Chapter 2: Ch. 2

Hello there, dear readers! I'm back already with chapter 2 of Hairball! Once more, this story was inspired by Hush, which was written by the very talented Clarity, and is set in the same universe. Please enjoy, and please feel free to leave a review!

 

 

Hairball (Chapter 2)

by

Elite Shade

 

 

"Some kinda monster!" I make out from Cassie's hysterical screaming. There's a murmur of voices just outside the door. I'm sitting with my head in my hands, trying to make sense of what's going on. And yeah... I might be crying... a little...

"What the hell are all you brats doin' blocking the hall?!" came the angry and slightly effeminate voice of Gabe Spencer, my current foster father.

"Th-There's some... THING in Alex's room!" Cassie chimes in.

"Oh for the love of, move out of the way!" I feel my feline ears turn towards the doorknob, as it starts jiggling.

"Alan? Open this damn door right now!" Gabe demands, once again forgetting my name. I open my mouth to say something, but I remember the high pitch of it from earlier, and clamp it shut. Panic sets in and I quickly weigh my options, all while Gabe is still calling out for Alan to open the damn door, before he declares that he's getting his keys. I can hear the muffled sounds of him cursing and the shuffling of his feet as he heads away. I weigh my options as the cold, hard ball of panic settles in my stomach. I get up from where I'm sitting on the edge of my bed and head over to the closet, letting my shorts slide off my legs while I also pull my PJ shirt off. I try pulling on one of my least torn shirts, but it tents itself around my much smaller frame.

After I yank it off, I spot a shirt a few sizes smaller and bright green. It's still a little large on me, but I don't have a lot of options left. I then find the smallest pair of jeans I own. I pull them up and immediately recognize a problem, my new tail. I sigh as I pull them off and pull open the loose floorboard that I hide my belongings in. I fish around in there for my small pocket knife and open it. I use it to score a hasty hole in the back of the jeans, where I think my tail is. I the pull them on, manually threading my tail through the makeshift hole. The jeans are a little baggy around my new waist, so I pull a belt on as tight as I can make it go to keep them up.

I hear Gabe huffing back down the hall, still cursing, and so I start putting what I can in my backpack, including my box of cards, my laptop and charger, a couple packs of jerky, the envelope with all of my savings, and my school stuff. I then notice the barefoot state of my feet, but also notice how much smaller and daintier they are compared to my much larger sneakers. I sigh as I put on three pairs of socks and tie my shoes much tighter than usual to make them fit, just as I hear the door unlatch.

"Now what the hell..." Gabe shuffles his short and rotund body through the doorway, stopping in his tracks as the question dies on his lips, seeing me standing there. My panic redoubles as I see just how unnerved he is at the very sight of me... a freak.

"Gabe... it's m-me, Alex..." I say slowly, choosing not to correct him earlier when he referred to me as Alan. Now's not really the time for that... plus, I've corrected him before and gotten nowhere with it. "I know that this looks-"

"MARCIE!!!" he screams for his wife as he practically run-waddles out the door, bowling over a few of my foster siblings in the process.

"MARCIE, GET MY PISTOL!"

Hearing that, I bolt out the door, grabbing my backpack, and run past my foster siblings, who all shrink back away from me, afraid. I pull the straps over my shoulders as I get to the front door. I throw it wide open as I sprint as fast as I can down the street, hearing a few popping sounds followed by a stinging sensation in my left shoulder. I ignore it to turn my head and look behind me. I can see Gabe there with one of those real short revolvers. He's shooting at me...oh crap HE'S SHOOTING AT ME!!! I try to sprint faster as I run down another street.

I'm still checking back over my shoulder to try and see if I'm being followed, when I hear a blaring car horn. I turn my head back in time to see a car swerve around me, the tires screeching loudly while I practically stumble over onto the sidewalk. I pick up speed again, huffing a little more than I was when I first started running, and turn down another street, followed by another. So far, aside from a few cars, I don't see anybody else out and about. I slow to a jog and then come to a stop next to a tree growing by the sidewalk, to catch my breath. There's a stitch in my side, and my left shoulder is really starting to hurt now, especially since I think that I have, literally, been running on pure adrenaline before.

I draw a shuddering breath, realizing that I'm on the verge of bursting into tears again. I stand up and begin collecting myself. I notice an elderly couple staring at me out the front window of their house. I give a nervous wave, before I start walking away, trying to ignore the pain in my shoulder.

