I am not a committee

Someone really smart once said that a committee of three is the perfect size to get something done if two of their members are absent.

Princess Leia said, "I am not a committee!"

It seems the more people involved in fixing something, either the longer it takes to get done, or the worse it becomes. Our hospital is changing to a new computer system. They've spent several years working on it and probably millions of dollars. After all that, it doesn't work.

So tonight there's an issue with the printer printing out patient registration information when it shouldn't. It's not a huge issue, except that it wastes a lot of paper. So we have three IT people working on the problem, they keep coming to discuss it with us and what we think is going wrong, I'm sure they're talking to the doctors and nurses and asking for their input, and some of the other registration people who apparently haven't figured out that they have jobs they're not doing keep talking about what they think the problem is.

Stop.

We spent a lot of money on this system. We pay IT people to make it work. Between them, they should be fixing it. We shouldn't be involved. The more that they try to get people involved, the more screwed up things seem to get.

Here's the solution. Find someone with a brain and pay them to fix it. Consult as few people as possible in fixing it.

And while we're on the issue, us peons in admitting were only trained on how to do our job. We weren't trained to do the nurse part, the doctor part, or the check in part. We weren't trained (and it's not our job) to discharge patients. So stop coming to us when your computer doesn't work. Don't ask us if you don't know how to do your job.

I need a couple days off. Glad I get them :)

Wednesday we're going to the zoo, and Wednesday night I have my sleep study. Hurray!

GO TO A HAPPY PLACE!

To be a practicing doctor, you have to have four years of college, three years of med school, and three years of internship.

To be an RN, you have to have four years of college.

You'd think after this, you would be able to perform simple tasks. You'd think you would be considerate to your peers.

You'd be wrong.

No wonder the medical field is in trouble in this country.

Yes, I am still breathing

This morning I woke, lying on my back (which is odd for me) my hands folded on my chest (which is probably a creepy pose, being it makes me look like a corpse in a coffin). I noticed my wife's hand on my chest. To any who know, this is a comforting sensation, much like someone putting their hand on your shoulder. But then I had an idea. Why would my wife lay there with her hand on my chest if she didn't think I was awake.

So I asked her, "Are you checking my pulse?"

"You can't take someone's pulse on their chest. I'm making sure your chest is still rising and falling."

She thought I'd stopped breathing! Creepy! She went on to tell me that I had been snoring loudly and just randomly stopped. I know (and I suspect she knows as well) that people that have sleep apnea can stop breathing during the night, and my mother has told me that I've done that before (though why she never had it checked out when I was younger, I don't know).

Well, I was breathing, and I am alive, but I can't criticize my wife. She cares about me, for some reason.

And I had similar experiences when Will was still young. When he'd sleep, he'd be so still and quiet I thought maybe something was wrong. On many occasions I would check to see if I could feel a pulse because I worried about the booger. See, God gives us these little humans to care for, and children are quite resilient, but they're also fragile in their way, and I'm afraid I'll break the little guy. So when my wife checked to see if I was still breathing, I was okay with that. And she knows CPR, so if I ever stop breathing when she's around, I feel fairly confident she could take care of me.



And a side note:

I dreamt this morning that we went down and were visiting Rhia. And she didn't like me. At all. It was very depressing. That's why you shouldn't sleep in. You get weirder dreams when you try to sleep in.

For Future Home Buyers

When we were looking for a home, and had picked out our current home, our realtor advised against the full inspection because it's expensive. And while she was right, and we didn't have the money for the inspection at the time, I wish I'd gotten it.

You see, the other night, during the thunderstorm (which included a nice hail show) our frequently leaking bathroom ceiling pulled a new feat. The standard leak would be a drip drip drip that would get annoying. I thought that was bad enough. The other night was a like a faucet turned on low. It was a continuous flow of water. We had to put our trash can on our toilet to catch the flow. Sigh.

So, if you're looking for a house, pay for the full inspection. It is so worth it. We probably wouldn't have bought this house knowing some of the problems.

And also, pay particular attention to anything that doesn't look right. Any little project that you think you'll fix when you move in will likely take six months to take care of. At least. If you simply can't find a house that is in your budget that's also doesn't have problems, it's best to stay in your apartment. In an apartment you have people to come around and fix stuff for you, and they have to pay for it. Sure, they may take a while, they may be rude, they may come and inconvenient times, and they may go through your underwear drawer, but it's worth it if you're not ready to do these things on your own.

