Shifting. Part 10

"Yeah." She smiled and hurried away.

I took two steps when a hand came down on my shoulder.

"You survived." Yana fell into step beside me, her eyes lingering on a purple bruise on my forehead.

"I suppose I did," I said.

"I wanted to thank you."

"For what?"

Yana grinned. "Getting Danni's a.s.s kicked out of school."

I couldn't help but smile. "Whatever."

"So, you wanna work tonight?"

"Seriously?"

"Seriously. The motocross is in town and I have tickets. Naalyehe said if you'd cover for me, I can go."

"Sure. What time?"

"Be there at four. I'll walk you through the basics."

" 'Kay."

"Awesome. I'll see you at lunch."

I walked the rest of the way to math alone. If I had been invisible for my first two weeks of school, I wasn't anymore. I might as well have been in a cage with Warning! Keep your distance! Dangerous creature! signs on it. Because I was now Silver High's main attraction.

I looked at myself in the mirror and winced, and not because the bruise on my forehead had turned ten shades darker. The Navajo Mexican had a dress code: black shirt and jeans without any holes, and long hair had to be in a ponytail or hairnet. Like that was a hard choice. Pretty easy dress code to follow, except the only black shirt I owned had a giant scarlet A painted on the front of it.

I grabbed my old thin jacket and walked into the living room, ponytail swishing against my shoulders.

"You ready?" Mrs. Carpenter asked, eyeing the shirt.

"Yep."

We got into her truck and drove downtown.

"Do you mind asking one of the other servers for a ride home?" Mrs. Carpenter asked as she parallel parked in front of the restaurant. "I have my quilting circle at the retirement home tonight and sometimes it goes pretty late."

"Yeah. No problem," I said.

"Did you bring your house key?"

I patted my pocket.

"Good." The wrinkles between her white eyebrows deepened. "On second thought, maybe I should pick you up. I called animal control to see if they'd found any of those dogs, but they didn't find a trace of 'em. If they decide to attack you again ..."

"I'll be fine." I got out of the truck and waved as Mrs. Carpenter pulled away.

The Navajo Mexican had only four customers when I arrived, their voices mingling with the soft drums and chanting played over the speaker system. Yana was at a table taking an order. She smiled and mouthed, "Thank you!"

"Magdalena!" a voice called. I jumped. Jose came bustling out from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a rag. "Magdalena. You're right on time. Here, come and get an ap.r.o.n and a name tag."

Magdalena? I looked at Yana. She shrugged.

I followed Jose into the kitchen and my eyes started to burn. Naalyehe was chopping onions faster than I could see. He paused and looked over his shoulder. Our eyes met and he set the knife down.

"Yana told me what happened at school," he said. My face started to burn. Naalyehe reached into his pocket and pulled something out. "This is for you. Yo-ih. It means 'beads.' " He held a bracelet up. It was made from red and white gla.s.s beads interwoven with three larger, brown beads. "Those," Naalyehe said, touching the brown, "are cedar berries. They will keep you safe."

I reached out to take the bracelet, but before I could, Naalyehe hooked it onto my left wrist and whispered something I couldn't understand.

"Thanks," I said, wondering if he had a mild case of dementia.

He nodded and turned back to chopping onions.

Jose handed me a white ap.r.o.n, which I tied around my hips. I looked up to find him studying the letter on the front of my shirt.

"I'm sorry. This is the only black shirt I own," I said.

"It's fine," Jose said. "You can have anything except profanity on your shirt, as long as the shirt itself is black. I was just wondering if you bought it that way or made the A yourself. Es interesante."

"That means 'interesting,' " Naalyehe said over his shoulder.

I looked down at the scarlet letter, at the spattered spray paint. Maybe it was sort of interesting.

"Are you ready to work?" Jose handed me a pin-on name tag.

I stared at it blankly. "This isn't my name."

"I thought you needed a bit of Latino flare, Magdalena. When my wife heard I was hiring a gringa ..." Jose's voice trailed off and he carefully pinned the name tag over my heart.

"Nervous?" he asked.

"Very."

He smiled. "Well, just do your best and hustle. Even if your serving isn't too good, your pretty face and the food will make up for it. You'll do fine."

With a pad of paper and a pen, I went out into the dining room. For thirty minutes Yana showed me how to seat people, where the menus were, how to use the pop machine, and how to take food orders.

I can't say waiting tables was easy. It was actually really hard. And even though the restaurant wasn't very busy, I ran the floor alone after Yana left. Midway through my shift I was sticky with sweat and my back ached between my shoulder blades. But I was getting tips. Not a lot-five dollars here, a few ones there. And people actually talked to me, unlike at school. At the restaurant I wasn't invisible, and I wasn't the main attraction. I was just me.

A little after nine o'clock, after my last customers had gone, Jose came into the dining room with a broom and dustpan, and turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED.

"Magdalena," he said, "good work. Why don't you take the trash out, then come and see me. Dumpster's out back."

"All right, boss," I said, wiping my damp forehead.

I carried the restaurant's sticky, leaking trash bags through the kitchen. Naalyehe held the back door open for me and watched as I crossed a small parking lot to the Dumpster.

"Thanks," I said as I walked back into the kitchen.

He nodded and locked the door.

I took the tips from my ap.r.o.n and put them into my jeans pocket, then went back to the dining room. Jose was finishing sweeping the floor.

"Ah, gringa. How was your first night?" he asked, handing me the dustpan.

"Tiring!" I said, rolling my aching shoulders. I put the dustpan at the edge of a junk pile and Jose swept it into the pan.

"You did surprisingly well for having no experience. I'll put you on next week's schedule."

A smile danced onto my face. "Sounds good." I dumped the dustpan's contents into the trash and handed it to Jose.

