The first period after lunch was gym class. Oliver was still comprehending the fact that he was turning into a shark, which was a very strange thing to be going through. Knowing that everyone else at his school was going through the same thing was comforting, at least he wouldn't be alone. But he still had decidedly mixed feelings about the whole thing.
Oliver excused himself from the lunch table. He picked the bone from his meat off the floor and took it with him into the bathroom. He walked up to the mirror, wanting to see his eyes as he ate. He had still not seen any evidence of his changes yet and wanted to make absolute certain that this was all really happening. Unfortunately, he realized that standing in front of the mirror didn't allow him to see anything either, since his eyes weren't working properly, whenever he bit down his eyesight changed.
With only 5 minutes left until Gym started, he walked to the AV room, which was, thankfully, unlocked. He found a camera so he could film himself as he bit. He set the camera up and pressed the record button. He then held the bone up to his face and bit down. His eyesight changed. Then he heard a cracking sound, and suddenly the bone broke in half. Oliver removed the broken bone from his mouth and his eyesight returned to normal. He had bitten the bone in half! Worried, Oliver played back the tape. He watched through the viewfinder as he bit down, and saw his eyes roll over white! His friends were right! What he had done was definitely not human. But he still wasn't convinced that he was turning into a shark. There could be a million other things, right?
He rejoined Hunter at the bell, and they walked to Gym class together.
"Hunter," asked Oliver. "When was the first time you realized that you really were changing?"
"It was when I started to be able to smell things better than I ever had before. That was in my first week here." said Hunter.
"Weren't you scared?" said Oliver.
"I was at first." said Hunter. "But it's okay. It's happening to all of us. And this is for our own good anyway."
"I guess." said Oliver. "But it still seems weird. Shouldn't the government know about this? Is this place even legal?"
"I don't know." said Hunter. "But we'd better get to gym class. We've all gone through what you're going through. You'll get used to it. Soon something will change that will be fun. Like when I was able to run really fast."
The boys hurried to gym class, which today was at the school pool. Oliver looked around at all the other boys. Some of them looked excited to get in the water. Some of them looked like they really didn't want to.
"Why don't some of the boys here look like they don't want to get in the water?" asked Oliver, looking over at Hunter. Oliver noticed that Hunter looked nervous as well.
"Oh, well....I guess that...ever since I came here I haven't been very good at swimming." said Hunter nervously.
Oliver realized that a lot of the boys were turning into animals that didn't go in water.
"But, if you're not going to be a water animal, then why do they make you go in the pool?" asked Oliver.
"I can go in the water." said Hunter. "But I just don't like it. It must be because I'm still mostly human."
The gym teacher separated the boys into groups for swimming across the pool. Hunter and Oliver were in the same group. Oliver watched as the first group jumped in. Most of the boys began to dog paddle, but some of them took off like rockets across the pool. Some of them didn't even seem to need air. After the first group reached the other end of the pool (and some of them took a long time to do so), it was Oliver and Hunter's turns.
"On your mark, get set, go!" yelled the gym teacher as all of the boys jumped into the water. All of the boys started to swim immediately, except for Oliver, who hit the bottom of the pool and bounced back up. He was behind all of the boys, some of whom were already a third of the way through the pool. Most of them were only a few feet away, including Hunter, who was dog paddling. Oliver began to do the front stroke that he had been practicing at the pool back home, but he suddenly felt a strange feeling in his neck. He reached up to touch it, and felt 3 strips cut into either side of his neck. Naturally, he began to panic and looked down for blood. But there was no blood. Strangely, the slits didn't hurt. Suddenly, Oliver lost his balance floating and slipped beneath the surface of the water. To his surprise, he could still breathe!
All of a sudden, he felt a strange desire to swim. He dismissed this thought immediately, he had just cut himself on something, but looking around he saw nothing that could have done it. But the urge to move forward was intense and overpowering. Oliver tried to fight it, but without warning he suddenly darted forward. He was swimming faster than he had ever swum before, and he was swimming differently too. He was just sort of gliding, and he was moving very fast, all the while staying under the water, not needing to get a breath of air. Already he was half-way across the pool, and had caught up to the land animal boys. He kept on moving, he couldn't stop. All of a sudden, he was at the other end of the pool. He kicked for the surface.
He shot up above the water to find himself at the other end of the pool along with a few other boys who were cheering on the others who were dog-paddling their way towards them. Looking around, Oliver saw that these boys had slits in their necks too, except for one boy who had a hole in his back. Looking down at them, he saw that their feet were longer than they should be, and there toes were webbed. He looked at their hands and saw that they were webbed too, looking like flippers.
Getting out of the pool, Oliver found Hunter.
"You sure swam fast." said Hunter. "You've got to be some sort of water animal, probably a shark."
"I've never swam as fast as that in my life." said Oliver.
"That's how I felt after the first time we did track when I first got here." said Hunter. "I ran faster than I ever had before."
"That was really fun." said Oliver. "I kind of want to do it again."