FANGIRL

FANGIRL
ALSO BY
RAINBOW ROWELL
ELEANOR & PARK
ATTACHMENTS
FANGIRL
RAINBOW ROWELL
ST. MARTIN’S GRIFFIN  NEW YORK
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations,
publications, and events portrayed or mentioned in this novel are either products
of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
fangirl. Copyright © 2013 by Rainbow Rowell. All rights reserved.
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Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Rowell, Rainbow.
 Fangirl / Rainbow Rowell. — 1st ed.
p. cm
 ISBN 978-1-250-03095-5 (hardcover)
 ISBN 978-1-250-03096-2 (e-book)
1. Groupies—Fiction.  2. Authorship—Fiction.  I. Title.
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First Edition: September 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Jennifer, who always had an extra lightsaber

FALL SEMESTER, 2011

The Simon Snow Series
From Encyclowikia, the people’s encyclopedia
This article is about the children’s book series. For other uses, see
Simon Snow (disambiguation).
Simon Snowis a series of seven fantasy books written by En  glish
philologist Gemma T. Leslie. The books tell the story of Simon Snow, an
11- year- old orphan from Lancashire who is recruited to attend the Watford
School of Magicks to become a magician. As he grows older, Simon joins a
group of magicians— the Mages— who are fi ghting the Insidious Humdrum,
an evil being trying to rid the world of magic.
Since the publication of Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heirin 2001, the
books have been translated into 53 languages and, as of August 2011, have
sold more than 380 million copies.
Leslie has been criticized for the violence in the series and for creating a
hero who is sometimes selfi sh and bad tempered. An exorcism scene in the
fourth book, Simon Snow and the Selkies Four,triggered boycotts among
American Christian groups in 2008. But the books are widely considered
modern classics, and in 2010, Timemagazine called Simon “the greatest
children’s literary character since Huckleberry Finn.”
An eighth book, the last in the series, is set to be released May 1, 2012.
Publishing history
Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir,2001
Simon Snow and the Second Serpent,2003
Simon Snow and the Third Gate,2004
Simon Snow and the Selkies Four,2007
Simon Snow and the Five Blades,2008
Simon Snow and the Six White Hares,2009
Simon Snow and the Seventh Oak,2010
Simon Snow and the Eighth Dance,scheduled to be released May 1, 2012
ONE
There was a boy in her room.
Cath looked up at the number painted on the door, then down at
the room assignment in her hand.
Pound Hall, 913.
This was definitely room 913, but maybe it wasn’t Pound Hall—
all these dormitories looked alike, like public housing towers for the
el der ly. Maybe Cath should try to catch her dad before he brought
up the rest of her boxes.
“You must be Cather,” the boy said, grinning and holding out his
hand.
“Cath,” she said, feeling a panicky jump in her stomach. She ignored his hand. (She was holding a box anyway, what did he expect
from her?)
This was a mistake— this had to be a mistake. She knew that
Pound was a co- ed dorm. . . . Is there such a thing as co- edrooms?
The boy took the box out of her hands and set it on an empty bed.
The bed on the other side of the room was already covered with
clothes and boxes.
FANGIRL 5
“Do you have more stuffdownstairs?” he asked. “We just finished. I think we’re going to get a burger now; do you want to get a
burger? Have you been to Pear’s yet? Burgers the size of your fist.”
He picked up her arm. She swallowed. “Make a fist,” he said.
Cath did.
“Biggerthan your fist,” the boy said, dropping her hand and
picking up the backpack she’d left outside the door. “Do you have
more boxes? You’ve got to have more boxes. Are you hungry?”
He was tall and thin and tan, and he looked like he’d just
taken offa stocking cap, dark blond hair flopping in every direction. Cath looked down at her room assignment again. Was this
Reagan?
“Reagan!” the boy said happily. “Look, your roommate’s here.”
A girl stepped around Cath in the doorway and glanced back
coolly. She had smooth, auburn hair and an unlit cigarette in her
mouth. The boy grabbed it and put it in his own mouth. “Reagan,
Cather. Cather, Reagan,” he said.
“Cath,” Cath said.
Reagan nodded and fished in her purse for another cigarette. “I
took this side,” she said, nodding to the pile of boxes on the right side
of the room. “But it doesn’t matter. If you’ve got feng shui issues, feel
free to move my shit.” She turned to the boy. “Ready?”
