Mittens Has Class

Mittens Has Class

Chapter 15 - Never Corner a Cat

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"Be sure to pack it in tightly."

Mittens fought the urge to say 'that's what she said', as she troweled soil around the seeds of her project plant. Her teacher, Doctor Bahr, wasn't particularly receptive to humor, her practical mind having trouble with getting most jokes. More often than not, Mittens found herself having to explain a punchline or silly comment, which only ever received a dry and unamused response.

The woman wasn't ever stern about it, just didn't have much appreciate for levity. She couldn't really understand the point of a good joke. Conversely, she also seemed oblivious to the silliness of her student being dressed up as a cat. It was as if the woman had catgirls in her classes all the time. A great example being the that she'd provided Mittens with a larger-handled trowel than the rest of the class, without any kind of prompt or comment to it. Amusingly enough, Mittens had packed her slim-styled paws, expecting that she would need to change them out. However, Doctor Bahr just accommodated her usual ones.

Aside from the teacher's deadpan attitude, the class itself hadn't been half as exciting or interesting as Mittens had hoped. In almost a month, this had been their first actual day handling real plants. The rest of the class had been an abundance of reading from the textbook Doctor Bahr wrote, which was even more humorless than the professor herself, and a lot of very monotone lectures. There had been a couple interesting research projects, where the class had to seek outside material and summarize it, but these had been few.

Getting to finally get 'paws-on' with the plants was a refreshing change. Better yet, this marked the beginning of a project where they were to actively study the plant's growth over the next couple of weeks, meaning they would be coming to the lab regularly. It wasn't orchids and eggplants, but then every cat had a soft spot for little beans.

"Once you have the soil well packed, pour a generous amount of the fortified water into the pot." Doctor Bahr said as she was walking amongst the various tables. "Make sure your name is on the pot, take your pictures, and place it on the rack in the window."

Producing her large sharpie, Mittens carefully wrote her name along the curve of her pot in nice block letters, then pulled out her phone to get a few pictures. She noticed a couple of the students were also taking selfies with their plant. One girl was taking dozens of shots of hers, applying various filters to them to see what looked best.

It made Mittens consider doing something silly with hers too, but she opted to just take a couple regular snaps, for the science, and carry her little pot over to the window racks. As she was setting hers down, she noticed the pot being set down beside it had the words 'Your Name' written across it. She gave a little giggle and looked to the girl putting it there.

"Well played." She chuckled in admiration.

However, the girl looked at her with a completely confused expression on her beautiful face. "Huh? What is?"

Mittens pointed to the pot, giving her a knowing grin. That only seemed to make the girl look more confused, which increased when she looked over at Mittens' pot and saw an actual name on it. "Oh! Oh crap!" She said suddenly, a light of revelation dawning in her big blue eyes and she quickly grabbed her pot back up, spit on her thumb, and began furiously trying to wipe off the words.

Mittens paused a moment, mouth slightly ajar at the revelation that it hadn't been meant as a joke. She could see the dismay on the poor girl's face at the fact that the permanent marker wasn't really coming back off, just smearing into a fuzzy version of her goof.

"Hang on." She said to her. "I's got somefin' that might jus' help." She went over to her backpack and pulled out her little 'emergency boo-boo kit' which basically consisted of alcohol preps and Band-Aids. Taking a couple of the preps, she came back to the girl. "Try these. Takes it right offses."

The girl began quickly tearing open packets and scrubbing, the ink mostly coming back off, though a faint ghost of the incriminating words remained. However, the girl seemed satisfied with the results. "Thank you." She breathed in relief. "My brain wasn't turned on, as usual."

Mittens gave her a smile and a dismissive wave of a paw. "I's had ma own share o' 'dumb kitty' moments."

Returning the smile, the girl sighed. "That's about all I ever have. Thanks though. Glad you had these." She used the palm of her hand to wipe off any residual alcohol before pulling out her marker and writing the name, 'Tiffany B.', over the faint shadow of the previous message.

