Hairball (Chapter 10)

 

by

 

Elite Shade

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Nervous, hun?" Rebecca's voice snaps me back to attention. I'm currently sitting in the front of her car, wearing my new uniform. Out of some weird reflex, I keep smoothing down the red tartan skirt, which only reaches just above my knees. While the bottoms of my feet now have pads, I'm still required to wear shoes and the knee-length white socks. The socks were easy, but the shoes I had to have custom made, courtesy of Rebecca and Nick. I'm presently wearing a bright red blouse underneath a dark navy blazer. I'm also wearing the required black and red diagonally striped tie. I catch a glimpse of myself in the side mirror and sink down into my seat.

"Hun?" Rebecca asks again.

I look like some pervert's anime dream girl, I want to say out loud, before I remember Ben is in the back seat. I choke back a grumble before answering.

"Yeah... a little," I say.

"Understandable, sweetie," Rebecca says as we start to pull up in front of Nowhere High, "just know that I'm here for you, as is Nick, and of course Ben." I catch Ben smiling in the rearview mirror and roll my eyes.

"Thank you," I say in a whisper as the car comes to a stop. I unbuckle my seat belt and start to open the door, when Rebecca cups my cheeks in her hands and leans over to kiss me on the forehead. Huh... that's actually making me feel a little better... go figure.

"Have a good day, honey," Rebecca says to me before turning to Ben. "You too, Benjamin."

I feel like that's more of a case of wishful thinking as I get out of the car, making sure to remember my backpack. I make sure to keep my skirt smoothed down as I exit, like Rebecca showed me. Across the street I can see a couple of news vans with the last of the holdout reporters. Apparently they're not being allowed on school property, so they're getting as close as possible. Not a good sign that today is going to be a good day. I make my way towards the front entrance, already the students milling about near the entrance are staring, some more shocked than others. As I walk by and enter the school, my ears swivel about on their own, picking up hushed, and some not so hushed, conversations.

"Oh wow, she's actually real!"

"An actual catgirl!"

"She has a tail!"

"--thought she was just some furry weirdo with a bodysuit, but it looks so real--"

"She's cute!"

"Isn't that really a guy, though?"

"Not anymore!"

I sigh as I make my way towards my locker, suddenly realizing that Ben is still walking alongside me.

"Isn't your locker down that hall?" I gesture to a hallway on our left, past the AP Calculus classroom door, which Mr. Roger is standing in, openly gawking at me as we pass.

"It is..." Ben says, looking away, "but I figured that you might prefer to have someone... uhm... s-show you to your locker?"

"Why?" I ask bluntly. Ben starts looking more uncomfortable before he finally answers.

"I just figured that it would be a good idea," he says. I roll my eyes again. I know what he's doing, okay? I get that he thinks I need an escort. Part of me wants to chew him out right here and now for it... but another part of me, a more vulnerable part, is feeling that maybe it's not a bad idea. Unfortunately that part is a undermined a little by a more realistic part of me that reasons, if something were to happen, what could Ben possibly do to protect me? I voice none of this, though, and stop in front of my locker. I'm just opening it when I hear a female voice to my right give a squeal.

"OMG! You're my neighbor?! AWESOME!!!" I turn to see the source of the excitement to find myself looking at Jennifer Rodriguez. She looks at me with excitement in her dazzling emerald green eyes.

"Hey there, Jenny," I say, feeling the skin under my fur start to redden as I opened my locker and grabbed some of my books.

"I just can't believe it!" she exclaims, practically bouncing where she stands, making her long soft raven-black hair that reached the small of her back wave about. I look at her again and fight back a sigh. She looks beautiful in the uniform, her tanned skin looking as flawless as ever, her smile with her perfect teeth dazzling. Admittedly, I've had a crush on her for a while.

"Yeah, I know, pretty freaky," I say as I transfer my books to my backpack and shut my locker.

"Actually, I would say pretty adorable! Or at least pretty period," she says, the word period striking a brief chord with me. Thankfully my... first... period lasted only three days.

"Oh... uhm... thanks," I say, because what else am I supposed to say.

"Do you know if we have any classes together?" she asks. We actually have four classes together, not that I blame her for not realizing I'm in them.

"Yeah... we have Honors English, AP Biology, History, and AP Calculus," I say. Jenny gets even more excited.

"Awesome! OH, we can chat as we walk to homeroom together!" she says. This is making me a little uncomfortable and I turn to look at Ben.

"Uh, a-actually, Ben here still needs to get to his locker before class," I say. I need a second to think. I'm not used to being the center of attention.

"Okay, but we better hurry, the bell's gunna ring soon," she says, essentially inviting herself along. I look to Ben as we start walking, but he just shrugs when Jenny looks away. Okay then... some escort he is. As well as walking, Jenny starts asking me questions.

"So what's it like?" she asks.

"Weird," I answer, not sure what else to say.

"And you really used to be a boy?" She looks me up and down as she asks, and I blush some more beneath my fur.

