Before school the next morning, Jennifer attempted to slip one blade of a pair of scissors between her skin and the collar. Failing to do that, she held the sharp side to the collar and carefully cut into it.
"YIPE!" she barked, dropping the scissors. It hurt like hell. She examined her skin, hoping she hadn't started bleeding, and noticed that the cut she had made was in the collar alone. Yet, it had hurt as if she was piercing her own body. When the collar merged with her neck, it must have rendered it sensitive just like any normal part of her skin.
Frustrated, she trucked to school. She was wearing only a tee-shirt and shorts today, because the forecast called for hot temperatures, and her increasingly dog-like body had trouble with the heat. A hole her mother had cut in the back of her shorts allowed her tail to swing freely behind her.
"Jen!" her friend Sophie called. "We missed you after school yesterday."
"Sorry about that," Jennifer said. "I wasn't feeling too well, so I took a half day off."
"Where did you get that?" Sophie asked, clearly speaking about the collar which jingled faintly with each step Jennifer took. "It looks good on you."
"Thanks," Jennifer mumbled as she felt more changes occurring to her body.
"Let me guess; Hot Topic. They've got all sorts of crazy stuff. I think it's good to be different once in a while. What made you want a bell collar?"
"It wasn't really my choice," Jennifer continued to sound disinterested, even somewhat annoyed. She decided to change the subject. "Did I miss anything yesterday?"
"Not really, though Liz acted all tough and in-charge like she usually does when you're gone. Are you going to be at practice tomorrow?" Their cheerleading practices were usually two or three days out of the week, and the current schedule had them Monday-Wednesday-Friday.
"I'll try to make it," she said.
"Okay," Sophie said. "I know how it is sometimes. You never know when the world could get turned upside down."
"Tell me about it."
Later that day, after a few more comments about the collar, Jennifer was washing her face in the bathroom. Her pre-lunch teachers, who hadn't seen the collar the day before, were somewhat annoyed by it. Jennifer was feeling hot, partly out of frustration and partly due to the temperature. Her tongue had trouble staying in her mouth, which had caused a few dribbles on her top.
Her face had a faint dusting of brown hair, going from her cheeks to under her ears and jawline. Her blond hair had turned golden brown, and had become much longer and shaggier. She seemed to be brushing stray locks out of her face every ten minutes.
Her tail was a full two and a half feet long now, and quite thick. It was brown with a white underside. Beneath her shirt, her chest had completely furred up with brown and white hair. Her back had darker brown hair beginning to grow, and it was just starting to spread to her shoulders.
At lunch, she sat with her friends and attempted to blend into the usual idle chatter. Fortunately the conversation never got around to the subject of her collar. Apparently it was yesterday's news.
Jennifer's long ears perked up, however, when she heard one question from Cindy.
"Did you hear what happened to that stupid runt we teased last week? Kyle?"