Hmmm...I was cool, at least to someone. Why couldn't anyone have ever told me?
I remembered the story she was talking about. Ali and I were caught by virtue of hair, specifically raccoon hair. The windows were those crank and lift up from the inside windows that old brick elementary schools seem to have. One of the teachers left the window open a crack, which was all we needed to get through. Since it was a crescent moon weekend, the raccoon hair puzzled teachers until word leaked to the parents and Ali’s parents realized what had happened.
Ali, true friend that she is, took the blame alone and was scheduled to detention for two weeks after school. She argued, quite reasonably, that since she had talked me into the trespass, that she should take the punishment. Nonetheless, I showed up at detention and my name was added to the annals of troublemakers. The wolves that weren’t offended thought it funny, although one of the elderly teachers who taught music seemed greatly put out by it, at least by the exquisite disappointment she expressed.
As I recall, Andrea came home from school that day in a snit because I had embarrassed her horribly in front of her classmates. “You were really jealous?”
“You have no idea. Sometimes I still am. You don’t even care what any of the elders think. It’s like you can exist outside the pack and still be part of it.”
“I don’t feel part of it. I feel alone.” I sipped my peppermint tea, feeling a strange sense of dislocation, as if everyone had seen my entire life in a completely different way than I had. “So what should I do about Rob?”
“It’s your boss?” Andrea bit her lip and looked off into the distance. Apparently this was a dilemma that took more reasoning than the typical brush-off.
“Yeah.” I looked uncomfortable. Of course I know how stupid getting involved with Rob would be. And I also knew that the office was far too small for the slightest bit of drama. I worked with the guy every day.
“How well do you like him?” Andrea asked.
“I like him well enough. We talk about all sorts of things and he’s always polite even when I insult him.”
“So why insult him?”
“He had sex on my desk. That’s where this all started.” I felt the blood rush to my cheeks.
Andrea started laughing. I’m talking full-body laugh, the kind you get when you’re punchy from lack of sleep and every silly thing sounds hilarious. I was confused. I mean, it’s kind of funny, but not worth rolling on the floor over. “That guy has it bad for you.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the change is taking affect, we like to find a spot where we feel safe, usually somewhere familiar. He probably started noticing you in human form. If he had sex on your desk, he was trying to be closer to you even while he was with someone else.”
“Well, I’m not the first receptionist he’s done this to.” I’m sure I tried not to sound as indignant as I sounded. Somehow this was worse, the fact that it really did mean something and that he had done it before.
“Maybe they spent a full moon together and realized it wouldn’t work between them. Maybe your desk is more comfortable.” Andrea smiled and it was a little too broad for my liking. My sister was enjoying this far too much. And the sad thing? I wasn’t. You'd think being in love is a wonderful experience. Not when it's one-sided agony.
“Wolves know with the moon. If you want to date a werewolf, you'll have to spend at least one full moon with him before he'll take it to the next level.”
“You mean marriage.” The word sounded strange in my mouth.
“That's exactly what I mean. You have to decide for yourself what you want. But I'd give him the moon night. What's the worst that can happen?”
The worst that could happen? I could become mouse pastry, my last vision of the big bad wolf's tonsils. Not a likely scenario, but definitely in the realm of possible worsts and a really bad way to go. My sister's advice, boiled down, was to go on the full moon date.
Had any little animal weres disappeared on the full moon? I didn't know. Maybe because we never exactly advertised what we were, except Ali, she didn't care if the world knew she was a raccoon.
Chapter 8
The amulet hung in the back of my closet on a hanger with my belts. Maybe not the best place for a magical item of questionable usefulness. The problem with Rob had me opening the closet before bed and considering the potential. If I used the amulet, couldn’t I change into a wolf, run the full moon with Rob and maybe cheat destiny a little?
