"Mm, mmm..." Purrrrr

"Huh?" Goldrith mumbled with sleepy eyes, trying to recall where exactly he was. When he noticed the sunlight streaming around him, he gasped. It had to be at least past nine in the morning! His parents were going to kill him! His cerfew had been 11:30. "Aw man..." he moaned in frustration and annoyance.

Then he noticed the creature still asleep next to him, and almost recoiled at the sight, until the events of the night before resurfaced in his mind. It was just Sarah, just Bunches, he told himself. He smiled when as he gazed down at her, and saw her in an entirely new light. The markings on her face drew the eye upward, and her short, spunky headfur was really quite attractive. Her body was lean and graceful, even though she was still clothed, as was he. Sarah being Jellicle did actually explain a few things for him: why her parents had been so loathe to let her out, why she had always been conveniently booked on full moons (of course, he had been, too, so that wasn't exactly an issue). Still, even though he knew all too well that it was really just Sarah under the fur, it was a bit off-putting. Brandon was most definitely Pollicle. It was really unbelievable that he had been attracted to a Jellicle at all, considering the differences between their kinds. He would have thought that a dog could never be attracted to a cat. But still, he couldn't deny it; attracted he was...

He nuzzled her with his wet nose, and was quite close to giving her a good ol' fashioned lick on the cheek to wake her up, when he realized she might not enjoy that. Instead, he leaned very close to her ear, whispered, "Etcetera, wake up," and leant back to await her eyes opening.

They must have been able to hear her scream in the next county.

"Ssh!" he muttered as he tried to silence her with a paw. The sight of his canine self (even in human clothes) had awakened her feline instinct. Unfortunately, the instinct for her was to scream. "Not so loud, you don't want anyone coming while we're like this, do you?" he tried, but her body was still working without thinking. She was in a small space with a large dog, and she wanted out. She struggled against him, trying to force her way up, until finally he raised his voice and said, "Bunches! It's just me!"

Suddenly, her eyes flew open, and she inhaled sharply. She stopped struggling and fell back down on the seat, muttering, "Heaviside, you scared me!"

"I gathered," he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. Still, he softened, and uttered, "I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to do that to you. I didn't realize it would scare you so bad." He started rummaging around the cupholders by the front seat for his medallion, but she stopped him.

"No, Bran – I mean, Goldrith," she corrected herself, "It's not – I mean, I'm not scared of you. You just kind of ... surprised me." Her ears drooped, and she gave a sort of cat-shrug. "I'm just not really used to waking up with a Pollicle, you know?"

He smiled a bit, somewhat comforted, and muttered, "Yeah, I know." He turned back to look in her eyes. Her cat eyes. They were really the same eyes that she'd always had; eyes didn't usually change appearance in different forms. Still, now that he knew what she really was, he found that her eyes really were different. Her eyes had always looked a bit unlike those of anyone else he knew, human or Pollicle.

Suddenly, the quick movement of her head to look out the window disrupted his thoughts. "Um, what time is it?" she asked, her eyes growing large with worry.

He grimaced. "At least past nine," he replied. "I'm dead meat."

"Me, too. My parents are going to kill me!"

"Mine, too." Then he realized something. "Bunches," he asked softly, "What are we going to tell them?"

"Who?"

"Our families."

"About what?"

Goldrith smiled. Sarah (and Etcetera, too, it seemed), was prone to being a tad confused about what was being spoken about. Most people thought it was annoying. He found it amusing. "About ... you know." He motioned with his paw to indicate "us."

She looked confused for a second more, but then realization swept over her face, and she grimaced. "Oh, yeah, huh," she murmured. She seemed to think for a second, then asked, "Can we tell them the truth?"

"NO!" he cried, lashing out a bit involuntarily and quite unexpectedly. She squeaked and backed up, but he continued, "You can't tell them about me! I'm a Pollicle, remember!"

She looked a little hurt. "Well, I'm a Jellicle," she countered.

Goldrith put his paw on his forehead in frustration. "No, it's just ... well ... you" - and by you, he meant, you Jellicles - "You remember the fiasco last year, right?" She rolled her eyes, a "No, duh!" if there ever was one. He went on: "Well, we remember, too. We don't want that kind of thing to happen to us, you know!" She grimaced, but he still said, "You can't tell anyone about me, Bunches. Please."

She still grimaced for a moment, but finally said, "All right. I won't tell. Yet," she added. "But what are we going to tell them when we get back?"

He sighed, and said, "I don't know. We'll just have to think of something on the way. I don't want to risk being out here in the sunlight any longer. We should change back." He went back once more to looking through the jungle of the mess in the car. When his cursory search proved fruitless, he asked, "Um, do you know what happened to my medallion?"

Etcetera opened her eyes (she'd closed them for some reason unknown to him), and considered his question. "No," she finally muttered. "I don't remember what you did with it." She looked right at him and asked, "Is it important?"

