Chapter 3
There was an orange tabby cat on campus called Pumpkin, and pretty much everyone helped take care of it.
They said it'd been there for three years already, so it was basically part of the campus.
But lately, Pumpkin's just vanished.
It was nothing like the other stray cats around. Of the classic cat sins—being sneaky, lazy, greedy, and slick—it'd already mastered two—laziness and gluttony.
All it did was eat and sleep in the little house the students made for it.
It never left.
When it disappeared, everyone totally panicked and started searching every corner of campus, but no matter how hard we tried, it was nowhere to be found.
"Heather, where do you think Pumpkin could be? Did some creep snatch him? He's just a kitten," Sophie said, her voice full of worry.
Seriously, it was just a chubby, 13-pound kitten.
Sophie ran the campus cat group. Those cats were her life.
All I could do was try to comfort her.
But just as we pushed open the dorm door, a flash of orange and white fur shot out at us.
It was Pumpkin.
"Grab it! Don't let him run out," Diana shouted, practically losing it in the dorm.
"It took me forever to catch it. If you let it get away, I swear I'll make you pay," she yelled.
Turns out, Pumpkin hadn't just vanished. Someone had actually locked it up.
"Seriously, Diana, what's wrong with you? Why would you snatch Pumpkin?" Sophie snapped, her voice practically shaking with fury.
Our resident muscle, Sophie, was trembling with anger, but she still cradled Pumpkin protectively in her arms, trying to soothe the freaked-out tabby.
Diana rolled her eyes, her face full of contempt.
"What do you think? I'm keeping it. Just because you guys don't care doesn't mean I don't," she snapped.
"From now on, this cat's living with us. And stop calling him Pumpkin. He's mine now, and his name is Marshmallow," Diana announced, acting like she owned the cat.
With that, she reached out to take Pumpkin—now Marshmallow—from Sophie.
But Pumpkin wanted nothing to do with her, swatting her hand away, like it couldn't stand her.
"Ouch!" Diana yelped, pulling her hand back in a flash.
Sophie was busy calming down the agitated orange tabby in her arms.
"We're not allowed to keep pets in the dorms. Pumpkin can't stay with us," Sophie reminded her.
Diana started stomping around. "Says who? I've never even heard of that. You just hate seeing someone do something kind. I don't care. From now on, Marshmallow's staying right here with us. I dare any of you cold-hearted people to try and throw it out!"
I grabbed Sophie's arm before she could actually swing at Diana, then turned to Diana, totally serious.
"You know what, Diana? You're right. Cats really shouldn't be left outside," I said, backing her up.
With my support, Diana smirked like she'd just won the whole debate.
"Heather, you're the only one here besides me with any sense. So don't let that cat food you bought go to waste. Just give it to Marshmallow," Diana said, with that smug look on her face.
Sure, pet cats shouldn't be left to roam, but Pumpkin was a campus cat.
Students built it a cozy house, bought it food, and took it for shots and neutering. It was basically part of our campus.
Sophie ran the whole group that took care of campus cats.
They'd even been looking online for a real home for Pumpkin.
But Diana, with her so-called kindness, just took it.
She didn't care about the school's no-pets rule at all. She didn't prepare anything.
And she didn't even think about all the students who'd spent the whole day searching for it, worried sick about its safety.
I guessed she just wanted to give it a real home so badly.
*****
So I stayed up all night crafting a post and dropped it on the campus confession page.
Title: [A Real-Name Post Praising My Beautiful and Kind Roommate]
It was a long, detailed post about Diana's "heroic" cat rescue, with three-quarters of it dedicated to singing her praises. The language was so flowery and the sentences so smooth that it was like Shakespeare himself had taken over my fingers.
In the end, I even included our exact dorm room number and called on everyone to bring over any spare cat supplies.
I wanted everyone on campus to know how insanely kind Diana was.
Just as I expected, the moment the post went up, it blew up.
But instead of showering her with praise, everyone started calling Diana out.
The comments section was overflowing with savage insults that would never get past the moderators. The dorm supervisor barged into our room, took Pumpkin away, and spent a whole hour lecturing Diana about responsibility and rules.
After that, Diana came back to the dorm in total silence, not saying a word to anyone.
Late that night, she dropped a dramatic post on her social media.
It read: [What's wrong with this world? Why is it so hard to be kind? I tried to do something good, and now everyone's against me. Is this what they mean by "no good deed goes unpunished"? I don't buy it. You cold people will get what's coming to you. Only I'll be the one laughing in the end!]
I quietly liked the post.