Osvaldo sat there, tail between his new dog legs. He was gradually turning into a beagle. He didn't know exactly why, but he knew it had something to do with the medallion. It had to. But how could he tell this to every boy in his PE class? He could barely even speak anymore.
Everyone looked truly astonished and uneasy. Finally the boy named Donny, who had pulled his tail, was the first to speak up.
"I'm sorry, Oz. Are you okay? What's really going on? You can tell us."
Then there was a large tearing sound and the Donny's eyes went wide. Osvaldo was stunned to see a tail extending backwards out of the boy's boxers. It was thick, tawny, and extremely long, ending in several inches of dark brown tassel. The tail twitched suddenly, and Donny jumped, startled. A second later, the tail started moving around fluidly. That's when Donny started twisting his body around trying to grab it. Finally, Donny swung his new tail underneath his crotch so that it stuck out in front of him. Instantly both hands latched onto it. Once again he overestimated his own grip: Osvaldo watched Donny grimace before relaxing his grasp a little.
Still clutching at the appendage, exploring the associated sensations for the first time, Donny uttered a profanity and said, "I've got one too." Raising his voice, now yelling: "I have a TAIL!"
Unlike Osvaldo, who had spent the last few days in denial, Donny emotionally collapsed immediately. He released his lion tail to swing anxiously behind him and sat on the floor covering his eyes and crying, "Someone please! Take it off, take it off..."
It was Osvaldo's turn to stare. Around the room, few boys even noticed Donny's pleas: they were all dealing with problems of their own. Everyone had at least one animal part. Some were chasing their own new tails: one had a cat's tail, another a horse's tail, another a lizard's. A particularly tall football star was standing on a pair of long kangaroo feet. Jun, the foreign exchange student, had a pair of pointed ears & was rapidly developing a deerlike set of antlers. A boy in the corner, discovering his elephant trunk, lifted it up and trumpeted for the first time. It was a scene of bestial chaos.
But Osvaldo was legitimately confused. He didn't think any of them had made contact with the medallion. Why were they changing, too? Could something else be causing this?