"Are you okay?" asked the Madame. The oldest daughter, Mary Anne, had tears streaming down her face.
"I, I just, I'm seeing my family get everything they ever wanted. Except dad, but I'm glad to hear he's happy in the end. Morgan and Ashley belong together and now they will be. Ashley deserves to do girl stuff without getting laughed at. Mom deserves the best job in the world, she does so much for us. And yeah, one sibling and a doll will be easier for me to take care of than two siblings and an angry dad. But it's not about me. It's about them, and this is beautiful."
"Ah, but Mary Anne, it IS about you. You deserve good things too. And you don't just deserve an easier family to take care of. You deserve to be the one getting taking care of for once."
"I do?"
"Yes. You have done so much good for your siblings and endured so much anger from your dad. You never got the chance to be a kid! You said you wish your school was easier. But you're 17. Life and especially school is just going to be harder if I let you finish growing up the way you are now. You've already had more adult responsibilities than even some adults ever well. I could make you younger like Ashley, but I have a better idea."
Margot was listening to what Madame was telling Mary Anne, but you couldn't have seen it from looking at her. Margot was hugging her daughter Ashley, who was holding her doll Margot, as a robot vacuum cleaner motored by. Curious about what Madame would do to the older girl, Margot looked over and saw the show woman patting a teary eyed Mary Anne on the head. Margot also saw Mary Anne's nose swelling and darkening. Mary Anne stopped crying and began to sniff the air.
"What just happened? I can ... (sniff sniff) ... I can smell EVERYTHING! I can ..."
Her voice trailed off and she began to sniff some more. Her eyes darkened.
"What happened to the colours? Everything looks weird. But it smells so--"
She was interrupted by the bizarre sensation of her ears unfolding, and almost immediately she could hear better than she ever had before. She could hear even the faintest whispers in the back of the audience or the tiniest gears inside her robot vacuum father.
"Honey, your ears," said Margot, pointing to the sides of her head. Mary Anne knew something must have happened, because the audience was talking about her ears, too, and her ears felt wide and heavy beside her face. She reached up and touched one, and she flinched at what she felt. Her ear was now a huge flap of skin hanging down to her jaw. She felt the other ear, and it felt just the same.
Mary Anne's nose kept growing and getting more sensitive, and her mouth felt weird, like it was inching forward, too. Soon she could look down and see her nose in front of her, black and wet, twitching at the end of the great big fuzzy shelf that was her snout.
Mary Anne felt the Madame touch her head again, this time right between her floppy ears. She relaxed like butter under the relaxing pats. She opened her mouth and soon had her tongue hanging out of it, droplets of drool falling to the stage beneath her. Then she tensed up again when she felt something tumble out of her back! Ashley asked, "What's behind Mary Anne, Mommy?" The audience commented that Mary Anne's hair was much shorter at the top of her head. Madame just went back to rubbing her changing subject between the ears.
Mary Anne just leaned into the touch again, feeling that all was right with the world. But this time she could feel something. It was some sort of rhythmic spasm far behind her. Every second or so, something yellow would appear in her left periphery and then vanish before appearing on her right. She started spinning around to see it, but it would vanish behind her no matter which way she turned. Eventually, standing with her back to the Madame, Mary Anne felt some body part behind her thump against the woman's legs, and then she felt the woman grab it! Mary Anne spun her head to look back and saw the Madame holding a yellow short-haired dog's tail.
"Looking for this?" said the performer. The seventeen year old could see and feel that the tail was attached to her own spine. And then the shape of her ears and face suddenly made sense.
"You're turning me into a dog?" She tried to ask, but only managed to sound like a groaning canine. Madame Illusia answered anyway, dropping the tail as she did.
"You don't have to worry about chores or hard classes or college applications. At worst, you'll go to obedient school. You'll stay home with Ashley and her doll and the cleaning robot, but you'll get to play with them instead of cleaning up after them. And just like you wanted, the adults in your life will make you feel special, because you will be. You're going to be the most adorable yellow lab I've ever seen!"
Mary Anne looked down to her hands and saw her thumbs starting to shrink. Her hands thinned out, and her fingers became blunt toes with thick claws. Standing got harder when her feet started to lengthen, and she found herself lifting her heels instinctively. Soon her feet were too long and thin for her shoes, and neither her legs nor her back felt like keeping her upright. She toppled over and heard her front claws click against the stage as she landed on all fours. She got out of the shoes and shirt easily enough, and saw that her whole body was covered in light yellow fur now.
* I can't believe it! I'm a dog! *
She looked down at her broad, sturdy front paws again. She looked down her muzzle at her slimy, twitching nose again. She tried to lick it, and got to actually see her wide, flat, floppy tongue this time. She felt her long tail start to wag again.
* I don't have to do the hard stuff any more! I get to have fun for a change! *
Margot looked a bit nervous after one daughter had turned into a doll and the other had turned into a dog, but this time Madame Illusia didn't need to remind her that everyone was happy. This time, Mary Anne herself worked her way over and started licking Margot's hand. The audience stood up and hooted and cheered. The Madame spoke again:
"Now who would like to be this lovely woman's new perfect husband? It's the chance of a lifetime, folks! You can be the proud husband of a rich wife, the loving father of a sweet daughter, and the proud owner of a purebred lab retriever. Bonuses include a robot vacuum for your convenience, and the perfect doll for the perfect daughter. And best of all, no angry ex-husband to worry about."