Keep calm, act natural, She told herself as she crept down the down the hall and feeling like a massive beacon of freakishness in this school full of freaky things. It was her first day back to school and she could not feel more like a freak if she tried as she walked down the hall eyes staring intently at the floor and humming in her head random show tunes to keep peoples thoughts out. She did not want to make eye contact with anyone, less she recognize someone from before her transformation. That was something she was not sure she could handle, all the questions, all the comments they would have and all those dirty little thoughts.

She couldn’t blame them she disappeared awkward little teenage boy and was returning as a rather attractive girl shaped cat. That was bound generate some sort of commentary, she could understand that, she just did not want to have to deal with it on her first day. Everything was just so weird to begin with, body felt strange, the way she walked, the way her hips swayed, the way her hair tickled her neck and shoulders, how her new strange clothing felt wrapped around her new figure, that stupid faint tinkling noise she heard occasionally from her collar. It all just felt so alien, so weird. She was practically miserable all the nine months she was stuck as a cat she was completely miserable, she thought it felt strange and completely unusual. But strangely enough being a girl felt even weirder, maybe because it was that it was similar enough to being a boy but clearly different to be strange. And everything else seemed so much bigger now s

Arg! She internally moaned. It had been a fortnight since returning to her parents, and things at home were rather strange. Which was understandable, they thought there son was dead only for him to come back almost a year later not dead but… different. They were doing their best to hide how uneasy she made them now, and she knew that they did not mean too, but she knew they were. Yet she would rather be there right now, than here. As she continued on down the hall she could not help but glance over her shoulder towards an exit, maybe she could just sneak off… no one would miss her.

“OOOMF!” Was the sound she made as she collided with something solid in front of her? Stopping her dead in the tracks and knocking her backwards on her back, her notebook spilling from her hand as she landed on her backside. Blindsided and knocked on my butt, I’m the worse cat ever. She noted mentally with some embarrassment as she pulled her hair out for her eyes, brushing her ears and feeling them twitch she noticed the object she collided with had a pair of legs… it was person! Great, she felt her face getting a little read at this discovery, here comes that whole social interaction thing.

Benji was planning to have another boring day pent up in school before having practice with his mixed martial arts team. He always had some sort of steam or emotion he needed to burn off usually, but today, today he just had too much energy for a weekday. He had been walking down the hall calmly and in a mostly relaxed manner as he forced himself to stay calm and not just start running everywhere. He didn't like having all this energy even after skipping breakfast so he could try and run it off. Now not only was he energetic but he was mildly cranky from not eating.

Benji was so absorbed in keeping his mind clear of hunger feelings and excess energy that it took him a moment to realized someone had ran into him. At first he didn't know what had happened, but then he looked down at hearing sounds of motion.

"Would you watch where-oh I've never seen you around before."

He was sounding angry as he had first started to speak but noticed it was a new girl, instantly making him curious. The small wolf leaned down to grab the notebook before offering a hand out to the girl with a less grumpy expression. He thought he could smell cat for a moment and wondered where on earth it could be coming from before giving a little introduction.

"I'm Benji, care to tell who you are aside from running into people?"

He thought he could feel or smell something familiar about this girl but he was too distracted with the cat smell that seemed to be coming from her to really think about it.

outfit

As she sat there for a second, absorbed in her stupor of humiliation, she couldn’t help but not ignore the throbbing from her backside, girl’s butts had more padding than boys, so why did it still hurt this much? She was broken out of this daze at the sound of her colidees voice. That’s just great, she sighed. She didn’t have to be a telepath to know he seemed angry, though the annoyed thoughts of his beating down at her mind did help. His voice was really all she needed, but of course was angry, Alex would have been angry if some random rube had run into her, so she could not fault him for that.

At least he did not recognize her, not that anyone really should have, but if he had that would have just made her layer of humiliation even greater. Maybe she should just apologize and be on she mused as she reached out for it she was surprised that her collision victim had already grabbed it and was offering her a hand up. He looked about her age, and despite being the annoyance over her running into her he seemed like he would be friendly enough. But there was just something, about him, a weird tinged of unease in the back of her mind, telling her to be cautious around him. But she just shoved that in the back of her mind; if she listened to every little thing that her instincts told her to does she would just be lounging on perch right now, or staking out a bird feeder.

