"Dear Diary," you write.
Oh, dear, you realize. Perhaps you ought to write in the date. You go ahead, and you write the date above it, so you can remember when all of these things happened.
"May 29th, 2017
Dear Diary," it now reads.
You wrinkle your nose, though, as you realize that your handwriting is a little bit sloppy. You are no Pepys, for sure. Sigh.
"Mom," you say, looking up from your mother's lap into her warm, brown, ursine eyes, "I don't get it. Why pen and paper? Couldn't I just use my tablet?"
Your mother looks a little unhappy, but she admits, "Well, you don't really have to keep a Change diary at all, Rebecca. Not everybody does. I just thought you would enjoy learning handwriting.
"Can you teach me to make it pretty like yours?" you ask her.
"Well, the Spencerian method is a bit difficult for a little girl," she says hesitantly.
"I guess I just won't learn," you wail softly, looking forlornly at the jerky pen-strokes you have left on the first page of your Change diary.
She sighs. "Honey, it's not that hard," she says, taking your small hand in her big bear-paw. "All of the letters in Spencerian method are made from only a handful of parts that all really look the same. Let's just do the parts first, and you'll see." She looks at your beautiful synthleather-bound diary, and she decides to stow it away for the moment, taking out her single-entry ledger to practice on instead. "Let's practice here," she insists.
For a while, you and your mother practice at drawing the little parts that go with the script, and she explains to you how, for each part, you should really do it your own way instead of trying to make it look perfectly like everyone else's lettering. Proper calligraphy should be personalized and all but impossible for a stranger to duplicate, but it is essential that the same part always be done in the same or a similar way.
You therefore start over again, carefully drawing out each letter in your mother's hand at first but eventually finding your hand going through its own peculiar motions in the flow of each letter. You realize that you could not consistently keep it looking like your mother's hand if you wanted to, although it doesn't look as bad as you feared it would.
"May 29th, 2017
Dear Diary,
Boys really are dumb..."
Your mother interjects, "Your father's not dumb, Rebecca."
"Peacocks don't count as boys...OUCH!" she had pinched your inner thigh rather hard, causing you to squirm. "Well, he's not like other..."
"You're just making it worse," she advises."
"...okay, so maybe just this particular boy," you write after adding an ellipses.
"Better," you mother says.
You write without interruption for a while. "It is just my luck that my first sign of the Change would be turning all the way into a cat. It happened after this dumb boy named Bobby pulled my hair during algebra, and I freaked out so bad that everything was a blur for just a while.
It wasn't so bad being like that after I quit panicking. I stopped having normal thoughts, and it was like my mind was more relaxed than usual, which felt good in a way. I was letting things happen more reflexively, and the only bad part was that I had trouble understanding what people around me were saying. I also wasn't entirely sure WHY I was hiding under that big bookcase or even caring if it was a bookcase or not, except that it was dark and cool, and it felt kind of safe. My thoughts were very simple, except my whole self was also floating around in there somewhere like a ghost, sort of half-asleep but still there. It's tempting to just stay that way and not have to deal with things, but knowing I feel that way also scares me a little bit because I know I can get stuck.
Fortunately, Mr. Jenkins...who is one of those cool six-limbed merlins that the mathsy boys in the class all want to be...eventually lured me out by using one of his own long primary feathers attached to a string. He put me into a cage he had handy and covered it in a cloth, and he had Mom come and pick me up to take me to the Change doctor, who changed me back.
My Change doctor, Dr. Howell...who is a hare...well she is very nice, and she helped me pick out my first morph-suit from her supply closet. I'll have to wear one from now on, since I am apparently a shapeshifter. The morph-suit feels kind of funny, though. It feels sometimes like I am not wearing anything at all, which makes me feel embarrassed, and other times, it feels like I am wearing too much, since it is all clingy against my skin. Dr. Howell said that we might have to go through a few different styles before we settle on one that really feels right on me, and Mom said we could go shopping this weekend at the Shifter Shop at the mall. I want really snug, comfy shorts, but she wants me in dumb-looking yoga pants. I'm sure we'll find a compromise, and I will wear what I want when she's not looking."
"OUCH! Jeez!"
"Anyway, Dr. Howell says that I am becoming a Scottish wildcat, which she says is not really all that different from a housecat by all appearances, except we're usually more non-conformist than most housecats and also a lot smarter. Mom just threatened to pinch me with her big, dumb bear-paw again, so now I have to write that Dr. Howell did not really say that this means I am necessarily smarter, even though I know it does.
I still look like a little girl, for now, except for the new clothes, but Mom is going to be signing me up to get a mentor to teach me how to control my shapeshifting and be able to shift and not go feral like I did the first time. I'll be seeing him a week from today, and I will try to get an update either then or not too long after. Until next time, I remain
Your loyal confidant and friend,
Rebecca."