NothingSpecial: gender-bending transformation stories, comics, and occasional poetry =^_^=
It was on Thursday afternoon that I answered the door to find a uniformed police officer standing there. For a moment I had that oh shit did I do something wrong!? reaction, down in the pit of my stomach; then I remembered that this was my neighbor and her kid.
"Mya, what's up?" I said, looking Frank over. The municipal cops went for practicality more than sharp dress, but it was definitely a woman's uniform. Several women's uniforms, actually, as I could pick up hints of other scents on her; hand-me-downs, I guessed. "It's nyat about updating my license, is it?"
She gave me a confused look for a moment, then chuckled dryly. "No," she said, flicking an ear, "we're nyat worrying too much about that rrright niaow. I only just got mine, and that was with the department's help."
"Tell mya about it," I sighed, thinking back to the queue on the DMV website; public services were a bit strained lately. "Be lucky to get an nyappointment before I hit menopause."°
° (Yes, in my cursèd brain: "pause" → "paws" → damn it.)
Alex poked her head out from behind her dad, looking a little annoyed, then sniffed curiously and wrinkled her nose. "Was Mister Parker here?" she asked. "Smells like that purrfume stuff he wears."
"Uh, the other day, mya," I replied, feeling freshly awkward over it. I realized I'd caught her scent before noticing her otherwise; it was surprising to be not-surprised at detecting someone's presence nose-first. What were they doing here, anyway…?
"Mya, listen," Frank said, her scent a little apprehensive, "they're tapping the officers who've been exposed or…mrrr, changed…to cover for some of our scheduling challenges, and they want me to take some night shifts over the next couple months."
"…Oh," I said. I had a premonition that this'd involve her asking something of me, since I couldn't see why she'd be telling me otherwise.
She scuffed her boot on the pavement, slightly embarrassed. "And, well, I don't want to leave Alex home alone, nyand I was, mrrr, wondering…" She trailed off, but it didn't take a surveyor to map the contours of the question.
"…You want me to keep an eye on her?" I asked uneasily.
"I don't need a babysitter, I'm eleven," Alex huffed.
"I kniaow, kiddo," she replied, in a tone that was plainly humoring her. "It's just for my peace of mind." She turned back to me with a sigh. "I'd ask Nyacole, but…we kinda had an incident the other day."
"Gillie started it!" Alex protested, ears ticking back at the memory.
"Gilligan's an nyanimal, honey," Frank chided. "You kniaow better. Anyaway, it's…gonnya take a while for him to myallow out, prrrobably." Then, to me: "So, mya, if it's nyat too much trouble…?"
We stood there for a moment, feeling mutually uncomfortable. It probably was an awkward feeling, having to hit up a neighbor for this on short notice, especially when we'd never really interacted that much – but for me it brought back frustrating memories of grown-ups assuming I had nothing better to do than help with their kids because my own adolescence was socially dead…
…and yet I couldn't help but sympathize, a bit. As a teenager it'd come off as the height of presumption, but having been an adult long enough to realize just how much of adulthood is actually a desperate improv to keep several dozen plates spinning at once while grappling with a gnawing case of imposter syndrome, it seemed less like you're not doing anything important, here ya go than a much more relatable for the love of God HELP ME.
That, and I kept thinking back to the part I hadn't hated: the times when our folks left my sister and I to our own devices° while they went out for a quiet evening to themselves or got together for drinks with old friends from their young-couple days. That blissful cocktail of ultra-low-key responsibility and sweet freedom was, to be perfectly frank, everything that adulthood so far had failed to live up to.°°
° (Mostly, we holed up in the computer room with the Slayers rips I'd just learned to pirate; Caitlin wanted something with a female protagonist, while I wanted something with a higher action quotient than Sailor Moon.)
°° (Even if it did confer a driver's license and access to beer.)
And, well, it'd be lying to say it wasn't kinda gratifying to think of anyone relying on me; day-job tech-support stuff was one thing, but somebody leaving me with their kid must really trust me. But…was that warranted? Was I even qualified for this, just because I'd managed to keep my little sister distracted a million years ago!? But then I still had that lingering sense of guilt over abandoning Alex to Nicole's care…
I could feel myself oscillating like a fan: do it, don't do it, do it, don't do it… Ultimately, I couldn't get past the thought of the kid being left alone at night, waiting for sleep to come and wondering when her…parent…would come home. "That's…mya, sure," I sighed.
Frank heaved a sigh of her own. "Thanks, you're a lifesaver," she said – then, apologetically: "Mya, I can rrreimburse you, if it helps…"
"It's…it's fine," I replied; I felt awkward about taking money when it wasn't like I really needed it for anything.
She nodded, and didn't offer again. "Alex has a key to the apartment," she said, tail lashing, "and nyew can help yourself to anything in the frrridge. There's stuff for dinner, but if you want to order anything I'll—"
"Seriously," I said, "it's fine." I didn't need her treating this like an imposition when I was already struggling not to let myself think of it that way.
"It's nyat a hard rule," she continued, "but we…I try to make sure Alex gets to bed by nyan-thirty. I won't be back 'til morning; if you want to stay over, you're welcome to the bed…"
Alex bristled at that, for some reason. "Mya, that's okay," I said, waving a quick dismissal. I felt my own territorial instincts prickle at the back of my neck, anyway; I could just about deal with a couch, but bedding down in someone else's private space was another matter.
"And…nyew don't have to and I rrreally don't want to impose, but I did get a summary from the school of everything Alex's class covered while we were, mya, out…"
I tried not to sigh too noticeably, and I could see Alex's ears flatten out. "I'll…see what we can do," I said, not about to make any promises.
"Thank you so much," Frank concluded, having finally run out of oh-and-alsos. She almost went in for an embrace, but stopped when my introvert instincts kicked in and I shrank away; instead, she turned to Alex and wrapped her up in a /[mp]aternal/ bear-hug. "I'll be back as soon as I can," she said; then she turned reluctantly, strode over to the motorcycle parked in front of their apartment, and took off.
