One step at a time, Ivy repeated to herself.
If only her legs would stop shaking. Then she felt his hand lightly on her ankle, guiding it down to the metal rung. At last they stood together at the bottom.
Mr. McCardell glanced away from her, obviously uncomfortable.
'Thank you,' Ivy said quietly to Tristan.
Then she rushed into the locker room before Tristan or the others could see her frightened tears.
In the parking lot that afternoon, Suzanne tried to talk Ivy into coming home with her to the Goldstein house.
'Thanks, but I'm tired,' Ivy said. 'I think I should go… home.' It was still strange to think of the Baines house as home.
'Well, why don't we just drive around some first?' Suzanne suggested. 'I know a great cappuccino place where none of the kids go, at least none from our school. We can talk without being interrupted.'
'I don't need to talk, Suzanne. I'm okay. Really. But if you want to just hang out, you can come home with me.'
'I don't think that would be a good idea.'
Ivy cocked her head. 'You would think you were the one who'd been stranded up there on the diving board.'
'It felt like it,' said Suzanne.
'If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd fallen from the ladder and hit your head on the concrete. I just invited you to Gregory's house.'
Suzanne fiddled with her lipstick, rolling it up and down, up and down in its case. 'That's just it.
You know how I am, Ivy-like a bloodhound on the hunt. I can't help myself. If he's there, I'll get completely distracted. And right now you need my attention.'
'But I don't need anybody's attention! I had a bad time in drama club and-' 'Got rescued.'
'Got rescued-' 'By Tristan.'
'By Tristan, and now-' 'You'll live happily ever after,' said Suzanne.
'Now I'll go home, and if you want to come with me and start baying at Gregory, fine. It will keep us all entertained.'
Suzanne debated for a moment, then stretched her freshly darkened lips. 'Did I get it on my teeth?'
'If you didn't talk constantly, you wouldn't have this problem,' Ivy said, and pointed to a smudge of red. 'Right there.'
When they arrived home, Gregory's BMW was in the driveway. 'Well, we're all in luck,' said Ivy.
But when they got inside the house, Ivy could hear her mother's voice, high and excited, being answered quickly each time by Gregory's. She and Suzanne exchanged glances, then followed the sound of the voices to Andrew's office.
'Is something wrong?' asked Ivy.
'That's what's wrong!' said her mother, pointing to a silk-covered chair. Its back hung in shreds.
'Ouch!' Ivy exclaimed. 'What happened to it?'
'Perhaps my father was filing his nails,' Gregory suggested.
'It's Andrew's favorite chair,' said Maggie. Her cheeks were quite pink. Her sprayed hair was falling out of its twist in grasslike wisps. 'And this fabric is not exactly cheap, Ivy.'
'Well, Mother, I didn't do it!'
'Let me check your nails,' said Gregory.
Suzanne laughed.
'Ella did it,' Maggie said.
'Ella!' Ivy shook her head. 'That's impossible! Ella's never scratched anything in her life.'
'Ella doesn't like Andrew,' Philip said. He had been standing quietly in the corner of the room.
'She did it because she doesn't like Andrew.'
Maggie whirled around. Ivy caught her mother by the hand. 'Easy,' she said. Then she examined the back of the chair. Gregory watched her and examined the chair himself. It seemed to Ivy to be too finely shredded-a job too convincing for Philip to have pulled off. Ella must have been guilty.
'We're going to have to declaw her,' said Maggie.
'No!'
'Ivy, there are too many valuable pieces of furniture in this house. They cannot be ruined. Ella will have to be declawed.'
'I won't let you.'
'She's just a cat.'
'And this is just a piece of furniture,' Ivy said, her voice cold and steely.
'It's that, or get rid of her.'
Ivy folded her arms across her chest. She was two inches taller than her mother.
'Ivy-' She could see her mother's eyes misting over. That was what she had been like for the past few months, emotional, pleading, insisting with tears. 'Ivy, this is a new life, these are new ways for all of us. You told me yourself: For all the good things that are happening, this isn't a fairy-tale ending. We all have to try to make it work.'
'Where is Ella now?' Ivy asked.
'In your bedroom. I closed the hall door, and the attic one too, so she wouldn't ruin anything else.'
Ivy turned to Gregory. 'Would you get Suzanne something to drink?'
'Of course,' he said.
Then Ivy went up to her room. She sat for a long time, cradling Ella in her lap and gazing up at her water angel.
'What do I do now, angel?' she prayed. 'What do I do now? Don't tell me to give up Ella! I can't give her up. I can't!'
In the end, she did. In the end, Ivy couldn't take the outdoors away from Ella. She couldn't leave her fierce little street cat vulnerable to anything that would take a swipe at her. Though it just about broke her heart, and Philip's too, she posted the adoption ad on the school bulletin board Thursday afternoon.
Thursday night she got a call. Philip was in her room doing his homework and picked up the phone. He somberly handed it over to her. 'It's a man,' he said. 'He wants to adopt Ella.'
Ivy frowned and took the receiver. 'Hello?'
'Hi. How are you?' the caller asked.
'Fine,' Ivy replied stiffly. Did it matter how she was? She immediately disliked this person-because he hoped to take away Ella.
'Good. Uh… did you find a home for your cat?'
'No,' she said.
'I'd like to have her.'
Ivy blinked hard. She didn't want Philip to see her cry. She should be glad and relieved that someone wanted a full-grown cat.
'Are you there?' asked the caller.
'Yes.'
'I'd take good care of her, feed her and wash her.'
'You don't wash cats.'
'I'd learn what I have to do,' he said. 'I think she'd like it here. It's a comfortable place.'
Ivy nodded silently.
'Hello?'
She turned her back on Philip. 'Listen,' she said into the phone. 'Ella means a lot to me. If you don't mind, I'd like to see your home myself and talk to you in person.'
'I don't mind at all!' the caller replied cheerfully. 'Let me give you my address.'