"All right. Buenas noches, then, Magdalena."

I stared at him.

"It means 'good night,' " he explained.

"Oh. 'Night," I replied, taking a step toward the front door. I paused. "Jose?"

"Si?"

"Aren't you going home?"

He laughed. "There's work to do. Naalyehe and I will be here another hour at least."

"Oh. All right." I didn't bother to ask for a ride home. I knew the way.

I stepped out into the cool, dry New Mexico spring night. The air felt amazing on my sweat-dampened skin. Overhead, the stars shone brilliant, looking close enough to touch. I stared at them as I started the slow walk toward home.

I'd gone two blocks when I realized I had forgotten my jacket. I wouldn't have cared, would have just kept going, if it didn't have my house key in it. Groaning, I turned around and began walking back.

Naalyehe was mopping the floor when I walked into the restaurant.

"Why are you back?" he asked, glancing at the bracelet on my wrist.

"Forgot my jacket and house key," I explained, hurrying to the back room. "Bye," I said a second time.

"Be safe, Maggie Mae," Naalyehe said.

For the second time, I trudged wearily toward home. The occasional pa.s.sing car lit up the dark night as I hurried along the city streets. It wasn't until I was out of downtown and walking along a lonely, deserted stretch of road that I realized a car kept driving by-the same car. My palms started to sweat.

The car crawled by a fourth time. My blood flowed double-time as I stared at the glowing red taillights. When the brake lights flashed crimson, I stopped walking and watched the car pull to the side of the road fifty yards ahead. It flipped a U-turn.

I was off the road and crashing through dry, brittle weeds. The car inched to a stop at the very place I'd been standing.

I crouched behind a narrow-trunked juniper and listened. A car door opened and slammed shut. Feet thumped on cement and then began snapping sticks and swishing through weeds.

My blood turned to ice as a dark figure picked its way toward my hiding place. Who in their right mind would follow a lone female into the woods on a dark night? Only a murderer or rapist. I needed a dog for protection. Or pepper spray.

I had a thought. An epiphany, actually.

Call me freaking crazy, but I unhooked my new bracelet and then tore off my clothes, right there in the woods, in spite of the fact that I was alone with a (possibly) murdering rapist. I was mad with fear and totally desperate.

And I had a plan.

I closed my eyes and thought of Shash, his lean body, long black-and-white fur, the smell of him, the sound of his barking. Then I willed myself to become him. Forced myself to change. My hearing sharpened, then my sense of smell. My fingers shrank, claws replaced my nails, and my teeth grew long and sharp. I fell to all fours, growling at the shadow slinking through the trees, then darted forward, barking.

A shrill scream broke out in the night. The shadow turned toward the road and started to run, but fell with a heavy thud and noisy expulsion of breath. The scent of soap and lavender drifted on the air, but I couldn't quite place where I'd smelled it before. Then I heard the voice.

"Please, good doggy, don't hurt me!" she begged. It was Ginger. I could hear her heart jumping in her chest, hear her labored, terrified breathing, smell the acrid tang of fear. "I was just trying to find my friend to see if she wanted a ride somewhere! Don't hurt me."

A high-pitched whine left my throat. I had to make sure she wasn't hurt. With my ears flat against my head and my tail wagging, I slowly walked toward her.

Ginger jumped to her feet, ran to her idling car, and drove away.

I hung my head and tucked my tail between my legs. If I had just stayed on the side of the road and found out who had been following me, I would be in a car on my way home at this very moment. Instead, I was a smelly old dog three miles from home.

Joy filled me and my tail began to wag so hard my entire b.u.t.t wagged with it. Had I been human, I would have danced a jig, would have jumped for joy, screamed with elation. I had changed! It wasn't the full moon, yet I had changed! Because I wanted to! And not only that, I had changed into Shash ... on purpose.

I trotted over to my pile of clothing and picked up my jeans and T-shirt, careful not to spill the tips from my jeans. Somehow I managed to get my shoes by their untied laces, but couldn't get the jacket into my mouth. Although, with a dog's sense of smell, I could come back for it another time. And besides, I was clothed in a fur coat.

I ran home.

In Mrs. Carpenter's yard, I willed my body back to its normal shape and I ... changed back.

"Yes!" I whispered, silently clapping my hands. For two years I had been shifting at the most terrible times. I had no idea that it could be a voluntary transformation.

I got dressed in the dark, grinning, until I remembered my key was in my jacket pocket. The smile fell from my face and my shoulders slumped.

The house was dark and Mrs. Carpenter's truck wasn't in the driveway. I walked to the front porch and rattled the door handle. Locked.

I sat on the porch swing, weighing my options-wait for Mrs. Carpenter, or go back for the jacket? Then another brilliant idea came to me. I had changed into a housecat before, and a dog. What if I could change into something really fast-a natural runner. Like a cheetah?

For the second time that night, I stripped, folding my clothes into a neat pile and setting them on the swing.

I tried to remember exactly what a cheetah looked like-the long, rangy, superthin body and gold, feral eyes-then willed myself to take its form. Slowly, agonizingly, I felt myself begin to change. The shifting of shapes felt awkward, like trying to fit a square package into a round box. And then I was a big, lean, spotted cat with really long sharp claws, amazing night vision, and a tail as thick as my human wrist.

Then I ran.

I don't mean ran, but flew, glided, soared over the land with more speed and grace than I'd ever imagined. I was like water rushing over a smooth surface. My body was so fine-tuned and fast, I could imagine how it would feel to drive a Ferrari one hundred miles per hour. Trees blurred as air slipped over my speeding form.

In mere moments I was at the spot where I'd left my jacket. I picked it up carefully, for I had felt my razor-sharp teeth, had licked them with my sandpaper tongue.