Cassie Comes Through (7 page)

“Well, there you are, Bitty!”
Cassie cooed as her pet glowfur landed on her shoulder and nuzzled her pale cheek. Bitty's soft pink fur tickled Cassie's face and made the tiny girl giggle. Cassie smiled at the little creature in the mirror as she finished twisting her long, glimmering pinkish-white hair into a second pigtail bun, fastened it in place with a starpin, and reached up to give the creature a quick tickle. Bitty chirped delightedly and the stars on her golden antennae twinkled. The glowfur rewarded Cassie with the “Song of Contentment.” Cassie, who had heard it many times before, hummed along.

“That's really pretty,” someone said. Cassie turned around to find her roommate smiling at her. Sage, freshly gleaming from her sparkle shower, was wrapped in a soft lavender towel that matched her hair and eyes.

Cassie nodded in agreement. “Can you believe that glowfurs have twenty-six distinct songs?” she asked. “And that each glowfur has her own version of each tune? This is one of my favorites. After the ‘Song of Joy' and ‘Song of Enchantment,' of course.”

“Yes, I can believe it,” said Sage. “Only because you've told me a moonium times!”

Although Cassie's first impulse was to scowl at Sage, she just rolled her eyes and laughed instead. That was the key to having a pleasant relationship with her roommate. Cassie was beginning to realize that Sage didn't mean to offend; she just liked to say whatever was on her mind.

Sage opened her closet door with her wish energy manipulation skills and quickly got dressed behind it. When she emerged, she was wearing a loosely woven shimmery sweater over a long sleeveless dress that flickered and changed color as she moved—exhibiting more shades of purple than Cassie knew existed. Cassie preferred to wear more delicate outfits, mostly in white and pale shades of silver and pink, but she appreciated the bold color of Sage's flowing, comfortable clothes. Sage shook her head in mock seriousness. “Actually, what I really can't believe is you still haven't gotten caught,” she said with a laugh.

“That's because Bitty and I are very careful,” said Cassie, smoothing her silvery tunic with the ruffled hem. Bitty took off from Cassie's shoulder and circled the room, still singing her song. Cassie smiled at Sage. “And because I have a very discreet roommate.”

Sage nodded from the floor, where she crouched, buckling her sparkly sandals. “I
am
discreet, aren't I?”

“You are,” said Cassie. She poured Bitty's daily allotment of Green Globules into a crystal bowl and Bitty zoomed over, her bright blue gossamer wings fluttering madly as they struggled to hold up the weight of her plump little body. She knocked over a pile of holo-books in her rush to enjoy her breakfast. Cassie had read the Starling Academy Student Manual from cover to cover and knew quite well that pets were expressly forbidden to live in the student dormitories. She told herself that she had taken Bitty to school with her because the creature would have been lonely back at her uncle Andreas's mansion. He was away on book tours more often than he was at home. But the truth was that Cassie simply couldn't part with her pet, who had once belonged to Cassie's late mother. When Bitty sang her evening song, Cassie was reminded that her mother had fallen asleep to the very same tune many staryears ago. It wasn't much, in the grand scheme of things, but it brought her great comfort. So Cassie had packed up Bitty and her various glowfur paraphernalia and successfully smuggled her past the Bot-Bot guards on the first day of school.

But keeping Bitty a secret from her roommate had not been easy. There had been that unpleasant moment when, to avoid suspicion, she had to eat a Green Globule after Sage's nosy little brothers had found a bag of them under her bed. Her face wrinkled up at the distasteful memory. And there had been the time when Sage woke to Bitty's singing and tried to convince Cassie that she and her “stellar voice” needed to join the starchoir. (Cassie's voice was actually quite mediocre, so she had feigned a sore throat, missing tryouts.) But it turned out that Sage had already guessed Cassie's secret and accepted her small and furry extra roommate. Cassie had had another stressful period during the time when she and Sage hadn't been getting along and she had grown nervous that her roommate might turn her in. But Sage had proved to be a loyal roommate, even when the two were bickering.

It was those flowers!
thought Cassie, staring at the spot where the vase had sat, its coral blooms fragrant, enticing, and perpetually fresh and dewy. But Cassie had had a feeling that something was not quite right with them, and her hunches were often correct. There was suddenly a lot of tension in the room, and Cassie had realized that she could just not get along with her roommate. In a moment of impulse, she had grabbed the flowers and tossed them into the vanishing garbage can, and things had returned to normal between them. And then she had convinced Vega that they should bring
her
flowers to the botany lab. They had discovered that the flowers came from the Isle of Misera, a place off-limits to Starlings. But who had sent them? And why? That was still a mystery. Cassie made it her mission to destroy the rest of the flowers, but it wasn't easy. She had tried to explain to the rest of the Star Darlings that the flowers were having a bad effect on them, but everyone had just laughed. She had a theory that the longer someone kept the flowers, the more attached to them that person became, so she'd had to get creative. On her fingers, she ticked off the roommate pairs who no longer had flowers in their rooms. Vega and Piper's flowers were still sealed in the botany lab, awaiting more testing. She had tossed Gemma and Libby's when they were in the middle of a heated argument over who had forgotten to turn off the sparkle shower. She had only been able to convince Tessa to get rid of the flowers once she told her that their strong odor interfered with the delicious smells of her baking. And Leona and Ophelia's had simply disappeared. (She still hadn't figured that one out, but at least they were gone.) That left one roommate pair who still had the flowers in their room—Clover and Astra. Cassie needed to get right on that as soon as starpossible.

