each of us came here for a different reason and we all found it in our first year." She stole a piece of the roll off her roommate's tray. "Eat, before you pass out on the couch again."

Catherine blushed lightly. "I didn't pass out, I fell asleep," she mumbled, tucking into her food. She ate quickly, she had research to do. No one minded when she got up a few minutes later and left them.

Celia looked down at Shelby. "Is she one of the Chosen?"

"Yes, she is," Shelby sighed, picking up her fork to pick at her salad some more. "That's why she was chosen to come here. She'll make someone a great partner by the end of the year."

Celia nodded. "That's what I expected. I guess I'll be getting a new roommate next year then."

"Me too," Linia reminded her. "Mine's a scarlet too, but I'm thinking she's too stiff to be chosen."

"Most scarlet's aren't chosen," Shelby reminded them. "It takes a special attitude and aptitude to handle being paired with a...." She stopped as another girl, another senior blue girl, walked over to their table. "Good news, Alexi, Catherine got given the shape shifter theory question."

Alexi sat down, careful not to sit on her waist-length red braid. "Good, I thought she'd make a good partner to a changer." She picked up her fork and ate. "Did anyone tell her to go look in the blue book?" Everyone pointed at Celia. "Even better. Maybe she'll start the usual round of panic tonight and save us some sleep closer to finals when the choosing begins." She took a bite of her salad, daintily eating it.

***


Catherine lifted the large book down, grunting as it hit the table with her fingers underneath it. She got herself free and settled down to look through it, starting by trying to get the lock on the front of the book open. She glared at it then took out a bobby pin she kept in her pocket, using it to pick the lock, a useful skill her mother had taught her when she had lost the keys to her diary. She flipped the old, dry pages, looking for an index page. When she didn't find one, she decided to try skimming the pages, but she had to keep stopping. Every few pages was a mention of dragons. Or more accurately humans who could change into dragons. She started to scoff at it, but then she remembered the theory from physics class and went looking for it. She found it near the beginning of the book. The whole book was a big 'how to' manual!

She pushed her chair back and stood up, getting a closer look at the big book, trying to read the small print.

"You could check it out," the librarian said from her desk. "Or there's a newer edition."

Catherine looked up. "Does it have all the same things?" She got a head shake. "I think I'll take this one then. I've got to write an answer out of it tonight." She closed it and brought it over to the desk, letting the librarian check it out for her. She gathered up her things and found that the book wouldn't fit in her backpack, so she slung the bag over her shoulder and picked up the book to carry them both up to her room. When she got there, no one was there so she got the whole suite to herself. She sat down on the couch, the most comfortable reading place, and started to read through the Olde English text.

Celia walked in and stopped, staring at the book. "I meant the other one," she said quietly, coming over to sit beside her roommate. She took the book and put it aside, carefully marking the other girl's spot. "Catherine, we should talk."

Catherine looked her roommate over, then nodded once. "They're real then? The shape changers?" Celia nodded and Catherine sighed. "Then why do I need to know about them? If they've stayed hidden for this long, why do I have to be part of the cover-up?"

"Because someone thinks that you'll make a great partner to one of them." She caught her roommate as she passed out. "Yeah, that went well," she said sarcastically. "MR. RAYNE!" she yelled, bringing the hall officer to her quickly. She simply pointed at the book and let the girl down easily, going into her room to let them talk.
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