I’m not a magic user except for the were change. I’ve never met a sorcerer, wizard, witch, or even held a magical item before now. Still, my hand itched to pull the amulet out and give it a go. It belonged to the shape shifters before, and maybe if I played with it a little, I could find a way to return the magic to its rightful owner.
Really, I’m not that altruistic. I was just deluding myself, giving my reflection a little more polish in the old self-image department than I really deserved. But it was enough. Another full moon come and gone, but this time, the office was spotless. Not even the stapler out of place the next morning. Rob was a grumpy wolf that morning.
That evening, staring at the ceiling in the dark after yet another day of awkward non-conversation with Rob, I decided to try out the amulet and see if maybe, just maybe, I could turn into a wolf. And then of course, return the amulet and do all that other good and honorable stuff that a person should do.
Throwing the covers back, I turned on the light and peered into the closet. Did I mention, all these thoughts were running through my head in the middle of the night? I grasped the cold metal with a decisiveness I barely felt. The vivid purple center seemed just the right color to me. I fumbled, pulling it over my head, anxious to have it on and half-sick at the thought that it might not work. I longed to be a wolf.
I stared at my hands. Nothing. No wolf paws, no turtle pads, no furry rabbit’s foot…I guess I’m not that lucky. I went to stare in front of the mirror.
Yep, that was me, and still in human form. Good looking if a bit round in the face, button nose—must have gotten that from the mouse side of the family, wherever that was. I waited. Nothing.
If anyone would understand the insanity of taking such a risk, it was Ali, and while she might not understand an eleven o-clock phone call, she was all I really had.
“Yrmph?”
Guess I woke her up. “Hey Ali, can I talk to you for a minute?”
“Jen? Hey, what’s up? Are you okay?” I guess calling your best friend in the middle of the night might lead one to the conclusion that things weren’t okay.
“I’m fine. I just, well, this is kind of embarrassing…”
“More than catching your lab experiment on fire senior year?”
She would bring that up. “Hello? That was five years ago. No, I put on the amulet.”
The phone was dead silent. I waited for a minute. “Ali, you still there?”
Ali’s quiet voice barely above a whisper spoke across the line. “Jeez, Jen, what happened? Are you half and half?”
I flushed, grateful she couldn’t see it across the distance. Half and half. I hadn’t considered some of the more interesting problems that might arise with putting on an unknown amulet. “No, it didn’t work. I was just wondering if there were words or something that I’m supposed to say?”
“How would I know? I just stole the thing.” Ali sighed, but I could tell her heart wasn’t in it. It’s a fair bet that she wanted to try the amulet out first and was just waiting for the next weekend when we were together. Ali would of course have wanted me as backup in case anything went wrong.
“Sorry to wake you up. I was just hoping you knew.”
“Why not say I want to be a penguin while you’re wearing it and see what happens? Want me to come over?” Ali’s voice had that rough quality from just waking up and from the lack of enthusiasm, I could tell it was a friendly gesture on my behalf and not because she was really interested in coming. Ali turned her nose down at the wolves, so
I suppose the amulet was just a source of amusement more than anything else.
“No, I don’t want to keep you up. I’ll try it out and let you know tomorrow.”
“Okay, hey, if it works, let’s get together tomorrow and experiment a little?” Ali’s voice brightened, and I could only imagine the kind of trouble she was planning. I would be the guinea pig (the wolf if I was lucky.)
“Sounds good to me.”
I hung up the phone and with rash enthusiasm and ran back to the mirror in the bathroom. With all the energy, positive thinking, and goodwill I could muster, I spoke aloud. “I want to be a wolf.”
Nothing happened. I laughed at myself for believing in a lump on a string. How crazy of me.
Pretty colors shifted along the amulet's surface in the bathroom light. The lump might be unformed, but it sparkled randomly, just little lights here and there. I wore it over my pajamas and went back to bed, wide awake. Grabbing a book, I started to read, every now and then fingering the amulet.
I looked at the clock. It was almost midnight. Stretching, I closed the book, and pulled the amulet back to look at it. Feeling a fool, I closed my eyes. “I want to be a wolf.”