“Thanks,” She said taking his hand and pulling herself up then taking back her notebook. “My name is…” It felt weird hearing herself talk, she sounded so damned girly, “…my name is Alex. And I wasn’t running into people. I… I was walking down the hall and came to a sudden anthropic stop.” Yeah that sounded way less stupid in her head than it did out loud.

Benji didn't mind helping the girl up, still trying to figure out the cat smell but pushed it away as he heard the other start to talk. He offered back the notebook and watched the other take it back, trying not to still seem annoyed that he was hungry and nearly ran over. He couldn't help to give a bit of a laugh at how the girl introduced herself. So this Alex seemed to lack a bit of a filter for wording, but its not like he minded. His own brother never really thought about what he said, this only making Benji laugh more.

"Well i'm Benji. You new around here?"

He seemed rather relaxed now, not caring or having any real interest in the female aside from trying to learn where she was before here and if she was the source of the cat scent. He was starting to think it was centered around Alex but didn't voice it even if it wasn't one that was pleasant for his senses.

Alex’s eye twitched as she took the notebook and clinched it tightly to her to her chest feeling a little self-conscious about this whole thing. Why couldn’t she have just watched where she was going and she could have probably continued slipping by silently for the rest of the school day. Her eye twitched as she sensed his bemusement over her explanation but misinterpreted it as mockery than really anything else. His laughing really did not help in that matter as she broke eye contact with him for a second and stared down at her feet for a moment fighting the urge to revert back into a cat and just run away.

Was she new he wanted to know. At the very least that meant he did not know who she was that was at least good. Still she was not exactly going to tell him that she wasn’t knew and was an actual student here for a long time before being forced into something of a several month sabbatical and impromptu species/sex change.

“Yea that’s me the new girl,” She lied, though only technically. She was a new to being a girl so in a roundabout way she was telling the truth. “Is it, is it really that obvious.” She chuckled nervously. She was getting a real weird vibe off this boy; he was just making her nervous and feel uneasy. Part of her was tempted to try and figure out why that was by reaching out in his mind and doing a little digging, but she was something of a stickler for privacy and would not do that sort of thing. After all she used to be one she knew the things that resided in teenage boys minds; she did not want to go giving them a deeper look.

Benji couldn't help but feel that there was something was odd about this girl, he just couldn't put his finger on it just yet. He felt to pick up on it even more with how she sounded mildly awkward calling herself the new girl. He couldn't stop the soft expression from appearing on his face though at her asking if it was obvious.

"Well considering you're walking and standing like a scared cat, i'd have to say yes."

His nose couldn't help to scrunch up at the mention of even the word cat from his own lips as he was still being bugged by the smell. He couldn't take it anymore and just had to ask Alex if she knew anything about it.

"Okay not to sound weird but do you happen to smell a cat? It's been bugging me and i can't figure out the source of it."

Alex’s feline ears twitched atop her head and under her baseball cap as he called her a scared cat. “I’m not scared. She said defensively about the only thing she really could properly deny. After all she was a cat, at least most of the time, and even now she was still a little bit one, as her shrouded ears and the sharpened canines she was absently running her lounge across behind her pursed lips could actually attest too. But really even now as she stood here she really was starting to feel not very convinced by her own assertion that she is not scared. She was certainly feeling apprehensive right now on edge, nervous, and ready to react to just about anything. But was that being scared, she wasn’t sure.


If she wasn’t scared when she denied it, the moment the boy named Benji questioned why she smelled of cat so much then she definitely felt a brief surge of fear. Crap She thought, she did not smell of cat did she? Of course she did up until two hours ago she was skulking about her back yard on all fours hunting down that bird that insist on singing outside her window at the crack of dawn. So of coruse she smelled like a cat, but how did he know, what was he some super kid with a super nose? Or a werewolf, great he was probably a werewolf that would just be her luck. God what could she say?