But then, if you do have some money saved away, and you can find a house that has a minimum of problems and passes a thorough inspection, then ownership is nice because you can put down roots. At my house, I don't feel like I can put down roots. Putting up pictures is problematic because the walls are crap. Anything we do is to make it nice enough to sell in a few years. I almost wished we had stayed in an apartment. But it was good for the learning experience.

Is that Ben Gay I smell?

Our friend Dave gave us gift cards for the New Theater Restaurant
several years ago and last night we finally went. We saw Rumors, a
funny show about a dinner party that shows up at the house of a guy
that shot himself, in the earlobe. All show long the guests try to
figure out what happened, mostly by the gossip they've about each other.

Apart from the show, I think this theater was designed for the 60+
crowd. There were a few people our age, but not many.

The food was all good, and all very tender and in small pieces for our
denture crowd. And at times I think I caught a slight wiff of Ben Gay.
Not that I can say anything, back when I was having back problems I
dabbled in some analgesic cream.

But with all the slow movers, we were able to get to our quickly and
onto the road. Glad I parked on the side.

Sent from my iPhone

You're listening to Matt FM

The one radio station we can agree to listen to at work is Jack FM. They play a good mix of 70s-2000s music, and their trademark is "playing what we want", as in, no requests. It's not the best, but it works. Recently though, we've realized that every night we hear the same songs. It gets a bit dull. Especially on the weekend when faced with 9 and a half hour shifts.

So, on Saturday I bought a radio that I could plug my iPod into so we could listen to that instead. At first, we just listened to whatever albums I put on. This works, but we can only listen to so much Billy Joel. Well, you can listen to a lot of Billy, but not every night, and a lot of his songs are not child friendly.

To remedy this I set up a playlist where I loaded all the songs I like and that are appropriate for work play. Now, I've got a pretty healthy collection of music on the iPod, enough to play for two weeks straight without stopping or repeating a song. The playlist is 269 songs, and that's just what I could put together for now. No commercials, and all Matt-friendly music. And my coworkers seem to like it too.

Now, if I could just get some little Matt FM jingles to play between songs.

Things I wish I could do at work to annoy people

Learn Spanish and then refuse to translate for the nurses (because they really should be using the language line).

Stick my tonuge out at the people waiting in line (while they're obviously healthy children are running around and playing) 45 minutes before we open.

Play my music loud enough to drown out the winers.

Tell people what I think of them.

Refuse to help people who are lazy, rude, and lie about us (us being admitting).

Answer stupid questions with stupid answers.

Ask people if they need to go back to training.

Ask people if I can "walk them through that".

Tell bossy people that they are on too low a pay grade to tell me what to do.

Tell people to find a ladder and look me in the eye when they're talking to me.

Answer everything with "your mom" (ie: your mom needs to bring me those consent forms).



PS: I swear I was in a really good mood to start the day. And now that I've vented, I feel better. Now I just hope my supervisors don't read my blog.

Doctors and their offices

On the 31st of March (nineteen days ago now) I had an appointment with an otarlaryngologist (yes, ENT is easier to say/type, but I like saying/typing it out because it makes me feel smarter) about my possible sleep apnea. The doctor said his staff would call the hospital to set up a sleep study and they would call me to set the appointment. Each week I called back to ask when this was going to happen. They kept assuring me I would get a call (and that was when someone from the doctor's office would call me back). Finally today I got a call from the hospital. The wrong hospital.

See, they were going to do the sleep study at St Luke's East hospital because it's right next to his office and he knows the people there. Today, St Luke's downtown hospital called me back. Now, Wednesday when I called the doctor's office, I made sure to tell them that the doctor wanted the appointment at St Luke's East, not downtown. So, to avoid further complications (or maybe to create them) I went ahead and scheduled downtown.

The call from the downtown hospital came while I was on the road and I didn't want to have to go through all the logistics of setting an appointment while on the road, so I asked if I could call back in five minutes. I finished traveling home, called back, and was on hold for seven minutes before I could even speak to someone. Seven minutes is a long time to be on hold. If you want to try, go get a CD that you really dislike (or turn your radio to some smooth jazz station) and listen to it for seven minutes, while holding your phone to your head. And make sure you're somewhere you can take notes, ie, not comfortable to sit for seven minutes while waiting. And, to make it even more realistic, go put some food on the stove, wait until you can smell it cooking, and try said experiement. Not too fun.

But after all is said and done, I have an appointment for a sleep study on April 30th, only a month after my initial appointment. I just hope they don't watch me while I sleep. Talk about uncomfortable.

The masculine side of punctuation

So there's this, let's say friend, that guys like to harass women about. It comes around once a month and guys think that it makes women nutty. Of course, bringing it up doesn't help things. If I were to tell my wife she's emotional because of this friend, it only makes things worse.

