I've been locked up in this place for so long. I asked the doggie man yesterday how long I've been here and he said four whole years, after he stopped screaming at the invisible doggies to go away. That's a really, really long time.
My birthday was a few weeks ago. I'm eight, going on nine. All my friends here seem to want to get out, but I don't, not really. I like my friends, and if they leave, I won't have anyone to play with.
When I first got here the grown-ups in ugly dresses asked me lots of questions about how I turned into things. They called me a s-h-a-p-e-s-h-i-f-t-e-r, and spelled it out like that because they thought I wouldn't know what they meant, but my spelling's real good so I know they were calling me a shapeshifter. I don't know what that is, but I'm not one of those; I'm just a kid.
They told me to turn into all sorts of things and then tell them how it felt. They told me to turn into a chicken. I asked them what a chicken was. After they showed me, I turned into one.
It itches to turn into a chicken.
You kind of shrink, then it feels like needles are poking you all over. They're called feathers, I think. And I finally found out where eggs come from. It's not comfy at all.
Then they wanted to know if I could turn into a plant. I asked them what a plant was. They showed me a potted tree. It was a cute tree, actually, really small but it looked like a big tree. I asked them why they hadn't just asked me to turn into a tree in the first place, and then what a plant was again, but they told me not to ask stupid questions. It was harder to turn into a tree.
My skin got all hard and I couldn't move, and then I shrunk really fast. My feet split into a bunch of little roots, and my hair grew and turned green. It felt kind of neat, and my blood slowed down and got cold, and I almost fell asleep.
They made me turn into lots of people, big people and small people and ugly people and people with weird ears. I laughed at them and called them silly when they couldn't hear. Then they left and put me in this room. They didn't come back. I get to go into the hallway now, though, and talk to all my friends, like the doggie man who makes me candy sometimes and the man who gives me pretty rocks, the lady who sees things that aren't there and even the new lady with the pink hair. She doesn't talk much, though. My friends all told me their names, but I get confused. I don't think names matter much anyway.
The little nurse man comes around a lot. I talk to him, but he doesn't listen. So a while ago, I turned into the leather face man for fun and made him scream and run around. He looked really funny and his face got all red and angry when I turned back into me. He left and came back again with the real leather face man. He was really scary, and he hit me and knocked me over without touching me. The crazy gnome man says he used magic, but I don't know what that means. I don't ever turn into the leather face man anymore, though, because it hurts to turn into him, like my skin is stretching and then my inside kind of shuts down, and a bad crawly feeling goes through me.
My friends all talk about escaping. They said that's when all of us will leave. The pink lady said something about an elf named Flikka who will rescue us, but it was really messed up so I don't know if that's what she meant. She mumbles about Flikka in her sleep, too. She's in the room next to me, so I can hear her through a hole in the wall. If all of us do leave, though, I hope we all stay with each other because I don't have anywhere to go. Maybe Flikka will take us all to live with her for ever and ever.
Maybe it will be happily ever after like all those stories the spider lady told me. But she left a long time ago. I hope I see her again. She was really nice to me. I called her Mama sometimes, but usually I called her the spider lady. She didn't mind. She had black skin and white hair, and her ears were kinda pointy. One of my friends said she was a half-drow, and I heard the people in ugly dresses talking and they said she was half a person, but that didn't make any sense. She let me pet her spider sometimes, but then it had to go away into a spider doll. I still have it but I don't how to make the spider come out. Maybe I'll ask Flikka if I ever meet her.
"Who're you?" A lady is outside my room right now. She's got light pretty hair. Her eyes are pretty too, and she has funny pointy ears like the spider lady did. But she doesn't have black skin like the spider lady; hers is white like milk and it kind of glows. She has other grown-ups with her, but they look nice. She bends down so she's as short as me, but she's short already so it doesn't make her much different.
"I'm Dili," I said. "Are you Flikka?" I turn into her. Her form is really comfortable. It feels kind of like I'm melting before I grow a little taller and I get all pretty like her.
She looks surprised a little when I turn into her, then she smiles. "You bet I am."