Eyeing the name, Mittens gave a little grin. "Ya wouldn't happen ta live jus' south o' Zucker's Mill would ya?" She asked, though she was pretty certain this girl wasn't the same person. It was honestly more an attempt to make a little conversation. The girl was incredibly cute, with big blue eyes, amazing body, and a rather impressive set of boobs.

Tiffany gave her a freshly confused look. "No... I live with my family here in Cartersville, though I'm seriously thinking of getting my own place. Why would you think I lived down in Zucker's Mill?"

Mittens gave a chuckle. "There's a lady down there that is also a 'Tiffany B.' who is always donating tons of money to local artists and writers. Even bought some property from my Master to turned into a community art studio." Mittens gave a little shrug. "I's purty certain she weren't a college girl in her early twenties, but who cans be sure o' anything anymore."

"She sounds like a really amazing lady." This Tiffany said with a broad warm smile. "I wish I could say that I was her, but I'm just plain ol' air-headed Tiffany Bergen. Probably good that I'm not her though, as I wouldn't want people thinking she was a ditz like me."

Mittens peered at Tiffany with a dubious look. "Ya seems plenty nice ta this kitty. I think yer jus' bein' too hard on yerself."

Tiffany cocked an eyebrow and pointed meaningfully to the pot, which still carried the ghost of the previous label. "I appreciate the positivity, but I'm okay." She said with a beautiful smile. "My dad always says that when God was divvying out brains and looks, I crawled off the conveyor belt, fell into the beauty bin, and then rolled out the bottom before they could give me any brains." She gave a laugh.

Mittens opened her mouth, failed to find any real words, then closed her mouth. While it might sound funny, it seemed like kind of a mean thing for someone's own father to say. Still, this girl didn't really seem like she thought it was anything but funny. It made Mittens wonder how many other people had told this poor girl she was stupid her whole life.

"Anyway, thanks again." Tiffany said in a chipper tone, before heading back to her work area.

Still a bit taken aback by the whole thing, Mittens returned to her own workstation and began packing her kit back up. As she was doing so, the professor came over to her. "Did you have any trouble with the spade, Miss Cat?" She asked, picking up the large-handled tool. "I noticed it in the locker and thought it might be easier for you, given the gloves you wear."

Mittens gave her a grateful nod. "Oh, no trouble with it at all. Thank you, Ma'am. As you probably noticed, most of my stuff is bigger for that very reason." She waggled her oversize sharpie as supporting evidence.

Doctor Bahr nodded vaguely. "I thought that was the case. I'll make sure to set this one aside especially for you during labs."

"I appreci-me-ates that." Mittens said with a toothy smile. "Thank you again."

Doctor Bahr returned the smile absently, but immediately walked off to speak to another student. Mittens watched her go, marveling at how the woman just seemed to skim right past any thought of Mittens just taking her paws off and using a regular garden tool. A part of her had to wonder how someone so numb to whimsy could so completely accept something as whimsical as herself.

"Once you've gotten your plants put into the window, make a notation in your project journals that you planted them today and at what time." Doctor Bahr announced a few moments later. "Once you've done that, you are free to leave for today. We'll meet here at the start of each class for the next few weeks, so you can record growth, tend them, and take new pictures."

Several students were already heading for the door, likely opting to just make their journal entries later. Mittens, however, took a few minutes to lovingly detail her first planting, along with a few flower doodles for emphasis. By the time she was finished, she was one of the only ones left in the lab. Even the professor had left.

Grabbing her things, she padded her way out of the building and into a wonderfully sunny day outside. With a whole hour and a half before her next class and the weather being particularly nice, she decided to find a nice tree in the grassy center of the West quad to sit beneath and do some studying. She doubted she would get much time to study at home the next couple nights, as Opal and Marsha were due to arrive around six o'clock.

She hated that she wouldn't be there when they first arrived, her Spanish class going until six-thirty. However, it was exciting to think she'd get to finally see them again. They'd been one of the highlights of the Montreal Fetish Convention the previous year, her and Master meeting them on one of the first days of the week-long event.

She couldn't wait to show them everything and introduce them to people they'd only just heard about. Marsha had even offered to give Master a lesson in rope while they were there, as she was a wonder with shibari. Opal had sent tons of pictures of gorgeous ties and suspensions that Marsha had put her or others in. Some of them were so good that they'd been featured in professional fetish media.

