The mile and a half back to the twin trees where our clothes were was not as bad as I thought it would be. I only had to stop and wait for him to catch up twice, which was really saying something since I know I am normally super fast as a wolf. It was probably the fact that he ran through the woods during his cross country runs. The only annoying part was how much noise he made. I hadn't really realized how loud humans are when we move until then. When we finally reached the trees, I immediately shifted back and began putting my clothes back on. Out of the corner of my eye I saw John look down at the remains of his clothing.
"What am I going to do?" he asked. I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or to himself but I figured I would answer him anyway, since I was only one who could possibly help him out at that time.
"If you give me a sec to get dressed then I'll run and grab you some clothes." I said as I hooked the back of my bra together.
"Okay." He said. I slipped my shirt on over my head but I could feel his eyes on me, staring at me. Even though the only bare skin he could see now was that on my legs, the fact that he was watching me put my clothes back on made me uncomfortable. I snatched my jeans from the forest floor and shook the dead leaves off of them. "How do you do it?" he asked, still watching me curiously.
"Do what? Put on clothes?" I looked up at him and smiled, "It's easy. All you have to do is stick your right leg through one hole and your left through the other." John shook his head, his dark hair ruffling a bit as he did. It reminded me of the impenetrable, jet-black color of his fur.
"No, no." he said, "I mean, how do you change back and forth so easily?"
"Oh. Well, I've been doing it for a long time." I shot him another smile as I pulled my jeans up around my hips and buttoned them. I grabbed my jacket and said, "Alright, now stay here. I'll be back with some clothes for you." He nodded and sat down with his back against the twin trees. He wrapped his arms around his bare body and let loose a slight shiver. "I'll be quick." I added and then ran out to the parking lot beside the school. I didn't know how much time had passed but I was praying that the front doors would still be open.
"Marina!" I heard my name called out across the parking lot by a voice I knew all too well. I was only about 50 feet from the school entrance but I stopped. I was so stupid. How could I have forgotten about my mother? I slowly turned around. Sure enough, there she was, standing outside our red SUV with her arms crossed over her chest. "Where have you been?" she asked while glaring at me, "I've been waiting here and calling you for the last twenty minutes." I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my cell phone. There were five missed calls from "Mom Cell".
"Mom, I'm really sorry, but I've had a bit of an emergency." I told her.
"Emergency?" her eyes widened in fear, "What's wrong? Is someone hurt? Why didn't you call me?" I immediately realized the mistake of my poor word choice.
"No, no." I said, shaking my head, "no one's hurt. It's a…" I looked at her significantly, "that kind of problem." I couldn't flat out say shapeshifter in the middle of the school parking lot, there were still a couple parents and kids waiting around.
"Oh, umm, okay. I guess I'll wait here?" she said uncertainly. I nodded and then turned to head back into the school. "Marina, wait!"
"What?" I asked, swiveling my head back around.
"Where's John?"
"Umm, I'll explain later, but he's kind of part of the problem." I said. Well, actually he was the entire problem but she didn't have to know that, or at least not yet. My mom raised her eyebrows at me but I dismissed her and ran towards the front doors again. I sprinted down the main hallway, ignoring the crazy looks I got from the students who were still sitting and chatting or were waiting for a meeting to start. I burst into the girls' locker room and found my locker where I kept my t-shirt and shorts for gym class. It took me three tries to get the combination right because I was in such a hurry, but I finally heard it click open and I grabbed the clothes inside. I knew they would be small on John, but it would be better than him walking across the parking lot and getting in the car with my mom completely naked. I raced back outside with the clothes in hand. My mom watched me as I ran. "Be right back." I said as I ran past her. She didn't respond, but then again, I didn't really give her a chance to.
John was exactly where I had left him. "Here." I said holding my small t-shirt and light blue shorts out to him. He looked up at me.
"Your gym clothes?" he said with his eyebrows raised, "those aren't going to fit me."