What men don't realize is that men have this visitor too. Sure, it doesn't manifest physical symptoms, but they do have it. And it comes more than once a month. In fact, our monthly friend comes to visit every 7-10 days.

Have you ever noticed that your male friends get irritable and depressed every so often? Yep, that's it. Sure, it's worse in some guys than others, but we all get it. Men have cycles too, we just don't want to admit it.

This weekend, for example, I was just in a terrible mood. It wasn't because of anything anyone had done, I was just not very happy. Then the other day, I got really emotional and started to get all teary-eyed while reading Leven Thumps. It wasn't sad, I was just emotional.

So, to all you women out there, don't let men give you crap. We have issues too, and we have them more often. We just try to hide them.

But if you want to have fun, when a man friend of yours is being emotional, tell them he's just dealing with his monthly friend. See how he likes it :)

Dude, I made this

> We had this fish in the freezer, and though I don't really like
> fish, I wanted to use it. So I looked up this recipe and made some
> baked salmon. Along with that is some cheesy mashed potatoes and
> cheesy veggies. I was a little surprised everything turned out well.
>
> I also made oatmeal cookies. Sometimes I'm industrious.
>

Energy Level = Bleh

I don't know about the rest of you, but my energy today is crap. I went to bed around 1:30 am (don't judge, that's good for me, considering I got off work at 12:30 am), got up at 12:15 pm, went to a training downtown, and came straight to work. After almost eleven hours of sleep, you'd think I'd be well rested. I really need to get in for that sleep study.

So now it's 11:45 at night and we close at midnight. Does that mean I can go home? Not so much. Usually, but not tonight. We still have fourteen patients sitting around, including four that haven't even been seen by their doctor yet. That's bad at this time of night. We should have maybe three people total, all of whom seen by their doctors at this point. At least tomorrow is my day off.

But then Will had his shots today, so he won't be happy.

Here's hoping we don't have another child come in before midnight.

Blog Stats

According to that fun Google Analytics thing Rhia told me about, my blog got 113 hits from Wisconsin. What's that about? That's more than I've gotten from anywhere else? If you're reading my blog, and you live in Wisconsin, let me know. Say hi.

Or, if you're not one of my regular blog commenters, and you somehow know me, or just like the blog, send me a comment. It'll be fun. Really. Maybe. Or not. But anyway, go ahead and comment.

Roxy the dog has gone to a better place

Between having a small home, Emily being in school, wanting a second
child, and wanting to travel in a few years, we decided we didn't have
the time or space for our dog anymore. So we had to put her...into
another family's home. Emily says they're nice, about our age, with a
little girl Will's age. They've had dogs before, so they know what
they're getting into. I'm a little sad. Now Emily wants a cat. I told
her we'd wait until we got back from Omaha before thinking about that.
Bye Roxy, :...(

my Development has been Arrested

I never watched Arrested Development when it was on. My wife owns the second season, but I've never watched that either. She, my friend Dave, our friend Suzzanne, and many others think it's the funniest thing ever. I've still never watched it.

Until today.

I put it on our Netflix queue, figuring I'd check it out. Let me say, it's freaking hilarious.

And it's unedited.

But it's still funny, and wildly inappropriate. What have I been missing?

An Auspicious Occasion

Yesterday I knew there was some sort of occasion to be remembered, but it took until today to remember. May 9th is the seventh anniversary of my mission call, so I thought I'd blog about that.

I remember putting in my paperwork and waiting not-so-patiently for my call (which only came after about three weeks). What I remember about the time was that my mother had just watched Cast Away and thought I would get called to Russia. At the same time people kept asking me where I'd like to go. My response was that I wouldn't say where I wanted to go because then I won't get sent there. But I don't want to go to Salt Lake City!

My reasons for that is I figured everyone in SLC was either LDS already or had heard about it enough that they were sick of it. My mission papers arrive, and I'm going to...Salt Lake City. Ooh boy. But on the bright side, a friend of mine got his papers about the same time and got sent to Russia. The other friend went to Australia, on a Mandarin speaking mission. I remember taking German in High School and not doing very well in the subject. So maybe I got lucky.

The thing about SLC that a lot of people don't realize is that it isn't mostly LDS. It's only about 40%, and of those, only about a third are active. So there's plenty of work to do. And the Utah missions were always the highest baptizing English speaking missions.

I have this polaroid picture (back when they had polaroids), somewhere in my belongings, of my family (my mother and two sisters) and I at the Kansas City International Airport on the day I flew out. It traveled throughout my mission and usually was posted at my desk. You can even see my airplane tickets sticking out of my suit pocket. Consequentally that day was the first time I had flown.

