Henry wakes up early two days later, a crisp spring Monday morning, the 12-year-old jumps out of bed and hurries over to the terrarium where his brother-turned-pet-snake is curled up, “Kain! Today it’s starting,” the boy says, excitedly.
“Kain” jolts awake, “w-what… what are you talking about,” he asks, groggily.
“The show and tell thing at my school,” Henry says.
“Ooooh, right,” Kain says, “I remember”.
Henry feels so giddy, “I can’t WAIT to show you to all of my fellow students,” he says, “they’ll be so amazed!”
Kain chuckles, “ssssomeone’ssss exssssited,” he says.
“Hehe… just a little,” Henry says, “well, better get ready,” he then grabs his clothes and soon both are sitting on the school bus, Kain safely stored in a plastic container, on their way to Henry’s school.
Henry carries his snake through the hallways of the school until he enters the large gym, rows upon rows of tables are set up, some already packed with animals, from ants to lizards, even a few dogs are running around. The 12-year-old finds a place on a table for his “pet”, he sets Kain down and the serpent looks around, finding himself placed between a lizard and another snake, which looks to be a python. Henry sits down on a chair behind the table, grinning to himself, “this is gonna be fun two weeks, I can’t wait to tell everyone what I know about king snakes!”
Kain looks at Henry and chuckles, “you’ll do great,” he says.
It doesn’t take long for the first people to appear, Henry excitedly answers every question thrown at him.
During lunch break, the lizard to Kain’s left turns its head, “so, what exactly are you,” it asks.
Kain turns and looks at the lizard, “what do you mean?”
“Come on,” the lizard says, “I may be a lizard, but I can still tell that you are not a regular snake”.
“I wasssss thinking the ssssame thing,” the python to Kain’s right says.
Kain looks back and forth between the two reptiles, then he chuckles, “and I thought reptilesssss weren’t sssssmart,” he says, “but I am glad I was wrong. I guessss it won’t hurt to tell you, I mean… who’d you tell anyway? Humanssss don’t underssstand usss”. Kain then begins explaining who, or rather what he really is, why his “owner” is able to communicate with him, and Henry, who is listening to the conversation, nods in agreement from time to time when Kain asks for his opinion.
“Wow,” both the lizard and python say, “really fascinating”.
“It would be nice to be a human for a day,” the lizard then says, “just to see what it’s like”.
“Yeah, though in my casssse, I might need a day or two to get usssssed to having limbsssss,” the python says, “by the way, Kain, my name is Rocky”.
“And I’m Rex,” the lizard says.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Kain says.
“Kain, I was just thinking,” Henry suddenly says, Kain turns to look at the boy, “since the owners of Rex and Rocky are friends of mine, I could ask them if they’d like to hang out and bring their pets with them. Knowing Bill and Jaden, they’d LOVE to check out the Chronivac and they’d find it awesome if Rex and Rocky were humans, or at least anthros”.
“I dunno, Henry,” Kain says, “I’d prefer not to involve them”.
“Oh come on, Kain,” Henry says, “I know the guys! They’d never do anything reckless! We can trust them totally!”
Kain looks at Rex and Rocky, “you guyssss know your ownersssss besssst… sssso… what do you think?”
Both Rocky and Rex stay silent for a while, ‘knowing Jaden, he’d probably do something stupid,’ Rex thinks to himself, ‘but the chance of becoming a human or anthro for a day or two, would be awesome!’
‘Knowing Bill, he’ll mosssst likely do sssssomething sssstupid, but I’d really like to experience what it’ssss like having limbsssss,’ Rocky thinks to himself.
“Sssso,” Kain asks.
“We agree with Henry,” both say at the same time, “neither of our owners will do something stupid”.
“Okay, then it’ssss fine, I guessss,” Kain says, though he can’t shake off the nervous feeling.
“Cool, I’ll ask them if they’d like to come around this weekend,” Henry says.
Kain simply nods his head, ‘I hope we won’t regret thissss,’ he thinks to himself.