"Yes." Okay, calm down. Jenny is super nice, and I don't need to be so nervous around her. Granted, she barely knew I existed before, and that's a little embarrassing, but hey, she's talking to me now.

"You can't tell! You're just so cute!" ... I'm still putting this in the plus column.

"Th-thanks," I say. I continue to answer her questions as best I can while Ben opens his locker. The three of us then make our collective way to Honors English. I can feel the eyes stare at me as I enter and take a seat, with Ben on my left and Jenny taking the seat on my right, smiling at me. Before my transformation, having Jenny notice me would've been amazing. Now, I don't know how to feel.

"Alright, class," Mr. Cassidy says as he enters, setting a book down on his desk, "today you shall be handing in your essays on the particular work of Edgar Allan Poe you chose, and reading your abstracts aloud." Mr. Cassidy is an older man, somewhere in his fifties, I think. He prefers to wear long-sleeved shirts and slacks, along with a tie. His hair, which is thinning on top, is brown with lots of grey. He turns away from the dry erase board to regard the class. He spots me but thankfully doesn't linger, unlike most of my classmates.

"Less time spent staring at a classmate who has undergone some changes and more time getting your assignments out," he says in his usual no-nonsense fashion. His steel-grey eyes look out from his wire-rimmed glasses, which rest on a nose that had clearly been broken more than once. He is a very large and imposing man, so there is a bit of a hasty scramble from everyone. I grab my own homework and set it on the desk, opting to just look down at it.

"Benjamin," Mr. Cassidy addresses Ben, "we'll be starting things off with you today. Which was the work that you had selected again?"

"Oh, uh..." Ben says, looking a little uncomfortable before he finally pushes through. "'The Black Cat', Mr. Cassidy."

Really? Friggin' seriously, Ben? That is just WAY too on the nose. And of course the snickers start, but thankfully Mr. Cassidy is quick to silence them.

"Alright, you may start at any time, Benjamin," Mr. Cassidy says, taking a seat at his desk and looking out at the class.

Ben begins reading the abstract he had written, describing the story of a man who recounts how he devolved into madness. Ben's abstract is succinct and to the point, and he finishes quickly. Ben gets up to turn both the abstract and the essay in, before it is someone else's turn. Ben stares straight ahead, knowing full and damn well that I'm glaring at him. The next person covers 'The Raven'; I feel like a lot of people wanted to choose that one. All too soon it's my turn. I chose 'The Cask of Amontillado', and I hope that I'm pronouncing that right. I never really understood what Fortunato did to Montresor that would make him want vengeance like this so badly, but I guess that the reader isn't supposed to know. I recite the abstract that I wrote before getting up and turning both it and the essay in. I feel pretty confident about both, actually. I'm actively avoiding all the eyes that are following me as I make my way back to my desk. And so the rest of the class progresses.

"Thank you, Jennifer," Mr. Cassidy says as Jenny turns in her essay and abstract on 'The Masque of the Red Death' before she takes her seat right next to me. "And that, class, is almost our time. For tonight's homework, you are to read chapter fifteen in your textbooks, and answer the questions on page three hundred and fourteen."

The bell rings and there was the usual rush for the door, with a lot more gawking in my direction. I, followed closely by Ben and Jenny, make my way out into the hall, heading for AP biology next. Ben already has his biology text book from earlier, so we just stop at my and Jenny's lockers.

We head to class and take our seats, once more with Ben on my left and Jenny on my right, and of course, the stares. Ms. Rathburn starts off with us doing a review on biomes, but she keeps stopping to stare at me. Otherwise the class passes by in a blur. This is followed by history, where we cover, of all things, Wishing Stones. Of course that was going to be on the lesson plan today. Now we move on to Spanish, where Mrs. Matias accidentally calls me "gato" during roll call. That's wonderful. Oh look, I'm playing with my tail again, and apparently some of the girls think that it's cute, for some reason.

I gotta say, so far school hasn't been as bad as I was expecting it to be. A lot of girls keep striking up conversations with me, even with Ben staying near me at all times. He seems to almost get into it with a couple of guys who are coming up to talk to me in between classes, which is weird. Never knew Ben to be the confrontational type.

"I gotta use the restroom real quick," Ben says before going into the men's room. I stare a little at the sign and the sign for the ladies' room right next to it, letting out a sigh. I am so grateful that I haven't had to pee yet. I ignore the stares as I get in line with a tray, grabbing a salad and a calzone, along with a soda, and pay for it at the register. Apparently the lunch ladies, and man, didn't get the memo about me. Let's just say that there is a bit of a commotion behind the counters and some scrambling to get a good look at me and leave it at that. I head towards an empty table and take a seat.

"So..." Jenny starts as she sets her tray down next to mine and takes a seat, "that's your foster brother?"

I was not expecting that, nor Jenny to sit next to me. Her asking me more questions about being a cat or what it was like when I was a boy, sure, I can see her being curious about those things. But not that. Also, I figured that she would want to sit with her friends during lunch.

