Although he remained thirsty, Jared got both hands on the seat of the toilet and pushed himself away from the source of cool, refreshing water.
"You were drinking out of the toilet!" Kevin screeched. "Eeww! Gross!"
Jared got onto his feet and put his hands on Kevin's shoulders. "Stop freaking out, will you?"
"But..." Kevin looked at the water in the bowl and felt like he might heave. "Toilet water! What were you thinking?"
Jared gave his brother a good shake. "Listen, will you? This is serious." He began relating his odd behaviors, plus the strange dream, as well as the subsequent visit by the being calling itself Wepwawet.
"Wep-a-what?" Kevin asked, his eyes wide with amazement. The entire tale sounded like something from one of his favorite comic books.
"That's not important, but it's some sort of god or demon, and it wants to change me back into a dog," Jared blurted out.
"No!"
"Yes!" Jared retorted. "But... maybe you can do something to... you know, help me. After all, your wishing separated Shaggy and me."
"I don't know what I did," Kevin said. "I...I just didn't want to lose my brother, so I tried to put things right."
"I think whatever you did has gotten the amulet mad," Jared said, putting together his theory on the fly. "Or the creature that inhabits the amulet."
"But what happens to you if this Wet-a-ma-callit gets its way?"
"I'll become a dog again," Jared said, adding another word that sent a shiver through his entire body. "Forever."
"Jeepers!"
"What do you think we should do?" Jared asked.
"You're asking me?" Kevin came close to shrieking again. He was such an excitable kid. "How should I know?"
"It's getting to be so difficult," Jared confessed. He looked past his brother down into the bowl. The toilet water still looked so inviting. "It's like my body and brain want to be a dog again!"
"You've just got to keep focused on being a human being," Kevin said, not all that helpfully. After all, it had been what he had been trying to do for nearly the past twenty-four hours. "In the meantime, perhaps we should learn all we can about this Wepwawet. Can we use your laptop to do some online research?"
"Sure," Jared said and nearly strode out of the bathroom and down the hall to his room.
"Wait!" Kevin exclaimed, stopping Jared in his tracks. "Ummm, maybe you want to put on some clothes?"
Jared flushed again. He hadn't even noticed his nudity the entire conversation.
A few minutes later, having pulled on a pair of boxers, he hovered over Kevin as the younger boy made impressive research into researching Wepwawet. "I wonder how you spell that?" Kevin mutter, intuitively getting close enough on his initial try to land plenty of results on his GOOGLE search.
From the backyard they heard barking from Shaggy. "He probably wants to take a walk," Kevin said. "I can bookmark this and..."
"No, you keep researching," Jared said. "I will take Shaggy for a walk. I can clear my head."
Kevin looked up, concerned, from the keyboard. "But won't that remind you of being a dog?"
"I think I can handle it," Jared said. "Besides, it's just to the end of the street, through the park, and back," Jared said. "Twenty minutes, tops."
"Well, hurry back then," Kevin said. "I'm not liking some of the stuff I am finding on this Wepwawet."
Jared smiled. "I feel better already with you on the case," he said.
"The brothers united!" Kevin declared. "We'll kick Wepwawet's butt."