Animal Nature

Chapter 12

Shy's hands shook on the steering wheel of the animal transport van as she drove Mara and twelve animals into Lunenburg on Saturday morning. She'd barely slept the night before, wondering what the hell that kiss with David meant. She couldn't understand how David could go from kissing her one minute to running away the next. And the fact that he didn't show up at the shelter today meant he didn't want to spend time with her, either.

Most of the night Shy had lain awake, staring out her window at the quarter moon, feeling David's lips on her—

Red taillights flashed in front of her. Shy slammed on the brakes. Squeals and barks rose from the cargo area behind her. She eased her foot back to the gas, gripping the steering wheel even tighter.

"Are you okay?" Mara asked, her eyes wide.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"How long ago did you get your license?"

"The end of July," Shy said. "I'm okay. I'm focused now."

"Okay, sure." Mara didn't sound like she believed it.

David's never been like that before, Shy thought. He's never touched me like that before. Did he suddenly realize, after being lost in the woods, that he's attracted to me? A memory came to her of her tongue passing over those big canine teeth.

"You just went through a red light, you know," Mara informed her.

Shy blinked and tried to focus on the road. Her mind pulled at her to think about David.

"Shy, you really need to snap out of this. You're going to get us into a car accident. Are you sure nothing's bothering you?"

"No, nothing," Shy said quickly. "I'm fine, really. I have a lot on my mind..."

"Like David?"

"How did you know?"

"Well, I mean, I heard about what happened to him, and I'm sure having your boyfriend disappear for a few days can throw you for a loop."

"Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I was pretty worried about him."

But Shy's thoughts circled around David all during the promotion. One of the kittens jumped out of her arms while she stared vacantly into space, wondering if David was having some kind of post traumatic reaction that was making him want to kiss her. The kitten raced around the store, dodging the dogs from the shelter as well as the dogs some of the customers brought in. It took Shy and two store employees twenty minutes to lure the kitten out from underneath a display of terrariums. Mara gave her an annoyed look as Shy walked back to their promotion table with the kitten firmly in her arms.

The last straw came after lunch, when Shy was talking to a hard-faced woman with a pitbull named Akasha on the end of her leash. At the time, Shy was holding Bully's leash. Shy hadn't been paying attention to the dogs until Bully lunged at Akasha. The woman yanked her dog away with the aid of her choke collar, but Shy struggled to hold back the pitbull cross at the end of her leash. Mara had to help her get Bully back into his crate.

"What are you doing?" Mara hissed at her. "That's not exactly going to encourage people to come to the shelter. Great, here comes the manager."

A man wearing a PETCO shirt was storming up from the back of the store. "I'm so sorry," Shy said before the man in the red shirt could yell at her. "Usually he's not like that, he's really very friendly. I swear it won't happen again."

"You're right it won't. Next time it happens all these animals are out of here."

After that Shy let Mara handle the animals. Even when customers asked her questions about the shelter, Shy had a hard time focusing. Finally on the ride home Mara demanded, "Where was your head today? That was crazy. You were so good with the animals every time I visited the shelter."

"I'm sorry," Shy said, and paused before adding, "David kissed me last night, and it was my first kiss, and—"

"What? Your first kiss? I thought you guys had been dating for, like, forever."

Shy blushed. "No, he's not even really my boyfriend, you know, officially. We were just friends before. But since he got back from that camping trip, he's been acting really weird."

"Weird meaning he realized he likes you?"

"Yeah, that, and right after he kissed me he ran off down the sidewalk."

"He ran off?"

Shy nodded.

"That is weird. You know what else is weird?"

"What?"

"Chester said—you know how Chester works at Bryant's Market?—well, he saw David come into the store yesterday and buy meat. A couple of steaks. And he said David came in the day before that too and bought a bunch of meat. Like he practically cleaned out the discount freezer. I mean, I was under the impression that everyone who joined Animal Rights Club was at least a vegetarian."

Shy wanted to defend David. He could have been buying the meat for his mom, but it was just him and his mom and stepdad at home. "I thought David's breath smelled like fried chicken last night," she said instead. "I've been craving it all day."

"Maybe that's why he didn't want to do this thing today. Maybe he's decided he's not into animal rights."

That would have been a good reason, if it was anyone else.

"But David's always been into animal rights. When we were little he always took in stray or injured animals, like birds and cats and turtles, and tried to take care of them."

"I don't know. It sounds like something happened up in Maine to change his mind."

They were quiet for a few moments.

"Chester's sure it was David?"

"Chester's in the animal rights club, too."

"Oh, yeah. Wait—he wasn't there yesterday."

"That's because he had to work."

"Oh."

"Look, do you want to see for yourself? Chester said David came in at the same time both days, right after school. We could go 'accidentally' bump into him and find out what's up."

"Right after school... yeah, he hasn't been bringing a lunch into school. Or at least he didn't yesterday."

"Because he didn't want you to see that he's not a vegetarian anymore."

Shy sighed. She didn't want to have to spy on David, but he wasn't exactly telling her the truth about everything. "Let's do it. Monday?"

"Monday."

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Sorry about not posting for so long!  I've been working on my Nanowrimo novel and I'm thisclose to being done.  I'm going to try to make regular updates again :)