He turned to Cath. “Coming?”
Cath shook her head.
When the door shut behind them, she sat on the bare mattress
that was apparently hers— feng shui was the least of her issues— and
laid her head against the cinder block wall.
She just needed to settle her nerves.
To take the anxiety she felt like black static behind her eyes and
an extra heart in her throat, and shove it all back down to her stomach where it belonged— where she could at least tie it into a nice
knot and work around it.
Her dad and Wren would be up any minute, and Cath didn’t
want them to know she was about to melt down. If Cath melted
down, her dad would melt down. And if eitherof them melted down,
6 RAINBOW ROWELL
Wren would act like they were doing it on purpose, just to ruin
her perfect first day on campus. Her beautiful new adventure.
You’re going to thank me for this,Wren kept saying.
The first time she’d said it was back in June.
Cath had already sent in her university housing forms, and of
course she’d put Wren down as her roommate— she hadn’t thought
twice about it. The two of them had shared a room for eigh teen
years, why stop now?
“We’ve shared a room for eigh teen  years,” Wren argued. She was
sitting at the head of Cath’s bed, wearing her infuriating I’m the
Mature One face.
“And it’s worked out great,” Cath said, waving her arm around
their bedroom— at the stacks of books and the Simon Snow posters,
at the closet where they shoved all their clothes, not even worrying
most of the time what belonged to whom.
Cath was sitting at the foot of the bed, trying not to look like the
Pathetic One Who Always Cries.
“This is college,” Wren persisted. “The whole point of college is
meeting new people.”
“The whole point of having a twin sister,” Cath said, “is not
having to worry about this sort of thing. Freaky strangers who steal
your tampons and smell like salad dressing and take cell phone
photos of you while you sleep . . .”
Wren sighed. “What are you even talking about? Why would
anybody smell like salad dressing?”
“Like vinegar,” Cath said. “Remember when we went on the freshman tour, and that one girl’s room smelled like Italian dressing?”
“No.”
“Well, it was gross.”
“It’s college,” Wren said, exasperated, covering her face with her
hands. “It’s supposed to be an adventure.”
“It’s already an adventure.” Cath crawled up next to her sister
and pulled Wren’s hands away from her face. “The whole prospect
is already terrifying.”
“We’re supposed to meet new people,” Wren repeated.
FANGIRL 7
“I don’t need new people.”
“That just shows how much you need new people. . . .” Wren
squeezed Cath’s hands. “Cath, think about it. If we do this together,
people will treat us like we’re the same person. It’ll be four years
before anyone can even tell us apart.”
“All they have to do is pay attention.” Cath touched the scar on
Wren’s chin, just below her lip. (Sledding accident. They were nine,
and Wren was on the front of the sled when it hit the tree. Cath had
fallen offthe back into the snow.)
“You know I’m right,” Wren said.
Cath shook her head. “I don’t.”
“Cath . . .”
“Please don’t make me do this alone.”
“You’re never alone,” Wren said, sighing again. “That’s the whole
fucking point of having a twin sister.”
“This is really nice,” their dad said, looking around Pound 913 and
setting a laundry basket full of shoes and books on Cath’s mattress.
“It’s not nice, Dad,” Cath said, standing stiffl y by the door. “It’s
like a hospital room, but smaller. And without a TV.”
“You’ve got a great view of campus,” he said.
Wren wandered over to the window. “My room faces a parking
lot.”
“How do you know?” Cath asked.
“Google Earth.”
Wren couldn’t wait for all this college stuff to start. She and
her roommate—Courtney—had been talking for weeks. Courtney
was from Omaha, too. The two of them had already met and gone
shopping for dorm- room stufftogether. Cath had tagged along and
tried not to pout while they picked out posters and matching desk
lamps.
Cath’s dad came back from the window and put an arm around
her shoulders. “It’s gonna be okay,” he said.
She nodded. “I know.”
8 RAINBOW ROWELL
“Okay,” he said, clapping. “Next stop, Schramm Hall. Second
stop, pizza buffet. Third stop, my sad and empty nest.”
“No pizza,” Wren said. “Sorry, Dad. Courtney and I are going
to the freshman barbecue to night.” She shot her eyes at Cath. “Cath
should go, too.”
“Yespizza,” Cath said defiantly.