Despite Mistress Victoria having some skill at rigging herself, Mittens had only been put into a suspension once, during a visit to Chloe's old mentor's house. It had been a fun experience and Mittens was eager to do it again. Unfortunately, their own dungeon below the house didn't have a sturdy enough ceiling for a true suspension to be safe. The Playhouse had a room specifically set up for suspension work, but her friends weren't staying long enough for them be able to take a trip there.

She imagined her, Chloe, and Opal all enmeshed in some beautiful tie together, daydreaming of spicy ways she might find herself bound to Opals luscious body and her amazing Chloe. The more she dreamed up, the more enamored she made herself. The thought of finding some quiet place to masturbate was just wandering through her mind when the sound of her phone notifying her of a text interrupted.

Fishing it out, she pulled up a message from Krystal. 'hey u n class?'

Mentally shooing the devious thoughts her horniness snuck into her head at seeing Krystal's name pop up, Mittens carefully crafted back a response with a stylus. 'Got out early, so yeah. What's up?'

'need u 2 c something' Came the reply after a moment, followed by another one. 'meet @ lecture rm n peterson'

Mittens stared at the texts for a few moments. Something definitely didn't feel right. For one, Krystal didn't usually type her texts this way. She was always much more meticulous with them, composing them like they were being graded for grammar and spelling. A typo or two would be one thing, but this was deliberate shorthand.

'Sure. Omw.' She texted back. If she was typing this way, it suggested that something might be wrong. Whatever it was that Krystal needed to show her might have caused some kind of emotional trigger or something. She could easily picture Krystal huddled in a ball in a corner, distraught and needing a friend. Maybe she'd learned that something had happened to Erin. Something that would keep her from ever being able to apologize.

Gathering her things, she made her way towards Peterson Hall as quickly as she could. She'd never been in it before, but did know where it was. Luckily, it wasn't all that far away from her current location and she was to it within a matter of minutes. Just inside was a large placard with the locations of the various rooms and points of interest. The lecture room was on the second floor at the end of a long hallway.

Bounding up the stairs, she navigated her way to the lecture hall, bracing herself for whatever drama might be waiting within. As she went, she couldn't help noticing that the building was eerily empty and quiet. It was an auxiliary class building, mostly used by post grads, but it apparently didn't see an abundance of use. It had a much older look about it, as if it hadn't been updated in decades.

She noticed that it had still been outfitted with current regulations, such as the AED box mounted on the wall halfway down the hallway. However, the unit inside it wasn't one of the usual automatic ones. They'd put an older model that had to be manually operated, complete with full paddles, in there, along with some quick reference instructions for it. Next to that was a fire extinguisher that looked like it was from the sixties.

It gave a kind of creepy vibe to the place, with the older décor and items accompanying the vacant nature of the building. Of course, if Krystal was in distress, needing somewhere to hide, she would choose somewhere that wasn't teeming with students. Mittens just wished that she'd not chosen somewhere that looked like the set of a horror film.

As she finally arrived at the door to the small auditorium, she looked through the glass window set into it. As expected, there wasn't a class or presentation going on, half of the lights not even on in the room. Stepping inside, she looked around for her friend, but didn't immediately see her. The room was fairly large, but pretty open, so it shouldn't have been hard to spot someone unless they were practically hiding.

"Krystal?" She called out. "Where are you? Are you okay?"

No response came back from anywhere in the room. She ventured a few steps further in, starting down the shallow steps towards the podium. She was beginning to sense a fresh wave of concern, very grave concern. Suddenly, the observation that Krystal's texts hadn't read like her usual ones carried a much more dreadful connotation.

She took a couple more cautious steps towards the stage area, feeling a quickly growing sense of danger. The sound of the door behind her opening up made her whirl around, her mind grasping at the hope that it was just Krystal showing up. However, she wasn't entirely surprised when it wasn't.

The two idiots from her English 101 class, the bullies from Krystal's old high school, strode in with the kind of cocky confidence that never led to anything good. "Lost, puddy-tat?" Said one of them, the one she'd labelled 'Tweedle-dickhead' in her mind.

