Mittens has Class Ch. 05

Chapter 5 - Because Keyboards Usually Have a Mouse Next Them

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The administrative building seemed oddly empty of people as Mittens made her way down the well-kept hallways, following the directions that Victoria had passed along to her. Though she'd not expected many people to be about, the college only partially staffed during the summer semester, but she had assumed there would be, at least, someone about. Even with it being a Saturday. However, the utter lack of anyone made her begin to worry that she'd missed some kind of memo somewhere.

Regardless, she padded along, undaunted by these concerns, more excited than anxious. It felt funny to think that she would soon be taking classes here, making new friends and learning new things. She couldn't help but wonder what kinds of reactions she would receive from other students and professors as they came face to face with someone living as a cat. She was already prepared that she was likely going to receive plenty of jokes and teasing, but that didn't bother her at all.

In the last couple of years, she'd never shied away from wearing her paws, ears, and tail in public, paying no attention to how others reacted to the sight of it. Amusingly, she usually didn't receive as much attention from it as one might expect. It wasn't entirely uncommon to see girls wearing cat ears as part of their fashion accessories these days and a lot of people didn't pay enough attention to notice much else about her.

Really, only people she directly engaged with ever seemed to fully notice the whole package and many out-right ignored it anyway. Amusingly, Chloe tended to get far more extreme reactions with her slave collars and behavior than Mittens ever did, even when both of them were on leashes. She supposed people weren't that offended by someone being a cat, but the idea of someone being a slave, even a willing one, pushed buttons.

Still, there was a difference from the general public's desire to not get involved and the typical immature need of teenagers to point out anything that didn't fit into their understanding. She was pretty sure it stemmed more from their own sense of insecurity than any outrage at something, but she was well aware that college students were pretty much apt to comment on pretty much everything.

At the moment, she was far more curious about what kind of reaction she was going to receive from the proctor she was here to see. Despite Victoria's assurances that she would be allowed to get as 'comfortable' as she wanted for the testing, she had opted to dress in fairly appropriate fashion. Though she had her full cat-accoutrement on, she was also wearing a knee-length tee-shirt dress (with a small hole sewn in the back to accommodate her tail) and hip-high white cotton socks. As well as her favorite pair of panties, which featured the words 'Spank Here' across the rump.

She'd also brought along a book bag with her, carrying a handful of needful things, but empty enough to stuff the dress into, should the proctor offer her the option of removing it. However, she'd decided she wouldn't bring it up herself. As much as she enjoyed the mischief of sitting naked in someone's office filling out a stack of multiple-choice sheets, she knew she needed to learn to behave herself a little.

Obviously, she wouldn't be attended classes naked, so she should start getting used to being dressed more. Of course, that lead to the idea of getting to see just how creative she could get with her daily outfits. She wasn't sure where the lines on dress code might be drawn, but she fully intended to push those lines playfully.

Arriving, finally, at the door she was seeking, she admired the name plate a moment. A moderately sized, black-plastic, thing with white engraved letters, the plate read 'Doctor Paula Hillart, Associate Dean of Business; Director of Student Recruitment; Professor of Business Design'. After a quick knock, Mittens cautiously cracked open the door and poked her head in. "Herr-o?" She asked, mimicking a 'meow'-like sound with the word.

She barely had a chance to fully register the interior of the room, a spacious office area appointed in terra-cotta colored wood paneling and a large matching desk at one end, when the tall, well-dressed, and strikingly handsome woman behind that desk stood and beckoned her in. "You must be Miss Cat. I've been expecting you, dear."

Slipping in, feeling a little anxious, Mittens carefully closed the door behind her and smiled at the lady. "I think I'm actually a bit early, sorry if that's an issue."

"Not at all, Miss Cat." She replied back, coming around from the desk and offering a finely manicured hand to shake. "I am Paula Hillart. I will be proctoring your test today. I have everything already set up for you, right here." She waved towards a smaller desk at the other side of the room, turned in profile to her own desk, on which sat a chunky laptop computer, electronic notepad, and a handful of other supplies.