Okay... so going back and trying to explain things to Gabe does not seem like an option... at least not an option that doesn't involve me getting shot. So to recap... I'm now a catgirl... who's essentially homeless...

... Maybe... maybe I could see if Adam's folks will let me stay with them for a little while... I guess I can pay rent... although that means that the amount I add to my savings will take a hit... still... of course, that's only after I manage to convince Adam that I am Alex...

I've been walking along for another few minutes, still trying to get my bearings so I could head for Adam's place, the sun slowly rising higher in the sky, when I hear the approach of another car. I keep my eyes trained forward, hoping that they'll think I'm just cos-playing or something and drive on by. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see a deep blue car pull to a stop right next to me.

"Oh my... miss? Please stop!" a female voice says. I don't stop, feeling the icy cold pit return.

"Please! I... I know what happened to you!"

That makes me stop. Slowly, I turn my head, ready to break out in a run if I have to. I see a woman, maybe in her thirties, stepping out of what looks like a brand new, expensive-looking car. She has light blonde hair and brown eyes. She's wearing a black pantsuit, with a white blouse underneath. We stand there staring at each other, with her looking me over with a worried expression.

"I just can't believe that he would... sorry, please, will you come with me?"

"W-Who are you? And what happened to me?" I ask her. She looks at me pleadingly.

"My name's Rebecca Ferguson... and... I'm so sorry." The name Ferguson sounds vaguely familiar to me, but I can't put my furry finger on it. I think that maybe my mind is still a little too frazzled for me to think clearly right now.

"Can you help me?" My voice is a whisper, and sounds so small...almost like a little girl's. This seems to resonate with the woman, Rebecca.

"Sweetie, I know that you must be very confused and scared, but please, come with me and I'll explain everything, and we can try to make this right."

I don't know what to do, so I take a deep, and once again shuddering, breath and try to think this through. On the one hand, I could just run for it, and maybe even find a way to ditch her if she tries to follow me in her car. But then I would still have no answers about what's going on or what to do...and I guess that maybe paying the Barone's for a place to stay is more of a pipe dream...at least based on past experience.
On the other, this strange woman seems to have an idea...but...all I can really think of is being strapped down to a table and dissected by some crazy mad scientist that she could be working for. I don't see many more options, at least none of which are remotely feasible.

I nod at her and slowly start to walk to the passenger side door of the car. She smiles at me, still looking worried, as she gets back in at the same time as me. After I buckle my seatbelt, I feel an uncomfortable sensation coming from...aw crap...my tail. I wiggle a bit in my seat until I can pull it around from under me and lay it across my lap.

We drive along in uncomfortable silence for a few minutes. I'm staring out the window and doing my best to memorize the names of the streets we're passing and turning on, just in case. The houses that go by slowly change, becoming larger and more expensive-looking. We pull into a large driveway to a two story house that dwarfs my foster home. The strange woman flashes me a nervous smile as she puts the car into park and kills the ignition.

We get out and head on up to the front door. For some reason she's looking at the place with what seems to me to be a look of awe. She opens the door and ushers me inside.

"You're bleeding," she says while leading me to a large and fancy-looking kitchen, sounding worried, "how did I not see that before? You poor thing."

I take a seat at the table, where she has me roll up the bloody sleeve on my shirt. I see a nasty cut through my fur and flesh... did Gabe do that? Is this what it means to have a bullet graze you? Now that the adrenaline's worn off, I can feel the dull aching throb coming from the wound.

"He actually shot at me..." I say in my higher voice.

"Someone shot at you?" The woman seems alarmed at this, and then she pulls me into a hug. I squeak in surprise, feeling my face grow warm underneath the black fur. Did I really just let out a squeak?

"Okay, hun, I'll go get my husband. He's a nurse and he'll see to patching you right up. And then... well... I'll explain what I think happened." She leaves the room suddenly, before I get a chance to ask her about what's going on. I don't have to wait very long before a tall man enters, wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. His hair is shoulder-length and light brown. He stops immediately upon entering and looks me over with his deep blue eyes. From where I'm sitting, I can easily see some freckles dotting his face, and there are more than a few laugh lines. He smiles at me reassuringly and continues to set a first aid box down on the table, right before he pulls out a chair and turns it to face me.