Now, if you've served a mission, you know the instructions they give you are as clear as mud. On the plane I started freaking out that I'd get lost, wouldn't get to the MTC, and there would be all kinds of trouble. I remember thinking that I really needed a companion. (At this time I had never lived away from home or traveled anywhere without my family-sheltered life, I know.)

Well, funny thing, I was provided with a companion. At the SLC airport, while trying to find the shuttle that was going to take me to the MTC, I met Sister McRitchie, a sister from Alberta, Canada. We stayed close while waiting/trying to find this shuttle, all the way to the the MTC. It didn't really do anything to help because she didn't know any more than me, but there's a certain comfort knowing that if you get lost, at least you're not lost AND alone.

Through the mission I joked that my first companion was a sister.

It's Under Pressure! Not Ice Ice Baby!

Once upon a time there was this wonderful song, a collaberative effort of two masters: Freddie Mercury of Queen and David Bowie of...um...David Bowie. The song is called Under Pressure. If you haven't heard of it, think of Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice. The music to the song was completely ripped off and Mr. Ice changed the lyrics to some stupid white boy rap. I can forgive him for this because Queen lives on in rock legend, while Vanilla Ice is a joke. (And the fact that Vanilla Ice was sued for copyright infringement and lost.) Well, our local radio station thought it might be a good idea to mix the songs, taking turns playing both lyrics over the same music. This is an insult. Putting Vanilla Ice and Queen/David Bowie in the same song is disgusting and I hate it.

I'll have a happier blog later, but I needed to vent.

I think I'm turning Japanese

Today I picked up this Japanese soda from World Market. I'd never had
a Japanese soda, so I wanted to try it. Well, it tasted like corn
syrup, starch, and a dash of citric acid, which is exactly what it
was. But the fun thing was the bottle. To open, you take the top
off, revealing a sort of plunger. You use that to pop a glass marble
down into the bottle. The marble kind of rattles around this top
section of the bottle as you drink. It was pretty cool, even if the
soda itself wasn't particularly good.

Crying Over Sour Milk or Things You Shouldn't Do With Dairy Products

On my mission, I remember having bought a gallon of milk, but not drinking it by the sell-by date. I'm sure you know that drinking milk on or near the sell-by date is dangerous, so we didn't drink it. Nor did we throw it away. We just left it in the fridge. Then we decided to run an experiment. We took the bad milk from the fridge and left it on the counter. For several days. I don't know if our original intent was to use the sour milk for evil, but it evolved into that.

You see, there was this missionary we didn't really like (Alison, you can ask if you'd like. You may or may not have known him.) and the idea was we would just let the milk sit and get super-rank and then take it to this missionary's apartment and hide it somewhere (preferably by a heater). We liked his companion, but he was going to have to be collateral damage.

So on one P-Day (the missionary off day) my companion woke up and went to the kitchen without turning the lights on. We stepped in something wet and smelled a wonderful vomit-like odor and thought, "crap, my companion is sick on our off day. We'll just have to stay in today." Then he realized, it wasn't vomit he was standing in, it was something much, much worse.

Now I'll bet that most of you don't realize what horrors milk can do when it gets really bad. I don't remember anymore how long we had left the milk to go bad. But apparently milk, when rotten enough, can eat through the plastic container. This is, if you haven't been following, what happened. Rancid milk was on the linoleum floor (which isn't too bad) and had flowed over to the carpet (really bad).

There is something else you should know. The scent of milk, once rotten and vomit-like, doesn't go away fast. In fact, in the couple months I spent in that apartment, the odor never went away. It got better after a while, but it was always there. And if any local members came by, they could still smell it, though they wouldn't say anything unless asked.

The moral of this story, if there is one, is that if you plan to play a particularly vicious prank on someone, especially someone in the Lord's service, you may want to think twice. Or at least bear in mind that milk can rot through plastic.

That's Flatchtastic!

This is what I say when I or someone around me has a particularly impressive bout of gas, either top or bottom. The root word is obviously flatulance, and it took several tries to get the word right, but I'm impressed.

Yes, I'm a boy sometimes.

A coworker calls it having frogs. Now her 3-year-old son tells his mom he has a frog, and that she should say hello to it. So it's not just boys.

Are girls as bad about these sorts of things?

Roxy: The Killer Guard Dog

This morning, at about quarter to five, our dog, Roxy, starts barking. Loudly. Without stopping. This rarely happens, and it never happens overnight. As soon as I wake up my first thought is: there's someone in the house. So I get up to go check it out, like the good husband/father I am. I first notice that our porch light is on. The motion detecting porch light. The motion detecting porch light that doesn't detect squirrels or cats.

