Catherine

From Candypedia
Catherine
GenderFemale
Age22
Birthday1986
SpeciesCat
DebutArrival, page 26
June 8, 2008 (2008-06-08)

Catherine is a local of the Silvershore Islands and Zachary’s friend since middle school, an adult who falls in with the Roseville kids on their summer vacation. She spends the trip clearing Zachary’s name, cataloguing his failures to anyone who will listen, and quietly watching the teenagers around her fumble their crushes. As it turns out, all that watching gives her ideas, and by the end of the visit she’s finally honest with Zachary about how she feels.

Personality

Catherine would rather calm a confrontation than join it. She enters the comic in the middle of an argument doing exactly that,[1] and she is quick to insist “I don’t wanna cause trouble.. I just wanted to clear up Zachie’s name.”[2] Very little rattles her. Paulo’s pick-up line about angels on the island earns a giggle behind her hand and nothing more, and her first read on her new friends is simply that they’re all just kids.[2] Even her defense of Zachary stays honest, since she would rather explain him than excuse him: “I couldn’t begin to list the zillions of risks he’s taken. I think he cares too much.”[2]

She is also the quietest watcher at any campfire. When Tess admits she would rather have had Paulo for her first time, Catherine only smiles, not looking surprised in the least, and she sits through the whole blowup without saying a word.[3] She acts on what she watches, too, though her composure slips when she talks about her own feelings. She can list Zachary’s shortcomings to a table of strangers without blinking, but actually telling him she loves him leaves her red-faced and shouting.[4]

Appearance

Catherine is an adult cat who wears her hair short with a flower in it.[1] She debuts in a sundress and sees the kids off at the airport in a long one, so the look bookends her whole time in the comic.[1][5]

Significant events

Catherine makes her entrance partway through Arrival, just after Zachary has been thrown out of a restaurant for gushing over Lucy. While the group argues about him outside, she appears behind Lucy, puts her hands on her shoulders, and vouches for him.[1] She spends the rest of the evening walking the boardwalk with Sue and the others.[6] She mentions that she grew up a few blocks away and knows the beach “like the back of my hand”, then face-palms as Lucy talks a hundred dollars out of Zachary.[7]

A flashback in Search and Rescue shows Catherine out walking with Zachary when Blur and Chirpy ask him to help with a rescue.[8] That evening she joins the group around the campfire, where Yashy brands Zachary’s cheek with a molten marshmallow and earns a long, disapproving stare for it.[9]

Catherine spends all of Intervention without saying a word. When Tess and Paulo’s quarrel boils over at the campfire, she sits cross-legged and takes it all in,[3] and the chapter leaves her by the fire with a thoughtful smile on her face.[10]

The gang heads home in Return, and Catherine comes along to the airport to see them off.[5] Once she has Zachary to herself, she finally levels with him about her feelings, and the two of them are holding hands at sunrise as the plane leaves.[4] That little scene, glimpsed from Lucy’s window seat, is her last appearance in the main comic.[11]

Major relationships

Zachary

The comic never shows Catherine outside Zachary’s orbit, and the two have the rhythm of very old friends, with Catherine playing his character witness and his heckler in the same breath. They have known each other since middle school, which is exactly what Zachary tells Lucy when she assumes Catherine is his girlfriend — “She’s just known me since middle school..”[6] Her way of clearing his name is to itemize the damage. She tells the group he has a “GREAT voice, but he keeps tryin’ to play guitar. So his bands never really work out. Now he’s tryin’ out managing talent so he can make bad decisions for everyone!”[6] He takes it in stride, admitting she is “pretty aware of my.. shortcomings”.[6] She mothers him besides, packing him off with a “Go wash your face, hon.” after the marshmallow branding and smiling as he goes.[9] He once leaves her on a street corner with no phone and no idea which mountain he’d run off to.[8]

It’s the kids who tip things over. At the airport she elbows him with a “Funny kids, eh?” and adds, “Kinda reminds me of us, y’know?”[5] A weekend of watching them all crush on each other has gotten her thinking, she admits, and when Zachary teases her about it she turns scarlet: “Shuttup!! Can’t ya let me be frank about my love for you in PEACE?!”[4] A moment later she pulls him close, conceding it wouldn’t feel right if he weren’t making things a little awkward. The two watch the sunrise hand in hand.[4]

Their happy ending is pointed squarely at Mike and Lucy. Yashy makes the comparison right on the boardwalk (“Flea and Mom are what’s known as a ‘work in progress.’”),[6] and Veronica’s commentary calls Catherine and Zachary “the perfect pair”, a “chilled out, more comfortable version of.. two certain characters”, adding that Catherine “is not struggling with a ton of emotional baggage, lol”.[6] The couple hasn’t been back in the main comic since Return. The members-only Ships Ahoy, Season Six did check in on them in 2021, though, and its one-page strip plays them as settled as ever — Zachary proudly reveals he has signed a truly dreadful musical act, and Catherine’s whole review is a flat “You what”.[12]

Minor relationships

Lucy

Catherine is on Lucy’s side from the second she appears, backing her up mid-rant.[1] From there she settles into gentle teasing. Explaining Zachary’s restaurant outburst, she smirks down at a flustered Lucy with “Apparently he heard someone with potential.”[2] She runs interference for her too, flatly informing Zachary that Lucy is not going to sing for him.[7] The comic gives the two of them no goodbye, but Lucy’s last view of the island is Catherine and Zachary together at sunrise, right before Lily asks whether she’ll ever confess herself.[11]

Sue

Sue is Catherine’s best audience on the whole trip. She howls with laughter at the stories of Zachary’s failed music career,[6] and the two get the arc’s warmest goodbye at the airport, a handshake and a “Same here! Take care, Sue.”[5]

Quotes

She’s right.. Zachie wouldn’t hurt a fly Catherine, appearing out of nowhere to vouch for Zachary in Arrival

Wow, you’re all just kids.. Catherine, sizing up her new friends in Arrival

She’s not going to sing to you, Zachie. Stop being creepy. Catherine, managing expectations in Arrival

I don’t have my phone? Which mountain?? Zachie? Catherine, abandoned on a street corner in Search and Rescue

Seein’ them all crushin’ on each other got me thinking ’bout some things, ya know? Catherine, working up to it in Return

Gallery

Trivia

  • The vacation setting the wiki calls the Silvershore Islands was “Acapulco” to Veronica, who has said she picked it “because I thought ‘Acapulco’ sounded cool” and did “zero research”. She was answering a fan who asked whether Zachary and Catherine are Mexican, and she never actually confirmed a nationality for either of them.[13]
  • Asked in 2026 whether Zachary might ever return, Veronica said a comeback “was supposed to” happen in “a very specific ending path that is not remotely relevant anymore”, and that “the forecast isn’t very good”.[14]
  • Catherine rotates through pet names for Zachary, “Zachie” from her very first line and “hon” by the campfire, while his one nickname for her is “Cathy”.[1][9][4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Chapter 42: Arrival, page 26
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Chapter 42: Arrival, page 27
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 44: Intervention, page 7
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 Chapter 45: Return, page 14
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Chapter 45: Return, page 13
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 Chapter 42: Arrival, page 28
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Chapter 42: Arrival, page 30
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 17
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Chapter 43: Search and Rescue, page 27
  10. ↑ Chapter 44: Intervention, page 9
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Chapter 45: Return, page 15
  12. ↑ Ships Ahoy, Season Six, page 12 🔒 (members only)
  13. ↑ “Ask response on the vacation setting and the pair’s nationality”. 2018-02-27.
  14. ↑ “Ask response on a possible return for Zachary”. 2026-04-05.
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