"W-w-well, technically... I mean, his parents are now my legal guardians," I say.

"He seems really protective of you," Jenny says with a smile.

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"Well, the way he's sticking to you, and how he looked at some of the guys who started to approach you earlier. And yeah, I saw it," Jenny says, grinning at me again.

I have no idea what she's talking... well, yeah, he has been sticking by me pretty closely. And I did see him staring at a guy that looked like he wanted to strike up a conversation with me, along with those other two guys. Dammit, Ben!

"Jackass," I say under my breath, which Jenny hears, and lets out a giggle.

"I think that it's sweet, he's acting like a protective big brother," she says. Seriously?

"I'm older than him by two months!" I say, admittedly a little petulantly. "Besides, he's probably doing it because of how guilty he feels." The closest thing I have to a friend is the one who ruined my life, and he's only hanging around me because of his guilty conscience.

"Why would he feel guilty?" Jenny asks. Ah, crap!

"B-because of... uh... how I used to live in my old foster home!" Geeze, what the hell is wrong with me, no one would ever buy that sto--

"You mean that place they showed on the news?" Jenny asks. I nod. "Wow... I would have thought that Ben Ferguson would be a spoiled rich kid, but you make him sound like a total teddy bear!" Yeah, he's a real sweetheart, provided he doesn't ever so much as think that you've crossed him. "I saw you with the Fergusons in that interview. They seem like really nice people."

"They are," I say. "Rebecca didn't hesitate to take me in when she saw meomph--" I suddenly find myself being hugged. I don't know what to do! I've never been hugged by a pretty girl before... unless Rebecca counts... but that's different... she's a mom. Wait, what the hell? Three more girls are taking seats around us at the table. I've seen them around, hanging out with Jenny, but never learned their names.

"Hey guys, this is Alex," Jenny introduces me. I say hello, hoping that I'm not sounding too nervous.

"Alex, these are the twins, Hazel and Maeve." She motions to the two identical girls. They have long blonde, almost platinum hair, pale complexions and hazel eyes, and they both stare at me as they simultaneously greet me back.

"And this is Kendra Kwan." Jenny motions to the Asian girl, who also stares, but smiles back at me. She has her black hair done up in a ponytail, with a red scrunchie.

"Nice to meet ya, Alex," Kendra says, holding a hand out to me. I'm a little confused, but I take her outstretched hand anyways. She gives me a firm shake before giggling. "Sorry, I've never shaken a furry hand before."

"Understandable," I say.

"Wow," the twin on the left, Hazel says.

"You are real," Maeve says.

"Yup." I don't have a whole lot of experience talking to girls, so sue me if it seems like I don't know what to say.

"And you really have no idea how it happened?" Maeve, no wait, Hazel asks.

"Nope," I lie, "went to bed a normal teen human guy, and I woke up like this." I pop open my soda and take a drink.

"So are you all girl?" This time it is Maeve, and I inhale some orange soda. I sit there and cough for a little bit while Jenny shoots both twins a look. They both look down and simultaneously apologize.

"No--" I cough a little bit more, "problem."

"Helluva way to start your day though," Kendra says. Okay, I don't know why, but that makes me gig-chuckle. I chuckle, nothing else.

"OMG, you have an adorable giggle!" Jenny says. I... don't judge me!

"Uhm... th-thanks," I respond. And now Ben's here. Oh boy.

"Uh... h-hi," he says awkwardly as he holds his own tray. The other girls say hello to him as well, clearly able to see Ben's blush, due to his lack of facial fur.

"This is Ben, Alex's foster brother," Jenny explains. I don't think that it's odd that I find referring to Ben like that to be more than a little weird... even if it is technically accurate. Jenny motions for Ben to take a seat, so he does, right next to me.

"Oh yeah, Ben Ferguson," Kendra says, "your mom owns the firm where my dad works."

"O-oh?" Ben says, looking to me briefly. If he thinks I have any more idea than him of what to do or say in this situation, he is sorely mistaken.

"Yeah, he says she's a kickass lawyer," she says before spearing a tomato from her own salad. The twins giggle at this while Jenny leans over to whisper in my ear. A little obvious that that's what she's doing since my ears are now on top of my head.

"Kendra can be kinda blunt, but she's really nice. And so are the twins, though they do tend to get lost in their own little shared world every now and again," Jenny explains.

I nod my understanding before leaning over and whispering back, "Ben's a really shy guy." I'm not sure if I was supposed to add more or not; like I said before, I don't have a whole lot of practice talking to girls.

Jenny giggles before she turns a bit thoughtful. "You've never spent a lot of time with girls, haven't you?" Crap! I've been found out. Oh well, it's not really that big of a secret. I shake my head while Kendra is in the middle of asking Ben about himself, and the twins are giggling about something to themselves. Maybe I'm already old news? I can only hope.

"Wanna hang out with us after school?" Jenny asks as I take a swig of my soda again, inhaling and coughing on it again. Dammit.