Mittens raised an eyebrow at the set-up. "I figured it would be a pen and paper test. I even brought my special pencils." She produced a rather oversized 'number two' pencil from her book bag. It was meant as a novelty, but was a fully functioning pencil and was big enough that she could easily use it with her plush paws on.

Dr. Hillart laughed at the sight of the huge writing instrument. "Well, you can use that for writing on the scratch paper, I suppose. However, the test itself is all on the university intranet. Being electronic, however, that means you will know what your score was before you left here today." She considered the large stuffed paws. "Otherwise, I guess you'll have to take your...um...'paws' off for this."

Mittens gave her a reassuring smile. "Actually, I thought ahead and brought a pair that have much slimmer digits, just in case. I can change into those, if need be." She gave a little shrug. "Still, I might be able to surprise you with what I can do with these." She gave one of her paws a waggle.

"I wager that you could, Miss Cat." Dr. Hillart replied with a warm smile. "It might still be more advisable to switch to a pair that are less prone to accidently key presses. You only get ninety minutes per section, which are pretty extensive. You won't want to have to waste time constantly going back and fixing typos."

Mittens gave her an understanding nod. "Well, you know how much we kitties love ta play on keyboards, but yeah, we's not so good at spellin' when we does." She flashed a broad grin.

The proctor fixed her with a deeply amused look, seeming almost in wonder. "You are certainly as interesting as I was told." She said with a laugh.

"Yeah, Victoria said she gave you the general run-down on my...peculiarities?" Mittens returned with a sheepish look.

"Actually, Miss Cat, I was already familiar with you before she ever brought you up." She replied with a sly grin. "My brother told me about you. I'm not sure if you remember him or not, but he is Judge Douglas Hillart."

Mittens brightened. "I do remember him! He was really sweet and hella understanding. You're the sister who decorated his office, fight? I guess that's what 'Business Design' is. I saw you are a professor of it on your door."

Doctor Hillart laughed out loud. "No. It really is something very, very different, but that is funny. I'd never thought of it like that. Dougie just thought I had a better eye for décor than he did." She gave a little shake of her head.

Mittens gave a bit of a giggle, blushing a little. "Well, it sounded right, I guess. Hope that wasn't part of the test."

Dr. Hillart smiled. "No, it isn't. The test is only over English and Math skills. It was designed to be a guide for determining what placement in basic classes incoming students needed. Scoring lower required you to take some refresher classes and scoring very high meant you might could forgo some of the base curriculum. It was revised two years ago to be usable also as a test for admission, to make sure you meet basic requirements."

"So, I just need not to bomb it and I'm in, but if I do really great, I might can skip a few classes?" Mittens asked, raising an eyebrow.

Dr. Hillart nodded. "As long as you have a high school level of competency of those two subjects, we should be fine. You've already been, effectively, accepted for admission. This is more formality than anything, really." She raised an eyebrow wryly. "Though, if you do turn out to be more than just 'competent' at one or both, it will certainly be a good thing."

Mittens smiled broadly, trying to look generally confident. However, she wasn't honestly sure just how well she would actually do on the test. She'd spent the last week cramming with the help of, well, pretty much everyone. Master, Chloe, Mistress Victoria, Papabear, Butterfly, even the gaming group had forgone their weekly game to do a crash study session.

While everyone seemed to think she'd been doing great, everything felt all jumbling and tangled in her head. In fact, just last night she'd dreamed that she'd forgotten which figures where letters and which were numbers and she'd blurted out "Eight-six-seven-five-three-oh-nine!" when asked how to spell 'aphasia'.

"So, just curious, what is the minimum score I need to get in each part?" She asked, starting to feel nervousness seeping in.

"Each module has a maximum score of two hundred and fifty." Dr. Hillart replied. "A score below one hundred will require some remedial classes be taken, but you have to score less than seventy, on both modules, for your admissions offer to be revoked."

Mittens blinked. "That's it? Only seventy or more... on just one of them?"