Her dad smiled. “Your sister’s right, Cath. You should go. Meet
new people.”
“All I’m going to do for the next nine months is meet new people.
Today I choose pizza buffet.”
Wren rolled her eyes.
“All right,” their dad said, patting Cath on the shoulder. “Next
stop, Schramm Hall. Ladies?” He opened the door.
Cath didn’t move. “You can come back for me after you drop her
off,” she said, watching her sister. “I want to start unpacking.”
Wren didn’t argue, just stepped out into the hall. “I’ll talk to
you tomorrow,” she said, not quite turning to look at Cath.
“Sure,” Cath said.
It did feel good, unpacking. Putting sheets on the bed and setting her
new, ridiculously expensive textbooks out on the shelves over
her new desk.
When her dad came back, they walked together to Valentino’s.
Everyone they saw along the way was about Cath’s age. It was creepy.
“Why is everybody blond?” Cath asked. “And why are they all
white?”
Her dad laughed. “You’re just used to living in the least- white
neighborhood in Nebraska.”
Their house in South Omaha was in a Mexican neighborhood.
Cath’s was the only white family on the block.
“Oh, God,” she said, “do you think this town has a taco truck?”
“I think I saw a Chipotle—”
She groaned.
“Come on,” he said, “you like Chipotle.”
FANGIRL 9
“Not the point.”
When they got to Valentino’s, it was packed with students. A
few, like Cath, had come with their parents, but not many. “It’s like
a science fiction story,” she said, “No little kids . . . Nobody over
thirty . . . Where are all the old people?”
Her dad held up his slice of pizza. “Soylent Green.”
Cath laughed.
“I’m not old, you know.” He was tapping the table with the two
middle fingers of his left hand. “Forty- one. The other guys my age at
work are just starting to have kids.”
“That was good thinking,” Cath said, “getting us out of the
way early. You can start bringing home chicks now— the coast is
clear.”
“All my chicks . . . ,” he said, looking down at his plate. “You
guys are the only chicks I’m worried about.”
“Ugh. Dad. Weird.”
“You know what I mean. What’s up with you and your sister?
You’ve never fought like this before. . . .”
“We’re not fighting now,” Cath said, taking a bite of bacon-
cheeseburger pizza. “Oh, geez.” She spit it out.
“What’s wrong, did you get an eyelid?”
“No. Pickle. It’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting it.”
“You seemlike you’re fighting,” he said.
Cath shrugged. She and Wren weren’t even talking much, let
alone fighting. “Wren just wants more . . . in de pen dence.”
“Sounds reasonable,” he said.
Of course it does,Cath thought, that’s Wren’s specialty.But she let it
drop. She didn’t want her dad to worry about this right now. She
could tell by the way he kept tapping the table that he was already
wearing thin. Way too many normal- dad hours in a row.
“Tired?” she asked.
He smiled at her, apologetically, and put his hand in his lap. “Big
day. Big, hard day— I mean, I knew it would be.” He raised an eyebrow. “Both of you, same day. Whoosh.I still can’t believe you’re not
coming home with me. . . .”
10 RAINBOW ROWELL
“Don’t get too comfortable. I’m not sure I can stick this out a
whole semester.” She was only slightly kidding, and he knew it.
“You’ll be fine, Cath.” He put his hand, his less twitchy hand, over
hers and squeezed. “And so will I. You know?”
Cath let herself look in his eyes for a moment. He looked tired—
and, yes, twitchy— but he was holding it together.
“I still wish you’d get a dog,” she said.
“I’d never remember to feed it.”
“Maybe we could train it to feed you.”
When Cath got back to her room, her roommate— Reagan—was still
gone. Or maybe she was gone again; her boxes looked untouched.
Cath finished putting her own clothes away, then opened the box of
personal things she’d brought from home.
She took out a photo of herself and Wren, and pinned it to the
corkboard behind her desk. It was from graduation. Both of them
were wearing red robes and smiling. It was before Wren cut her
hair. . . .
Wren hadn’t even told Cath she was going to do that. Just came
home from work at the end of the summer with a pixie cut. It looked
awesome— which probably meant it would look awesome on Cath,
too. But Cath could never get that haircut now, even if she could
work up the courage to cut offfifteen inches. She couldn’t single-
white- female her own twin sister.