For a minute, we just watched her go; then Alex turned to me. "I don't need a babysitter," she groused.
"Okay," I said.
"I'm eleven nyalready." Her ear twitched and her tail gave a lash.
"So you've said."
She gave me a Look. I wasn't sure how to read it; she wasn't exactly spoiling for a fight, but had clearly expected more pushback. "D'you even wannya do this?" she asked, after a minute of trying to figure out my angle here.
"Nyat especially," I admitted, scratching behind one ear.
She squinted at me with a blend of confusion and annoyance. "Why'd nyew say yes, then?"
I shrugged, my own tail flicking idly from side to side. "'Peace of mind,' apparently."
Alex rolled her eyes and sighed in a getting-a-head-start-on-being-a-teenager way. "'S nyat like I haven't been nyan meown—my own before." She frowned at the verbal slip. I did my best to suppress a smirk; it wasn't like my own sense of dignity wasn't getting regularly needled by that, after all.
"It's probably nyat that she thinks you can't get by on nyewr own," I said. "Adults just tend to worry about kids, even when they know there's nyathing to worry about."
"That's dumb."
"We can't help it," I said. "The more you live through mistakes 'n nyaccidents, the more you try to catch 'em before they happen – even to someone else, and especially to people you care about."
She regarded me curiously. "Myew didn't even rrreally talk to us 'til alla this happened, though."
She wasn't wrong, but I cringed at her saying it. "Nyo," I sighed, picturing that cartoon arrow-through-the-chest visual, "but…I'm, mya, trrrying to be better about that. Anyaway, I understand how she feels, kinda."
She shot me another Look. "Nyew don't have kids."
I frowned, ears flattened out; she didn't have to sound so certain. "I've got a little sister," I said. "One time, when we were kids, our folks took us on nya trip to the Grrrand Canyan. They've got railings up at the visitor spots – but Cait just went and climbed right over so she could get a better look."
Alex was about to fire back, then hesitated; I could just about see her mind's eye conjuring the scene. "Was…was she okay…?" she asked, after a moment.
I heaved a sigh, unsettled myself at the memory of it. "Wouldn't be talking about her in the prrresent tense otherwise," I said. "But nya see what I mean? When nyew get to be an adult, it's hard nyat to think about what-ifs like that, with kids. And that goes way more for your dad, 'cause she's your dad."
"I guess," she sighed, clawing absent-mindedly at the concrete, but she didn't sound like she was conceding.
We stood there for a minute: her staring silently into space, and me wondering what I was even doing here. This kind of thing usually involved a tacit agreement between the kid(s) and the Acting Adult – let's keep it to a dull roar, and we can tell your mom & dad "nothing to report!" – but I had no idea what to do when the kid just didn't feel I was necessary.
And, well, I'd been dragooned into service before, but I wasn't really good at it. I didn't have it in me to be the Fun Positive Cruise Director type guiding children through an evening's course of Diverting & Enriching Activities 'til it was time to put them down for the night; my inclination was more to hole up in a corner, keep an ear out for trouble, and let them do their own thing. Granted, in this case that might actually be the better approach…
"Listen," I said, "I'm nyat gonna make you do stuff or 'keep you busy' if you don't want. I just prrromised your dad I'd keep an eye on things, that's all." I scuffed my foot, feeling antsy and irritable and trying not to, and nodded back toward our apartment row. "I can come over to your place and hang out 'til your dad gets home, or vice versa – your call."
Alex eyed me curiously. "'Vice versa?'"
"Mya, the other way around," I clarified. Was that no longer common parlance with the Kids These Days? Should I feel old and out-of-touch despite having yet to crack thirty? Or was it just that I was never very attuned to what counted as "normal" to begin with?
She squinted in confusion, flicking an ear. "'Versa vice?'"
"Mya, nyo—" I sputtered, "—well, it's Latin, nyew can do that, but…" I sighed, ears drooping. "Mrrr, it means 'the other way around.'" I felt like a dope for doing accidental vaudeville, but I had to admit that I'd walked right into it.
She frowned. "Why Latin?"
Widespread cultural influence of the Roman Empire lingering on through the centuries, I thought, but said: "It's just an nyexprrression."
"…Huh."
"Nyanyway," I prompted, "do you want to hang out at my apartment, or should I come over to yours?"
Her demeanor had gotten less confrontational once I'd conceded that she probably didn't need a sitter, but she suddenly got all skittish again, eyeing me warily. "I guess we can go to your house," she said, after a moment.
I wondered if I'd said something wrong, but if she had a specific objection, she didn't indicate it. Well, anyway, that put things on a more comfortable footing for me – though I did have to take another quick mental inventory of my bookshelf. I doubted she'd pick up Snow Crash or Neuromancer right off the bat, but if this was gonna be a regular thing I should probably move them to the closet…
"Alright," I said. I had a brief impulse to take her by the hand, but refrained; she'd definitely get prickly about that. I nodded toward my apartment, and ushered her inside, wondering what I was getting myself into.
Alex sniffed the air warily as we entered the place, glancing around and flicking her ears this way and that as she took in her surroundings. She didn't seem uncomfortable, just…uncertain. I found it odd since she'd just been here a week ago – but that'd been with her dad, and I remembered how alien and intimidating strangers' houses could be when I was a kid.
As we cleared the entryway, she glanced over her shoulder – and froze. For a moment, I felt my own nerves flare, wondering what was wrong – had something gotten into the apartment? If she was in danger… Then I recognized the reaction: she was staring at her own tail, out of the corner of her eye. I saw her limbs tense, and she whirled around—
—and came face to face with me, and leapt back with such a start that I thought I'd have to peel her off the ceiling. When she landed, I could already see the realization in her expression; she turned away and began scanning the apartment for anything else to talk about. I fought back a smirk, humoring her out of solidarity.