Dr. Hillart chuckled. "Well, for one, I imagine if you scored, say, less than ten on one of them, there might be some discussion, regardless of what the other score was, but I don't feel like that's really going to be a concern. You also have to consider that you are doing this in reverse of how it would normally go. You've already been accepted and this is just us making sure the university won't be wasting its time. Normally, you'd take this test and the results considered before an admissions offer would be sent." She gave Mittens a significant look. "So, you are only being expected to achieve the barest minimum of our requirements."

Mittens gave a sheepish chuckle. "So, Mistr—er...Miss Victoria, must really have had some pull to get me in on her word alone."

Dr. Hillart grinned knowingly. "Yes, -Mistress Victoria- does." She gave a snicker. "She is an alumnus, a large donor, and one of the college's most regarded attorneys. And, yes, I am aware of her, and your, lifestyles. I'm pretty sure there a few administrators here that has even been put in fairly compromising positions by her." She gave a laugh.

"Speaking of which, she mentioned that you would probably request that you get 'more comfortable' while you take the test." She added with another wry look.

Mittens looked back at her questioningly. "That would be really great, but I figured that might actually be considered really inappropriate?"

Dr. Hillart laughed. "Well, yes, I imagine it would be considered very inappropriate. So, it would be very appreciated if you kindly didn't go advertising that I allowed you to."

Mittens raised her eyebrows in surprise. "So...I's can...?"

The tall woman nodded back in utter amusement. "Yes, Miss Cat, feel free to get as comfortable as you need to, as far as clothing, at least. The door will be locked and a sign asking for no one to disturb will be posted on it. If you're comfortable with it, it won't bother me." She raised a finger. "However, I think you shouldn't take this as any kind of sign that it is acceptable to come to classes anything but fully dressed." An impish gleam shined in her eyes.

"Thank you, Ma'am." Mittens replied giddily. "I really appreciate you being as understanding as your brother was."

"He really was very charmed by you." Dr. Hillart said, as she attached a laminated sign reading 'Admissions testing - Do Not Disturb' to the outside of her office door and then locked it. "He told me all about your interview with him. He said he wasn't sure if you were entirely sane, but that he thought more people needed a bit of your insanity in their lives. I think you really impressed him, despite the oddity of your request."

Mittens thought back to that meeting in his chambers, remembering how scared she was that he was going to just label her a kook and deny her requests. She had been very pleasantly surprised at how compassionate he'd really seemed, actually listening to her weird logic of defense to her choices. "I think it helped that he owned a cat, so he knew jus' how special we kitties really is." She replied as she began removing her tail from the hole in the back of her dress.

"Seriously though, it meant a lot that he was so accepting of the whole thing." Mittens said as she pulled the dress off and began folding it up. "Being a cat, or a cat-girl, I guess, is something very important to how I see myself. I don't know just how much he, or Mistress Victoria, has told you about my past, but it was a rough childhood and getting to redefine myself, on my own terms, is all I wanted."

The tall, firmly built, but deeply beautiful, administrator regarded Mittens with a very meaningful look. "I suppose I can very much understand that, Miss Cat. I know something about what it's like to look in a mirror and not see the person you feel you are inside. I can't say most people would think 'cat' as what they are meant to be, but I respect that you are sincere with it. As did my brother."

Though Mittens considered sliding out of the undies as well, she decided to keep them on. As much as the professor might be okay with her getting more comfortable, she thought it might be polite to compromise a little. In a strange way, she found herself feeling a little embarrassed, all of a sudden. She wasn't sure why, given that she normally felt no embarrassment at all with being naked. She'd be comfortable walking completely naked through the mall, if she thought she could get away with it, but all of a sudden, she felt like she was pushing something she shouldn't.

"And, you're sure that you're comfortable with me being...?" She indicated her now mostly naked body, the nipples of her pert breasts contracting a little due to the cool air conditioning in the room. "I know you've given your permission and all, but I don't want to make you uncomfortable just to feel a little more at home."

Dr. Hillart have a chuckle. "My, you really are a very thoughtful and considerate kitty. It doesn't bother me one wit, dear. Not personally, at least. As long as you are comfortable with my being here with you so underdressed and, like I said, you don't go bragging about it. I've been assured by an attorney that I need not worry about you trying to make a scandal from it." She gave a wink.