Sage finished buckling her sandals and walked to the door, her lavender braids gleaming.

“Ready to go to the Celestial Café?” she asked Cassie.

“Ready!” said Cassie. Bitty zoomed in for a kiss on her furry head and began her good-bye song.

Cassie hurried to the door. “Oh, let me,” she begged, so Sage stepped aside. Cassie concentrated on opening the door with her wish energy manipulation skills and the door began to tremble, almost imperceptibly, as if it was trying to decide whether it wanted to be opened or stay closed. A starmin or two later, after Cassie's pale face flushed silver from the effort, the door slid open fluidly.

Cassie grinned and turned to Sage. “You're like my good-luck charm, Sage,” she said. “I wish I was as good in Wish Energy Manipulation class as I am in our room.” She shrugged. “I guess I get stage fright or something.”

Sage nodded and for a starsec Cassie thought she caught a small flicker of a smile on her roommate's face. But it disappeared as they stepped into the hallway and onto the Cosmic Transporter.

Cassie's stomach grumbled. “I wonder what to order for break—” she started.

“Stop right there!” a voice barked.

Cassie sighed. They were moving along on the Cosmic Transporter and couldn't stop even if they wanted to, for stars' sake. But Sage laughed merrily. “Hurry up, MO-Jay!” she cried.

The Bot-Bot guide zoomed after them eagerly. His official name was MO-J4, but Sage thought that was a little too formal and had settled on the nickname, which he had embraced wholeheartedly. MO-Jay had taken an instant starshine to Sage during her orientation tour and had been delighted by anything Sage did or said ever since. Most Bot-Bots acted by the holo-book with a preset vocabulary and a limited range of programmed reactions. But MO-Jay was special. He had a personality that was silly and fun, and he often greeted Sage with special jokes and an occasional gift left on her doorstep.

Cassie couldn't help feeling a little envious as MO-Jay excitedly told Sage about the morning's sunrise and showed her a holo-vid he had taken of it just for her. Sometimes Cassie wished that she and Bitty could talk, like Sage and MO-Jay did. Though she wasn't quite sure what Bitty would say. Most likely “More Green Globules, please.” Or maybe “Rub my glowbelly for another starhour if you don't mind.” The only present Bitty had ever given her (besides the gift of music) was a half-eaten Green Globule, left in the toe of a silver slipper. And by the time Cassie had found it, it was as hard as a meteorite. Cassie had tossed it into the vanishing garbage can. She knew exactly what Green Globules tasted like, even at the peak of freshness: horrible.

Still, she wouldn't trade Bitty for all the wish energy in Starland. She half listened to Sage and Mojo chat away. She smiled, remembering that Sage had initially confided to her that she found MO-J4's slavish devotion a bit annoying. But then the silvery Bot-Bot had started to grow on her. Sage told Cassie she was used to small annoying creatures, referring to her younger twin brothers, who could be quite a handful. As an only child, and an orphaned one at that, Cassie had nodded in apparent sympathy. But Cassie would actually have liked nothing more than an annoying sibling (or two or even three) to liven things up around her uncle's quiet home. That was why she liked Starling Academy so much, she realized. It was lively and there was always something going on to keep her entertained. Like that time when Astra had bet everyone that she could do a triple flip off the starbounce while eating a half-moon pie. It looked like she was going to win the wager when Leona had jumped up and—

Just then she realized that Sage was trying to get her attention. “Cassie!” she was saying, snapping her fingers in Cassie's face. Cassie blinked. “We haven't even discussed the new Scarlet situation yet!” she said. “I mean, that was so unexpected. So what do you think about her reinsta—”

Cassie held up her hand. She turned to MO-J4. “I'm going to remind you that everything you hear is strictly confidential,” she told the Bot-Bot. Even though he was extremely devoted to Sage, the Star Darlings couldn't risk anyone's—or anybot's—leaking information about their secret mission.

MO-J4's eyes flashed as if he was annoyed, or perhaps disappointed, by the request, but he politely nodded. “Certainly, Cassie,” he said smoothly.

Sage nodded solemnly. “So what do you think about Scarlet's reinstatement?” she asked. “It's just so strange.”

Cassie frowned and bit her lip. She adored her roommate and completely trusted her, but still…She and Scarlet had promised Vega that until they had some more evidence they would keep to themselves their fears about what they thought was going on. No need to throw everyone else into a tizzy if there was a reasonable explanation for everything, Vega had argued. Cassie and Scarlet had reluctantly agreed.