"Hi there," he says, his voice a deep baritone, "my name's Nicholas, but you can call me Nick. You've already met my wife Rebecca. And I have a feeling that you have some questions for us." He says all this as he opens the first aid kit and starts pulling out some supplies. "But first things first, can I look at your arm there?" I say nothing and just nod, turning my injured shoulder to him. He gets to work cleaning it, which stings, and then pulls out some bandages and a needle and medical thread, both sealed in some kind of plastic baggies, my guess to keep them sterile. I wince as he begins stitching me up.

"And that should do it..." he says, smiling again while applying the bandages. "It wasn't too deep, but it still warranted stitches. Overall, though, as far as bullet wounds go, you were pretty lucky there."

I roll my eyes, because I sure feel lucky, alright. Yeah, I turned into some kind of cat freak, got shot at, and essentially have nowhere to stay now. Oh yeah, I'm SUPER lucky alright. Nick senses that I may not share his enthusiasm, and he smiles sympathetically, placing a hand on my uninjured shoulder.

"Everything's going to be alright, I promise," he says. From the way he sounds, I think that he means it.

"So...what happened?" I ask, wincing at my girly voice. Rebecca starts wringing her hands and looks down at her feet.

"W-Well... you see... uhm... we have a son... and last night... well..." She tries to think of what to say next when a low groan interrupts. In shuffles a guy, a teenager from the looks of him. He's very disheveled with wrinkled clothes, red bleary eyes, and even from here he smells like a brewery to me... well... that and vomit. It takes me almost a minute to recognize his face.

"Ben?"

He looks over at me, and his eyes go wide. But then he doubles over and holds his head, groaning again. Nick is frowning at Ben, as is Rebecca, whose arms are crossed.

"Well, that's what you get for drinking, Benjamin," she says, sternly.

"Mom please... I feel shitty enough..." he says as he slowly straightens back up.

"I hardly doubt that, young man. But before we start talking punishment, I think that you should start off giving our guest here an apology."

"Ben did this?" I ask, gesturing to myself, a note of confusion in my voice.

"Do I know you?" Ben asks as he slowly shuffles over to a chair at the table and sinks down into it, one arm resting on the table and propping up his head.

"I-It's me... Alex..." I say, still wondering where this is all going...

For a second time, his eyes widen, and then he stares at me with disbelief... before he starts to laugh, quickly regretting that as somehow it triggers his gag reflex a little. He doesn't throw up, but he comes pretty close. I feel a flush of anger as my ears lay flat against my head.

"What did you do?" I ask, venom lacing my voice.

"I got my revenge, that's what, Alex," he says, fishing out something from his pocket and slamming it down on the table. I look and see that it's a small blue stone. It's sparkly and catches the light in a weird way...and it hits me. I'm looking at a wishing stone.

"Why?" My voice is a shocked whisper.

"You know why," he rasps hoarsely.

"NO BEN, I DO NOT KNOW WHY!!!" I scream, my eyes hot with tears that already have begun to stream down my face, moistening the fur on my cheeks. "You've always had some kind of problem with me, and I've NEVER known why!" I say, feeling a gentle hand placed on my shoulder. I turn to see Rebecca looking down at me with compassion, before she looks at Ben again, her brow furrowing.

"Benjamin, you owe this young lady an apology, and an explanation." Her voice is stern and brooks no argument. Ben looks at me and snorts, but then looks back at his mom and sighs.

"I'm... uh... I mean I was... actually... a guy..." I say before Ben can speak again. Rebecca looks me over again and then bends down to hug me. Ben sees this and stares hard at me with a frown.

"I'm not apologizing to him," Ben says.

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"Oh, yes you are, Ben," Nick says, looking down at him, clearly unhappy with his son at the moment. "You are apologizing to her and you're going to be making this right." Nick stares Ben in the eye, and after a few heartbeats, Ben looks away.

"Fine," he mutters before looking back at me. "I'm sorry, Alex, that I got drunk and wished for this," he says before his face blanches and he lunges out of the chair. I recoil a bit as he rushes past me and makes a quick beeline for the nearest trash can, which happens to be by the sink, and promptly begins throwing up into it. Once he finishes his heaving, Ben walks back over to the chair at the table and sits back down, facing me.

