Everyone gasped as I entered the next room and grabbed hold of the black cable running through the shimmering Tesla coil.
“He’s changed!” someone cried.
“I don’t believe it!”
I looked over at Danny to see if he had figured out a new way to bend the rules. But I saw nothing unexpected. He was in his normal human form. He had taken hold of the cable and wrapped himself around it and was hanging underneath it. He was shimmying through the coil.
I did the same, reaching out my paws and grabbing the cable. I shimmied my body out toward the coils. Somehow, it still didn’t register in my mind…
“What is he?”
“I don’t know, but he still has his pants on.”
I almost lost my grip. I looked at my paws. Yes, I had paws now.
They were furry on the back, but with palms and claws. I realized I had actually changed! I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t know right away exactly what I was, but clearly it was some kind of mammal. That in itself was a relief. Just having changed into anything was a relief. What a time for it to happen, too.
Whatever I was, it certainly made navigating that wire several times easier than it would’ve been with my normal hands and feet. My tail helped too. Yes, I had a tail. Looking back down my body and seeing it, I knew the truth. It was long, and it was pink, and it was snakelike. It tapered to a point at the end.
I was a mouse. Or maybe a rat. Maybe-I hoped not, even as I thought of it-I was a possum.
Danny had no chance of beating me at that point. Rodents are good at climbing along wires. Andy could have beaten me, but he had gotten his tail zapped. At that thought, I made an effort to control my tail and wrapped it around the cable behind me so the same thing wouldn’t happen to me. Then I got down to the business of the race again.
The crowd was making a lot of noise now, more than any of us had made up until that point. They were cheering, and jeering, whistling and just plain screaming.
I had almost made it across when I looked over at Danny to see how he was doing. In the same moment, he looked across at me, probably to see what all the hullabaloo was about. That was a mistake for him. Because when he saw me, and my new form, he slipped. One of his legs dipped down and his ankle touched the coils. There was a flash and a buzzing sound.
Danny made a strange whooping sound and fell.
The crowd was going wild, but I ignored them. Paw over paw, I made my way to the finish. I ignored the crackling electricity that made my new 2 inch thick fur stand on end all over my body. I ignored the cheers and jeers. I focused on crawling across that wire.
I made it. At the far end, I pushed open the final door. It was heavy. Sarah could not have made it first. I propped it open and crawled out.
“Two points, blue team. Entire course finished. Double-score, blue team.”
I stretched out, panting. The kids had all gone wild, either cheering or booing. I was very tired, and my only thought was that my new whiskers tickled my face abominably. I wriggled my face and rubbed at my nose-I guess I should call it a snout-with my paws. My whiskers felt like pencils coming out of my face. Those long, white shoots of coarse hair, as thick as straws, were going to take some getting used to.
Chapter Twenty-One
Exactly as I’d hoped, Sarah flew the rest of the race as our finisher and put us ahead on points. We won with a comfortable lead, 38 to 32. After the congratulatory back-claps and huzzahs were finished, things quieted down and I went to find Beth.
“Beth?” I asked, looking at my feet, which were paws now. “What am I? A mouse?”
Beth tilted her head to one side. “Maybe, Connor,” she said, and I thought I heard a waver in her voice. “I think you’re at least half-mouse.”
Jake came up. “You really had a plan,” he said, shaking his head. “I’d thought that was all just bluff. What plan, a surprise change in the middle of the course, breaking all the rules just like Danny did.”
I smiled back at him. Maybe I should have told him that he’d been closer to the truth with his first thought, that I’d gotten lucky. But why pop his bubble? I rarely got a chance like this. In fact, I’d never had a chance for glory like this.
“What are you exactly?” Jake asked, bemusedly. “Long-tail, whiskers, but you don’t look entirely transformed. There is still some human left in those paws with opposable thumbs. And in your eyes. Definitely a rodent, but which one?”
“I’m going with mouse,” I said.
Jake nodded. “Smart move. No one likes a… You know.”
I knew. Rat. I winced at just the thought of it. I looked back at Beth. She wasn’t looking at me anymore. She was looking off toward the obstacle course. A sudden pang of worry hit me. What if Beth didn’t like me anymore? What if Beth couldn’t get over my change?
I tried to urge my body to change back. I shook myself, then closed my eyes and concentrated. Nothing seemed to happen. I wasn’t in control of the change yet. Some people never learned to control it and changed at the oddest times, such as when they were asleep or when the moon was full in the sky. Some of us became more animal than human and couldn’t even live with normal people. I hoped for my sake I wasn’t going to grow up to become one of the wild ones.
I opened my eyes again and caught Beth staring at the long claws that curved over the ends of each of my toes. She looked away quickly and rubbed her face. I licked my teeth. My teeth were strangely sharp and my tongue was raspy, long and pink. She was definitely having a hard time with this. How could I blame her?
“Line up!” came the command from Urdo. It was time for the final team to team handshake. It was a bit awkward to walk on my hind legs in my rodent body, but I forced myself to do it. I wanted to look as human as possible.
As we went through the line, the kids on the other team whispered things to me as they slapped my hand.
“Good move,” said one.
“Congrats on the change,” said another, “It was about time.”
Danny came up and smiled at me. He still had a Rottweiler’s fangs. “All you did was cheat worse than I did. I should have known you’d be a rat.”
“Sniffed any good butts lately?” I muttered back to him.
Thomas came next. “Dogs eat rats, you know,” he said.
“I heard your parents had you fixed,” I said to him. “That’s probably why you tanked back there on the course.”
I was pleased to note that both of them had stopped grinning after talking to me. A hand pushed me lightly from behind. It was Beth. “Did you have to go and make it worse? I swear, Connor, if you see a smoking pile of wood you like to throw gasoline on it.”
I pouted. At least, I think that’s what my face did. What does a pouting rodent look like? I’d have to look in a mirror later to find out. Secretly, I was pleased that Beth was still talking to me. Maybe she could get over this little matter of my smelling like a hamster cage. I thought about what she said as we lined up back at the edge of the tumbling mats. She was right of course, my mouth and my tricks were fun, but they always got me into trouble.
What had Urdo called me? The trickster. Born under the Sign of the Thief. Well, I’d never stolen anything, but I guess turning into a rodent shouldn’t have been a surprise.
As she walked along, inspecting us, Urdo paused in front of Danny, and then me. She gave us each an appraising up-down look. She seemed pleased. I thought to myself that she would soon be presenting us to Vater.