"D'you read a lot?" she asked, studying the bookshelf as if she'd meant to do so from the start.
"Sometimes." I scratched at the back of my head, feeling awkward; really, a lot of the books were random thrift-store finds I'd picked up on a whim but hadn't gotten around to yet. It felt weird having someone come into my home and start examining the selection, but I could hardly cast any stones on that count.
"What's this about?" she asked, zeroing in with unerring precision on Snow Crash.
"…A cult spreading a computer virus that affects the human brain," I said, leaving out the bits about katana-wielding hackers and nuclear-powered Gatling guns in hopes of not making it sound like the kind of book an eleven-year-old (tom)boy'd want to pick up.
She frowned. "How's that work?"
"It doesn't, really," I said, thinking uneasily about certain viruses that did affect the brain. "There's some explanation, but when nyew get down to it, it just makes for an interesting story."
"…Huh." She continued browsing, tail twitching. "'Harriet the Spy' doesn't look like much of a spy."
"Most spies don't," I chuckled dryly.
She thought about it for a moment. "Guess nyat," she conceded. "…Is she, really?"
"She finds places to hide and watch the people in her neighborhood and writes about them in her notebook," I replied, "if that counts."
She frowned, stepping away from the bookshelf and prowling the living room in an exploratory manner. "Why's she do that?"
"She wants to be a writer," I said, shrugging, "but…I think it's also that she doesn't really get people."
"…Oh." Alex got a faraway look for a minute. "Sometimes I don't get people," she muttered, looking a little guilty at the admission.
I made to reply, then hesitated. That's normal, I wanted to say, but…was it? I never had figured that one out. Did "normal" people find each other as frustrating and opaque as I did, or was that just projection…? "Myew're nyat alone," I said at last. "They can be prrretty confusing."
"Does it get better when nyew grow up?"
"Sometimes," I sighed. It was better than it had been, but as a kid you're given the impression that when you get to be An Adult things'll just magically make sense. I was still waiting on that part.
She didn't say anything for a bit, eyeing the TV curiously instead. "This is one nya those really old ones, huh?" she mused.
"It's from before you were born, if that's what you mean," I said, ignoring the recitation of Asimov's "The Prime Of My Life" that'd suddenly started running in the back of my head.
"Why's it so huge, if the screen's so small?"
"It's got a big glass tube instead of an LCD panel." I had to marvel at her insatiable curiosity; I wondered if I wouldn't find it exhausting, by the end of this, but it seemed like a sign that she was getting more comfortable, at least.
There was a tink as she tapped the CRT with her claw. "Were they nyat invented yet?"
I cast my thoughts back to the Mesozoic world of 2002 A.D., when the ancient cabinet TV we'd inherited from my grandma succumbed to a fatal case of Inquisitive Youngster With A Magnet° and we'd picked up this set. "Nya, just expensive and sh…crummy."
° (I would've gotten in more trouble, but my mother'd long since realized that she hated it as furniture.)
"Mya could get a nyew one," she opined, in that little-kid way that indicated she was the first to suggest the obvious solution.
"I don't really need it for anything."
She frowned. "D'you nyat like TV?"
"Nyat really." I shrugged. "Do you?"
"Nyat really," she said, after thinking about it for a moment. "Why d'ya have one, then?"
"DVDs, mostly. What do you like…?" I asked, wondering if standing around talking about my media collection wouldn't get boring pretty quick. I wasn't cut out for the cruise-director role, but maybe there was something we could do that'd keep her engaged and not wear me out too much…
Alex gave it another moment's thought, finger to her lip and tail flicking. "I like goin' nyoutside."
I stifled a groan; me and my big mouth… "You, mya, you do, huh?"
She nodded. "I useta go explore 'n stuff, when…" She hesitated. "…when I felt like it. But after alla this started we were s'poseta stay inside, 'n nyafter we turned into…into cats, Dad got all worried about me goin' nyalone."
"…Ah." Frankly, I was with Frank; even without the occasional report of stray mountain lions wandering into town, there were rattlesnakes around here, not to mention scattered encampments of homeless folks who might not all be just down on their luck in a rotten economy. Really, I wondered why she ever would've been okay with it, but I was starting to get the feeling that there were important things being not-said here.
"It doesn't make sense," she huffed. "Like, I even got claws 'n fangs niaow."
"Well, you're still her kid," I said; really, I meant "a kid," but that'd likely rub her the wrong way. "But…we could, mya, go for a walk or something, if you want, I guess."
She eyed me curiously. "I don't think you're an nyoutside kinda purrson."
"I'll live," I said, trying not to sound miffed; she didn't have to be that blunt about it. "Or we could hang out here, if you'd prrrefer; whatever works."
I caught a momentary flash of interest before she masked it behind a distinctly feline air of detachment. "I guess we could go for a walk," she said. "There's like a pond we could go see."
"Oh, the reservoir?" I called, ducking into the bedroom for my purse. I knew it was somewhere behind the hill our row was built into – during wildfire season they'd occasionally send the bucket-copter 'round – but I'd never bothered to look for it.
"Nya-huh!" she said, the mask slipping a little. "There's a street back behind the meat place that goes almost there."
"'Butcher shop,'" I said reflexively, realizing that I'd never been in there, either; part of my brain wondered if they stocked more poultry than just chicken and turkey, then got to thinking about the wild turkeys that frequented the local back roads.
And out the door we went. The day was pleasantly warm and the sun was already making for the horizon; it'd be summer soon enough, but for now the weather was mild. We strolled down to the end of the street, turned, and went up the road towards the meat place. Alex picked her feet delicately over the coarse asphalt, but didn't seem uncomfortable; her paw-pads were probably thick enough to cushion.
