Le Tiger

Adjustments

When I reached home, my hand was healed, which I thought to be more than extremely strange. I immediately locked myself in my room and told my father that I wasn't hungry and would not be joining him for dinner. He seemed okay with this, or if he wasn't he felt it wasn't worth it to protest. I immediately sat down at my computer and typed in "Tiger mauls boy, Cincinnati Zoo" I read the first report I could find.

Only a few hours earlier a Tiger escaped his enclosure since being there since 2001. The Tiger was estimated to be at 16 years old. It was seemingly provoked. Shot three times

... I skim...

if found shoot.

I close my laptop with a smack, angered, no, infuriated! This animal, this being, who has been kept in a cage since it was a cub, who knew no man then it was let on to, blamed for the atrocity of man.

"Fuck!" I yell into my pillow and then I hear something. I whip my head to my window. It was like a tiny little tink. It's dark outside. Weird. Tink tink there it is again! I go to my window and open it.

"Hello?" I ask in what is not more than a shaky scared voice.

"Hi." The voice responds and I scream so loud I'm sure all my neighbors heard. The voice is vaguely coming from below my window, ground level.

"Who the hell are you?" I yell threateningly out the window, waving my ruler uselessly. "Reveal yourself! Where the hell are you?! I'm gonna call the police if you don't show yourself." Hell I should call them now I mumble to myself.

"No, don't!" I hear the voice yell.

"Please, no police. Please." The voice sounds like my age, and desperate.

"Who are you? Show yourself." I say, trying to sound intimidating.

"As long as you don't call the police." It's a teenage boy, my worst fear.

"I can't promise that, you know that"

And then all of a sudden there is a face at my window. A boy, my age, with the greenest eyes I've ever seen, so green I fall back and land on my butt. I get up off my bum and bravely go to the window to see where this fellow is. Surprise! He's already climbing in, having climbed up the ivy unusually well.

"I'm trying to help you!" The boy yells in return.

"By what? Breaking in? I don't think so!!" But he's gaining leverage, and pulling himself in so I reach the phone and dial 91 but before I punch in the last 1 the phone gets batted out of my hand by...a Tiger? WHERE THE FUCK DID THAT COME FROM? But it doesn't seem to want to hurt me; it comes up to me and sits. Just sits. In front of me. So I reached a hand out to pet it? And it lets me. then it changes back into the boy in front of my eyes. And if you think I screamed earlier? Then this time I actually screamed. The strange boy seemed surprised, but just before my before my dad rushed in, the boy quickly hid in my closet.

"What? What is it love?" He looked around the room like he was sussing out if he had to fight anyone. He might. They were just hiding in the closet.

"Oh just a little spidey. Put' em out the window." My father made an unapproving expression and left my room without another word. The boy emerged from my probably smelly closet.

"How'd you do that?" I asked, poking him in the chest.

"I'll tell you if you agree to let me stay." He looked at me with puppy dog eyes.

"Let you stay? You think this is a b&b? Isn't your mom looking for you?" The weird boy shrugged nonchalantly.

"Tell me how you did that...thing now or leave."

"If I tell you...then can I stay? Just the night." I frown. "I'll sleep on the floor!"

"Fine." I say waving my hand like I don't care. I do care. He just doesn't know I was crossing my fingers behind my back. "Fine." He repeated my word back at me.

"I'm a shape shifter" he said, face taught and serious.

I laughed, thinking it was a joke, but when I realized he was being serious,

"Huh? Those don't exist."

"I'm pretty sure I'm living proof they do. And how can you say that?!" I waved him off again with a hand.

"You saw what you saw, you can deny it all you want but try as you might but you'll never forget what you saw this night and if you don't hear me out you may never know."

"But it was just a trick..." I trail off

"Of what" he challenged, waiting.

"The light?" But I'm not confident. I stand up straighter. "Okay but that doesn't explain why you're here," I continue. "You are the Tiger that escaped today I'm guessing. But how can I help you?"

"I need your help and you need mine" He had my attention.

"How so?" I asked with my arms crossed.

"I need you to hide me until I can find my parents and you need my help to accustomate you to...well...being one too" He fidgeted with his hands while looking at his bare feet.

"Being one what?" I ask, a little nervous.

"A shape shifter." He said, looking me directly in the eyes.