The next morning was chaos.
"Mommy, mommy we want cream!" chanted Jennifer and Michelle.
Danielle frantically rummaged through the refrigerator, something she had had little experience with as Dan. Cream, cream, where was it? And was it what her daughters should be having in the first place?
"Hi ma" said Kevin, who reached over her and brought out some dried salmon. (Danielle wasn't sure, but it seemed like the contents of the refrigerator had been made over as part of the family's transformation.)
Ah, there was the cream. Maybe it wasn't the right thing for Jennifer and Michelle, but one morning wasn't going to kill them, and figuring out what the right diet was for cat people wasn't anything Danielle thought she could do on the fly.
She laid two dishes full of cream in front of the twins, who began to lap it up eagerly. The sight of her two youngest children eating like cats rather than using a spoon like people didn't bother her the way she thought it should.
"Good morning, everybody." Mark entered the kitchen. Oh no, Danielle thought, he's going to want a big breakfast. What to do?
She frantically looked through the refrigerator. Ah, eggs. She thought she knew how to make scrambled eggs.
She broke the eggs into a bowl, and just then she heard her daughters. "There's the bus, mommy, we have to go." They came up and hugged her, and she gave them a goodbye kiss.
Back to Mark's breakfast. Suddenly she realized she was hungry, and decided to make it her breakfast as well. Scrambled eggs and the smoked salmon that was left from Kevin's meal.
Kevin! Now he was saying goodbye, ready to walk to his nearby school. "You be careful out there." Danielle told her new son.
"I will ma. Don't worry about me." Danielle knew she would worry about him, the same way she would worry about Michelle and Jennifer. What would it be like for new catpeople? What would the humans--strange to think of humans as the other--think about them?
Too late to warn Kevin, he was out the door with a cheerful grin. He seemed happier than the twins, which gave Danielle less to worry about. She poured the eggs into the pan, and turned to her husband.
"You're going to be a great mother." he said.