B. Larson - Creatures

“A Tesla coil,” said Sarah in hushed awe.

“That’s not fair!” said Jake.

“I’ve heard of them,” said Eddie.

“Don’t they shock you?” asked Jake.

“Only if you fall off and touch the coil,” I said.

“Poor Beth,” said Sarah.

We watched Andy. He seemed as surprised as we were. Every other obstacle he had breezed through. But not this one. He sat there at the entrance without even touching the cable and watched the electricity spiral and twist around as if mesmerized. At this point, Beth managed to make it to the dominoes. Andy glanced back. I could see his team was calling to him. No doubt, Danny was shouting for him to continue.

Beth stood on her ledge looking at the dominoes. She frowned at them in thought. She still was not in a hurry.

Andy finally reached out a small hand-like paw and grabbed hold of the cable.

“He’s gonna do it,” said Jake.

Then, suddenly, he scampered forward running on that wire. I could tell he wanted to make it through all at once.

He made a mistake, however. Have you ever seen a monkey run? They often run with their tails high in the air. His tail reached too high and touched the coils. A brilliant purple spark jumped down his tail. All his fur stood on end and he gave a surprised squeak. He tumbled off and fell down to the mats.

The buzzer sounded. He was out.

We all craned our necks. We saw him jump up and run out of the course like his tail was on fire, even though it was only just smoking slightly. A round of hooting laughter mixed with applause went up from the entire room. Now, all eyes turn back the Beth. The surprising thing was that she managed to cross the dominoes at all. But she did it, proving her step really was light, as I had noticed. Everyone from both teams was impressed. Generally speaking, human bodies are not as good as animal bodies when it came to matters of speed and balance. But Beth made it, and with a good deal of straining managed to open the heavy door on the far side. One more point clicked up for blue on the scoreboard.

But she was no match for the wire and the Tesla coil. She didn’t make it to the coil itself. She couldn’t even hold herself up on the cable. She just let herself fall, and we all clapped. It had been a great effort. She had taken it slow, and it made it further than anyone else on our team.

I looked around and was a bit surprised to see that only Sarah and I were left.

“Okay,” said Sarah. “Now it’s my turn.”

I shook my head. “No, I’m going next.”

“What?!”

“We don’t know what is at the far end, after the coil,” I explained. “It could be another door. You can’t open a door as a five-ounce bird.”

Sarah shook her head. “You’re nuts,” she said. “But you’re in charge.”

I didn’t even bother with the tent. I just went to bottom of the beam and waited for the horn to sound.

When Danny came out of the tent, it was my turn to be surprised. He was just his normal self. It wasn’t a dog all. There was no hint of the Rottweiler he could become. His teeth weren’t even long, curved fangs. He often grew just the fangs so he would look like a vampire.

As we crouched down, I wondered if Beth’s performance in human form had impressed him. I certainly knew that human form was better than dog form to get across that tire swing and that high wire act through the Tesla coil.

Urdo walked out to stand between us. She had her hands on her hips, and she turned her head to look at each of us. We looked intense, we wanted to win. She gave one quiet nod of approval.

The horn sounded and the race was on.

I scrambled up the balance beam as quickly as I could. I was surprised to feel how slick the surface was. I wondered how some of the contestants had ever made it up in the first place. The rubber soles of my sneakers made it relatively easy. Danny and I made it to the top and into the next room.

“Two points, red team.”

I gritted my teeth, it had been a photo finish, but I guess Danny had been ahead as far as Urdo was concerned. We jumped for the tire swing at about the same moment.

Instead of climbing into the central hole of the tire, I got up on top of it and stood up on it. After a few swings, I took the leap and landed on my knees on the far ledge. I was ahead of Danny this time. I scrambled into the tunnel.

“Two points, blue team.”

In the room with the holes I hesitated chewing my lip. I took a few tentative steps forward trying to remember where I had seen people step before, where it was safe. I took a few more steps, and then Danny burst out of the tunnel and ran in a blur of speed and leapt for the far side. My jaw dropped open, because Danny was a dog.

A great booing erupted for my team.

“Cheater!”

Urdo raised her hand for quiet. “The tunnel was dark. No one saw him change. No rules broken. Two points, red team.”

There were more boos from my side, but they were subsiding.

Deciding not to fall further behind, I took a risk and ran along some narrow ridges between the open holes. I made it without finding any new ones, mostly by luck. I came out of the next tunnel into the room with the dominoes. A great wave of new jeering had erupted.

“He did it again!” came a cry from somewhere, I think it was Sarah.

Indeed, Danny was human again. He just used his dog form to get across that one obstacle faster than I could.

I tried to put all of this out of my mind and focused on getting across those darned dominoes.

I barely made it. Behind me, dominoes crashed and fell. Somehow, skipping from one of the next, I managed to get across. Danny made it too, he was good, I had to give him that. He beat me, mostly because he had had a head start from the previous room.

Suddenly, I was aware of a funny sensation. I felt feverish. My mother had always warned me that I would get heatstroke one day, whatever that was. I wondered, as I felt a rush of heat going through my body, if this was the moment my mother had always predicted.

Tired now, breathing hard, sweating, I crawled into yet another cloth tunnel. It was dark inside, and it seemed even hotter. It seemed close, like the tunnel itself was shrinking around me. I peeled off my shirt, tearing it in the process. Then I heaved myself up and kept crawling.

Everyone gasped as I entered the next room and grabbed hold of the black cable running through the shimmering Tesla coil.

“He’s changed!” someone cried.

“I don’t believe it!”

I looked over at Danny to see if he had figured out a new way to bend the rules. But I saw nothing unexpected. He was in his normal human form. He had taken hold of the cable and wrapped himself around it and was hanging underneath it. He was shimmying through the coil.

I did the same, reaching out my paws and grabbing the cable. I shimmied my body out toward the coils. Somehow, it still didn’t register in my mind…

“What is he?”

“I don’t know, but he still has his pants on.”

I almost lost my grip. I looked at my paws. Yes, I had paws now.

They were furry on the back, but with palms and claws. I realized I had actually changed! I couldn’t believe it! I didn’t know right away exactly what I was, but clearly it was some kind of mammal. That in itself was a relief. Just having changed into anything was a relief. What a time for it to happen, too.

Whatever I was, it certainly made navigating that wire several times easier than it would’ve been with my normal hands and feet. My tail helped too. Yes, I had a tail. Looking back down my body and seeing it, I knew the truth. It was long, and it was pink, and it was snakelike. It tapered to a point at the end.