Chapter One
The beaches around the lake were starting to fill in as early as nine in the morning. As hot as it was, who could blame them? Windsor Lake is probably the most attractive body of water in Massachusetts next to the Atlantic Ocean. Sitting almost literally on top of North Adams, and just a few miles from a part of the Mohawk Trail it's surrounded by forest and campground.
Lifeguards are good about keeping people from drowning. That is, when you're drowning on the side of the lake with the public beaches. The private parts of the lake, like the dock I had just jumped head first from were another matter entirely.
It started about two hours ago. My Aunt Susan and Uncle Ray were renting a cabin and my school's spring break happened to be the same time as my cousins, Jamie and Alex so they invited me to spend the break with them. I'd rather chew on tacks than deal with my cousins, but Dad had to interview some people for his article on abandoned buildings in Southern Vermont. More on that later.
As usual, I was up before everyone else. So after I ate and used the bathroom, I decided to take a walk.
The air was crisp. The sun hadn't broken through the trees yet, so the forest air was fresh and the ground had a natural chill to it. I actually enjoyed this part of the trip, but if I could take the forest and drop my cousins that would make it sweeter.
I took a brief walk along the road that wound through the forest, passing lean-tos and cabins. Some of the campers were all ready up and ready for the day. Smoke from the grills and fireplaces filled the air with the smell of burning wood, kerosene, and cooking bread and sausage.
My stomach started to grumble, so I returned to the cabin, only to realize everyone was still asleep. Maybe I'm weird, but why would you spend money to rent a cabin near the lake if you're only going to sleep all day? For a whole week, you could save yourself a hundred and eighty dollars by just staying home.
Frustrated, I grabbed some change from my wallet and stared out for the main beach. It was a good mile hike, but there were vending machines in the picnic areas and soda is strangely comforting when you're hungry and you don't want to wake anyone up looking for food. Besides, it was a nice morning and it was only going to get hotter. The walk would give me time to think.
For about an hour, that's what I did. Walking along the trail, taking deep breaths as the fresh air blew in off the lake I tried to clear my mind of the last few weeks.
And while I'm trying to do things I'll never accomplish, I thought, looking out to the lake. I think I'll get started on that walking on water thing.
Oddly enough I couldn't walk on water, but I could breathe under it. Eventually. It's on my list of things to do. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
There was a group of boys along the path. Two of them were probably nine or eight, but the oldest two were definitely about my age, give or take a year. The youngest one, a blond haired kid was holding onto something that I couldn't see very well. As I got closer I heard them talking.
"I found it on a rock." Blondie said, holding it up to one of the older kids.
"We should see if Mom will let us take it home." The other young one said a red head.
I slowed down a bit and recognized what they were holding. It was a frog.
"Come, on, we'll take it with us." One of the older kids, a tall kid with a heavy tan and curly dark hair emptied a bag of Dorritos onto the ground and held it open.
I watched in horror and disgust as they put the frog in there. I could see its arms flailing against the plastic as the moron closed the bag around it, "So it wouldn't get out."
"Excuse me," I said, before I could even think about it. They all turned to me. "What are you doing?"
"We're taking this frog with us." Tan answered. Him and the fourth kid, a guy with bleach blond hair and pasty white eyebrows exchanged glances and gave me a once over. "You got a problem with that?"
Not at all, was what a sensible kid who didn't want his ass kicked would say. Actually, a kid who was afraid of being beaten up wouldn't have said anything and probably would have just kept walking. Like every other prick that walked on while I got bullied.
"Yeah," I said, trying to sound authoritative. "It's illegal to take animals out of the park. There's park rangers all over here."
Somehow that failed to impress them. Eyebrows and Tan busted out laughing.
"Mind your own business," Tan said, flipping me off.
He handed the bag to one of the little ones, who were still laughing when the big kids stopped. And that's when I had my whole plan laid out. Well, calling it a plan would be giving it too much credit. I dived for the bag and yanked it out of the kid's hand.
And that's how I spent much of the morning running from the two older kids, who were way older and faster than their little brothers/cousins/whatever the hell they all were to each other.
The frog was nestled in my hand and I ditched the bag. A dark green with bits of brown along the back, it looked the kind of frog you could buy in a pet store. Most animals in this situation would be trying pretty hard to get out of my hand. As is, this frog was alive, but strangely calm.
"I'm going to kick your ass you little freak!" Tan shouted.
I took a turn and ran down towards the lake. There was a dock lined with fishing boats and I headed for it. The beach was still empty, except for the two jerks chasing me.
"Get back here, punk!"
I ran to the end of the dock and paused only long enough to drop the frog into the lake. Then I dove in, headfirst. And it didn't occur to me until I hit the water that I can't swim. I hit the bottom of the water and began to choke. Then I pushed and managed to break the surface, gasping for air as I flailed. Tan and Eyebrows were at the end of the dock and they continued to laughed and point at me as I flailed about. Because that's what you do when you see someone drowning. You point and you laugh.