By now just being outside was no longer a sensory overload, but it was still amazing how much I could perceive about the space around me – the smell of dry grass and pine pollen and trails of exhaust from passing vehicles, the rustling of small critters in the roadside brush and the calls of far-off birds, the distant, muffled thumping of a car stereo. I wasn't sold on the whole "outdoors" thing, but the novelty of this altered perspective on the world was almost enough to rekindle my interest.
Alex was similarly engrossed, but not enough to keep her from talking; with the ice semi-broken, she seemed less guarded. (I wondered how often she'd gotten to talk to anyone besides her dad, the last couple months.) "I don't think it's fair that they're makin' mya do homework 'cause of this," she said, scooping up a rock as we turned at the butcher shop and chucking it into the bushes. "That should be illegal, prrrobably."
"Well, I don't think they're trying to make it hard on nyew," I said, though I could sympathize. "It's more making sure you don't fall behind the rest of the class." I wasn't sure how much credit to extend the System on that, but if the other teachers at her school were anything like Nicole, I could probably give them the benefit of the doubt.
"'S nyat like it makes sense anyaway," she sighed. "Like, how'm I s'poseta guess what some writer was thinkin' just 'cause of how they talk about other stuff!? I'm nyat them!"
"Mya, I don't know why they make you do that as a kid," I sighed, definitely empathizing there. "It kinda starts to make sense when nyew get older, but only 'cause you've heard a lot of people talk about a lot of things by then."
"Does it…?" she asked, understandably skeptical.
"Kinda, sometimes," I shrugged. "Like what they call 'negative space' in art."
She shot me a look that said I wasn't clarifying anything for her. "Mya, think of drawing," I said. "If you've got a blank page, you could draw a shape and fill it in – but if you filled in everything but that, you'd still see what the shape was. When nyew know how most people talk about something, you can make a guess at how someone else feels by what they aren't saying about it."
"…Huh." Her brow furrowed as she thought it over, and we walked on a ways. "What about how there's 'I' and 'me' and 'which' and 'that' and stuff? Why's there so many words that mean the same thing?"
"That's 'cause English…well, because English," I laughed, as we reached the end of the street. "It's what happens when nyew get three different groups all invading the same island over a thousand years; they left bits 'n pieces of their languages lying around all over the place."
"Is that why it is?" she asked, ears perked, as she scrambled up the hillside; the dry, sandy soil scattered under her paws. "We're still doin' Nyam'rrrican history mostly."
"Yep," I said, following more cautiously; my new shoes weren't intended for hiking, and I wasn't sure of my footing. "The Rrromans took over part of it, then the Saxons, then the Nyormans, but every time someone nyew was in charge, they and whoever they took over had to learn to talk to each other. So by the end of it, they were talking in this big jumble of Latin, German, nyand French, and that's what English is."
"Huh." We crested the ridge, slogging through a stand of dry grass, and the hillside dipped into a basin where things were at least marginally greener. Alex stood there, surveying the reservoir; her expression had a bit of both the explorer gazing upon a new land and the cat perched on a fence to observe the yard below in it. "Is that why there's so many rules to try'n rrremember?"
"And so many exceptions, nya," I said. "Happens with other languages, too, but the ones that turned into, say, Spanish or French were closer to begin with."
"My abuela talks in Spanish when she's excited or mad," she said, springing down to the water's edge with arms and tail outstretched for balance; as outclassed as I felt by a naturally active kid less than half my age, it was easy to forget that she was new to this herself. "I only kniaow a bit, though." She frowned. "Ugh, she's prrrobably gonnya call me linda or prrrincesita or somethin'."
"You think so?" I picked my way down the slope carefully. The reservoir was still pretty full, this early in the year, and at the edge of the pond I could feel the ground squelch beneath my feet.
"Mrrr, she does it with my cousins," she said irritably. "They're all girrrls 'n they're all older'n me." She lined up her paw to kick a rock into the water, realized she wasn't wearing shoes, and thought better of it; she picked it up and tossed it instead. The splash glittered brilliantly in the first rays of the sunset, and we watched the ripples dance, scatter, and fade.
I couldn't exactly relate – I was smack in the middle of a fair assortment, myself – but it wasn't hard to picture; three of my own cousins were girls just a couple years apart and thick as thieves. I didn't know if her reactions were entirely fair, but I could see her feeling like the odd man out regardless.
"Well, you never kniaow," I ventured, trying to thread the needle between offering encouragement and not making empty promises. "That might just be how she is with them; it doesn't necessarily mean she'll treat you that way."
Alex gave a noncommittal grunt and dabbed one paw into the water, then padded farther on down the shore.° She turned and was about to say something—
° (Is it still "shore" if it's on a pond? If not, what is it?)
—when a jay flitted over the rim of the basin and down towards the water, noticed the two of us standing on either side of his flight path, and gave a sudden flutter of acceleration, zipping right past: don't mind me, just passing through…!
We were instantly riveted. It's hard to explain this if you haven't experienced it yourself; humans are opportunistic, omnivorous scavengers who learned hunting in a social context æons later, but as a catgirl part of you is wired like a critter that's been an obligate carnivore and ambush predator since time immemorial. The best analogy I've got is when you walk past a restaurant and catch a whiff of grilling meat or frying onions, and even if you've just eaten your mouth starts watering – but that doesn't convey how primal the instinct is. When you're a cat and you see a bird, you just know.
That's not to say you're helpless in its grip – but when you've only been one for a week or two, the influence is a lot harder to shake. We were both staring as it flew right out the other side of the basin and perched in a high treetop, but Alex's expression was so intent that I wondered if she even realized what she was doing. With loose limbs and ears triangulating on her target, she slunk slowly 'round the pond toward the treeline, sinking to all fours as she went; her altered leg structure made it surprisingly natural.
As she approached the base of the tree, she began making short chittering sounds of a type I couldn't remember hearing before, but instinctively recognized: a nobody here but us chickens! kind of quasi-birdcall.° But a human voice could probably do a better imitation,°° and I wondered why she wasn't doing that; she must really be deep in instinct…
° (I'd long since given up pretending to be normal in hopes of going unnoticed, as a human, but I still grasped the principle.)
