A "Winds of Change" Story

By Jon Sleeper

There is nothing worse than being stuck in the wrong form your favorite class. Unless you’re a seagull or a penguin, feathers and salt water don’t mix.

Add to that the extreme difficulty of walking on a bird’s foot not really made for walking to begin with, then that made my situation even worse. The pavement was hot and my black, scaly feet absorbed the heat from the grip-coated pavement very well. Too well. I walked slowly over to my locker, the crowd pushing against my short tail feathers uncomfortably.

I hated this. Really hated it. I was only four feet ten inches in this form, and getting shorter daily. A second doctor’s visit not too long ago had confirmed that I was well on the way towards extreme high Degree in blue jay form. Almost like Todd. Almost. They didn’t think I’d have the possible instinct problems that he might end up with. I didn’t have the danger of losing myself. I hoped.

The only thing I truly liked about it was my coloration. The combination of blue, white, and black combined that made me just as handsome in this form as in my zebra or dolphin forms. That was my vanity talking, of course. Not that I cared.

But the fact remained, I was getting more and more avian daily. My ring and smallest fingers on each hand had fused, and there were now short flight feathers growing out of the mass, all the way up my increasingly wing-like arm. Dr. Chin had a similar hand, actually. He had in effect two fingers and a thumb, with the thick third "finger" being more like part of a normal bird’s wing. The doc said with a bird-grin that "you might even be able to fly a bit without shifting to norm."

Which was a good thing, for all the times I’d been in my blue jay form since I discovered my Power, I hadn’t normshifted once since that first day.

And all the times today I’d tried to become something other than a bird, nothing had happened.

I hate my Power.

After five minutes of picking up my long-toed feet very carefully so I wouldn’t blunt my talons, I finally arrived at my locker. Inside there were three different lunches. Fish, fresh alfalfa, or insects and berries. I thanked God that birds didn’t have any real sense of taste and took out the third bag, then went to eat lunch with my friends.

Ever since Michael found out he was becoming a chameleon it was well-nigh impossible to find him without something about them on his netlink. He acknowledged my presence with a nod and continued eating. My cold-blooded companion smiled and looked up. "Did you realize chameleons DON’T change color to match their environment? It’s mostly a physiological response to various things like health, sunlight, temperature, and emotion."

I blinked at him, my blue-feathered crest going up just a bit. My version of a grin. "Uh, no. I didn’t know that." I opened my bag of "Cajun Catydids" and started to munch a bit, still waiting for Jim to appear. Michael eyed my food. "Chameleons are insect eaters, too."

"You don’t want to eat these," I replied, pulling the bag close. "They’re strongly spiced especially for birdmorphs. Even I can taste these." I showed him the warning label on the package: The Surgeon General warns that consumption by other than avians might result in extreme stomach discomfort and possible damage to one’s sense of taste.

"I’ve seen that before. I guess I’m just curious." I could’ve sworn that I saw his face change color a bit. But it was probably just me. Birds have a much greater degree of color acuity than mammals. So I was probably just reading into that.

I tossed a couple more bugs and berries in my mouth and waited, rubbing my short beak with my hands (and privately glad my bird form wasn’t a pelican). I was on a perch-block, just outside the school building. Nearby where we normally ate when it wasn’t raining. We’d had to move a bit when I was in birdform, because of my feet again.

I caught myself trying to fold my arms to my back like wings, and surprising myself when they didn’t feel quite as uncomfortable as the last time. Eventually it would be a normal thing for me, I reflected. I would be nothing but a giant bird with fingers on his wings.

I heard a whirring of wings and looked up to see some of the other birdmorphs off for a flight. Part of me wanted to join them. But a greater part of me was scared to his hollow bones. Just then, Jim decided to arrive. "Cajun Catydids again?" he said.

I flicked my tail feathers and jumped around to face him with quick movements. At least those kinds of things didn’t startle me any more. All birds moved like that. "Yep," I replied. "They’re not bad."

Todd, sitting in a wheelchair, was turning an apple over and over and over in his raccoonish hands. I was a bit worried for him. We all were. Mano was suspended until next Wednesday, and his father had grounded him besides. No query to his netlink had been answered. Nobody wanted to talk about what he’d almost done to Nate, who we hadn’t seen since.

As for Todd, he now had most of a tail and his upper body was now completely a raccoon. I thought he didn’t look too bad, actually. But he’d messed with that apple way too long. "What are you doing, Todd?"

"Huh? What do you mean?"

I sighed, the air whistling in my nares. "Nevermind."

Jim normally bought his lunch at the snack bar in the cafeteria. As for his own Change, his hair was now green feathers with a touch of red at his forehead, though his face was still feather-free. His arms were feathered to the elbow, and his chest was now covered as well. His chest had also expanded an inch or so with stronger muscles. As normal, in my bird form I wore no clothing, though he still wore a shirt. He looked me over a moment. "How are the hands?"

