“Its head looks normal, if a little bit chimp-like,” she narrated. The little red light on the camera gleamed at me. I glanced at the clock. It was 6:20 AM. I hated mornings in general, and early mornings with Heather’s camera were the worst.
“Bumpy, nerdy, boy-skin,” Heather continued. She moved the camera very slowly and tried not to wobble it too much. She liked a clear picture so she could show it to her high school girlfriends and have a good laugh later. “The subject’s winter coat has grown in. It has a full head of black hair in a bowl-cut pattern.”
I tossed a book at her from my bed stand. She sidestepped it expertly and the book made a ruffling sound as it hit the wall and slid down onto my dresser.
“The creature’s summer freckles are gone now that it’s winter. But I’m sure it will grow something new and nasty on its face to replace them very soon. Something like a zit, but worse.”
“Get out,” I said. My mouth was full of a nasty morning taste. I hated when Heather called me “It”. She did that all the time.
“Ah,” said Heather. She was now all the way around my bed to the side by the window. “It’s in a bad mood. Could it be covered with fur under those sheets? Or perhaps… feathers?”
I pulled the covers over my head, but it was no use. I knew what was coming next.
With a whoop and a flourish, she yanked off my blankets.
“Hey!” I shouted and snatched at the covers, trying to get them back. Cold air rushed over me and cut right through my thin pajamas. January always left your room so cold it was hard to get up and leave those warm blankets. Camden was out in the boondocks of Oregon, in Harney County, where there were a lot more trees and mountains than there were people.
Heather gasped. “Oh! Oh no! ”
She let me have the blankets back and I pulled them over myself. I was happy to feel the warmth again.
“I’m so sorry. Really I am,” said Heather. She sounded like she’d seen something horrible.
I cracked one eye back open and looked at her.
“I just… I just didn’t know,” she said, lowering the camera and looking at me with eyes full of worry and disgust.
Just for a second, just for a tiny fraction of a second, she had me. I saw the look on her face and I wondered: What if I had changed overnight? The way Sarah had changed into a blue jay. What if for me, it wasn’t anything cute and normal like a happy little birdie? What if I had the body of a snake with thick oily scales?
Or worse, what if I was part bug? It happened sometimes. I knew that. The adults only whispered about it, but the older kids would tell you about it when there weren’t any parents around to shut them up. Sometimes, the change was bad. Very bad.
I sat up suddenly and felt around in my bed, felt my body. Skin, hair and pajamas. That was all I found.
Heather was grinning hugely, and recording it all, of course.
“Got you!” she shouted and she ran.
I chased her all the way to the upstairs bathroom, where she slammed the door and locked herself in. No matter how much I banged on the door and yelled at her, all she did was laugh.
“You have to come out of there someday,” I told her.
“No I don’t, punk,” she said. Her voice was muffled coming through the bathroom door.
I waited with my feet freezing. I found my slippers in the hall and jammed my feet into them.
It hadn’t been this way before our mom had gotten the overnight job. She was a nurse and she didn’t even come home now until after Heather and I had taken the bus to school. Every night and morning Heather and I were on our own. We were always messing with each other. Today, it was Heather’s turn, but tonight… Well, I had ways of getting revenge. I always thought of something.
I got mad then and sometimes when I get mad I say things I shouldn’t. “I’m going to get on the phone and call Vater. Jake says he knows the number. Vater will straighten you right out.”
Heather stopped laughing and the door flipped open. I jammed my slippered foot in there before she could shut it again. I was getting stronger now, my kids muscles had hardened into a teen boy’s muscles over the last year. I figured if I pushed hard and long enough, I could force the door open, even though she was still bigger than me.
“Connor, don’t ever talk like that,” she said, straining as I pushed on the door. My sister was no slouch either and she had her feet braced like a sumo wrestler ready to make a charge.
“Why not? You think he can hear us?” I asked, still pushing. I felt the door give an inch and a grin that was half-grimace split my face.
“Don’t say his name!” she said, easing up and showing me her disapproving face in the cracked open doorway. “Don’t ever joke about him.”
I looked up at her and sighed, knowing she was right, I had gone too far. All my strength faded and my plan of forcing open the door faded with it. I stopped pushing. “Okay, okay, it wasn’t funny. I’m sorry, now let me in the bathroom.”
“Promise me!”
“He hasn’t been here since before we were born!”
“Mom says that doesn’t matter,” Heather scolded me. I knew by the look in her eye, the one eye I could see in the cracked open door, that she was serious. She had turned into mom on me, and I hated when she did that. She was fifteen, and she was technically still a kid like me. But at times like this she thought she was Mom.
“Promise me,” she said again.
“Okay, I’ll never make up bull-oney about Vater-”
“Connor!”
“Sorry again. I won’t even say that name! Now let me in.”
“Okay,” she said. She opened the door part-way.
I took a half-step forward, but she leaned around the door into the hall. “Hey, there’s Bennie! Mom must not have let him out,” she said, pointing down the hall. “Here boy!”
I turned to see Bennie, our pet dog, walking up to us. His claws clicked on the hardwood floors with each step. The second I turned and took my foot out of the way, she slammed the door, naturally.
“Hey!” I shouted, “No fair!” I gave the door a kick and it shuddered. The kick stung my toe.
Bennie stopped to look up at me. He was half-Terrier and half-Pekinese. A fluffy, brown-furred little guy with bulging eyes. I smiled at him.
Bennie stared at me and cocked his head. He was probably thinking about his food dish, but it looked like he was thinking about me. Maybe he was trying to tell me I was a fool, and that I should just go down to the other bathroom instead of waiting on Heather. I supposed he was right, but I was in a stubborn mood and wanted to annoy her until she came out. It was the principle of the thing.
But Bennie wasn’t trying to tell me any such thing, I realized after a few moments. He just stared at me, and then his lip shivered up to show a few teeth. He snuffed, and then sneezed. He barked once, nervously.
“Hey boy, good morning,” I said to him.
I reached my hand down toward him.
Bennie backed up. His lips curled fully back and he sniffed at my hand and rejected it. He gave another sharp bark and one of those throaty little growls that he usually saved for days when the garbage truck was rolling up the street.
“What’s wrong?”
His eyes. They got to me. They weren’t the same. Bennie never looked at me like that.
He looked at me as if I were a stranger. My own dog didn’t know me.
Chapter Three
Everyone was hoping for a snow day, but it didn’t happen. The bus picked me up in front of our house on Raccoon Street and I was on my way to school. The bus heater droned and blew hot dry air down on my head. My
