Chapter 3

I met Rene by the library on Tuesday evening. I would have taken the bus with her from halls, but my timetable had presented me with a late lecture on Tuesday afternoons, and I was forced to go straight from class.

"Hey!" she called, jumping off the bus.

"You're late," I said, jokily. "You owe me a cookie later."

"Still haven't worked out these bus routes," she said, which was obviously the closest I'd get to any kind of apology. "How was your class, by the way? What are you studying?"

"Physiotherapy," I replied, leading the way to the hall where the meeting was being held. "And yeah, it was alright. Didn't really do much, as it was only the second lecture of term. Just went through the plan for the semester and all that. I spent most of the time deciding what morph to go for when I've done the training day."

"Me too!" Rene exclaimed. "All week I've been trying to decide whether to go for a mountain lion or a wildcat."

"Aren't they the same thing?" I asked, confused. "Anyway, where are you going to acquire one of them? Last time I checked, they didn't have mountain lions in Coventry."

She shrugged, pushing open the door to the main building. "Zoo maybe?"

"Right. So you're just going to walk into the cages and ask if you can acquire it, are you?"

"Oh, shut up," she teased. "Don't be so sarky."

"I'm not being sarcastic, I'm being logical!" I grinned back. Rene could be such a hot-head at times.

After about ten minutes of fun getting lost in the corridors of the main building, we finally located the correct room. The hall was filled with about a hundred students, mostly Freshers but a few oldies, milling about drinking beer and chatting to one another. There were a bunch of students at the front of the hall, all wearing the same black polo shirts that I'd seen at the fayre earlier. Other people wore shirts of a similar design, but in blue. I guess the colours distinguished between normal members and committee members. Some people were wearing what looked like leotards or swimming costumes under their tee-shirts.

"Alex, hi!" I felt a tap on my shoulder and spun round. A girl with dark hair who I recognised from my course had greeted me, standing with a couple of people I hadn't met.

"Hi, err…" I trailed off, embarrassed to have forgotten her name already.

"Chloe!" she said, laughing. "Don't worry, I forget names all the time! Are you here for the morphing?"

"Yeah, I am," I replied. "This is my flatmate Rene, by the way."

"Hey, Rene," Chloe smiled, then mentioned to the others. "This is my mate Julia. She's in some of our seminar groups. And Sebastian, who's in the same halls as me."

The four of us sat down and waited for the meeting to begin. The hall was your typical lecture theatre, with the tutor's desk and an OHP at the front of the room, and rows of chairs with little fold-out tables filling the rest of the room. The chairs were at different heights, with those at the back higher than the ones at the front, like in a cinema. We sat about four rows up, giving ourselves a good view but so that we were still close enough to hear clearly.

"Can you already morph?" Chloe asked Rene and I.

"Nope," I said. "You?"

"Yeah! I've been able to morph my whole life, actually!"

"Your whole life?" said Julia. "How is that possible?"

"My mum got the morphing technology when she was pregnant with me," Chloe grinned. "Before the new laws about pregnancy tests were introduced. The technology passed to me before I was born!"

"I didn't even know that was possible," Julia said.

"Oh, it's possible alright. It's just it's illegal now, but even before it was, it was really uncommon. Not many people had the morphing power twenty years ago, and the women who did have it were just scared to do it, incase it harmed the baby. But here I am, all safe and well, and with about fifty animals to my name!"

"Fifty? Cool. What's your favourite morph?" asked Sebastian.

"It would have to be my hawk morph," she said. "I've got a really cool one, called a Harris hawk. You've got to morph a hawk, it's like nothing you've ever done before."

I nodded in agreement. "That's my first choice morph as well," I said. "What's it like actually changing into the animals?"

"Well, I'm probably not the best person to ask, as I've been doing it since I would walk! But it's a bit creepy. Very creepy, I suppose. The worst bit is where you get the animals' mind in with your own."

I would have asked more, but I assumed I would hear plenty more about it in the run up to the training day, and hopefully get the chance to try it out myself sometime soon. Just then, the noise and chattering of the room died down as people took their seats, and the bubbly blonde girl I recognised from the fayre stood up in front of the crowd.

