B20C5 - Stop

My fingers stretched out, elongating compared to the rest of my hands and arms. As they elongated, though, they slipped right out of the skin so that they became dry, white, bird-bone.

"Eeeewww!" Jake said, laughing in disgust. "That's something new!"

"Oh, man, I don't need to ever see that again!" I said.

Morphing is very unpredictable. It's not just this sort of gradual thing. It goes through phases. Sudden, bizarre, totally gross-looking stages.

The bare bones thing was something new. And deeply, deeply not pretty.

Bomp! Bomp! Bomp! Bomp! Bomp!

"Is someone in there?" a voice demanded.

"Yeah, someone is in here!" Jake yelled. "Jeez!"

"Come outta there, right now!"

"What?" Jake demanded.

"Whackl?" I demanded, having just that moment had my lips turn into hard beak.

"Are you kids in there doing drugs?" the voice demanded.

"No!" Jake looked down at me, exasperated. "Hurry up."

"GET OUT HERE, NOW!"

A new voice. A very authoritative voice. I heard the sound of a key turning in the lock.

"Stop morphing!" Jake hissed. "Stand up straight and keep quiet!"

I stood there, about ninety percent osprey. I was maybe two feet tall, standing on my talons.

Jake swept the sweatshirt over me. He pulled the hood over my head and yanked the string.

The door opened. Two people stood there, glaring at us. A teenager in a Burger King uniform. And a manager.

"I'm just trying to let my little brother go to the bathroom," Jake said, patting me on the shoulder.

The kid and the man both looked down at me. I was standing inside a sweatshirt that was so huge it lay in folds around my feet. Which was a good thing, since my feet were talons. The arms hung limp.

"Your little brother?" the manager asked. "Why's his sweatshirt so big?"

"Hey, that sweatshirt was signed by Steve Young!" Jake said. Like that was an explanation.

"Something's wrong with his face!" the kid said.

Jake put his arm around me protectively. "Don't listen to them, Tommy," he said, with a sob in his voice. "Your face is just fine! It's just fine, I tell you! The doctors say someday you may be normal again."

"Hey, I didn't mean anything by . . . " the kid said.

"What is it?" the manager asked in a concerned tone. "I mean, his disease."

Jake went blank. "Um . . . "

<Beakanoma,> I whispered to Jake in thought-speak.

"Beakanoma," Jake said.

<A growth in the shape of a beak,> I explained.

"It's a, uh, a growth in the shape of a beak," Jake said.

<It's especially tragic and all because it only afflicts really smart, really cute people,> I said.

"Oh, shut up," Jake muttered under his breath.

Jake hustled me away. As fast as I could walk on talons while wearing a massive sweatshirt.