Chapter Six

As the week progressed, our lessons became more complicated, and we were given more and more work to do. Soon, my diary was as full as a London business man's, yet I was determined to keep the upcoming weekend free. Because last night, during my regular periods of time wasting and procrastination (a common pastime of many students), I had decided to log on to the net and check my emails. And there, first message of the inbox, was an email from the morphing club named 'Upcoming Training Weekends'. I had eagerly opened the message, and was presented with a list of names of those where were to be coming on one of the four upcoming weekends. I, along with René, Julia and Sebastian, would be on the first weekend of term. This very weekend. Just a few days from now. I couldn't wait.

Needless to say, I was more than distracted during lecture time. Instead of making notes on the topics, I was doodling mindlessly in the margins. Little scribbles of cats, dogs, and humans in strange, half-morphed poses. Chloe, who had taken to sitting next to me in class, was watching me with interest on this particular Thursday afternoon.

"The first few morphs are really ugly," she whispered to me, smirking at my drawings. "They'll look nothing like that. That is what you see when Estreens morph. Not you newbies."

"Shut up, Chloe," I said amicably. "I'm just daydreaming, that's all. It's ok for you, you've done it before. You know what it's like. I can but only imagine."

"Yeah, well, just to worn you, you'll probably get a paw growing out your arse and a tail from of your nose the first time," she giggled. She paused as she scribbled down a few key terms which the lecturer was trying to emphasise to her class of glass-eyed students.

"As long as I morph, I don't care how I do it," I said. "Who gives a damn if look like some mutant monster, so long as I get to be a dog for a few hours?"

"You will, because they make you do it in front of a mirror. You'll puke before you start growing fur. So will everyone watching you. You're doing it this weekend, right?"

"Yeah, going up on Saturday morning. Seven AM, we've gotta meet. Lovely."

"Seven AM," breathed Chloe. "God, I'd totally forgotten that time even existed. Don't think I've been up before ten at all this week."

"Lazy cow," I smiled.

"So does that mean you can't make the pub crawl on Friday night?"

"Yeah right. Think I'll have to give that a miss this week."

"Sebbie's going," she continued.

"Sebastian will feel like crap the next day then, whilst I shall be bright eyed and bushy tailed. Hopefully literally."

I struggled through Friday's lectures with very little enthusiasm; most of my motivation was being saved for the morphing on Sunday morning. I was beginning to feel a little nervous now, my heart pumping like mad every time I thought about it, and the reading I was supposed to be getting on with this evening wasn't progressing too well. I was glad that René bounced into my room on Friday night, giving me an excuse at last to throw down my highlighters and ignore the thing for the rest of the weekend.

"Oh my god!" she squealed wildly. "We're gonna morph! Gonna morph! I can't wait, can you wait? I certainly can't wait!"

She said all of this in a single breath.

I grinned at her. She was carrying a large, blue sports bag over one shoulder, which she threw down on my bed. "You alright? You seem very quiet? Not thinking about backing out, are you?"

"No, course not!" I replied. "I'm just nervous, that's all. Every time I think about it, my heart starts leaping out of my ribcage. John, and that other guy, Buster, or whatever his real name is, were questioning me about in the common room earlier. I've never felt so many butterflies in my stomach. There must be a whole eco-system in there."

"Well, you can piss about getting nervous," René laughed, "but I've been packing. The email told us to bring tight clothes to morph in, right? I've been going through my wardrobe and all my mate's wardrobes, trying to get some stuff together." She pulled out a bright blue pair of cycling shorts and a tight black aerobics top from her bag.

"Very sexy. Very Versace," I said sarcastically.

"They suck, don't they? Ah well, as long as they let me morph a dog without flashing my humps to the instructors, they'll do. What are you wearing?"

"Dunno, not started packing yet."

"How can you have not started packing?" she asked, amazed. "I started packing as soon as I got back from lectures, and I'm not even one of those girls who needs like a million hairbrushes and seven hundred pairs of designer jeans for a night away."

"I'll pack, don't worry!" I sighed. "I was just nervous, and tried to get on with some reading to take my mind off it."

René stared at my text book, which was lying open at the beginning of chapter one. The first five lines were highlighted.

"Looks more like the weekend's been taking your mind off the reading," she smirked. "Come on, you might as well give up on this." She slammed my text book shut, and pulled open my wardrobe.

"Yeah, no need to ask if you can go rooting through all my stuff," I said dryly. "Just go straight on in."

René ignored me and started pulling out various tee-shirts and sportswear. "How many torn, brown blazers do you have?" she asked pulling out my vintage jackets. "And a million pairs of baggy jeans?"

"René, that's just my look, ok? I'm not really into tight lyrca stuff. Except maybe skinny suits, but I don't think they count. Since when did you become Ms. Vogue, anyway?"

"I'm not," she said, "that's why I'm commenting. "Who's that blonde girl down the corridor? Kirsty? She told me yesterday she owns fourteen black tee-shirts. Fourteen? What would anyone want with that many almost identical tee-shirts, for goodness sake?"

"I have no idea," I said, opening my chest of draws and pulling out the tight top and trouser-leggings I wear for jogging. "Think these will do?"

"Very unsexy, but not as bad as anything I'll be wearing," she said. "Get them in packed then. What else did the email say to bring?"

She rummaged through her bag, tossing shirts and shoes onto the floor, before eventually pulling out a scrappy piece of paper.

"Here we are," she said. "Stuff. To. Bring. Water bottle - they'll be no place to get drinks over night. Sleeping bag - damn, I need to pack mine. Um, warm clothes, done. Passport, driving licence or other form of identification. Yup, got that. Student ID? Think so, it's somewhere around."

I left her to sort her stuff out and checked my own printed email. It was basically saying to dress like you were going for a hike in the countryside, crossed with a gymnastics lesson. Plenty of warm clothing, but make sure you have tight stuff for Sunday. I filled my rucksack with everything I needed, then followed René into the kitchen for some supper. There were a couple of other students cooking meals with various levels of expertise.

"Doing your animal thing tomorrow?" asked John, as I pulled out a still-dirty saucepan from the kitchen sink and started to make myself some pasta. I practically live on pasta nowadays.

"Yeah, god help me," I laughed. "I'm well nervous now, but excited too."

"What are you going to morph?" asked a girl called Natalie. I hadn't talked to her much, but she seemed nice. She hung around with Penny and also played the piano.

"Well, they pick our first one for us, but it's usually something simple, like a cat or a dog."

"How do you define whether an animal is simple to morph or not?" asked another girl who was eating baked beans straight from the tin. "Either you morph it, or you don't right? It's not like you have to work out some maths formula or anything, is it?"

"No, but some animals are a lot more like humans than others, so the changes aren't as severe," René answered. "Like, a dog is pretty similar to a person - they've both got two eyes, four limbs, a mouth and all that. But a spider or an insect would be really different. There's like, nothing left that even remotely human."

"That sounds gross," said the baked-bean girl. "Turning into a spider. Why would anyone want to do that, anyway? Morphing bugs?"

I shrugged. "Adrenaline rush, maybe? The challenge?"

"The ability to spy on girls in the shower?" laughed John.

René threw a spoon at him. "Don't be such a perv!" she snapped.

John and some of the other guys carried on laughing. René rolled her eyes.

"Nat, see if you can get these Neanderthals to evolve, before the place turns into a zoo," she said, rolling her eyes. "I'm off to bed, Alex. Early start."

She turned and walked out of the room, but paused before she shut the door.

"Next time you'll see me, I'll be able to turn into a lion, so you blokes had better watch out," she smirked.

"That a promise?" asked John, licking his lips.