In the world of 'normals', those not born with a genetic anomaly, it has long been assumed that the manifestation of a mutant generally occurred with the onset of puberty. That wasn't always the case.
A huge, cold, wet, nose pressed against the child's mouth and sniffed, followed by an equally huge, slobbery tongue.
Little Andy Doppler giggled as the family's Golden Retriever tried his best to remove all possible taste of baby food from his younger brother Matt's face. Tiny hands grabbed the dog's ears and held him in place and for a moment the toddler and dog locked eyes.
"PUPPY!" shrieked Little Andy just as his mother entered the room.
She dropped the baby bottle and stared at the two dogs before her, one the seventy-five pound Carrot the other . . . about the size of an eleven-month-old toddler and wearing a diaper. If Matt's mother had thought keeping up with a toddler was hard, she quickly discovered keeping up with a toddler in the shape of a thirty-pound Golden Retriever was even harder.
Though both of his parents were taken aback by this sudden development, as could be expected, they managed without too much of a stumble.
For the first couple of years, Matt's changes remained focused on Golden Retriever as he was most familiar with the breed thanks to Carrot and this proved to be a good thing as no one in the family had considered the 'conservation of mass' inherent with shape shifting. That problem did not manifest until Matt was nine and weighed 75 pounds.
Until that point, Matt had been satisfied with his dog as a model and it was very easy to hide this power from the neighbors by simply attributing any sightings of a Golden Retrieve to Carrot, the new cat in neighborhood, however, turned into a problem.
Nine year-old Matt lay in the shade beside Carrot, at that moment, in his own skin. The dog, content, flicked an ear and barely raised an eyebrow when a cat began a tightrope walk along the top of the fence. The movement, rather, caught Matt's attention. Sitting up the boy considered the cat.
"Think I can be a cat, Carrot?" he asked with a grin. "You could chase me around the yard!"
Pointed ears appeared first and rapidly spread down the length of his body, ending in a very long, slim tail. Though he lifted his head, Carrot's nose wasn't fooled and with a long-suffering doggy sigh he flopped back down.
Cat Matt looked up at the fence, the cat was gone. Things felt very different, he decided. For one thing, he couldn't smell everything up wind of him, most things, sure, but not to the degree he'd been able to as a dog.
Another thing, his sight was different, and he could see some colors. Also, he squinted, the sun was much brighter. Coming up to all fours he stretched experimentally, arching his back and sinking claws into the turf of the lawn. That was new too. Claws. He flexed his 'hand's and inch and a half long claws popped out.
He considered the fence a moment then easily vaulted to the top where he found the 2 x 4 top rail barely wide enough for his new paws. His neighbor was in her backyard and stood open-mouthed for a moment before she screamed and dashed into the house. Several people stepped out onto their back porches to see what the fuss was and just as quickly ducked back into the house, locking doors.
'Uh-oh,' Matt said to himself, and dropped into his own yard hitting the ground as Matt.
Grabbing Carrot by the collar he all but hauled the dog bodily into the house and plopped down in front of the TV and tried to ignore the sounds of approaching sirens.
On the TV news that night, reporters on all the local channels interview the nearly dozen people that had seen the cougar perched atop a fence, each absolutely sure it was a cougar. A orange tabby cougar.