That's okay though. I took as deep a breath as I could before slipping under again. The frog I had saved flitted past me and that's what I focused on.
I don't know how to explain it. But my hands were the first things to change. I knew I needed to get away from the dock so that the kids wouldn't see me and the hands and feet started becoming flatter. My shoes and socks slipped off and fell to the bottom. The water magnified the sound of the bones crunching and the flesh and skin changing consistency. But as soon as I had the webbed feet and hands of a frog, I kicked.
There was no way to know what kind of progress I was making of course. The lake was kind of murky at this level. My eyes moved a few inches apart and a kind of translucent covering stretched over them as they shrank and turned black. Then they seemed to "lift" as my forehead shrank back. I couldn't see any better, but the water was more comfortable to my eyes. I pushed up towards the surface that began to glisten as the rays of sun touched it.
I was far enough into the morph that my vision basically sucked. I couldn't see the dock, or tell how far I had swum away from it.
"Where did he go?" Someone asked.
There was a familiar stretching sensation as my skin became tighter. Suddenly the coldness of the water wasn't an issue as the frog's smooth, tight, green and brown skin replaced my hair covered human flesh. I took a deep breath, only to find that my human lungs were shrinking to support a frog's body and that I didn't need to breath as much.
The first time I morphed, my lungs and heart were the first things to change. It was a disturbing experience that I will never forget for as long as I live. Yes, even more disturbing than the fact that I was becoming an animal that I had once seen lying face up in a pan, held down spread eagle with party lancets, and having its guts removed slowly by my classmates.
My face twisted and became flatter as it shrank as my chin bone shrank away, leaving the skin loose as it shrunk. My nose seemed to melt away, leaving behind two nostrils that sat just at the top. My arms and legs shrank and the bones became thinner. My clothes billowed around be, becoming large tents as I became smaller. When I kicked my way out of them I swam further and faster. But as the morph finished up, with the last of my hair disappearing, I didn't have much time to think before the frog instincts kicked in.
I was in water! Deep dark water! Crap!
In a panic, I swam for what I hoped was shore. But because there were no familiar colors, or scents, the frog wasn't sure where that was. All it knew was the water was dark and incredibly murky. There were noises that made it uncomfortable because dark, noisy water could only mean one thing. Predators!
"I don't see him."
"Maybe we should go tell grandpa!"
"No way, they'll think we threw him in there. Let's get out of here!"
Sounds of impact from above. It made the frog want to swim away. Something passed below me.
What was that! I stopped kicking and floated above the water. It passed by me again. I could make out a large dark shape as it circled around and came back for me.
Oh crap, I thought. It's a fish.
Now my own instincts took over. I realized the impact above me was the two ****s running from the docks. I swam to the safety of the rocks. Not an easy thing to do as the wind picked up, causing the water to sway and bob.
Frogs aren't deep water swimmers, it seems. They need to be near land where they can escape predators like large fish. And this was the part of the plan I didn't have. All that mattered to me was being able to save some stupid frog from a bunch of brats.
The fish overtook me. I felt the scrape of its teeth and then, darkness. Frick this thing was huge! The frog mind panicked in the tiny space and I kicked and fought.
Morph out! I thought.
My size returned quickly. Though my body met resistance, the innards of the fish wasn't nearly strong enough to resist a growing kid. If my clothes made of cotton and wool couldn't do it, there was no way Monstro here could stand a chance.
There was violent movement as the fish twisted and writhed. Feeling a bit like the Alien, I burst out of the fish, pushing my way free of the bones and the flesh. To my relief I felt the bottom of the lake as my feet returned. And when I stood up I saw that I was further down from the dock, but that I hadn't gone much further.
Oh yeah…and I was thankful to discover that my red boxer briefs held up in the morph. Add that to the list of clothes I can wear to a morph. Although the wetsuit Paul gave me leaves a bit more to the imagination.
My shoes, pants and shirt were gone. And so was the money I was going to buy a soda with. But that didn't bother me as much as it would bother others. I walked onto the beach and looked around. I could see more people on the far north side of the lake and there were some kayakers that were getting closer.
I doubted they had seen me morphing and even if they saw me now, the worse they could think was that I was confident enough in my body to wear boxer briefs instead of genuine swim trunks. Nothing says confident like a guy who's so lanky he could double for a coat rack, trying to keep cotton underwear from giving into the weight of the water that dripped from them.
Oh well. Frog isn't the only animal I can become. For two hours at a time I can become any animal I want to, just by touching it and acquiring its DNA. Thanks to one fateful side trip through a construction site where I gallantly evaded capture by tripping on something and falling on a piece of alien technology.
When I was a good distance into the cover of the trees, I started another morph. Tan and Eyebrows seemed to be about my size. And I've yet to meet a dog that didn't want to bring its faithful master his shoes.