“I’m sorry, Seth. I can’t hold on any longer.” Monica sat on the lawn one moment, her possum alter ego replacing her in the twinkling of an eye.
Folding himself down on the top step, Seth wrapped his arms around his knees. How he’d hoped to finally find a place where he fit. Was he destined to remain on the outside looking in forever?
Dustin wandered the edge of the yard, furry mind filled with human sympathy. “But I wanted to be a possum tonight!” Seth screamed at the fickle moon. One moment later, he was.
NIGHTsounds Seth normally took for granted sharpened, and he wondered if real possums appreciated the difference. Wait! Hewondered!He did a happy little possum flip, if somewhat awkwardly. He wondered! He had his human mind! On the edges of his consciousness, Dustin and Monica conversed before Dustin shrank back into the shadows, apparently satisfied. Monica hunkered down a few yards away, wary eyes sweeping the yard.
Chirp, chirp!What the hell was that? Seth scuttled around, searching the grass for whatever produced cheeping to give a foghorn a run for its money, volumewise.Chirp, chirp.A fat cricket sat a few feet away, singing to lure a prospective mate. Seth stared at the angular, skinny legs, only one thought in his head:Yummy!He pounced, as much as his cumbersome body allowed, catching the cricket unawares.Crunch, crunch, crunch.Oh! Like potato chips! Also like potato chips, one simply wasn’t enough.
Seth spotted another cricket and wobbled over, filling his mouth before his prey hopped away. Stupid cricket. The third and fourth proved equally easy.
I am the crickinator!Seth considered simply opening his mouth and ambling the length of the yard, scooping up insects like a whale netting plankton.
Eventually his seemingly bottomless belly filled, and he experimented with his new body. Locomotion wasn’t a problem if he simply moved without trying to figure out the mechanics. However, the moment he became aware of having four feet to contend with, he stumbled and fell. Should he place the two on the right in tandem, or right front, back left?Splat!
A chittering sounded in the general direction of Monica. Did possums laugh?
Oh! Worm! Seth pounced, squealing when his teeth sank into his own tail. Ow! That hurt!
After a while, he grew sleepy and headed for the house. He bumped his nose on the bottom step. How the hell did they get so high? Bouncing his front end lifted his paws an inch off the ground. He bounced again, and again, only succeeding in wearing himself out.
When he’d reached the point of giving up, Monica took pity and led him around the side of the house and underneath. An intricate possum highway existed under the structure, constructed of two by fours and sheet metal. On and on they rambled, entering walls and finally coming out under the bathroom sink.
Weary now, Seth slothed to his bedroom, where he plopped down on the area rug by his bed. He awoke to sunlight streaming through the window, itchy possum hairs scratching his bare human skin, and the icky sensation that something had crawled into his mouth and died. Wait a minute! It had! Several things, actually. Something scratchy hung from his lip and he wiped it away, only to come away with a cricket leg clinging to his hand. Yuck. Cricket.
SETHslurped his second cup of coffee in a feeble attempt to clear the ick from his mouth. He peeled open one bleary eye to stare at Monica. “You didn’t sleep with me, did you?”
Monica snorted into her coffee. “Of course not! I slept in my bed.”
Bed? “How the hell did you get in a bed? They’re too damned high!”
“Didn’t you notice how your aunt kept a chair by every bed? You simply climb the rungs, jump to the mattress and tuck yourself in. Umm… in case you didn’t know, possums are natural climbers.” She narrowed her eyes, staring at Seth with faux concern. “Awww… did the widdle possum s’eep on the cold, hard floor last night ’cause he couldn’t get into his big, high bed?”
Not feeling particularly mature at the moment, Seth unwrapped one hand from around his coffee cup to flip her off.
As expected, she merely laughed. “You realize what you did last night, right?”
He shot her a “well, duh!” expression, which sapped his remaining energy—he dropped his head to the kitchen table with abang.
“Hedidn’t change until the last of the passel did,” supplied a welcome voice from behind. Summoning the few remaining ounces of his strength, Seth lifted his head a fraction and swiveled around to the new arrival. Dustin stood barefoot and bare-chested in the doorway, clad in faded blue jeans, thin spots and holes showing in strategic areas. Even exhausted, Seth found the peek-a-boo display of skin fascinating.
“I fought to hang on, hoping to witness Seth’s first transformation,” Dustin said as he crossed to the coffeepot and helped himself to a cup. “I finally couldn’t control the change any longer. The moment I dropped my guard,bang!there you went. Tell me, were you fighting half as hard as I was?”
Fighting?“No. When I’d finally accepted it wasn’t happening,wham! I’m a possum.”
Dustin leaned down, searching Seth’s eyes. “Any disorientation? Headache? Nausea?”
Seth shook his head, stopping when the motion made the room spin. “Only due to cricket overload. I’m tired and swimmy-headed.” Both Dustin and Monica’s eyebrows shot up toward their hairlines. “That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
Dustin’s wide-eyed surprise met Monica’s in a silent exchange Seth worried might be some form of telepathy. He slurped coffee in retaliation for them ignoring him. Was he supposed to have to fight, get headaches, and nausea? Maybe he should rethink that whole “living up to the family name” thing.
“This is un-freaking-believable,” Monica murmured. “What?”
Dustin plopped down in a chair across the table, staring at Seth like some fascinating circus attraction. “Irene didn’t have to fight. The moment the last person under her care turned, so did she. If I were meant to lead, remaining in human form, on guard, would be second nature. It’s not. If I took over now it might be years before shifting last comes naturally, if ever. Dude, you are the man, literally.”
A faint stirring of hope wriggled to life in Seth’s heart. “Does that mean Junior can’t challenge me?”