Okay, I should take this time to say that our front door isn't the most secure. It's old with a large pane of glass making up most of the door. One of those panes of glass that is completely see-through and whose glass is so old that it's starting to warp.

Now, we keep a curtain covering our door and the windows, but there's still plenty of cracks around the curtains too see out, and conversely, in. So I first check out the side window to see if I can detect anything (because why would I start off by exposing myself at the front door where anyone can see/shoot me?). I see nothing, so I check the window that looks out front (and onto the porch, kind of like Mr. Rogers). There's a car parked behind mine with its headlights on. I don't like people parking on our property, but that's another story.

So, last, I check the front door, feeling fairly confident that no one is at the door. The car behind mine moves and goes to our new ghetto-fied neighbors. Our neighbors were having company show up at 4:45 in the morning and apparently came to the wrong door, turning our motion sensor light on and upsetting our dog. Now my fear has turned to annoyance. I try, as a neighbor, to leave my neighbors the heck alone. As far as I'm concerned, they shouldn't even have to know I'm there half the time. I dislike our new neighbors and their curious nighttime habits.

But I'm glad to know Roxy is a good guard dog. Anyone want her?

Short Story: The Bird Girl

Note: It seems Word documents don't seem to copy well into blogger, so some of the spacing got messed up. Just remember: the only breaks that count are when I put in three asterics (***). Otherwise it's just blogger and Word not getting along.

The most exciting thing about Daniel’s day wasn’t the moving truck backing up in front of the house next door. It wasn’t that he was finally getting new neighbors after a year without any. It was the possibility that he would have someone to hang out with that was his age.
There were a few men moving things into the house. Basic things; boxes, a couch, TV, bed frame. Nothing exciting. They just looked like a normal family. The men looked alike. Brothers? Half an hour later a car parked on the curb and a young woman got out and walked over to the men unloading the truck. Keys in hand, she walked to one of the men, reached on her toes and kissed him. Their conversation carried over to Daniel.
“She won’t get out of the car,” the woman said.
“Why not?”
“She says she hates the neighborhood and that it’s not fair that she had to move.”
“We’re only trying to protect her,” the man said. “Besides, it was her own fault. If she’d be more careful.”
“She’s sixteen; she doesn’t want to be careful. But it doesn’t matter, we’re here. Can you talk to her?”
“Sure.”
What was this about? Who were these people? Daniel had put together that this was a couple with a daughter who didn’t want to live here. The father’s brother was helping them. They moved to protect the daughter, who was in some sort of danger because she wasn’t careful enough.
Daniel’s parents had planted hedges a year ago and they had reached a decent height around their porch. He crouched down and peered between the branches. The father walked to the car and opened the passenger side door to talk to the occupant. Daniel still couldn’t see her.
“You’re going to have to come out sometime,” the father said.
She didn’t answer.
“Abie, I’m just trying to protect you. If we had stayed, you might be dead.”
Dead? Daniel swallowed. This must be some sort of witness protection thing.
“You could have picked a cooler neighborhood,” the daughter said. “This place is so cookie-cutter. Every house is the same. I bet every family is the same too. A Beaver Cleaver mom and dad, two boys and a girl, a cat, a dog, and a few fish. They probably don’t even know how to dance.”
“Maybe you could teach them.”
“Whatever.”
“Why don’t you give it a try? At least go inside and see the house. I don’t want you in the car all day. It’ll be nicer to have your company in the house.”
“You mean it will be easier to watch me in the house.”

