Jennifer got up from her bed, her weird new body responding naturally to her commands. She looked in the mirror, sobbing and squeaking as she took in the new shape of her body. At least a cow, she looked slightly more normal. Jennifer rubbed her arms, the leathery palms of her hands running up the brown fur.
“Jen! Mom said to get your big tail out of your room and get to school!” her dumbass little brother yelled.
Jennifer hissed instinctively, then drew her strange new hands to her elongated mouth. ‘What the fuck was that?’
“I’ll . . . I’ll . . .” Jennifer didn’t know what to say except that she wanted to be human again. Normal again. Not some freaky rat-girl. She had to do what Susan said – she had to commit some good deeds. And people . . . they wouldn’t think she was weird. Right? That was part of the curse.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” the rat-girl shouted back. She flicked her ears, hearing her Mom chide her brother for making fun of her body.
Jennifer began to rummage through her clothes. She wasn’t sure why, but it felt good to dig around and find stuff. Soon, she found what she was looking for. It was going to look stupid, but she couldn’t go to school naked, rat or not. She pulled on a sundress with an empire waist. It was something. Jennifer tossed some underwear into her backpack, along with some sandals.
She felt unnatural in this dress, but Jennifer tried to just focus on getting some good deeds done.
Jennifer tentatively came out of her room. Her Dad was grumbling about something down in his office. Her brother Ricky was demanding waffles. Her Mom was busy with something unrelated.
With a pounding heart, she walked downstairs. Her Mom waved at her off-handedly. “Good morning!”
Jennifer bit back an urge to squeak. “Morning.”
“You better get going. I thought Susan was going to pick you up.”
Ricky snorted. “The heffer left in a huff.”
“Ricky!” said their mother.
“We had a fight . . .” Jennifer said slowly. Her hearing was distracting her. Her Dad was still grumbling. He had lost something . . . but what?
She wandered over to his office.
“Dad? Everything okay?” she asked.
“Yeah, I just . . . I can’t find my good watch . . .”
Jennifer walked into his office. She sniffed, unconsciously, hoping to smell it out. She smelled him all throughout the room, so she turned her ears back and forth, up and down, flat and wide. It was kinda cool. She could hear the hum of his computer, the rhythmic beating of her heart, the sound of the air conditioning, and . . . the vague tick-tock-tick-tock . . .
She squeaked and scurried on all fours to his easy chair in the corner, her tail swishing excitedly behind her.
“Got it!” she yelled and pulled it out from between the arm and the cushion.
“Thanks Jen!” She was hoping for a good ol’ fatherly hug, but he drew back. “Sorry, big meeting. I don’t want to get rat hair on my suit.”
“Oh.” She moped.
He kissed her between the ears. “But thanks honey!”
She nodded and squeaked, bounding out. She had to stop herself from crawling. It was just easier to walk on four legs! She felt faster that way.
‘Was that a good deed?’ she wondered, trying to right herself. ‘I mean, it was nice, right?’
Jennifer glanced in the mirror. Her fur was a little thinner, but it was barely noticeable. Her belly wasn’t as big either. Would they all be that small? These changes back to humanity . . . would they all be that incremental?
The bus rolled up and Jen boarded it. She wondered about Susan. Could she have her revenge on her? Change her into a full-on rat? Jen liked the idea of revenge, but the more she thought about it, the worse of an idea it seemed. First of all, even if Susan was changed into a full-on rat (unlike herself, a rat-girl), would Susan be able to use T or D on her if all she could do was squeak? Also, it wasn’t like she could blackmail Susan into changing her back. And finally, maybe doing something like that would make her condition worse and Jen would be the full-on, feral rat?
And . . . and maybe it was just the wrong thing to do.
Jennifer wasn’t one for introspection, but sounds and smells of the bus were too much for her. She had to retreat into herself. Revenge, hazing, all that. It was what made her this weird-ass rat-girl. Maybe she had to learn a lesson –
“OW!” she shrieked as a sudden pain exploded in her tail.
“Oh hey, sorry!” said a freshman. “Keep your tail out of the aisle, rat-girl!”
“Fuck you!” she sneered and extended her middle, clawed finger at him.
He returned the gestured and sat down at the back of the bus. Jen drew her tail in and examined it. She didn’t exactly like having a tail, but still . . . it was hers.
For now.
She looked down at her rodent body and noticed that it didn’t change further when she cussed off that tail-stepping asshole. Soooooo that meant she could still be mean and nothing would happen to her. Again, though, was it right? She had left her dumb tail in the aisle.
‘Gotta be nice,’ she told herself in an sing-song way. She squeaked a little, gnawed on the seat in front of her, and then waited to get to school.