For several seconds nothing happened. Another let down, but I was used to it by now. I turned off the light and closed my eyes, rolling on my side. The feeling of disappointment was almost crushing.
But then, something changed. My body started to itch, a burning itch like a thorn-scratch after picking berries. Nothing at all like a normal change would feel.
I ran to the bathroom and watched in the mirror as my eyes started to change, lightening to a glowing green and then yellow. Most wolves had yellow eyes. Mine stopped short at yellow-green, but then my body started to change, too, so maybe the eyes kept right on changing later. I would have Ali take a picture of me in wolf form just so I could see what I look like, and then I thought leaving evidence might not be so stellar an idea.
Being a wolf took a small bit of getting used to. Running on four wolf legs was a little awkward compared to the scurry on mouse legs, but not enough of a difference to throw me back to the toddling days of young childhood.
I ran around the house like a hyper dog or a cat on catnip. My paws flew as I skidded across the linoleum of the kitchen. I’d wanted to do that since I was a kid. While Andrea and Todd mourned for the lack of pets in the family, during the full moon Todd would play like a dog. From what I’ve seen with the neighbor’s dogs, they weren’t really that different.
I tried out everything, sniffing the wood on the table pine (yum), wagging my tail. Forgetting myself for a moment, I howled, you know the kind of wolf howl every kid practices as a human but only werewolves can really pull off. Suddenly I realized that an angry neighbor would probably call the landlord if I didn’t shut my mouth. After exhausting myself with play, I figured I would change back to human and go back to bed. Ali and I would experiment more tomorrow night.
The amulet had vanished when I changed form. Instead of an amulet I wore a collar that stuck to my neck. I barked. “I want to be human.”
Nothing happened. I tried everything. I started by putting my whole soul into the positive thinking wish to be human. And after several minutes of heavy wishing, I realized that even positive thinking must have limits. Who knew? After sniffing around the house in case I lost the amulet in my wild run, the reality of my situation settled in.
Whining, I put my face on my paws. Ali would find me tomorrow. And then I realized...I had to go to the bathroom. I was in for a long night.
Chapter 9
There is nothing more annoying than an alarm going off, that is, except an alarm that you have no way of shutting up. I awoke to shrill beeping in wolf form and rubbed my head against the buttons trying to move on to off all the while my ears aching with the sound. I had a new respect for dogs.
I’m a smart woman and I know all about the hazards of electrocution; however, even I have my limits. I took the cord in my mouth and praying that I didn’t chew through and kill myself, yanked it out of the wall. With the strength of my tug, the table fell over with the lamp following suit, breaking the bulb. And suddenly I felt a little more compassion for Rob and the utter destruction of his office. Overall, the relief of silence outweighed any guilt or distress over a broken lightbulb.
Jumping up on the bed, I curled up face to tail. Hmmmm…my tail smelled good. Was that normal? I sniffed a few more times and smiled, falling back to sleep, my bladder still aching, and hoping that the day would pass quickly and Ali would show up to help me out of this mess.
The ringing phone woke me the second time. I jumped off the bed and padded to the purse. Snuffling inside, I snapped at the phone, trying to grab it with my teeth and pull it out of the bag and discovered that as dexterity went, I preferred mice to wolves. Sure, a wolf’s paws were bigger, but a mouse’s paws were almost hand-like in comparison.
I never did get the phone out of the purse. Once it stopped ringing the smell of the incredibly strong peppermints in my purse was too much to bear.
Padding around the room, I sniffed everything. It was almost like a sixth sense, like being psychic or something. Wolves have 3D nostrils. It’s the only way the whole symphony of smells can be explained. Plastic, ick. Wood, hmmmm. Rob’s choice in furniture makes more sense now. His desk was real wood, and only sported one claw scratch. Only his receptionists and his girlfriends, if you can call them that, would ever know how that happened.