"Hey, everyone!" she said. "Welcome to Westwood University Morphing Club! My name's Lucy Prichard, and I'm the president."

She gave a little twirl, standing with her back to us to allow everyone to read her nickname.

"El Presidante!" she laughed. "So you'll all know who I am if you see me in the streets. Anyway, I guess you've all showed up cos you want to start turning into animals, right? I hope so, because it's absolutely awesome!"

She paused for breath, and took a sip of water.

"Anyway, I'll just quickly run through what's going on tonight, then I'll introduce you to the committee. But first, can I just have a show of hands - who's already got the morphing technology and has a licence?"

Around a quarter of the crowd, including Chloe, raised their hands.

"That's cool," continued Lucy. "So most people are new to this right? That's fine. I'll start off by talking about the club itself, who we are, what we do, all that sort of stuff. What you get out from being a member of the club. After that, there'll be a bit about the training weekends for anyone who wants to learn to morph. Everyone has to do a day's training with qualified instructors before they do their first morph. Then they'll be a bit about what we do once we have the technology, and later a boring lecture from Jane about costs. Then have a break and we'll put a video to get you all into the mood and make you all the more likely to want to join. And at the end, some of our members are going to show you a morph sequence they've been learning for competition."

"I've heard about those competitions," Rene said. "People who are really good at morphing-"

"Estreens," interrupted Chloe.

"Yeah, them," continued Rene, "do these really cool morphs to music! I think you can do it in pairs or teams, and the idea of it is to make it look as natural and as beautiful as possible."

"How is turning into an animal natural?" asked Julia.

But no one answered, as Lucy had carried on speaking.

"So. We're a morphing club. What do we do? We morph! We turn into animals and get other people like most of you guys to do it to! We set up the club about three years ago, just after the government made the technology available to civilians. Of course, it was a really small club then, compared to what it is now. We've now got over a hundred active members from the university, and hopefully we'll be getting more tonight! Most people who join us are new to the sport, but we get some old hands too, so whatever your level, they'll be something for you."

She grinned at us, the mentioned to the other committee members, who were standing at the front too.

"So, the guys who'll be taking care of you! We've got Peter; in charge of arranging training weekends and events, Tom; who gets us access to the animals, Danni; our mad social secretary, Jane; the treasurer, Simon; who isin charge of teams and competitions, and Nick who is vice president. We've all been morphing a year or more, and we know loads of stuff about the training, and the licences and actually morphing itself, so if you've got any questions, just come and speak to one of us after the meeting."

"That Nick guy is cute," I heard Chloe whisper to Julia. Sebastian rolled his eyes.

"She's going to be gazing at him now and taking no notice of the rest of the meeting," he muttered to me.

"So, what do you get out of becoming a member?" Lucy continued. "Well, as we'll be covering later, membership is just thirty pounds - which is a fiver less than last year - and for that you get the training weekends at a totally discounted price, and free Tuesday night morphing sprees once you've qualified to morph solo! Also insurance and membership to the National Morphing Association, which anyone who wants to morph legally has to join. We also provide trips away at weekends for discounted prices to the countryside or the coast for different morphing experiences, and can provide minibuses for anyone who wants to run their own trips during the week. We also run a morphing-based holiday in the Easter holidays, last year we went to Spain and did eagles and horses, this year we're going even further and hoping to the Red Sea!"

This got a rise out of everyone. "That should be incredible," I said to Rene. "Morphing dolphins or fish out there, getting to see all the wildlife! It's a mega-good place for scuba-divers, so it must be even better to morph there!"

"In addition to all this, we have also arranged a deal with Falcon Clothing Limited," Lucy was saying. "They're a clothes shop in the city centre who sell morphing outfits, and if you show your membership card, you get a twenty-percent discount. For anyone who doesn't know, most people can only wear skin-tight clothes for morphing, because things like jeans, coats or shoes don't work. You can just wear leotards or cycling shorts and stuff, but most people prefer a proper outfit, and they are so much cooler looking as well. I have a lime-green one at home, it's wicked!"

"Lime green?" said Chloe. "Good grief."