°° (Well, okay, maybe not with a jay's screech.)
It was hard to tell what the jay made of it, but he stayed put, and presently Alex was crouched by the base of the tree, eyeing it thoughtfully. Part of my brain didn't see an issue with this, but another part realized it'd probably end in my having to explain to my neighbor why I'd had to call the fire department to get her kid down. "Mya, Alex?" I called, just as her limbs tensed and she prepared to spring.
She jumped like a firecracker'd gone off next to her, launching on the course already set; I cringed, anticipating scrapes, bruises, and/or a bloody nose, but some combination of kid reflexes and feline instinct took over and she stuck the "landing," gripping the trunk with her claws about four feet off the ground. She didn't say anything, but her ears and tail suggested that realization had just sunk in. The jay flitted off without comment.
For a moment, we just stood there; then, still facing the tree, she said: "What?"
I had the urge to chide her about getting stuck a couple stories off the ground, or parasites in wild game, but suppressed it. I was just the babysitter, and she probably knew the first part already; no need to pile on. Looking for something to pivot to, I offered: "…If you're getting hungry, we could head back."
She declined to respond, at first; then her stomach did it for her. "…Okay," she said, turning away in what was Definitely Not Embarrassment.
Another moment passed, and she stayed where she was. Finally, I felt obligated to ask: "Um…myew need help getting down…?"
Her ears pinned back. "No," she huffed indignantly, and looked down at the ground below; from her visible relief, she must've thought she was higher up.
I watched her figure out the dismount; the trick seemed to be that, when you have claws, you actually have to loosen your grip to retract them. She disengaged her hindpaws, planted them against the trunk, and then let go with her hands, kicking off to land in a crouch like the whole thing was playing in film-reverse. I did my best to stifle a snort; her ego was probably bruised enough already.
"C'mon," I said, nodding back toward the road. "Let's go get dinner started."
We walked most of the way back in silence. Finally, coming down the street to our row, Alex spoke. "I–I wasn't actually gonnya…mrrr, myakniaow…" she said, sounding more like she was trying to convince herself than anything.
"Oh?" I said, wondering whether she had any compunctions about it, or was just embarrassed at losing herself in instinct.
"'Cause, mya, that's nyat really the kind of bird you eat, anyaway." She frowned thoughtfully, as if rehearsing an argument to herself.
"Isn't much meat on one, for starters," I said, eyeing the pawprints she left on the concrete. "Here, c'mon over to the faucet."
She rolled her eyes as I opened up the spigot out front, but dipped one paw and then the other in to rinse the dirt off. "Geez," I said, glancing over her legs and tail, "you're covered in stickers."
"Rrreally?" She looked down at herself. "Guh, those are the WORST. But it doesn't hurt like gettin' one in nyewr shoe."
"Foxtail's evil," I said. "I think your coat's dense enough to keep it from poking, but it burrows in real good if you leave it. Let's get inside and we can take care of 'em."
She got a bit skittish again before allowing me into their apartment. I wasn't sure why; she smelled wary, but not hostile. Well, I wouldn't intrude on their territory any more than necessary, but I would need a wastebasket; I ducked into the bathroom and borrowed the one by the sink. It was empty save for a few squares of Kleenex dabbed with makeup; I wondered how long they'd been in there.
Alex was waiting when I returned; she glanced toward the master bedroom. "That's…Dad's room," she said pointedly.
"…Mya, okay," I said, for once sensing a trigger before blundering into it, even if I wasn't clear on the specifics. "Gotcha."
We set up shop on the kitchen linoleum. She shied away when I went to touch her fur; I hesitated, but she relented, and I started picking out foxtail barbs and other detritus. It took a bit to get the hang of finagling them out without too much fur coming along, but eventually she stopped squirming and twitching at my clumsiness.
"Oh," she said, scooting around to my side, just out of reach, "you got some in nyewr tail, too."
I craned my neck for a look back. "Figures," I sighed, turning to follow her. "Must've been in with the tall grass." She was right; they were just buried in the fur, and not digging in yet. I'd get them once I was done with her…
But to my surprise, she laid down next to me, facing the other way so I could continue working on her legs and tail, and started picking at my own fur. I winced and hissed as a tuft of undercoat got yanked out; her ears drooped and she gave me an apologetic look. "Mya, sorry."
"'Salright," I said, cringing. "We're both prrretty nyew at this."
For a while, neither of us spoke, getting strangely absorbed in mutual grooming; every so often Alex moved just beyond reach, and I had to follow suit, so that we ended up precessing around the basket. After a bit, she mused, "Cockatoo's nyat a bird you eat either, right…?"
"Not as far as I've ever heard," I said, though someone out there must have a moderately disturbing website devoted to parrot cuisine;° then I recalled the other day. "Mya, thinking about your grandma's?"
° (This is what it's like being a catgirl: no sooner had I thought it than I was embroiled in a three-way struggle between the "right brain" holding onto normal human "cute/amusing = not for eating" impulses, the "left brain" arguing that there was no logical basis for drawing a moral distinction, and a primal instinct that couldn't even grasp the question.)
She gave me one of the more haunted looks I'd ever seen on a grade-schooler. "I, mrrr…I think I'll prrrobably wanna kill him."
"…Ah." Not the kind of thing I was used to hearing out of someone who hadn't even hit adolescence yet; but under the circumstances, more relatable than I cared to admit. "But, well…you like him normally, don't you…?" I ventured, wondering what'd be the usual way to explain to a kid that eating people's pets is Wrong, Actually.
"Nyo," she said indignantly, ears flattening. I felt her tail stiffen and the fur puff out as I picked at it. "He BIT me. On the THUMB."