Next Cath took out a framed photo of their dad, the one that had
always sat on their dresser back home. It was an especially handsome
photo, taken on his wedding day. He was young and smiling, and
wearing a little sunflower on his lapel. Cath set it on the shelf above
her desk.
Then she set out a picture from prom, of her and Abel. Cath was
wearing a shimmering green dress, and Abel had a matching cummerbund. It was a good picture of Cath, even though her face looked
naked and flat without her glasses. And it was a good picture of
Abel, even though he looked bored.
FANGIRL 11
He always looked kind of bored.
Cath probably should have texted Abel by now, just to tell him
that she’d made it— but she wanted to wait until she felt more breezy
and nonchalant. You can’t take back texts. If you come offall
moody and melancholy in a text, it just sits there in your phone,
reminding you of what a drag you are.
At the bottom of the box were Cath’s Simon and Baz posters. She
laid these out on her bed carefully— a few were originals, drawn or
painted just for Cath. She’d have to choose her favorites; there wasn’t
room for them all on the corkboard, and Cath had already decided
not to hang any on the walls, out where God and everybody would
notice them.
She picked out three. . . .
Simon raising the Sword of Mages. Baz lounging on a fanged
black throne. The two of them walking together through whirling
gold leaves, scarves whipping in the wind.
There were a few more things left in the box— a dried corsage, a
ribbon Wren had given her that said clean plate club, commemorative busts of Simon and Baz that she’d ordered from the Noble
Collection. . . .
Cath found a place for everything, then sat in the beat- up wooden
desk chair. If she sat right here, with her back to Reagan’s bare walls
and boxes, it almost felt like home.

d
d
d
Th ere was a boy in Simon’s room.
A boy with slick, black hair and cold, grey eyes. He was spinning around, holding a cat high in the air while a girl jumped and
clutched at it. “Give it back,” the girl said. “You’ll hurt him.”
Th e boy laughed and held the cat higher— then noticed Simon
standing in the doorway and stopped, his face sharpening.
“Hullo,” the dark- haired boy said, letting the cat drop to the
floor. It landed on all four feet and ran from the room. Th e girl
ran after it.
Th e boy ignored them, tugging his school jacket neatly into
place and smiling with the left side of his mouth. “I know you.
You’re Simon Snow . . . the Mage’s Heir.” He held out his hand
smugly. “I’m Tyrannus Basilton Pitch. But you can call me Baz—
we’re going to be roommates.”
Simon scowled and ignored the boy’s pale hand. “What did you
think you were doing with her cat?”
—from chapter 3, Simon Snow and the Mage’s Heir,
copyright © 2001 by Gemma T. Leslie
d
d
d
TWO
In books, when people wake up in a strange place, they always have
that disoriented moment when they don’t know where they are.
That had never happened to Cath; she always remembered falling
asleep.
But it still felt weird to hear her same- old alarm going offin this
brand- new place. The light in the room was strange, too yellow for
morning, and the dorm air had a detergenty twang she wasn’t sure
she’d get used to. Cath picked up her phone and turned offthe alarm,
remembering that she still hadn’t texted Abel. She hadn’t even
checked her e-mail or her FanFixx account before she went to bed.
“first day,”she texted Abel now. “more later. x, o, etc.”
The bed on the other side of the room was still empty.
Cath could get used to this. Maybe Reagan would spend all her
time in her boyfriend’s room. Or at his apartment. Her boyfriend
looked older— he probably lived off campus with twenty other guys,
in some ramshackle house with a couch in the front yard.
Even with the room to herself, Cath didn’t feel safe changing in
here. Reagan could walk in at any minute, Reagan’s boyfriend could
FANGIRL 15
walk in at any minute . . . And either one of them could be a cell
phone– camera  pervert.
Cath took her clothes to the bathroom and changed in a stall.
There was a girl at the sinks, desperately trying to make friendly
eye contact. Cath pretended not to notice.
She finished getting ready with plenty of time to eat breakfast
but didn’t feel up to braving the dining hall; she still didn’t know
where it was, or how it worked. . . .
In new situations, all the trickiest rules are the ones nobody
bothers to explain to you. (And the ones you can’t google.) Like,
where does the line start? What food can you take? Where are you
supposed to stand, then where are you supposed to sit? Where
do you go when you’re done, why is everyone watching you? . . .
Bah.