My need to pee increased painfully with every circle around the house and I started to wish that my apartment was on the first floor, because at that moment, I was ready to jump through a window.
Doorknobs are not made for animals. How did dogs stand it? The changing-closet in the bedroom was closed, and the woodchips and newspapers were made for much smaller puddles, anyway.
I thought of how my parents had handled lock-ups when my siblings were young, and the repeated admonishment to go to the bathroom before a change, kind of like they would before a car trip is a familiar memory, as are the accidents my brother had as a young wolf. I guess when we were young, I did a fair amount of my own teasing. Maybe he’s never gotten over my calling him pee-pup. I couldn’t lose my bladder now, and if I ever did, Todd could NEVER find out.
Plunking my furry butt on the bathroom floor, I waited. The smells of the bathroom were odd. The water in the toilet smelled exceptionally good. Saliva started to drip along my jowls, even while I wondered if I could jump up with my paws on the lid to go. Would falling in the toilet be better than watering the floor? Some questions were never meant to be asked, much less answered. This is what I get for impatience and lack of research.
The growing desperation was silenced by a knock on the door.
“Jen? Jen? Are you in there?”
Thank God! Rob found me. Maybe he could call Ali and figure out how to turn me back. I ran out of the bathroom, barking and yipping. I threw my paws up on the door and yapped, hoping he would somehow know wolf-speak in human form.
“Hey, puppy, is your mistress home?” Rob called through the door.
I started whining and scratching the door. It gave me a new respect for four-legged creatures. As a mouse, I never really felt the need to communicate, except once with Ali when I was spinning in circles on a ceiling fan. We mime to each other in animal form. And to this day, I’m convinced Ali knew what I meant when I begged her to turn the fan off. She was in human form, having put me on the fan to see if it would feel like a merry-go-round. It did, but I almost slid off, even with the little handle bars we attached to the top.
I yowled some more and Rob started pounding on the door. “Jen? Are you okay?”
Suddenly I heard blows on the door. Rob was trying to force his way in. Just as quickly, the noise stopped. I whimpered, trying to get him to keep going. The door could be fixed. I just wanted out.
Hearing Rob’s footsteps on the stairs, my ecstasy at being rescued fell to despair. Sighing, I snuffled a little and went back to t
he bathroom to wait for that defining moment—the moment when I couldn’t hold it anymore.
I heard a keylock in the door and raced to the front of the house. The landlord and Rob were talking about me.
“Thank you so much. This really isn’t like her. I just hope she’s okay.”
I thought, If you’d open the door, I’d be fine. Pet deposit be damned. No one ever mentions the pet deposits. Weres pay a bit more down than the average human. As a mouse, I managed to be convincingly human and skip the pet/were deposits. I ran through the door the minute Rob pushed it open, springing a leak at the second set of stairs. Here I was dribbling down the stairs while Rob and the land lady stared. Not my finest moment.
Yelling behind me, Rob hurried down the stairs. He could see I was a wolf, but I don’t think he believed it was me. Wolves are more constrained with the ability to change than most weres. Size seems to be a factor since the bears and large cats have the same trouble. Werewolves only change on the full moon.
I ran to the back of the complex, hoping for a bit of privacy while I piddled. No such luck. I was mid-stream when Rob turned the corner and as embarrassed as I was, there was no stopping my body. Still, Rob had no idea the wolf watering the lawn in front of him was his receptionist.
“Jen doesn’t have a dog.” The landlady was a middle aged woman, pleasantly plump, with deep brown hair that had a natural curl to it. She wore rectangle glasses a bit small for her face.
Rob smell really good, better than he did when I was just human. “She’s never mentioned it. This one’s a wolf though. Doesn’t smell normal either, almost as if she’s a wolf that is not a wolf.” Did I mention that some of our traits carry from form to form? Human werewolves have a great sense of smell.
Moon Struck: Book 1 (When, Were, and Howl) Page 4
