Oliver went to sleep that night feeling entirely different than he had the night before. He felt that he had finally found a place where he belonged. He was still in a state of shock from his experience at the community pool, he could remember the electric feeling he had as he zoomed around under the water.
In the morning he got up and had his breakfast. His parents had made him bacon and ham. It was cooked, so it didn't taste as good as raw meat, but he still enjoyed it. When he arrived at school he saw Hunter running on all fours up to him. Hunter stood up so they could talk.
"Oliver, I have to talk to you." said Hunter.
"I have to talk to you too!" said Oliver.
"Look at this." said Hunter. He turned around and lifted the back of his shirt up. Poking up from underneath his pants was a tail.
"You have a tail!" exclaimed Oliver.
"I know, it's so weird moving it." said Hunter. Oliver watched as the tail moved to the left, and then to the right.
"That's so cool!" said Oliver. "Way cooler than what happened to me. I was underwater at the pool and I could feel the vibrations of my dad splashing at the surface."
Both boys looked down to see that Hunter's tail was wagging on it's own.
"Are you doing that?" asked Oliver.
"No, sometimes it seems to do it on it's own." said Hunter, sheepishly. He looked embarrassed.
Oliver and Hunter walked to their first classes. In period 2, Hunter's tail started wagging.
"Why is your tail wagging?" asked Oliver.
"I..I don't know." said Hunter. "I was thinking about what we are going to be having for lunch."
At lunch, Hunter and Oliver once again got in the Carnivore line. Hunter's tail started wagging.
"By the way, I've been meaning to ask," said Hunter. "Have your parents switched to giving you raw meat?"
"No, they made me cooked bacon and ham this morning." said Oliver. "It wasn't as good as the food we have here, though. At least it didn't taste as good to me."
"I was just wondering." replied Hunter. "It takes some parents longer than others for everything to sink in. It took my parents two weeks before they stopped cooking my meat."
They were at the front of the line. The lunch lady put giant raw steaks on Hunter and Oliver's plates. They went to sit down at Hunter's usual table.
"So, the word on the street is that someone grew a tail last night." said Eric, looking at Hunter. Hunter stood up and showed Eric his new tail.
"It looks pretty good." said Scotty. "Healthy."
"Thanks." said Hunter. "Oliver got gills in gym class."
"I knew he must have been something aquatic." said Jack. "So is he a shark or not?"
"I think so." said Oliver. "Last night at the community pool I could feel vibrations from the surface."
"Neat." said Eric. He picked up his steak and started to chew.
Oliver looked down at his steak, not feeling the disgust he had felt the day before. He lifted the steak up and began to eat. He ripped and teared, barely taking time to swallow and chew.
"You're becoming a very messy eater." said Jack. "Bad table manners. Of course, you can't help it though. I don't think your parents are going to be taking you out to eat any time soon."
"Probably never again." said Oliver after finishing the last bite of steak. "I can't see myself enjoying anything they would have to eat anyways."
In gym, they were running around the football field. Oliver couldn't run any faster than he could doing the same thing at his old school. He noticed that the kids that had done well in the pool the previous day were running at a similar speed as he was. The kids were doggie paddling in the pool were mostly on all fours, and running circles around them. One of them was Hunter.
After gym, an out-of-breath Oliver asked Hunter how he ran so fast.
"The same way you swim so fast." said Hunter. "It's what we're made to do. It's in our DNA."
When Oliver got home from school, his parents told him they had a surprise for him.
"It's just to show you that we entirely support you in this." they said, and then led him out to the backyard, covering his eyes. But his body could smell the scent of the water, and as they led Oliver out, his gills opened and shut expectantly.
His mother removed her hands to reveal a giant, two-story high pool.
"You got this for me?" asked Oliver, overjoyed.
"You pay a fraction of the price if your kid is becoming aquatic." said his Father.
"And, since it's clear, we can watch you swim." said his mother.
Oliver ran upstairs to get his bathing suit. As he ran downstairs, his gills were opening and closing in anticipation. He sprinted up the stairs along the side of the pool and dove in. He swam around for hours at top speed. He could sense when even the lightest leaf fell onto the surface of the water. After what seemed like only half an hour, his parents came back outside with a large bucket. They carried it up to the top of the pool and began to chum the water with pieces of dead fish. Oliver could smell blood, and shot up to the top of the pool.
"What are you doing?" asked Oliver hungrily. It seemed his body wanted the fish.
"We're feeding you!" said his mother as she dumped the rest of the contents of the bucket in the water. "It's you dinner."
Oliver swam up to the nearest piece of fish and sniffed it. It smelled like food. Without thinking, he stuffed it in his mouth, swallowing it whole. It tasted even better than the raw meat he had had at school!
"This is delicious!" he called back to his parents, who were watching him intently. "You guys aren't scared or anything are you?
"Why would we be scared of you?" said his father. "You're just eating."
Oliver swam around his pool and ate the fish as fast as possible.
"We'll come get you at bedtime." said his mother. "You're not ready to spend a night in the water yet."
When the sky began to darken outside, Oliver's mother came to take him to his bedroom. Oliver laid in bed, hoping he could spend some time in his pool before school started in the morning.