Cath broke open a box of protein bars. She had four more boxes
and three giant jars of peanut butter shoved under her bed. If she
paced herself, she might not have to face the dining hall until
October.
She flipped open her laptop while she chewed on a carob- oat bar
and clicked through to her FanFixx account. There were a bunch
of new comments on her page, all people wringing their hands because Cath hadn’t posted a new chapter of Carry Onyesterday.
Hey, guys,she typed. Sorry about yesterday. First day of school,
family stuff, etc. Today might not happen either. But I promise you I’ll
be back in black on Tuesday, and that I have something especially
wicked planned. Peace out, Magicath.
Walking to class, Cath couldn’t shake the feeling that she was
pretending to be a college student in a coming- of- age movie. The
setting was perfect— rolling green lawns, brick buildings, kids
everywhere with backpacks. Cath shifted her bag uncomfortably
on her back. Look at me— I’m a stock photo of a college student.
She made it to American History ten minutes early, which still
wasn’t early enough to get a desk at the back of the class. Everybody
16 RAINBOW ROWELL
in the room looked awkward and ner vous, like they’d spent way too
much time deciding what to wear.
(Start as you mean to go on,Cath had thought when she laid out
her clothes last night. Jeans. Simon T-shirt. Green cardigan.)
The boy sitting in the desk next to her was wearing earbuds
and self- consciously bobbing his head. The girl on Cath’s other side
kept flipping her hair from one shoulder to the other.
Cath closed her eyes. She could feel their desks creaking. She
could smell their deodorant. Just knowing they were there made
her feel tight and cornered.
If Cath had slightly less pride, she could have taken this class
with her sister— she and Wren both needed the history credits.
Maybe she should be taking classes with Wren while they still had
a few in common; they weren’t interested in any of the same subjects.
Wren wanted to study marketing— and maybe get a job in advertising like their dad.
Cath couldn’t imagine having any sort of job or career.She’d majored in En glish, hoping that meant she could spend the next four
years reading and writing. And maybe the next four years after that.
Anyway, she’d already tested out of Freshman Comp, and when
she met with her adviser in the spring, Cath convinced him she
could handle Intro to Fiction- Writing, a junior- level course. It was
the only class— maybe the only thing about college— Cath was
looking forward to. The professor who taught it was an actual novelist. Cath had read all three of her books (about decline and desolation in rural America) over the summer.
“Why are you reading that?” Wren had asked when she noticed.
“What?”
“Something without a dragon or an elf on the cover.”
“I’m branching out.”
“Shh,” Wren said, covering the ears on the movie poster above
her bed. “Baz will hear you.”
“Baz is secure in our relationship,” Cath had said, smiling despite
herself.
Thinking about Wren now made Cath reach for her phone.
FANGIRL 17
Wren had probably gone out last night.
It had sounded like the whole campus was up partying. Cath felt
under siege in her empty dorm room. Shouting. Laughing. Music. All
of it coming from every direction. Wren wouldn’t have been able to
resist the noise.
Cath dug her phone out of her backpack.
“you up?”Send.
A few seconds later, her phone chimed. “isn’t that my line?”
“too tired to write last night,”Cath typed, “went to bed at 10.”
Chime. “neglecting your fans already . . .”
Cath smiled. “always so jealous of my fans . . .”
“have a good day”
“yeah - you too”
A middle- aged Indian man in a reassuring tweed jacket walked
into the lecture hall. Cath turned down her phone and slid it into
her bag.
When she got back to her dorm, she was starving. At this rate, her
protein bars wouldn’t last a week. . . .
There was a boy sitting outside her room. The same one. Reagan’s boyfriend? Reagan’s cigarette buddy?
“Cather!” he said with a smile. He started to stand up as soon as
he saw her— which was more of a production than it should have
been; his legs and arms were too long for his body.
“It’s Cath,” she said.
“Are you sure?” He ran a hand through his hair. Like he was confirming that it was still messy. “Because I really like Cather.”
“I’m sure,” she said flatly. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.”
He stood there, waiting for her to open the door.
“Is Reagan here?” Cath asked.
“If Reagan were here”— he smiled—“I’d already be inside.”
Cath pinched her key but didn’t open the door. She wasn’t up for
this. She was already overdosing on newand othertoday. Right now
she just wanted to curl up on her strange, squeaky bed and inhale
18 RAINBOW ROWELL
three protein bars. She looked over the boy’s shoulder. “When is
she getting here?”