"I see," I said, trying not to laugh at her reaction. I could relate, having long ago been the target of absolutely psychotic hatred from our neighbor's Cocker Spaniel – though I didn't know if Sra. Gutiérrez was the type to act like you were the asshole for getting on her pet's nerves. "Worried nya might, mrrr…give in…?"
She sighed, shoulders slumping in the kind of liquid pose that sets cats apart from all other vertebrates. "I kniaow it'd make her sad," she said, picking glumly at my tail, "but…what if I just feel like doin' it anyaway? If…if 'm rrreally a cat niaow, is it just somethin' nyew do, even if nya kniaow you're nyat s'posed to…?"
My brain, unprompted, dug deep into the archives and unearthed a maddeningly peppy little number out of Romans 7. While that ran on repeat in the back of my head, I tried to think of an alternative that'd be relatable to anybody but me. "Mya, there's this one Star Trek—"
Damn it, so much for that goal…but it was probably the best I'd get. "—and, well, the gist is," I said, trying to stick to the broader point, "we have instincts – even as humans – but we don't have to let 'em control us. Just 'cause part of you kinda wants to do something, it doesn't mean nyew have to do it. We can decide that, even if we feel like it, we're nyat gonna kill today."°
° (I did my best to suppress the Shatnerisms.)
Alex frowned, moving out of reach again. "What about tomorrow?"
"It's a rrrhetorical device," I said, with a dry chuckle. "Every day is 'today' – point is, you do have a say in what you do, no matter what instinct tells you."
We continued grooming each other while she thought it over. "'S dumb that it doesn't just tell you to do…I dunniaow, what you're s'poseta do?" she said at last. "Or…the right thing? That'd make you happy…?" Her brow furrowed as she tried to puzzle that one out; one ear laid back a bit and the other flicked ambivalently. "Is…is that why people…don't get along, sometimes?"
I cocked an ear and stared back at her, wondering what an eleven-year-old was doing tangling with Big Philosophical Quandaries. "Kid, if you ever figure that out, lemme kniaow," I sighed.
She didn't reply, seemingly lost in thought. I almost asked, but didn't want to pry; no point making her uncomfortable when we'd only just started getting used to each other. After we'd gotten the last burs and barbs out, I took the basket and moved away. She gave me a look that was halfway between a feline what-you're-not-done-already? and something else I couldn't read, then turned away, tail lashing moodily.
After replacing the basket, I surveyed the kitchen. It was clean enough, but one look at the pantry and I had to reconsider our dinner plans. "This's all Hamburger Helper," I said, though a second look revealed the recent addition of Tuna Helper to the mix.
Alex looked like she was only just realizing this wasn't normal. "Dad can cook some," she said, a little defensively, "but…he's prrretty tired when he gets home. We useta go down to Abuela Carmen's sometimes, before we had to stay inside."
"Gotcha." I tried not to be too judgemental re: Frank's meal planning – after all, I'd made my own questionable choices in prepping for lockdown – but then, I didn't have a kid to look after. Then again, I didn't have a kid to look after, and I could get plenty fried myself by the end of the day…
Well, I could at least do a bit better – and I'd had enough of Helper by my second year out of college. "C'myan," I said, nodding toward the door. "I was planning on making stir fry, anyaway."
She eyed me dubiously. "Can nyew cook?"
"A bit, mya," I said, shooting her a Look as we left.
"Huh," she said. "Could you do it before you were a girrrl?"
"Wh—!?" I sputtered, feeling my tail frizz. "Kid, it's been like a week. Besides, it's nyat a boy or girl thing. Anyone can do it; just takes some prrractice."
We stopped on my doorstep, momentarily distracted by a distant crow.
"…Pop Asheby always says he only does 'bachelor cooking,' though," she said, one ear straining for any last sign of it before I shut the door. "'Cept the grill. He's rrreal fussy about that."
"Well, it's a stereotype that guys're lazy about cooking, but that doesn't mean nya can't do it. Besides, this's nothing fancy, just cutting stuff up and frying it."
"'Stereotype?'" she queried, as I dug around in the fridge.
"Mrrr, something people assume is true about other people, even if it isn't necessarily so." I rinsed the veggies, set them aside, and fetched the chicken breast.
"Is that Latin?" Alex stood beside me, watching me work in a typically feline supervisory manner. "Why're you usin' nya fork and knife?"
"Greek, I think." My tail flicked as I trimmed the fat. "And I don't like touching rrraw meat."
"When'd they invade England?"
I couldn't help but laugh. "They didn't. I think those bits came in after English was big enough to go pillaging other languages for nyew words."
"…Huh," she mused. I thought she'd continue along that line of inquiry, but instead she put a hand on her hip. "I could cut it up," she said, "if…if nyew needed."
Her tone, which aimed to imply that it was all the same to her, had me suppressing a smirk, but couldn't keep my ear from twitching. "I don't see why not," I said. "Er, are you okay using a knife…?"
"Myeah," she huffed, slightly indignant at being taken for less than Very Grown-Up.
"Okay," I said, setting the cutting board atop the little pull-out cutting board above the cutlery drawer° so it'd be easier to reach. "It's all trimmed; you can dice it into chunks, about yea big. Mya, wash your hands, though," I added, recalling that she'd been on all fours earlier.
° (The one you never actually use as a cutting board because it's too much trouble to remove and wash afterward.)
She reluctantly rinsed her hands and wiped the fur on her jumper, then touched her paw-pads to the meat and squirmed a little. "It's all slimy," she said, with audible distaste.
"I think that's just prrroteins and meat juices," I said. "Want me to do it?"
She prickled at that. "I can do it," she retorted. "I was just sayin'."
"Mm-hm." I moved down the counter a space and began dicing the veggies, slightly dreading the onion; even the peppers stood out to my enhanced nose, and I knew that evil little bulb would put up a fight before I sautéed it into submission. But I got fairly absorbed in the work, though Alex kept thwapping my skirt with her tail; I couldn't tell if that was deliberate.