"As well as can be expected," I squawked in reply. It was a kind of squawk, too. "I hate this... Now I can’t even go to the dance tonight with Amanda..."

Jim was about to respond when we both heard Michael gasp in surprise. "My... hhhair!" We turned to see a very green friend who was grasping at the hanks of hair that were rapidly falling out of his scalp. He was in the midst of a Surge! Quite suddenly, one eye looked at me and the other looked right at Jim. Then Michael’s human eyelids shut, then seemed to scale over and enlarge, leaving two chameleon eyes staring back at us. The sockets moved a bit to the side, widening the bridge of his nose. "This... is... trippy." Lastly, his ears vanished and his faced pushed out ever so slightly, leaving scaly lips and a very misshapen nose.

Jim took a deep breath. "We’d better get you to the nurse..."

Michael’s eyes were moving quite independently of one another now, but they both fixated on Jim. "Yeah... Good idea. Assuming I don’t fall on my face. And turn up the heat on my warm suit a tick, will you? I’ll need the energy..."

Todd elected to wheel away as soon as we got to the nurse’s office. A few minutes later Michael was safely with the nurse, while Jim and I were forced to go back to class. "I hope he’s okay. He looked rather dizzy," my fine feathered friend said, concerned.

"Well, I’m not surprised. Lots of things change when it hits your head." I rubbed my short, black beak again, privately glad I didn’t have to go through that particular aspect of Change in this form. I’d heard that the feeling of one’s teeth growing out of one’s mouth is quite awful. "Taking anybody to the dance tonight?" I asked, changing the subject.

He winked. "Perhaps. But I’m not sure I want to go, actually. I still can’t believe people still celebrate Halloween, anyway. But I’d better get going. I’ve got Aves next, and it takes me a while to norm-shift. See you after school!" He walked off, waving and pulling at the shirt he wore over his feathers. While I was left standing outside the nurse’s office as it started to rain again.

I walked awkwardly down the hall towards the class I was already late for. Spanish. Lucky my pronunciation seemed to be very good, even though all of my voice came from my syrinx in this form. Then I heard a voice from behind. "I really, really wonder why you don’t norm-shift and fly."

The voice came from a friend that I’d made in Aquatics, Anton Farnsworth. He was Changing into some kind of generic shark. He had little more than the dorsal fin, toothy smile, and grayish skin. I reluctantly turned to face him. "Maybe I just don’t feel like it."

"I think you’re scared. Which is funny, since you’re scared of nothing in dolphin form."

I almost retorted that my dolphin self was a totally different person than I was. Dolphins see everything as a game. Fear hardly enters their minds unless there’s a physical danger. I fluffed up my feathers, getting a bit angry. "I’m not scared! I just feel like walking!"

"You don’t look like an ostrich to me, David. All other birds fly. You’re a bird. So, fly."

"Fine!" I squawked in return. "I will!" And then I promptly shifted to norm.

Big mistake.

When I just stayed there, frozen on the hallway floor, Anton decided that he’d gone too far. "God... I’m sorry. I guess you were scared after all!" Two HUGE hands came down, and I hopped away reflexively, making the blue jay’s distinctive alarm call. He... was.... HUGE! I started to hyperventilate, my wings flapping every which way as I skittered across the floor in a panic! I couldn’t change back!

I pressure on my mind from above calmed me down, and a pair of gentle hands took hold of me. "It’s okay, Mr. Alden. You’re just a little stuck." The voice was the nurse’s assistant, a kangaroo morph. She was an empath too, almost a standard kind of nurse to hang around; as a projective empath she could calm down a panicking teen. Like myself.

But the "wall" that was my visualization between forms was... gone! I chirped and squawked again, panicking even though the mental pressure. "If you don’t calm down you’ll just make it worse, David!" The nurse said.

Slowly, I forced myself to stop and open my eyes. So huge... dear God. So huge... Yet, there was a part of me that expected the world to be that way. A corner of my mind that only wanted to find the highest point in the room. And when I saw the sky... I found myself moving in that direction in spite of myself. My mother arrived ten minutes or so later. "Can you unstick him?" she asked, ears flicking in my direction.

"Afraid not, Mrs. Alden. At least, not right away. You know that we have at least three cases like this per week. If he’s not unstuck by Wednesday then we’ll call an Inducer. But until then, he’ll have to figure it out by himself."

Damn.

The initial shock had worn off slightly, and I was forced to look at my mother’s concerned whitetail face, her ears were backward a bit. An expression I knew to be of deep worry. "Are you sure you can’t change back?" When I shook my head she carefully stroked my chest feathers, which actually calmed me even more. "We’ll get you home right now. Can you at least step onto my finger?"