Before the father could answer, the daughter pushed her way out of the car. The hedge blocked his view of her head, but she seemed normal enough. She wasn’t too tall and she was slender. She wore Capri jeans and a striped shirt with long sleeves. In her right hand was a music player with headsets that must have reached to her ears.
Daniel moved around, trying to get a better look at her. He moved a branch slightly and saw her. He’d never seen anyone quite like her. He’d like to say she was a red head, but that wasn’t really true because just her bangs were red. The crown of her head was silver and the back was black. It was the weirdest thing, but a little cool. His heart sank as he realized that this girl would be too cool to hang out with someone like him.
His legs were getting sore from crouching and he shifted slightly to get more comfortable. As soon as he did she saw her neck snap towards him. Her head jerked and bobbed a little like she was trying to get a look at him. He tried not to move. He didn’t want to have to explain why he was spying on his new neighbors.
He tried to let go of the branch he was holding in case she could see him. When his finger moved the girl’s head stopped and she ducked a little, her eyes meeting his. There was no way she could see him through the dark hedge, but somehow she knew he was looking at her.
They stayed there for a moment before she was startled by her mother’s voice.
“Are you coming in, Abie?”
She looked at her mother and nodded. She walked towards the house but kept looking back as she did. Once she was inside Daniel fell back, feeling like his heart was going to explode. How had she seen him? And what was with the way she moved her head? It was a little freaky.
Before anyone came back outside he got into his own house. He just hoped that he was imagining things and the girl hadn’t really seen him.
***
An alarm blared next to Daniel’s ear. He flopped his arm out, hitting his bedside table and knocking over an empty cup before finding the alarm clock. He hit the snooze button again, not sure how many times he had hit it previously. He leaned over and tried to focus on the red numbers. He saw the time, 7:25. He wasn’t really sure what that meant. He blinked several times and tried to clear the haze from his head. Almost seven thirty in the morning. What did that mean? The bus! He was supposed to catch the bus at seven thirty!
He jumped out of bed, no time to shower. He pulled on jeans and a t-shirt, grabbed his backpack, and rushed for the door. By the time he hit the porch he saw the bus flying by. He’d missed it. Wonderful.
He turned to go back in the house when he saw his neighbor’s door open. The new neighbor girl, Abie, with the wonderfully freakish hair, stepped onto the porch. Daniel backed to his own door to avoid being seen. Maybe he should offer her a ride to school. With his mom as the driver. Wouldn’t that be the coolest thing ever. But it would give him a chance to talk to her.
He was about to call out to her when he saw her look both ways quickly before jumping in the air. Before his brain could process the fact that it was weird for someone to just randomly jump, it was sidetracked by the fact that she was nowhere in sight. He blinked. A bird flew off from where Abie had been standing and Daniel had the dangerous idea that the bird had a red brow, grey body, and black tail.
No, that wasn’t it. Abie had fallen. The hedge on his porch had blocked the view. She was probably laying there in pain. He should help her.
Daniel left his porch and walked to the neighbor’s house. No one was there. Where was she? He was reminded of the old Sherlock Holmes adage his father had taught him. If you remove the impossible, whatever remains, however unlikely, must be true.
So, what was impossible? It was impossible that Abie was a bird. He had paid enough attention in science to know that people didn’t turn into birds and visa versa. He also knew that there was some law that said something about matter changing. If it did change, it had to keep its mass, or something like that. So even if this girl could turn into a bird, it would have to be an Abie-sized bird. The bird he’d seen, or thought he’d seen, he wasn’t sure anymore, wasn’t Abie. It was just a strange coincidence.
Now that he knew what was impossible, what remained? Abie had come outside, jumped, then disappeared. He looked up. A tree was overhead, but surely she hadn’t jumped into the branches. They were low enough, but not strong enough to hold someone’s weight. He filed that idea under ‘impossible’. The other possibility was that she had jumped, fallen, known she was being watched, and crawled back to the house. That was more likely. Daniel didn’t know if she’d had the time to do all that, but it was much more likely. If he’d fallen on his porch and realized a cute girl was watching him, he certainly wouldn’t stay to be seen. He’d get away as fast as possible and hope no one would notice.
“Can I help you?”
Daniel’s head whipped around. It was Abie’s father. He realized he was still standing in his neighbor’s front yard. He wondered how long he had been there. This guy must think he was an idiot.
“I…think I missed the bus.”
“Sorry to hear that. Do you need a ride?”
“No. My mom is home. She can give me a ride.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Thank you.”
Daniel turned and walked away quickly, hoping the man wouldn’t call him back. He also hoped Abie wasn’t inside, laughing at him. He wasn’t paying attention to his feet and tripped on something. He fell onto the hard ground, his hands bracing his fall. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a large cat running into the backyard. He kept his head down. What an idiot he was. He had been caught standing in his new neighbor’s yard, now he had fallen in full view of anyone watching. Now he really wished Abie was a bird, so at least she hadn’t seen him fall.
He heard hurried steps then saw her father kneel down next to him.
“Are you all right?”
Daniel forced himself onto his knees.
“I’m fine,” he said.
“What happened?”
“I tripped over a cat. I didn’t see it.”
“A cat?” the man said, a little anxiety in his voice. “What kind of cat? What did it look like?”
Daniel looked at the man. He seemed upset. Great, he had fallen on this man’s cat too.
“I don’t know. I didn’t get a good look at it. Is it yours? I don’t think I hurt it. It ran into the backyard.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, maybe you should get going. You don’t want to be too late for school.”
The man helped Daniel up. He didn’t need to be told twice to go. He went into the house to get his mom to take him to school. As he stepped into his house, he thought he saw Abie’s father hurrying to the backyard. He really hoped he hadn’t hurt their cat.
***
Daniel noticed that Abie was in his first class. English. He liked the subject quite a bit, and his teacher was cute, so that didn’t hurt. But he did genuinely like the subject. They were studying Edgar Allen Poe at the moment. The last class they had read Fall of the House of Someone or Somesuch. He hadn’t really followed it. But then his teacher always dressed up on Fridays and he was distracted easily. He hoped today he’d be able to pay greater attention.
He almost jumped when the bell rang and the bird girl, no Abie, her name was Abie. She was not a bird. Anyway, he had a hard time staying in his seat when Abie sat next to him. He supposed it made sense; it was the only empty seat.
With her hair she seemed the type to slouch in her seat, a smirk plastered to her face, while she didn’t attention. Instead, she was sitting bolt upright, not leaning even the least bit against her chair. Her eyes were locked on the teacher. He wondered, with a little apprehension, if that was how people though he looked at their teacher. He pushed these thoughts away before he died of embarrassment.
“Can anyone tell me,” the teacher began, “the Edgar Allen Poe story where a bird says, ‘Never More’?”
Daniel sank in his seat. Don’t answer, don’t answer. Next to him, Abie raised her hand, high in the air, her fingers together and perfectly straight.
“Yes?” the teacher said.
“It was The Raven,” Abie answered.
“Very good.”
Daniel didn’t really hear the rest of what was said. This was pretty typical of this class, but for a completely different reason. His eyes kept sliding to his side to look at Abie. She was engaged in the discussion and didn’t seem to notice his attention. In his mind, he kept comparing her to the bird he saw. The red bangs could have been the bird’s brow. The silver of her crown matched the body. The black length definitely resembled the bird’s tail. The colors matched perfectly.
The bell rang and the class was on their feet. Daniel hadn’t paid attention and sat, still casting a side-long glance at Abie. She got up and shifted her eyes to him. They were the same dark color, and though he was sure it was just a fleeting look, it also seemed the quick look took in every detail about him. He shivered and looked away. In a moment she was out the door.
“Do you need something else, Daniel?”