"Ben... why do you think that I've ever done anything to you?" I ask softly, my head spinning from this revelation, while I steady myself to keep my anger from getting the best of me and making me attack Ben.

"Oh please," he scoffs, "you're just like the rest of those preppy dicks that you hang out with, always acting like you're so much better than everyone."

"What the hell are you talking about? I don't hang out with anyone! When I'm not at school or at home, then I'm at my job!"

Ben snorts again. "I've seen you all buddied up to that neanderthalic rich boy jock! Just like the rest of them." I'm taken aback by the amount of hate he somehow condenses into every syllable.

"Are you talking about Adam? Adam Barone?"

"Yeah, him."

"Adam and I are friends, yeah. We've known each other since the seventh grade... but we're not exactly close... especially not lately..." Part of me hates saying it out loud, even though it's the truth.

Ben eyes me. "And here we come to the reason why you were so eager to do it."

"Do what?" I ask impatiently.

"YOU KNOW WHAT DAMNIT!!!" Ben roars at me, standing up on wobbly feet.

"I ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT I DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT!!!" I roar back and stand up as well, almost knocking my own chair over. It's only now that it comes to my attention that Ben is now taller than me, which is frustrating in its own way.

"That's enough!" Rebecca says as she steps between the two of us. "Both of you calm down right now, and sit back down!" Her voice once more brooks no argument, and both Ben and I take our seats.

"Benjamin, I would like for you to explain to Alex what it is that you think that she did." I mumble about how I'm a guy, but Rebecca only places a hand on my shoulder again.

"Mom, he switched the scores for the CAT!" The CAT test is what he's referring to, and yes, I do in fact see the irony. It stands for Collegiate-level Analysis Test. Basically, if you wanna apply for one of the major Ivy League schools, then you had better get a decent enough score on the CAT. I was only planning on a community college, so I didn't bother with taking it myself.

"What?!" I ask, outraged.

"I knew I scored higher than a damn 12.3! I also knew that there was no way in hell that that idiot Adam could have possibly gotten a 37!"

"You blamed me for getting a bad score on a test?" I ask, knowing that out of a possible of 40 points a 37 was really impressive. Actually... it was a little... too impressive for Adam.

"Ben, why the hell would Adam cheat? His family's rich and he's being scouted to play football at the college level. He doesn't need to cheat."

"I don't know why," Ben admitted, still looking defiantly at me, "maybe he just wanted to screw me over, which he did. He and his friends," he makes a disgusted face while looking me over, "are always messing with me." His voice breaks a little, and for a second, I think he is going to start tearing up. I've always known that Ben is picked on at school... but I honestly had no idea that Adam and his friends were the ones doing it.

... I hate to say it... but I guess that I can kinda see it though...

"Didn't... didn't you tell a teacher?"

"I did, lots of times. But it never went anywhere. Like you said, Adam's family is rich," Ben says miserably. Nick and Rebecca look on sadly.

"And so, when I went to Principal Grady about the test scores, she just told me to stop blaming such a promising young man just because I wasn't as prepared for the test as I should have been. I studied my ass off for that test, just like I do for any other test."

That sounds... really bad... admittedly...

"Benjamin..." Rebecca's voice sounds hurt.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Nick asks.

"Because I overheard you and Dad talking about how close we were to losing the house. You didn't need this grief on top of all that." I look around at my current surroundings. Everything I see is practically screaming wealth. Maybe they lost all their money in a bad investment?

"But I still don't see where I come in here," I interject. Ben's brow furrows.

"I knew that Adam had somehow changed the scores, but I also knew that he wouldn't know how to go about doing that. I also knew that most of his other friends were not much smarter than him. So when I hacked into the database for the CAT scores, I started snooping around."

"You did what?" Rebecca asks, her eyes going wide. "Benjamin, do you have any idea how much trouble you can get in for doing something like that?"

"I didn't care Mom! I studied and worked hard, and tried my hardest. And in the end, someone like Adam Barone gets to just mess all of my hard work up and get a free pass that he doesn't even deserve for it!" Ben says, tears in his eyes. "So I didn't care that I could get into a lot of trouble, just so long as I exposed that bastard for what he is! And I found it. It took me a while, but I found where exactly it was that the scores were changed, which wasn't just a simple switch as I had thought. And then I found something else." He turns away from his parents and looks right at me with a triumphant grin. "You were not as careful as you had thought, Alex. I was able to backtrack and even take control of the computer that was used in the original hacking. I hacked it, and took control of the webcam, and guess who I saw, sitting in his room, watching videos while eating some jerky!"

