Mittens Has Class (Sequel to The Collaring of Chloe)

Chapter 23: Even Cats Can Get Caught Off Guard

Though Valli spent the rest of the play party with them, doing her best to not hinder their enjoyment, she'd remained just a spectator the rest of the night, clearly not having a lot of fun. She was obviously feeling humiliated by her redressing by Victoria and disappointed that the evening had not gone the way she'd imagined. Mittens wished she could have gotten her friend to just relax and try to make some connections, but Valli had simply retreated into her shell.

Even August had noticed it and eventually offered to take Valli home. They both left together without even telling Sally. August's petty little punishment for Sally disappearing on her. Not that Sally even registered it as such, seeming far more relieved not to have to deal with the situation and just went home with someone else from the play party.

Despite feeling relieved herself that Valli hadn't had much success with her plan to lose her virginity, Mittens still felt sympathy for her nerdy friend. She decided that it was time to put some real focus into trying to actually arrange something that would be a good experience with someone she could trust to show Valli proper respect. In fact, she'd realized she might even know just the person to ask for help with it.

It wouldn't be the easiest subject to broach, but her plan was to ask Zane. However, it was something best discussed face to face. They would be having a new session of their game in another week and she intended to have a talk with him about it before they set down to play. Until then, her focus was on showing her friend plenty of attention and making sure Valli knew she wasn't being intentionally excluded.

However, that hadn't proven to be so easy. As of Wednesday, she'd seen Valli only one time around campus and Valli hadn't had more than a few minutes to talk. Her official excuse was that she was getting bound up with her classes and various end-of-semester projects from them. In her defense, she had previously mentioned that she might get busy during the second half of the semester for that very reason. For all her desires sexually, her first love would always be the pursuit of getting top grades.

Regardless, it was clear from the timing of it all that she was just needing a little space, due to embarrassment. When Valli was ready, Mittens would be there waiting for her. Until then, she honestly needed to start putting some focus on her own classes. She was still well ahead of things with her Spanish classes, but her other three were starting to ramp up a bit. Her bean plant in Botony had sprouted and they were doing a lot more with it, along with getting into some much deeper science that was taking a bit of study. Literature was moving away from shorter poems to much larger pieces that required a lot more analysis.

And while her English Composition course hadn't really changed pace or difficulty, Alvin and Clay had begun escalating their game. On Monday, one of them had obviously slipped in early to write a fake title for that week's essay: 'Is thinking you're a cat proof that you're batshit crazy?' While it could have been much worse, it showed they were getting their confidence back.

Professor Carson seemed to immediately realize who must have put it, but couldn't do anything about it, save to erase it quietly, not wanting to give them any attention. Mittens had almost asked him to leave it up and let them do their essays on it, if only as a show that she wasn't intimidated. In the end, she decided it probably better to simply ignore it, but if the lack of real reaction from her or the teacher didn't seem to bother them at all, it certainly didn't show.

They remained in the classroom after receiving the real topic, taking every opportunity to flick little balls of paper at her and Krystal when the professor wasn't looking that way. Krystal unraveled one of the little balls to find they contained 'charming' little messages. Such as 'ur a freak' and equally immature taunts. Likely none would be extreme enough to get them in real trouble, but again, it showed that they were getting brave.