"Well, this is all you've got. So, unless you wanna get arrested for public nudity, I suggest you put them on." He glanced skeptically at the clothes in my hand but took them from me. He stood up and I didn't bother turning around, he hadn't when I had gotten dressed. He pulled the shorts on first. I couldn't help but laugh because they were definitely too tight. He shot me a look, telling me to cut it out. I bit my lip to keep from laughing again. He lifted his arms to pull the t-shirt over his head and I found myself unintentionally staring at the flexing muscles in his arms and chest. I looked away as soon as he pulled the collar of his shirt down past his eyes. The t-shirt wasn't as bad as the shorts, but it was still pretty tight. "Come on, maybe if we're quick no one will notice that you're wearing my clothes."
"There are still people out there?" John's eyes shifted through the increasingly sparing trees. If he had had to wear my clothes for any reason other than turning into a wolf I knew he wouldn't have cared if people saw him dressed the way he was. But I was sure that because this was a secret he didn't want anyone to know or even be curious of, he was very afraid of being seen. I knew I would be too. It had happened to me before.
When I was ten I had a habit of sleepwalking. Well, it was more like sleep-shifting. There were a couple of times where I would wake up to find myself naked on the forest floor about a mile from my house. The first time it happened I completely freaked out and didn't even think about people seeing me. I was so afraid of being in the woods alone that I simply ran home, but not before a cop saw me and picked me up off the dawn streaked street. Let's just say there were a lot of questions for me and my parents when I arrived home that morning. Thankfully, the cop believed our story about me sleepwalking. I had been smart enough to "recall" that I had been dreaming about going swimming in the stream in the woods. My dad told me that if it ever happened again to just shift back and make my way home that way. When I woke up amongst the dirt and dead leaves three more times, my parents decided that they had to do something else to stop me from sleep-shifting and leaving the house. My dad decided take me on a walk in my wolf form every day, in an attempt to "get it out of my system", and my mom installed a gate in front of my door which she locked every night to keep me from getting out. Finally, after a year of waking up cold and naked, I stopped sleep-shifting. Whether I grew out of it, or my parents' techniques actually worked, I don't know. I'm just thankful that I stopped doing it.
John and I came to the clearing in front of the parking lot. Thankfully, there were only two cars waiting in front of the school. I immediately saw my mom's SUV, discovering that she had moved it so it was closer to the woods that I had disappeared into when I ran past her a few minutes ago. It was one of those times where I was never so happy to have a mom who, not only knew about her family's ability to shapeshift, but who was also able to understand it. John and I practically ran to the car and slid in across the backseat. We buckled our seatbelts and my mom drove away, not even bothering to comment on John's choice of wardrobe. Only when we were on the road, away from the school, did she speak.
"Marina," she said in her condescending motherly tone, "what is going on?" I looked over to John and he looked at me. The eye contact did not go unnoticed by my mom who was watching the two of us in her rearview mirror. Staring at me, she asked, "Does he know? Did you tell him?"
"Umm, yes and not exactly." My mom's eyes darted to John and then back to me.
"What do you mean 'not exactly'?"
"John knows that I am a shapeshifter because I showed him but—" I didn't get a chance to finish my sentence.
"Marina!" My mom scolded, "How could you? You know you are not supposed to tell people about us!"
"Mom! Relax!" I said quickly before she could yell at me some more, "I only showed him because he's a shapeshifter too." She froze. Again, her eyes moved to John in the seat next to me. He didn't say anything. He shifted uncomfortably in the leather seat. "But he didn't know it. He only started shifting since he turned fifteen, which was a few days ago." My mom nodded and looked back at me. I knew that she understood the gravity of the situation.
"I'm going to call your father and tell him to meet us at home." She said as she pulled her cell phone out of her purse, "John, I suggest you call your parents and tell them that you're going to be staying at our house for dinner."
"Umm, okay." John said and he too pulled out his cell phone. What he didn't know was that we probably weren't going to have time for dinner.
4