He looked around for the voice. When he found it he knew that he must not seem itself. It was his teacher. She was standing at the head of the row of desks he was sitting at, wearing a smile that would make him melt most days.
“No, I didn’t notice the bell.”
“I see that. Do you know our new student well?”
“Um, she’s my neighbor, she just moved in.”
“Well that explains it.”
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t take your eyes off her all class,” his teacher said. “I had a hard time with her hair at first, but she seems nice enough.”
“She’s just…a little different.”
“Maybe. But aren’t we all?”
“I guess.”
“You’d better be on your way,” she said. “You’ll be late.”
“Sure.”
Daniel grabbed his things and was out the door. Had be been that obvious? Of course he had. But then he always paid that much attention to his teacher. Crap. She must have noticed that too. His heart sank to his stomach.
It jumped up to his throat when he rounded the corner and found himself face to face with Abie. She didn’t say anything at first. She stood there, blocking his way, her dark eyes locked on his. Her body didn’t follow suit, though. Her arms were bent at the elbow, and she seemed to dance from foot to foot a little, like she was deciding whether she should stay or run.
“Hi,” he started.
“What’s with you?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Why do you keep staring at me?”
“I…uh…you’re,” don’t say different, don’t say different, “a little unusual.” Yes, that was much better than different.
“Oh?”
His brain raced for something to say. But then he realized the answer was right in front of him. He didn’t need to conceal the fact that her hair was so wild. She must know it was different. He just needed to avoid the subject of birds.
“It’s just your hair, really,” he said. “I mean, it’s not bad, it’s just different.”
“It’s different, but not bad.” Her expression didn’t soften one bit.
“No, it’s good. I mean, the way the red falls across your brow, I mean bangs! Your bangs, I like that shade. And the silver flowing into the black tail, er, I mean the, um, what do you call the hair at the back?”
“The back,” she said, ice now filling her voice. “Most people just call it the back. But you like the silver?”
“Oh yeah, I love it!”
“What would you call that part of my hair? The wings?”
Crap.
“Were you watching me this morning?” she asked. “I thought that hedge of yours was a good hiding place. I had hoped it was a squirrel or something watching me.”
“I didn’t mean to, really.” Now that he was caught, Daniel somehow felt a little less nervous.
“So what was the story this morning?”
“I missed the bus. I was going to offer you a ride.”
“Why didn’t you? Trying to take a good peek at me?”
“No, I was just out the door when you, er, flew off.”
“Shush!” She clapped a hand to his mouth. For a moment he didn’t mind.
“I’m sorry about your cat,” he said when she lowered her hand.
She had been looking around to see if anyone was listening to them. They weren’t, they were all to their next class. Her eyes snapped back to him.
“I should go,” he said, turning. “I’m already late to second period.”
Abie grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
“What cat?”
“Your cat, I tripped over it going back to my house this morning. I think it was okay. Your dad went after it. I guess I should have helped.”
“We don’t have a cat, we wouldn’t have a cat.” She looked left and right down the hall. “Okay, come with me.” She grabbed his wrist and started pulling him down the hall.
“No, I’ll get in trouble. My math teacher is strict.”
“What? She’s not as cute as our English teacher?”
Daniel blushed.
“Come on,” she said, pulling him again. “You’ve seen more than you were supposed to. We need to talk. Where can we go that no one will see us?”
Daniel thought. There was the library, it was usually pretty empty. But the librarian would want a note. What was the deal with librarians?
“The press box. We could go there.”
“What’s the press box?”
“It’s where the announcers sit at the football games so they can see what’s going on.”
“Won’t it be locked?”
“The new one is, but there’s an old one they don’t use anymore. They don’t keep it locked. We can climb up; the ladder is behind the bleachers. No one will see it.” He didn’t mention that it was a favorite make out spot. Kissing this girl was last on his list of things to do right now. Well, maybe not last, but certainly not first.
“Let’s go.”
They ducked out the back door and headed across the football field. Luckily the gym class was doing laps on the other side of the school and they went unnoticed. Abie climbed up the ladder, followed closely by Daniel. Once they were inside they sat against the plywood walls, keeping their heads down.
“How much do you know?” Abie asked.
“You can turn into a bird, and your family seems to get freaked out by cats.”
“Good start. Tell me about the cat.”
“I don’t know, I didn’t see it, that’s why I tripped. After that I only saw it as it was running away.”
“This is important, Daniel. Anything you remember will help.”
“It was big,” he started. “Bigger than most house cats. But not fat. It was a darker color, but not black. Maybe some kind of grey.”
“Go on.”
“That’s it. No, its paws were different. Darker, maybe.”
“Was it a clean cat, like one someone looked after?”
“No, it wasn’t, come to think of it. It was mangy. It looked wild, like it lived in the woods.”
“I bet it was the cat man. He must have followed us.”
“Cat man? What do you mean? Like you?”
“Yeah, he’s a man. Where we used to live there was this guy my dad worked with. He came over after work one night to hang out with my parents. I didn’t know about it, I wasn’t home yet. So I had been out past curfew and wanted to sneak in. I’m sure you can imagine how that happened.”
“You flew in your bedroom window. I bet that’s pretty neat.”