I feel the blood drain from my face, which is yet another thing that my midnight black fur conceals. A memory suddenly surfaces of Adam practically begging me to borrow my laptop, saying that something was wrong with his computer, and that it was going to be a couple of days before it would be fixed, and that he had a paper to write for his English class.

"Ben, I didn't hack into the... whatever, mainframe or wherever the scores are kept. I... I did lend my laptop to Adam though... a little while ago..."

"Save it, Alex," Ben says with a wicked smile. "My first wish was for my family to be wealthy." That clears up my earlier confusion.

"Admittedly... I think I made my second wish after I had blacked out..."

"I still can't believe that you were drinking," Rebecca chides, but Ben only hangs his head a little.

"And so you turn me into a catgirl because you got drunk with a wishing stone, and thought that I had changed your test scores?"

"I know you did. And so, when I woke up today... I made my last wish." I can feel my heart sinking, knowing that it probably wasn't for me to change back.

"I wished that the person who originally hacked into the mainframe and switched around the test scores would come forward and publicly admit everything that they did and why."

"But Ben, I didn't change any test scores!" I yell.

"If that's true, then you have nothing to worry about... aside from being a catgirl now," Ben says nonchalantly.

Suddenly, we all hear a buzzing sound. Nick pulls his phone out from his pocket and taps on the screen.

"Uh... Ben..." Nick says, tapping the phone a couple more times, "You might want to see this."

He holds the phone up for us all to see. It's video of a news report from one of the local stations, Channel 8 Action News, I think. I see the headline that reads CAT Test Scandal.

"And so he's here, appearing to us on video chat, the high school quarterback who successfully hacked into the CAT test mainframe, Adam Barone." The male news anchor sounds confused as he says this, like he's having a hard time believing what he's seeing. The video then shifts to an image of Adam's face, clearly from a webcam in his room.

"Uh... am I on?"

"Yes, Adam, you're live and on the air," the anchor says.

"O-Okay. Uhm... Hi, my name is Adam Barone, and I hacked into the CAT mainframe..." he says lamely. "And... I... kinda changed my score... and in order to do so, I had to take down someone else's score. That person's name is Benjamin Ferguson. One of my dad's friends works for the CAT company, the one that administers the test... and I was able to get him to tell me some things about the system that they use. Once I knew that, I borrowed a laptop from this guy I know, so that if I was caught he would take the blame. His name is Alex Muller, and he had no idea that that's what I was using his laptop for. I told him mine was being repaired and that I had an assignment that I needed to get done desperately."

"I... see... and so... Adam... you are saying that you know how to hack very well guarded mainframes?" the news anchor asks, still not seeming to fully understand what's going on.

"Well, this one wasn't as secure as you would think... but yeah, I'm a hacker," Adam says proudly. "I found some free online coding classes, and from there I learned more and more about how to hack."

"I see... and is there a reason why you did all of this?"

"Well, after I finished the test, I knew that I didn't do so well. Normally I don't care, since my family's pretty rich and because I'm just going to get a football scholarship. But after all the stuff being reported about concussions and football, my mom and dad have both been pushing me to stop playing, and also to start shooting for Yale, where my dad went to school. Like I said, my family's pretty rich, so tuition's not a big deal for me. But even so, I still did really bad on that CAT test... plus, I just like messing with Ben. I don't really know why I do, he's just fun to pick on."

"Alright... and why exactly are you confessing all of this?"

"I dunno... I just felt like it." Adam smiles, just before his bedroom door in the background practically bursts open, and in steps his father, Mr. Barone.

"Adam! Turn that damn thing off right now!" he yells. Adam smiles and nods at him.

"Okay, Dad," he says before turning back to the webcam. "I gottta go now, bye." And the screen cuts off.

"And... there you have it... Adam Barone's on air confession..."

Nick pauses the video, and the silence is practically deafening. I turn towards Ben, tears of rage in my eyes, and glare at him. Ben looks from me to his mom, then to his dad, and then back to me.

"Uh... oh... uhm... okay... so maybe I made a little mistake..." he says.

 

And there you have it dear readers! Please be sure to let me know what you think about this new chapter!

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