He shrugged.
Cath’s stomach clenched. “Well, I can’t just let you in,” she
blurted.
“Why not?”
“I don’t even know you.”
“Are you kidding?” He laughed. “We met yesterday. I was in the
roomwhen you met me.”
“Yeah, but I don’t know you. I don’t even know Reagan.”
“Are you going to make her wait outside, too?”
“Look . . . ” Cath said. “I can’t just let strange guys into my room.
I don’t even know your name. This whole situation is too rapey.”
“Rapey?”
“You understand,” she said, “right?”
He dropped an eyebrow and shook his head, still smiling. “Not
really. But now I don’t want to come in with you. The word ‘rapey’
makes me uncomfortable.”
“Me, too,” she said gratefully.
He leaned against the wall and slid back onto the floor, looking
up at her. Then he held up his hand. “I’m Levi, by the way.”
Cath frowned and took his hand lightly, still holding her keys.
“Okay,” she said, then opened the door and closed it as quickly as
possible behind her.
She grabbed her laptop and her protein bars, and crawled into
the corner of her bed.
Cath was trying to pace her side of the room, but there wasn’t enough
floor. It already felt like a prison in here, especially now that Reagan’s
boyfriend, Levi, was standing guard— or sitting guard, whatever—
out in the hall. Cath would feel better if she could just talk to somebody.
She wondered if it was too soon to call Wren. . . .
She called her dad instead. And left a voice mail.
She texted Abel. “hey. one down. what up?”
FANGIRL 19
She opened her sociology book. Then opened her laptop. Then
got up to open a window. It was warm out. People were chasing each
other with Nerf guns outside a fraternity house across the street.
Pi- Kappa- Weird- Looking  O.
Cath pulled out her phone and dialed.
“Hey,” Wren answered, “how was your first day?”
“Fine. How was yours?”
“Good,” Wren said. Wren alwaysmanaged to sound breezy and
nonchalant. “I mean, nerve- racking, I guess. I went to the wrong
building for Statistics.”
“That sucks.”
The door opened, and Reagan and Levi walked in. Reagan gave
Cath an odd look, but Levi just smiled.
“Yeah,” Wren said. “It only made me a few minutes late, but I still
felt so stupid— Hey, Courtney and I are on our way to dinner, can I
call you back? Or do you just want to meet us for lunch tomorrow? I
think we’re going to start meeting at Selleck Hall at noon. Do you
know where that is?”
“I’ll find it,” Cath said.
“Okay, cool. See you then.”
“Cool,” Cath said, pressing End and putting her phone in her
pocket.
Levi had already unfurled himself across Reagan’s bed.
“Make yourself useful,” Reagan said, throwing a crumpled- up
sheet at him. “Hey,” she said to Cath.
“Hey,” Cath said. She stood there for a minute, waiting for some
sort of conversation to happen, but Reagan didn’t seem interested.
She was going through all her boxes, like she was looking for something.
“How was your first day?” Levi asked.
It took a second for Cath to realize he was talking to her. “Fine,”
she said.
“You’re a freshman, right?” He was making Reagan’s bed. Cath
wondered if he was planning to stay the night— that would notbe
on. At all.
20 RAINBOW ROWELL
He was still looking at her, smiling at her, so she nodded.
“Did you find all your classes?”
“Yeah . . .”
“Are you meeting people?”
Yeah,she thought, you people.
“Not intentionally,” she said.
She heard Reagan snort.
“Where are your pillowcases?” Levi asked the closet.
“Boxes,” Reagan said.
He started emptying a box, setting things on Reagan’s desk as if
he knew where they went. His head hung forward like it was only
loosely connected to his neck and shoulders. Like he was one of
those action figures that’s held together inside by worn- out rubber
bands. Levi looked a little wild. He and Reagan both did. People tend
to pair offthat way,Cath thought, in matched sets.
“So, what are you studying?” he asked Cath.
“En glish,” she said, then waited too long to say, “What are you
studying?”
He seemed delighted to be asked the question. Or any question.
“Range management.”
Cath didn’t know what that meant, but she didn’t want to ask.
“Please don’t start talking about range management,” Reagan
groaned. “Let’s just make that a rule, for the rest of the year. No talking about range management in my room.”
“It’s Cather’s room, too,” Levi said.
