No!
I didn't.
Tugging on the chain, I felt the collar tighten around my neck. I did! Why the hell did I let myself get tricked into becoming a dog again?
"Jared!" Kevin exclaimed impatiently. I turned at the same time as the impostor, but only he could respond with human words.
"Coming," the impostor me told my brother.
Woof! Woof! "No! Wait! I don't want this! We have to change back!"
"It's too late for that," he told me, lingering for a moment.
Woof! Woof! "I can't stay a dog!"
Trapped! As a big, fuzzy, clumsy English sheepdog.
Kevin stepped out the back door and walked over to see what was keeping his big brother. I looked up at my kid brother with new eyes. He stood taller than me now.
Woof! "Kevin! Help me!" Woof! Woof! "It's me!"
Kevin knew the best way to quiet down his dog. He reached and scratched behind Shaggy's wide, floppy ears, smiling when the dog's rump began wagging wildly.
BLISS!
Ohhhhhhh.
Scritch. Scritch. The pre-teen continued to scratch behind the dog's ears as his brother questioned him.
"You found out something about the amulet?" Through the bliss of the ear scratching, I heard the impostor query Kevin.
"Yes, it's a powerful magical artifact," Kevin said, keeping up the ear scratching that was sending mind-blanking waves of pleasure through his brother's new canine form.
"I think it's best we get rid of it," the impostor said.
Nooooh. Oooohhh.
My brother's fingers dug into the thick fur over my skin right at the intersection of my ears with my new canine skull, overwhelming everything. I heard the muffled discussion of the amulet as if trapped inside a fish bowl.
I began to drool in the grass. It was too much! I even felt tingling around my fur-enveloped sheath.
"Can't we keep it?" Kevin asked.
"You said yourself that it's very powerful," the impostor said smoothly. "Do we want something like that lying around?"
Whimper! Whimper! "Kevin, I need that amulet. Please, don't let him get rid of it."
Oh god. What have I done? Without that amulet, I was stuck permanently as a dog while the former Shaggy masqueraded as me to the rest of the world. I tried to think about what that meant. Seeing the world in black and white. Lifting a leg to pee. Dog food. Collars. Leashes. Fur. Lots of fur. No hands, only four paws. Turned into a mindless imbecile just because someone scratched behind my ears.
I didn't even realize that they had walked away, leaving me in the yard while they returned to the house. When I finally noticed, I barked my head off but got no response.