"Maybe we should call animal control." Said 'Tweedle-dumbass', his friend. "She might be diseased or something."

"You're probably right!" Agreed Tweedle-dickhead. "I bet she's got all kinds of crotch-rot and shit."

"Where's Krystal?" Mittens asked darkly. It was becoming all too clear that Krystal hadn't been the one who sent those texts.

"Who?" Tweedle-dickhead asked in a poor mockery of confusion.

Tweedle-dumbass pretended to have a revelation. "Oh! I think she means Emo-clown!"

"Oh! Emo-clown?" Tweedle-dickhead said, giving an exaggerated shrug. "No idea. Probably somewhere crying in the dark or something."

Mittens could feel her heart thudding heavy in her chest. The two of them were blocking her from getting easily back to the door, the only door she could see out of the room. While they hadn't made any real attempt to advance towards her, there was definitely a threatening air about them. Mittens wasn't very certain of her chances against the both of them. Each was over a foot taller than her and were obvious gym rats.

"I know you have her phone." She said, trying not to let her fear of these two idiots show. "I assume you took it from her. Tell me where she is or I'll knock it out of you." She wasn't sure just how effectual her plush covered fists would be, but she hoped she sounded tough enough.

The laugh the two boys shared suggested that she really didn't. At the very least, they had still not made any further moves towards her, just remained lingering near the door. It was possible they knew enough not to go past a certain limit, just wanted to torment and taunt her with the fact that they'd obviously done something to Krystal. Regardless, her mind was spinning, trying to calculate the best course of escape.

There should be a second exit to the room, as fire codes usually required two. Since it was obviously not at the top of the auditorium, it had to be down where the podium was. She might be able to get to it before they could catch her, but if she didn't know where to go when she got down to the bottom, she would be in real trouble.

"We don't have Emo-clown's phone." Tweedle-dickhead said in a snide tone, holding up his empty hands as though that was proof. "I bet somebody threw it away. Probably full of emo trash." Mittens wagered she'd find it in a trashcan somewhere in the building. The boys weren't geniuses, but they might be smart enough to know better than to keep it with them. Without it, there wasn't much proof that they had been who sent the texts.

"Then how about you get out of my way so I can go look?" She asked, not sure she should even try to walk past them if they did step to one side. "And, so help me, if you've hurt her, I'll introduce your balls to my Taser." The threat might carry more weight she'd actually owned a Taser, but she figured they wouldn't know she didn't. To emphasize the bluff, she slung off her backpack and reached into it, as if going for the alleged stun weapon.

Tweedle-dumbass actually took a step back, looking a bit worried. Tweedle-dickhead seemed far less convinced. "You're a freak! Both of you are." He said, the humor gone from his voice and a far darker look entering his features. "You might think you're cute or whatever, but you're just a psycho." He started moving forward, coming a couple steps down. "Everybody is laughing at you and this weirdo obsession with being a cat. You know that right? Everybody thinks you're literally insane. Like 'bat-shit crazy' insane."

Encouraged by his friend's confidence, Tweedle-dumbass began coming down the steps in his wake, apparently still not fully certain she didn't have something, as he stayed directly behind his companion, using him as a shield. He didn't seem to have anything particularly clever to add, just gave his partner back-up, sneering menacingly.

Mittens considered again making a break for it, hoping she could spot and reach the second exit before they could catch her. Hoping there was, in fact, a second exit out of the auditorium. Unless she could magically summon a real Taser, she was about to be in real danger.

And then, her paw hit something in her backpack. Her mind circled around the idea forming, weighing whether it was stupid or brilliant. She would have only shot, but maybe it would be enough to get past them. Despite the stuffed paws, she was pretty sure she could remove the top with her padded thumb.

"One more step and I let you have it." She said, trying like hell not to sound afraid. "I promise it won't be fun for you. Just me."

Tweedle-dickhead practically snarled at her. "Oh, it's definitely us who's going to have some fun with you, you fucking freak." He took another menacing step forward just as she managed to get the lid screwed off with her dew-claw.