He almost gasped, he was so shocked at her question. "Important?" he finally stammered. "Yes, it's important! We can't go until I find it!"

"Why don't you just change back, take me home, and look for it later?"

He turned at looked right at her, genuinely amazed at what she was saying. "Just change back? What do you mean, 'Just change back'? I can't change back without that medallion!"

Now it was her turn to be shocked. "You can't change back on your own!"

"No, I can't!" he muttered, and went back to searching under the seats in front of him, leaving Etcetera to stare curiously. Finally, she hopped into the front seat to help him look. After a couple minutes of searching, she spied the gold piece hanging from the rear-view mirror.

"Here it is!" she called, and reached out to grab it. But as soon as her paw touched the gold, she yelped and snatched it back. "What's wrong with that thing!" she shrieked.

"What's wrong?" Goldrith asked with concern as he climbed into the driver's seat to get a better look at her paw. "What happened?"

"It shocked me!" she screeched, her eyes wide. She scooted back as far as she could in her seat to get away from the thing.

He frowned. Reaching out with his paw, he gingerly touched the medallion still hanging from the mirror. Nothing. "Maybe it just had some static electricity," he offered. "That happens sometimes. Especially in cars."

"Nuh uh!" she called. Her eyes were still wide in alarm. "That hurt way more than a little static! That was more like the time Misto was practic..." she trailed off unexpectedly. He looked at her curiously. She continued: "Never mind. But that really hurt!"

"Oh," he muttered. He was quite at a loss as to why his medallion would hurt her. It was just gold. Okay, gold spelled with a Pollicle charm; but still gold. "Maybe it's because you're Jellicle?" he offered. "It is a Pollicle thing."

"Maybe. But I'm not touching that again!"

"Well, all right," he said. Then he smiled. Painful to her or not, he was relieved beyond belief that he'd found it. Slipping the thing on, he instantly started to change; his muzzle grew smaller, the black parts of his face returned to their flesh tones, and the fur melted away to reveal Brandon sitting there on the seat, somewhat disappointed at not being able to spend more time in his true form, but still relieved that he had found the medallion. He quickly slipped the thing under his sweatshirt, out of sight.

Etcetera stared. "You really can't change without that, can you?" she asked.

Nodding, he answered, "No I can't." He paused, then wondered out loud, "What, you can?" She nodded, like it was obvious. It certainly wasn't obvious to Brandon! "Really?" he inquired. Again she nodded. Incredulous, he said, "All right, do it."

And there, right before his eyes, without any outward motion or murmer, Etcetera melted away to leave Sarah sitting with him in the truck. She opened her human eyes and smirked at him. "See?" she said. "Told you!"

Brandon was a little shocked. Jellicles could change by themselves without any jewelry or anything? Well, he supposed it did make sense. From all he'd heard about Jellicles, part of the reason that they were known to humans was because they could be careless, and they didn't have medallions to keep themselves from changing under the full moon if they didn't want to. Of course, the medallion was such an integral part of the way Brandon changed that it had never occurred to him that the Jellicles would have to change without one somehow. He'd had it ever since he was born. It was still bizarre to him, though. He had no physical control over changing, but apparently, the Jellicles did!

"Wow," he finally muttered.

Sarah frowned. "I don't see what's so special about it," she said, "All the Jellicles can change on their own."

Brandon paused to consider, then asked, "What do you do?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, what do you do to make yourself change?"

"Oh. Hmm." She thought about it for a moment, then said, "I'm really not sure. It's just a feeling, I guess." They sat in silence while they both thought about that. Finally, Sarah continued, "I think it has something to do with our names."

This caught him off guard. "Names?" he queried. No one in his pack had made any big deal about names. He had two, Brandon and Goldrith, but it wasn't a big deal. "What do you mean, your names?"

She looked out the window. "Well," she started, "I barely remember when I was really little, if I ever changed when I wasn't supposed to, my parents would keep shouting, 'Sarah!' at me, and it usually made me change back. I think they said it was about learning control or something. But now, like, if you were to keep saying 'Etcetera' to me, it would make me want to change." She paused, then continued, "It's really hard to change in the daytime, though. The only reason I changed last night was because the moon was so big. Usually, I can't change at all on my own. I think it's like that for most of us younger ones."

"Oh," Brandon muttered. Then he caught a glimpse of the clock on the dashboard. "Gah!" he cried. "It's after ten! We really need to go!"

"Ohmigosh!" Sarah cried. "Yeah, let's go!"

He started the car, and they headed on their way back to Sarah's house.

It was a fairly long trip back through the woods. After about ten minutes, Sarah finally asked, "So what're we going to tell our parents?"

He frowned. "I can just say I came back when I was supposed to," he answered. "My mom and dad work weekend mornings, so I think it's safe to say that they didn't notice I wasn't there." He didn't mention that the real reason that they probably wouldn't notice was because his parents were not on the best of terms, and they often didn't take much notice in him. "Your parents, though," he said, changing the subject, "Might care."