Think, think, think, think! She kept telling herself, she really didn’t want to tell him the truth, that just took way too long to explain and had way too many potential follow up questions, and frankly it was kind of embarrassing. But simply denying she smelled like a cat would not work, he obviously knows what he knows scent wise. So she just gulped and decided that perhaps bluffing would be the best option, take refuge in the absurdity of her situation. “B’cause I’m a cat.” She said as straightly and flatly and hoping he would be too stunned by this absurd claim to take it seriously, and let the whole matter dropp. “Did the Collar not give it away?” she pointed to it with her free hand and gave the bell a slight tapping.

As she stood there waiting to see if her bluff would work felt like an eternity, god she hoped he found her story too absurd. Then things got worse as an epiphany made her realize the whole thing could have been solved really easily, she could have just told him she owned a cat and slept on her clothes or something. Sunavabitch She cursed mentally to herself, why did she not think of that five seconds earlier? Things would have been so much simpler.

Benji couldn't help to quirk a brow at how Alex was quick to say she wasn't scared. It was something he could smell on her just standing there, making it proof it was a lie in some sense. He did his best not to show too much concern as the girl looked ready to panic in some form at asking about the cat smell. Most of the students here had something strange with them, him being one of them, but this girl looked to have some shame about it. At her speaking, the wolf couldn't help to scrunch up his face and take a step back. It seemed to make sense now that there was the heavy smell of cat to her. He couldn't help to feel mildly annoyed and near disturbed at Alex tapping at the bell tied on her neck.

"That explains it...I honestly can't stand cats."

His honest side was starting to show its face but in all the wrong ways. it was the one thing from his brother he really regretted picking up on.

Yeah he didn’t take her confession to being of the feline persuasion very well, wasn’t taking it as a silly joke like she was hoping he would. Well crap. She bit her lip as her mind was bombarded by the sheer amount of disgust he suddenly felt for her with this little news. This caused a surge of embarrassing through Alex as she clutched her notebook tighter to her chest like it was some sort of suit of armor that would protect her from the embarrassment. Of course it was doing a rather poor job of that as she could practically feel her pale skin growing red. That urge to just become a cat again and run out of the school.

But that quickly

“Oh really?” She asked as she finally looked back up. There was a bit of a bite in her words as she forced her embarrassment aside right now and was starting to get a little defensive. “And is this hate because you don’t like the whiskers, or did a cat bite you on the nose as a baby?” Seriously why did he have such a negative reaction to this news? She had never seen anything like it, even from people allergic to cats. There had to be some sort of story behind it.

Benji felt he was really needing to get a move on to his class at this point. Not only did the smell of cat get on his nerves but the idea of there being someone that could turn into one before him just made his skin crawl. THe wolf found them as snooty, overly moody creatures and in need of far too much matienence for an animal. As a wolf he was rather laid back but anytime he was near a cat he would either want to chase it away or scare the daylights of it. He didn't hold back his growl or rather agressive expression at Alex saying things about what could make him hate cats so much.

"Cats are a creature I could really go without. They smell awful and their moodiness just gets on my nerves."

He still had that rather angry expression to his face as he was at least trying to bite back another growl now and not just bark at the girl.

The girl-shaped cat was surprised how much she was taking this boy’s dislike of cats as a personal affront. Even more surprising was how visceral this Benji boys distaste for cats was. Seriously was he growling at her, she wondered as her eyes went wide and she flight her leg twitch as she had to fight the urge to not back down.

“Those are all terrible reasons not to like cats. And stereotypes too. I mean cats don’t smell they are very clean.” At least she was really she could not speak for some random gutter living stray tabby but still. “I mean I’ve never seen a cat eat their own poo, unlike a silly dog or whatever.” She only added that in a mild attempt at needling him, probably not the smartest thing do, but her hackle had been raised and really as much as she liked to think she bucked most of the cat stereotypes she still found herself not wanting to back down, out of stubbornness, or spite, or whatever even though every instinct in her head was telling her not to do it. “This… this… just makes you sound like…” She trailed off for a second searching for what a proper word could be. “a racist!” Yeah probably not the most precise word to use but it would have to do.