To my surprise, I was able to straighten up a bit and step on to her thick finger, my feet automatically closing securely on it. I didn’t even think as I found a natural balance point, my tail feathers moving back and forth as she held me in front of her. I chirped once, trying to assure her that I was okay. She sighed, and we left for home.

Once there mother placed me on my bed in my room. Mom asked me if I wanted to be left alone for a while, and I nodded at that. My room seemed more like a football stadium! I sat on my bed for a long time, wondering what to do next, unconsciously preening my feathers. Then there was a beeping sound from my netlink terminal. It was Jim’s callsign. But there was a problem.

My netlink was across the room.

Every fiber of my being screamed against it. But before my brain could tell my body that it felt that way, I found myself perched on the keyboard. I didn’t even remember opening my wings... I looked up to see Jim’s face on the screen, and the camera had automatically focused on me. "Boy, you are stuck, aren’t you?" he said. "I’ll be right over." The chat window closed before I could reply.

Ten minutes later I heard a knock on the front door, and footsteps in the hall. "Can I come in?" My parrotish friend said. I chirped an affirmative and he entered. Oy... he was HUGE. "How’d you get over there if you’re scared to fly?"

Perched in front of the keyboard, I literally had to hunt-and-peck. I really wish I could tell you. It’s a mystery to me...

"You got there somehow, you know," Jim replied. "Maybe your bird instincts won’t let you change back until you fly."

Maybe. But what do I do, now? I can’t very well go to the dance like this! Amanda’s going to be so disappointed... I lamented.

Jim seemed a bit different than before his First Sign. It was hard to put a finger on, really. A look crossed his face that I’d only seen a couple times before. "Personally, I think you need to fly."

Is that all you can think of?! I snapped back with a squawk.

He was already starting to shrink, and the tip of his teeth pushed outward as a beak formed. Not pretty to look at. "Give me a half hour and I’ll show you what I mean."

I’ll never get used to that slow change of form. Even in his norm shape Jim was larger than I. But at least he could talk. "First thing is getting outa tha house! Mrs. Alden!" The door opened and my mom entered with a surprised look on her face. "Mind taking the two of us outside? David wants a flying lesson." Jim winked at me.

I didn’t know what to think. I stepped onto my mother’s finger once again and we were out in the sunlight that had finally peeked through the scudding dark clouds. There was only an hour of daylight left, and two hours until the dance. Jim looked around, his beak moved and he spoke in his high parrot voice. "Put us on that branch over there, if you could, Mrs. Alden. Thanks." My mother stroked me once on my chest feathers and went back inside he house, reluctantly. I was sure she was watching from somewhere, since deer can find the most incredible places to hide without being seen. Jim fluffed and preened a bit, and I found myself copying him. He continued, "Now, where were we? Ah! Just do what I do and you’ll be fine." With that, he took off and flew towards a pine tree about fifty feet away.

I’d been a jay for over two hours, and I guessed that all the shock had drained out of me. There was nothing that could surprise me any more. So when I opened my wings and took that first wing-beat, there was no looking back. I was flying. I. Was. Flying!

Exhalation! Freedom! AWESOME!!

I didn’t land on the branch where Jim was perched, instead going up to the top of the tree and landing in one of the top branches and looking at the world around me. It had been effortless! Like walking! I’d been given the lectures in my Aves class about how a bird’s body worked to make it fly, but to actually experience it? My fear was nothing but a bad memory. I heard a rustle of branches and looked down to see Jim on a thicker branch below. "Good!" He exclaimed, excited. "Now let’s get down and get ready for the Dance! Isn’t Amanda’s father dropping her off in twenty minutes?"

Jim was right! I took one last look around the neighborhood, and took my time getting to the ground. Then I attempted to find the wall in my mind that would enable me to change back to morph. But there was still nothing there. Just an amorphous fog. "What?!" I seemed to squawk.

Jim now looked concerned. "Well, whaddya think? Still want to go to the dance?"

Amanda chose that moment to arrive. I should’ve known, since she’s always been early.

But with that brought an opportunity. I sprang off the ground and landed lightly on her shoulder, then rubbed my head against her cheek. "David? Is that you?" she said, surprised. I chirped an affirmative. Then she sighed, her the expression on her huge face looking crestfallen. "I guess the rumor was true, then. I’m sure you don’t want to go to the dance, now."

I squawked and shook my head. I wanted to go! Just as long as I could sit on her shoulder. "Okay! Okay! I get the picture. We’ll go, just don’t do anything perched there. This is a new dress. Who needs a costume, eh?" She saw Jim. "Do you want us to wait for you?"

"Awk! No! I’ll be along soon enough! Seeya there!" He flapped off towards my house.

Then my mother seemed to just materialize in front of us. "Be back before ten. I know tomorrow’s a weekend, but you have band tomorrow and you don’t want to be too tired." She sighed. "That is, if you can change back by tomorrow."

No matter what, tomorrow I’d be able to fly some more.

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