“Cath,” Reagan corrected him.
“What about when you’re not here?” he asked Reagan. “Can
we talk about range management when you’re not actually in the
room?”
“When I’m not actually in the room . . . ,” she said, “I think
you’re going to be waiting out in the hall.”
Cath smiled at the back of Reagan’s head. Then she saw Levi
watching her and stopped.
FANGIRL 21
Everyone in the classroom looked like thiswas what they’d been
waiting for all week. It was like they were all waiting for a concert
to start. Or a midnight movie premiere.
When Professor Piper walked in, a few minutes late, the first
thing Cath noticed was that she was smaller than she looked in the
photos on her book jackets.
Maybe that was stupid. They were just head shots, after all. But
Professor Piper really filled them up— with her high cheekbones;
her wide, watered- down blue eyes; and a spectacular head of long
brown hair.
In person, the professor’s hair was just as spectacular, but streaked
with gray and a little bushier than in the pictures. She was so small,
she had to do a little hop to sit on top of her desk.
“So,” she said instead of “hello.” “Welcome to Fiction- Writing. I
recognize a few of you—” She smiled around the room at people who
weren’t  Cath.
Cath was clearly the only freshman in the room. She was just
starting to figure out what marked the freshmen. . . . The too- new
backpacks. Makeup on the girls. Jokey Hot Topic T-shirts on the
boys.
Everythingon Cath, from her new red Vans to the dark purple
eyeglasses she’d picked out at Target. All the upperclassmen wore
heavy black Ray- Ban frames. All the professors, too. If Cath got a
pair of black Ray- Bans, she could probably order a gin and tonic
around here without getting carded.
“Well,” Professor Piper said. “I’m glad you’re all here.” Her voice
was warm and breathy— you could say “she purred” without reaching too far— and she talked just softly enough that everyone had to
sit really still to hear her.
“We have a lot to do this semester,” she said, “so let’s not waste
another minute of it. Let’s dive right in.” She leaned forward on the
desk, holding on to the lip. “Are you ready? Will you dive with me?”
Most people nodded. Cath looked down at her notebook.
“Okay. Let’s start with a question that doesn’t really have an
answer. . . . Why do we write fiction?”
22 RAINBOW ROWELL
One of the older students, a guy, decided he was game. “To express ourselves,” he offered.
“Sure,” Professor Piper said. “Is that why you write?”
The guy nodded.
“Okay . . . why else?”
“Because we like the sound of our own voices,” a girl said. She
had hair like Wren’s, but maybe even cooler. She looked like Mia
Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby(wearing a pair of Ray- Bans).
“Yes,” Professor Piper laughed. It was a fairy laugh, Cath thought.
“That’s why I write, definitely. That’s why I teach.” They all laughed
with her. “Why else?”
Why do I write?Cath tried to come up with a profound answer—
knowing she wouldn’t speak up, even if she did.
“To explore new worlds,” someone said.
“To explore old ones,” someone else said. Professor Piper was
nodding.
To be somewhere else,Cath thought.
“So . . . ,” Professor Piper purred. “Maybe to make sense of ourselves?”
“To set ourselves free,” a girl said.
To get free of ourselves.
“To show people what it’s like inside our heads,” said a boy in
tight red jeans.
“Assuming they want to know,” Professor Piper added. Everyone laughed.
“To make people laugh.”
“To get attention.”
“Because it’s all we know how to do.”
“Speak for yourself,” the professor said. “I play the piano. But
keep going— I love this. I love it.”
“To stophearing the voices in our head,” said the boy in front of
Cath. He had short dark hair that came to a dusky point at the back
of his neck.
To stop,Cath thought.
To stop being anything or anywhere at all.
FANGIRL 23
“To leave our mark,” Mia Farrow said. “To create something that
will outlive us.”
The boy in front of Cath spoke up again: “Asexual reproduction.”
Cath imagined herself at her laptop. She tried to put into words
how it felt, what happened when it was good, when it was working,
when the words were coming out of her before she knew what they
were, bubbling up from her chest, like rhyming, like rapping, like
jump- roping,she thought, jumping just before the rope hits your
ankles.
“To share something true,” another girl said. Another pair of Ray-
Bans.
Cath shook her head.
“Why do we write fiction?” Professor Piper asked.
Cath looked down at her notebook.
To disappear.