She was clumsier with the knife than she would've liked me noticing, but didn't cut herself. I saw her experiment with her claws, but they were more suited for snagging than slicing; she did end up using them on the gripping hand. The onion, unsurprisingly, socked me right in the soft tissues, but it didn't make my eyes sting any worse than usual.
We finished around the same time, and Alex rinsed the gunk from her hands thoroughly; I felt a bit guilty for letting her do the part I disliked when she obviously didn't like it either, but I had offered her an out; if she was too proud to take it, I guessed that probably counted as some kind of valuable lesson or something. I started heating the oil and set the rice microwaving;° Alex wandered over to the TV again.
° (About once a year I'd tell myself I should really get a rice cooker and move up to the non-Minute stuff; I steadfastly failed to ever get around to it.)
"I think 'Star Trek' is, like, as old as I am, isn't it?" she said.
"You're thinking of the one movie," I said, cringing and striving mightily against my instinct to editorialize. "The show's older'n both of us put together."
"Huh." She squatted and began rifling through my media collection; I had to suppress a little flare-up of territorial prickliness. "Is this a record of it? Do they make records of TV shows?"
"LaserDisc," I said. "It's like a DVD but, um, record-sized."
"Is that a 'retro' thing?"
"More of a 'the library was throwing them out' thing," I said, keeping an eye on the skillet, "but they are old, if that's what you mean."
"Oh. I thought it was like how you drive a really old car," she mused, finger to her lip and one ear twitching.
"Not so much 'cause it's 'retro' as I just…kinda like it," I replied, as the scent of hot oil filled the air. "That, and I spend my whole workday fighting with machines that do what you didn't tell 'em to, don't do what you did, or try and guess what you told 'em and do something else instead. I like having at least one thing around that just does what I tell it."
"I don't think it goes very fast, though." She started a little at the sudden crackle when I dropped the meat in.
"Well," I called over the noise, "if I try to make it do something it can't, that's on me."
Alex took that kid-making-a-suggestion tone again. "Couldn't nyew put, like, a bigger motor in it?" She didn't think to raise her voice, but my ears were already turned as far toward her as they'd go.
"Sure," I said. "But you apply too much torque and it just lifts the front end off the pavement and you can't steer."
"What if you put something heavy in front?"
"Then nyew're wasting the power you got from the engine." I tossed in the veggies and shrugged. "Nya can tweak things some, if you wanna be a hot-rodder, but it's a balancing act – and there's no point trying to force things to be what they aren't."
"Oh," she said; then, after a moment, "…Mya think so?"
"Sure," I said, batting things around the pan and getting a little absorbed in it. "It's not like it has to be fast, anyway; I'm never in that much of a hurry."
"…Huh." She sounded like there was something on her mind, but didn't elaborate. Again, I nearly asked, but remembered how it'd irk me when my mom did that; I stirred in the seasonings instead, letting them cook in and savoring the smell of caramelizing soy sauce. Say what you might about the indignities this stupid virus inflicted, it turned even basic cooking into an olfactory experience.
When it was ready, I took it off the burner and set the table. It took me a minute to clear another place amid the paperwork that accumulated there; I made a mental note to go through it later. I'd probably never need years' worth of prior W-2s, DMV renewal notices, etc. – but then, maybe I should hang onto them at least 'til I'd slogged through whatever bureaucratic nonsense it took to update my ID…
Dinner turned out reasonably well, apart from the occasional wisp of silky black fur I had to pick off my tongue; next time I'd have Alex dice the veggies or tend the rice, if she wanted to help. She seemed to like it okay, but picked out the onions with visible disgust. "Don't like 'em, huh?" I queried; I hadn't thought of that 'til now.
"They're gross," she said irritably, and gave me another look like she was expecting pushback. "Do I have to eat 'em?"
I shrugged. "Not if you really don't want to."
She eyed me warily. "I thought they're s'poseta be good for you or somethin'."
"Something like that, mya," I said. "But you're not gonna die without them. And it's prrretty normal for kids not to like 'em; I kinda forgot."
"Is it…?" she said, one ear twitching curiously.
"Caitlin and I both hated onions when we were your age," I said. "It's something about how your tastebuds change as you get older, I think."
"Does that happen?" she asked, not quite between bites. "I thought it was just that grrrownups make you get used to stuff."
"No, there's a lot of things about the body that change as you mature," I said, thinking for a moment how strange it was that we say mature like it's a value judgement instead of just the outcome of a natural process. "My dad let me have a sip of his beer once, as a kid, and I hated that, too; niaow I enjoy it. It's just how it goes."
Alex frowned, thinking something over as she chewed. "Do…d'you think it's different if you're a…a cat?" she asked uneasily.
"Good question," I said. "It definitely has some effect on nyewr tastes. Like, I'm gonna guess you prrrobably also like fish a lot more than nyew used to…?"
We both nodded knowingly. "But we might not really know how much 'til we've had time to adjust," I said. "And it might depend on how far you change, and everyone's prrrobably different…"
She gave me a Look. "Doesn't that just mean nyew dunniaow?"
"I'm as nyew to this as you are," I shrugged, tail flicking. "And nobody's been a catgirl for more than a few months now. We've had thousands of years to get used to being human." And some of us're still figuring that out, I thought, but didn't say it.
"But if it changes what you like," she said, "what if it, like, made nyew nyat like things you useta? That wouldn't even be fair." She hesitated. "…Does that happen when nyew grow up?"
"Not to nearly the same extent," I said. "It's less that you stop liking stuff as you discover other stuff you like more, or you just can't take as much of it." I sighed wistfully, recalling how, long ago, I could handle like eight s'mores in one sitting.
"…Huh," she said. "I guess that's better'n just nyat liking stuff anymore, kinda." She thought for a moment. "I don't really like getting wet, but I think that's just 'cause I've got fur niaow."
