“If I wants to go to school,” she said, stretching her neck, “I gots to behave myself.”
“The other part.”
“That if I don’t behaves myself,” she began-and then the words began tumbling out like a running stream. “I’m sorry, Mom, I really am, please don’t takes my iPod away, but you don’t understands, we gots to go.”
“Quite right,” Vladimir said, patting Cinnamon on the shoulder as he walked past. He sat down on the desk and smiled at us. “I think it is a bit much to expect Cinnamon to have learned all our rules before she’s heard them. Have you heard of the Seven Dirty Words, Cinnamon?”
“Uh… no,” she said.
“Well, they’re words that the FCC-that’s the Federal Communications Commission, which you will learn about in Civics class-won’t let people say on TV,” Vladimir said. “We don’t use them at the Clairmont Academy, and I won’t say them here, but if you’re web savvy I’m sure you can look them up on Wikipedia as a guide for what not to say to your teachers.”
“Doctor Vladimir,” Fremont said. “To point a student to… such a list -”
“What happened to Yonas?” Vladimir asked, smiling at her. Idly he picked up the Rubik’s cube and stared at it. “Our job is not to hide the truth from our students; it’s to teach them how to learn the truth and use it responsibly. Huh. Two sides. Not bad.”
“I had four,” Cinnamon said reproachfully. Her tail was twitching something fierce now, and she had started to rock in her chair-but she still answered. “I was shooting at five, just so I could see the pattern on six.”
Vladimir stared at her, then tossed her the cube. “Show me.”
Cinnamon twitched as she caught it. “We gots to go,” she said, grimacing, but stared at the cube for a second before turning it a few times and flipping it back to him. “Four back at you. The counts, the pairs, the lonelies, and the pretties. I still wants to see what the other ones are.”
“Wholes, evens, primes,” Vladimir muttered, turning it. He held a side to us-it had 6s in the corners, 28s at north, south, east and west, and 496 at the center. “Are these the pretties?”
“Not all of them,” Cinnamon said.
“We call them perfect numbers,” Vladimir began. “That’s because if you add-”
“Fucking clown, ” Cinnamon snapped, abruptly turning away from him.
“Cinnamon!” I said, shocked beyond words. “ What did I say earlier?”
“Who cares? I can’t pass another fucking test,” she said. “We gots to go -”
“Not before you apologize to Doctor Vladimir,” I said sharply.
“There’s no need,” Vladimir chuckled, winking at me. “I can go on a bit, and I do have the look. But she is right, you do need to get going right away.” He turned to a set of cubbyholes beside Fremont’s desk and pulled out a folder and some papers. “The Academy is not a public school and we hold our students to a very high standard. Classes start Friday, not Monday, and we expect our students to get cracking over the very first weekend. We distribute textbooks here, but it will really help if you can get some of the supplemental books for her grade level, and after some assessments on Friday, I may have a few more suggestions-”
But I was barely hearing him. I just stared down at the folder he had placed in my hands, then held it up to show it to Cinnamon. It said, in bold gilt letters:
Welcome to Clairmont Academy:
A Guide for Students and Parents
“Yonas!” Fremont said, as Cinnamon seized the folder and her eyes started welling up. “You-you can’t just let her in, just like that-”
“Sure I can,” Vladimir said, shrugging. “We each get one pass. Just because you used yours doesn’t mean I can’t use mine.”
“But… but her accreditation,” Fremont said. “Her behavior-”
“Katie, you’re new here,” Vladimir said, a little less patiently. “A good ten percent of our good-reco kids will go bad and a similar percent of the bad-recos will go good. You know this. And as for her behavior, she is an extraordinary needs child-”
“Thankyou thankyou thankyou,” Cinnamon said, hopping up, tugging at her collar. “I’ll do my very best, I promises, but, like, we gots to go-”
“Sit down, Cinnamon Frost,” I said. “I’m sure I have forms to sign-”
“We can’t wait for that,” Cinnamon said, whirling. “Fuck, Mom, we gots to go -”
“Cinnamon!” I said, astonished. “What’s wrong with you?”
And then I saw it. Cinnamon wasn’t acting out because she was angry. She was terrified-and her whiskers were visibly growing out.
“I-I can’t stop it,” Cinnamon said, eyes in tears. “I… I’m changing. ”
Fur and Rage
“I knew it. I just knew it. When does the moon come up?” Vladimir asked, whirling to look at Fremont’s wall clock. It showed 3:54 pm. “How long do you have?”
“An hour,” Cinnamon said, clenching her fists. “Fuck! Not even.”
“Is it really the full moon already?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you have another day?”
“I haven’t changed in three months,” she whispered. “I can’t hold no longer-”
“That’s not healthy,” Vladimir said, frowning at me. “Changing is part of who she is. You shouldn’t be trying to suppress her gift.”
“I didn’t tell her not to change,” I said angrily. “She was poisoned.”
“Silver nitrate?” he asked sharply. “What’s that called, hyper-argyle-something?”
“Hyperargyria,” I said, squatting so I could look Cinnamon in the eye. Her eyes were actually glowing, and her pupils had narrowed to vertical ovals. “It damn near killed her.”
“Damnit,” Vladimir said. He looked at Fremont, who was gasping like a fish, and then he came to join me, watching the fine growth of fur on Cinnamon’s face. “Cinnamon, honey,” he said loudly. “Cinnamon, can you hear me?”
“I don’t knows,” she said. “Speak up a bit.”
Vladimir nodded and drew a breath as if to yell, but I poked him and shook my head. “Oh!” he said. “That wasn’t nice. Cinnamon, do you need a safety cage?”
Cinnamon clenched her fists, staring at them, then nodded.
“We have one in the basement,” Vladimir said.
“No, we don’t,” Fremont said, horrified. “Marian Joyce was complaining it was cramped so… I’m having it replaced.”
“You’re WHAT?” Vladimir said, clearly angry.
“Classes don’t start until Friday,” Fremont said, eyes frozen on Cinnamon. “The new one is going in this weekend. I didn’t think-”
“No, you didn’t,” Vladimir snapped.
“How could I have known?” she cried. “The next full moon isn’t for, what, a week?”
“It isn’t legal to offer an extraordinary needs program to a werekin without a safety cage on site, full moon or no,” he said. “We’ll have to tell Cinnamon and Marion not to come in on Friday, and how will that go over with Miss Frost, much less the Joyces-”
“Stop fighting stop fighting stop fighting,” Cinnamon said softly, and Vladimir and Fremont both shut up. “For the love, keep quiet.”
We all froze. Cinnamon’s little fists were trembling, and I swallowed as a tiny bit of blood beaded in the clench of her hands. But her shaking subsided, her fur faded, and her whiskers slowly drew back in.
“Mom, take me home,” Cinnamon said. “We gots to go. Take me home please.”
“Of course, Cinnamon,” I said, putting my hand gently on her shoulder and handing her a wet wipe. I always carried them. Werekin blood, even a scratch, had to be cleaned up. I gave Fremont and Yonas an apologetic word and ushered Cinnamon out. In moments we were stepping through the doors onto the setting sun, and I sighed: this place was beautiful.