Mittens giggled. "Definitely not. I really appreciate the understanding." She slipped off the larger paws she was wearing and traded them out for a pair of much smaller and more dexterous ones. These actually allowed her to have all four of her fingers be separate, though she still tended to hold the middle digits together. "I'll keep my dress at hand though, in case someone needs to barge in for something important."

"Probably a wise choice." Dr. Hillart conceded with a nod. "Now, take a moment to get yourself settled at the station and then I'll get you logged in. The timer will start on the computer when you begin the first section. And you may choose which section you wish to start with. If you finish before time is up, you will have the option to go back and review all your choices before you submit. Once you're finished with the first section, I'll give you a chance to take a break, if you need one, before we start the second one."

Mittens nodded her understanding and seated herself at the little desk and took a few minutes to arrange herself. Finally, she looked over to the proctor and gave a little nod. "Ready to start."

Hillart stepped over and connected her to the testing server, went over the general instructions for how to navigate the test, and then indicated the button she should click when she was ready to start the timer and the test. Mittens took one last deep breath and clicked on the math section to begin and dove into the test.

Dr. Hillart returned to her own desk, mostly busying herself with various things while Mittens went through the massive test. Ninety minutes to complete two-hundred and fifty questions felt like a daunting task, but she found most of the items to take only a few moments to solve each. Even so, it felt like she needed to work quickly and any time a question required her to take a minute to work out, she felt like she was getting behind.

Amazingly, she managed to complete the test before the timer ran out, though only barely. She had less than two minutes left for her to review anything, so she opted to just trust her initial answers and click the 'submit' button.

"Done." She announced, sliding back her chair a little and raising her hands above her head, as if to show she was not trying to alter anything else.

Dr. Hillart rose from her chair and came over, smiling. "Okay, Miss Cat. If you want to take a fifteen-minute break, or so, to use the bathroom or grab a snack, I'll get things ready for your next section." She paused a moment before adding. "Though, don't forget to put your dress back on before you step out."

Mittens, who had already taken about four steps towards the door, still with only a pair of panties protecting her modesty, stopped, looked down and grinned sheepishly. "Oh, yeah, right."

A few minutes later, she was stepping from a bathroom stall, feeling satisfactorily relieved, and stepped up to the sink to wash her hands and put her paws back on. She looked in the mirror as she did so and smiled at her reflection. "College kitty." She said excitedly.

As tense as the test had been, she felt pretty confident about it. Surely, she got at least seventy of the questions right. Right? She had no illusions that she might manage to do well enough to be allowed to skip ahead, the latter questions, dealing with advanced algebra, had been much less familiar to her, but she had found at least half of the test to be pretty easy.

And surely, the English section wouldn't be that hard. At least, she hoped.

As she was slipping the glove-like paws back on, someone else entered the bathroom. A harried-looking girl in a sweater-vest and knee-length pleated skirt, long hair tied up in a pair of pigtails, bustled in and made a quick path towards the nearest stall. However, just as she reached it, she stopped dead, gawking at Mittens. For a brief moment, the girl just stared, absently adjusting her glasses, and looking stunned by a real-life catgirl standing in front of her. After a second, she seemed to remember that she was in the middle of a potty emergency.

As the girl disappeared into the stall, Mittens chuckled to herself and finished putting her paws back on. She decided to dally a bit, pretending to check her hair and make-up, while she heard the girl in the stall sigh heavily as her bladder's burden was relieved. After another moment, there was a flush and the girl emerged and joined Mittens at the sink.

"Meow." Mittens greeted the girl, with a smile.

The girl stopped dead and looked, a little stupefied, at Mittens for a moment. "Um...what?"

"Meow." Mittens repeated, matter-of-factly.

The girl continued to just glare at her, looking utterly confused. "Meow?" She asked after a moment.

Mittens gave her a quick nod, as if having just had a proper exchange of greeting and said, this time with a different inflection. "Me-yow."