I nodded; it was still a challenge to shower without getting my tail completely bedraggled. "Mya, there'll prrrobably be other stuff," I said, "but we won't know 'til we discover it."
Alex didn't say anything more, for a bit; when we'd finished and I was clearing the plates, she mused, almost to herself: "I wonder how manya the other kids'll be different…?"
"In nyewr class?" I asked.
"Mel said Tabbi turned into a cat," she nodded, "but I dunniaow about anyaone else." She frowned. "She didn't even say if she was all cat like Miss Nyacole, I think. 'Calico' is one like Scraps, rrright?"
"Mya, that's right," I said, dishing the leftovers into a Tupperware for lunch tomorrow. "She a frrriend of yours?"
"Nyat really…?" She shrugged. "I dunniaow. I don't even get a lotta the boys in my class."
For a moment, I said nothing. My first instinct was to be Helpful And Encouraging – it'll get better, you'll get the hang of it, etc. – but…did I mean it? It was hard to square the sentiment with my own experience, and the thought of trying to fake enthusiasm really didn't sit right. "You're nyat alone," I reiterated, finally.
"…Does that get better when nyew grow up?"
I set the skillet in the sink, filling it with water; I'd come back for the dishes later, once I'd gotten her to bed. "…Still figuring that out myaself."
Alex didn't reply at first; she just stood there, shifting her gaze from side to side and scuffing her paw on the linoleum, tail lashing. "If…if you do," she said at last, "can nyew tell me…?"
I felt a twinge in my chest at that, and had to fight the urge to pick her up, still worried about making her uncomfortable. In spite of that, I couldn't hold back a rueful chuckle. "You'll be the first," I said. "Well, honestly, you'll prrrobably beat mya to it."
"Then…then I'll tell you, okay?" she said, her ears perking a little.
I couldn't help smiling at that. "Right, it's a prrromise." I hesitated briefly, trying to think what I could say that I did mean. "…For what it's worth," I added, "you maybe don't have to totally get someone to be friends with them."
"Nya rrreally think so?"
I shrugged. "I'm starting to suspect it, anyaway."
She nodded thoughtfully, then frowned. "…I don't really wanna go back to school, though."
I laughed. "Can't say I blame myew," I said, "but there's no helping that."
"Guess nyat," she grumbled, and fixed me with a pointed stare. "Do I really have to do the homework stuff…?"
"Well, I won't make you," I replied, "but your dad might apprrreciate it."
She shrugged and sighed, ticking her ears back and jamming her hands into her pockets. "I guess."
"Cheer up," I said. "Eventually, when nyew have to spend most of your day on stuff you'd rather nyat do, they at least pay you for it."
We returned to her apartment and spent the next hour-ish reviewing the packet from her school. Thankfully it focused more on summarizing what they'd covered than checklisting the busywork she'd missed, and we were able to make a reasonable start. Eventually, though, I could tell her attention was flagging.
"Think we can leave it there for tonight," I said. "You seem kinda tired."
Alex bristled slightly. "I'm nyat tired," she said, though she was only too happy to put her schoolwork away.
I glanced at the clock – it was nearly ten. I wasn't inclined to be a hard-ass, and to an extent being a catgirl makes you naturally crepuscular, but I did have work tomorrow, and she'd have to get back into whatever they were doing for a class schedule. I was dithering over how to cajole her when I found myself yawning – which, inevitably, got her yawning as well.
"There," I laughed, "see?"
She frowned and turned away, in a perfectly cat-like refusal to acknowledge. "I wannya stay up!" she insisted. "I'm nyat a little kid."
By now it wasn't a surprise when she got prickly over what she saw as babying, but something in her tone made me suspect it had more to do with being up when Frank got home. But that wouldn't be 'til morning…
"Well," I said, angling for a compromise, "you could at least get ready for bed now; that way you won't have to do it later, however late you're up."
She almost pushed back, but relented. "…Guess so," she said, slouching off to the bathroom to brush her teeth. I watched her go; she had the same odd, steppy gait as Nicole, which must've been due to the digitigrade paws. She'd moved like that earlier, but I'd assumed it was from walking barefoot on asphalt and rocky soil.
She ducked into her room, returning clad in an undershirt that was large enough to approximately count as a nightgown, and sat down beside me on the couch, staring expectantly into the middle distance; I wondered how often she'd done this before.
I wondered, too, if I should be trying to entertain her or something – but being a catgirl also makes you naturally prone to find sleep where you can get it, and we'd hardly been there two minutes before her head started nodding and her eyelids drooped. She caught herself a couple times…but couldn't fight it for long, and slumped against my shoulder. I smiled slightly, remembering a time or two when my sister'd done the same.
Then she slumped further, so that the side of her head pressed into my breast, and an ear tickled my chin – which was not an experience I'd had with Caitlin, and which triggered a whole weird cocktail of confusing feelings. Soon enough she was lying across my thighs, instead…but the emotional jumble persisted.
Well, I thought to myself, she must be asleep now, and there was a light blanket folded up on the back of the couch. If I could cover her up and extricate myself without waking her, she should be fine here 'til her parent got back, and I could go do the—
Alex stirred softly in my lap. "Mrrr, M'zz Kit…?"
—well, I'd jinxed it, hadn't I. "Mya?" I said.
"'re myew gonnya leave?"
There was nothing accusatory in her tone, but I felt guilty as hell regardless; screw it, the dishes could wait. "I'll be here 'til your dad's home," I replied, reaching up for the blanket and draping it over her.
She nodded sleepily and nuzzled into my stomach. "'Kay."
I folded my glasses, pinned them to my collar, breathed deeply, and let out a sigh; then I reached down and absent-mindedly began to scratch behind her ears. She nudged into the touch and finally relaxed into sleep, purring softly. I leaned back against the couch, starting to purr as well – and before long, I drifted off myself.