"Yeah," she agreed, eyes wide and full of worry.

He thought for a minute, then tried, "What if we say I came and got you this morning to go do something. I dropped you off last night when I was supposed to, and came back this morning to pick you up and go somewhere?"

She shrugged. "It might work."

They sat again in silence, until out of the blue, Sarah started snickering. Brandon was still worried about explaining the situation to her parents, and had no idea what she found so funny! "What is it?" he inquired.

She giggled a bit more, then asked amusedly, "Was there really an awefull battle?"

"What!"

"You know!" she said, giggling more. "'The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles'! Did it really happen?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh, come on!" she said, rolling her eyes and giggling more. "You can't tell me you've never heard of it!"

He kept his eyes on the road, but her infectious laugh was getting to him. It was one of the things he loved about her. Almost with a straight face, he answered, "Yes, I can. Sarah, I've never heard of it."

"Well," she said, trying to calm down her giggles (and failing miserably), "It's this big song and dance the Jellicles have! It's this big fight between the Pekes and the Pollicles, but then the Great Rumpus Cat comes and scares everybody away! It's really fun!" she said, making sweeping motions with her arms to indicate the battle, and the arrival of the cat. "So did it really happen?" she queried with a giant grin on her face.

Brandon, grinning as well, answered, "Well, Bunches, how should I know if a Jellicle song really happened?"

"You're a Pollicle! It's 'The Awefull Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles'! You should know, right!"

"I don't know! I've never even heard of a 'Peke'!" He answered through giggles of his own now.

"Oh, come on!" she called laughingly. Then she started to recite: "The Peke, although people may say what they please, is no British dog, but a heathen Chinese!"

"CHINESE!" he yelled. They were both laughing hysterically. "You're just going to have to tell me the whole thing, Bunches!"

And she did. By the time she had finished, and they were done laughing about it, they had pulled up to Sarah's house. "He really had a big 'R' on his chest!" Brandon cried. His eyes were watering, he was laughing so hard.

"Yeah! Just like Superman! You should have seen Admetus do it, it was to die for!" she exclaimed. Then she got a glimpse outside the window. "Omigosh, we're here!" Immediately, she sobered up. "What're we gonna say, again?" she asked, looking in the mirror to see if her hair was presentable.

Brandon took a deep breath. "We're going to say that I dropped you off last night like I said I would, but I came over early this morning to pick you up and go somewhere."

"Where?"

"Erm... the mall. Okay?" he asked as he gave her an encouraging smile.

"Okay." They climbed out of the truck and walked up to the door. Sarah rang the doorbell. "You're going to do most of the talking, right?" she asked hesitantly. They both knew she had trouble lying with a straight face.

"Yeah, I will. Shh," he said as he heard footsteps at the door.

As the door opened, the two of them were both shocked out of their minds when the first thing Mrs. Forsworth did wrap Sarah up in a giant embrace. Her eyes seemed to be wet. "Oh, Sarah," she muttered as she stroked her daughter's hair. "We were so worried about you!"

Brandon unconsciously grimaced. Uh-oh. So they had noticed she was missing. As Mr. Forsworth came to the door, he tried to start explaining. "I'm really very sorry, Sir -" he started, but he was cut off.

"Don't try to apologize, Brandon." Brandon's mind prepared for the worst, but Mr. Forsworth continued, "We know it wasn't your fault."

The dog was utterly confused now, but Mrs. Forsworth spoke: "When we heard about that big crash on the freeway, we knew the two of you had to be caught in traffic all night."

"I know. A twenty car pile-up!" her husband said. "Can you believe it?"

Brandon plastered a big smile to his face. "No, we couldn't believe it either. But really, the news reports tried to tone it down a bit. It was really more like a thirty car pile-up!" he said with conviction. As a Pollicle, he'd actually been trained in lying, in case the time would come when he'd have to hide himself. "I'm just so sorry, I wasn't able to call and tell you! You see, my cell phone battery was dead..."

"Don't worry about it," Mrs. Forsworth said. "We're just so glad to have Sarah back safe and sound." The Sarah in question would have replied, but her mother was hugging her so hard it rather smothered anything she might have tried to say. "Come inside," her mom said. "It's far too hot out here."

"I'll call you later, Sarah," Brandon said as he started heading back to his truck. Sarah, still unable to speak, gave him a thumbs up. Once the door had closed behind the happy family, he headed back down the lawn to his car, got in, and give a giant sigh of relief before heading back to his empty house.

"So, what really happened?" Mark asked his sister a few minutes later as she started to climb the stairs to her room.

"Nothing!" she responded, trying her hardest keep a straight face. She was awful at lying, but she could try. "Really, nothing happened!"

"Really?"

"Really!" she said, and ran up to her room before Mark could question her any more.

Thanks to everyone who's reviewed and shown support so far!