Connections

Chapter 3: Complications

“What about Melanie?” Ric asks. He looks just as confused as I would have thought he would. I mean, what reason do I have to possibly complain or have a problem? Ric's never seen Melanie's dark side.

“It's just that she's been acting...well, strange. I mean, not at all like an Animal should act. At least not the way we were taught.” I brace myself for him to call me crazy. It's what Ruler would do. Except he'd try to sugar coat it by phrasing it something like, “Darling, I think you're imagining things.” but the message would be the same.

“What do you mean strange?” he asks. He's confused and worried now, I can see it in his eyes. He knows better than to not take me seriously. Once he didn't and...well...let's just say that now he's terrified of bees. I don't joke about important stuff, and it's widely known that while Animalz are, well,Animalz, they are important. Without them our way of life would be very different, maybe even nonexistent.

“She...she's really rude. I mean really. She accused me of being a witch, and she woke me up by throwing water on me, and just now she and I got into a fight, and she's not acting at all like our classes said Animalz were supposed to, and I don't know what to do!” I got up and slumped down in a chair by his bed.

His face looked contemplative, before he said, “How about you start from the beginning?” So I told him the whole story, starting from this morning when Melanie woke me up with the water, skipping over what happened at the mall, and then finally ending with our...conversation (ok, ok, it was a fight) in my room just a little while ago. “Hm.” he said when I finally finished. “How interesting.” then he started laughing from his seat on the floor.

“You jerk! Why are you laughing? I'm serious!” I said. Things were making anything but sense and I'd already had a bad day, and now Ric was laughing at me? I could feel the prick of tears in my eyes, so I closed them because I'd rather walk around with my eyes closed and risk bumping into something than to cry in front of anyone, especially Ric.

“I'm-I'm not laughing at you.” he said between his hysteric laughter. Was he serious? What was his definition of laughing? “I'm laughing at the irony of the situation. You're freaking out because you think that the classes we went to didn't tell you about this happening, therefore something's wrong, and it could be you and not Melanie with the problem. But really, Sly, the did tell us that this kind of thing could happen.” by this time his laughter had died down and he was just slowly catching his breath.

“No they didn't! How would I have missed that?” I insisted.

“Remember when you had that horrible cold last winter? With the fever, and the runny nose and everything?” he asked me.

“Yeah?” I answered, not sure what this had to do with the situation at all.

“Remember that one class you missed?” I nodded in response to his question. Of course I remember. It was the only class I'd missed, and I felt horrible that I'd missed even that one class. “Well,” he continued, “it was at that class that they taught us about that kind of thing happening. Where the Animal starts to rebel.” Then I started laughing with hysteria.

Of all the classes I could have missed, it was this one, the one that seems to be most important at this particular time of my life, that I missed. I mean, I could have missed the one that said what to do if you have an Animal who has allergies, since it is apparent that Melanie has no allergies, but the one on what to do when your Animal rebels? I need that class, and I missed it. The irony was overpowering.

“Well, what did they say?” I asked after I had calmed down some.

“They said that they categorize those Animalz as 'Revos', the ones who want to revolt against our way of life and won't just stay silent and do their job.” Ric started to explain.