Abby sat at the lunch table a chef's salad, minus the meat (as a mare, she couldn't eat meat), going over everything that had happened so far on her first day.
She was the only one who got a locker without a combination lock because her newer, larger hands with hooflike bits of keratin for fingernails wouldn't allow manipulation of a standard combination lock. Instead she got a special lock that had a key that functioned like a wireless car key (She couldn't remember what they were called).
Then she had to deal with the random inappropriate comments about her body, mostly from geeks and perverts who could never hope to land a girl or a guy. She often had to tell them that she was already spoken for. Some of the upperclassmen teased her about My Little Pony things, but she knew that they were actually jealous about her curves being bigger than their own.
Another problem was that she had to have specially reinforced desk-and-chair combinations built for her because of her 270 pound musculature would break things normally built for humans. She also had to carry with her a special kind of hand sanitizer that not only worked on fur, but also came in larger bottles than normal travel-size sanitizer. She also had to have larger writing utensils than normal and were specially reinforced so her grip wouldn't break them.
She was snapped out of her reverie when her three closest friends came to sit with her. Mei was a Japanese-American student who was a recent addition, having met Abby in Junior high. Dolores was a Latin American student who had moved to the neighborhood while Abby was in second grade. These two had taught her how to accept differences in people, partly because of the Veggie Tales video: Are You My Neighbor?, and that Dolores' idea for a Piñata party at her ninth birthday party really helped them open up to each other. Dana, however was an African American who had been friends with Abby since kindergarten. Abby braced herself for the questions they would throw at her.
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"Wow, chica!" Said Dolores sitting next to her, "You told us about your change in the chat room, but I didn't expect you to be this calientè."
"Yeah," said Dana, "I bet you could get any boy you want with little trouble."
"Actually, it would be a lot of trouble." Said Abby, shrinking into herself a little, difficult considering that she was well over 6.5 feet tall.
"Why? Asked Mei.
"Well," began Abby, "It would go against the Edict of Animalia forbidding mating with other species, and it would also be because I'm, er, contagious."
"Contagious?!" Said all three of her friends, withdrawing away from her a bit.
"Don't worry." Said Abby in a placating way, "As long as I am treated like I have a bad cold, I won't affect any of you."
"And what is an edict of Animalia?" Asked Dana.
All through lunch, Mei, Dana, and Dolores learned more about Abby's changes and the results of the virus.
They learned that Abby's farm was now part of something of a cross between a medium-size town and a large communal farm. While fruits and vegetables were the main export of Animalia, as the community was now called, there were also exotic artworks made my certain groups, while their biggest imports were meat products for the carnivores.
The houses of Animalia were built by a family of uplifted beavers who had a seemingly instinctive knowledge of architecture. The term for them were "Log cabins" for the ease at which they were put up, but they were actually two-story, multi-room cabins that were often found in cabin campgrounds that were more expensive than the other cabins.
Uplifted animals taking care of the farming could do things by themselves that would otherwise require animals or machines, such as anthropomorphic horses pulling plowing the fields on their own, without tractors.
Part of what was done to newly uplifted animals was an education program. It not only taught them about the Ten Edicts of Animalia, but also about human society and culture. Those who did extremely well at this were allowed to join human high schools, as long as they followed the same restrictions that had been placed on Abby.
And so on and so on...
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After Abby's 6th period, Gym, she was stopped by the football coach, Sam Walters.
"I was wondering if you would like to try out for the football team." He said, not forcefully, but making it clear that he was interested in seeing her play.
"Actually," said Abby, "I was planning on going into Track and Field."
"Really?" Asked Sam, a little bit disappointed, but still glad that she was going into Sports.
"Yeah," answered Abby, "I think that any football gear for me would have to be custom made, and I was part of the track team in Jr. High. I didn't place, but I did get honorable mention a few times."
"Well, good luck with that." Replied Sam, "Maybe with you we might make it to state."