“Yeah, but this guy was on the back porch smoking. He must have looked up and seen the bird. Then when he looks in my window he sees me, same hair color as the bird. Neither of us said anything, but I knew he knew. He started coming around a lot after that. When he didn’t say anything to my parents I figured we were safe. I couldn’t blame him. If I had seen something impossible happen, I’d keep it to myself.”
“He kept coming around once he saw you were a bird?”
“I’m not a bird.”
“Okay, once he saw you could change into a bird.”
“Yeah.”
“That’s creepy.”

“I know, but what could I say? My parents are pretty protective.”
“Then what happened?”
“My parents went to visit my grandmother. I didn’t want to go, so they left me at home. Dad wasn’t happy about it, but I refused to go and grandma was sick. So as soon as they’re gone, cat man breaks into the house.”
“Why do you call him the cat man?”
“Just wait, okay? I’m getting to it. He broke into my house. I was freaked. I turned into a bird without realizing it. I think a part of me knew what he was and that it was his job to play predator and my job to play prey. As soon as I changed, he turned into a cat. Came at me real fast. I was fluttering all around the house with him leaping at me. See this?”
Abie pulled the shoulder of her shirt down and Daniel could see three big scars on her shoulder and down her arm.
“That came from a cat? They’re huge?”
“They were normal size on my bird body. When I got away and changed back into this shape they were bigger. I thought I was going to die.”

“How’d you get away?”
“My parents came back home. Dad said he was worried and didn’t want to leave me alone. As soon as the door opened I flew out. Later dad said the cat man changed back. He was irate.”
“Yeah, finding a naked guy in his house. I bet he was upset.”
“Naked? Do you think I end up naked everywhere I go?”
“Well, clothes don’t just absorb into your body. Science…”
“Yeah, science. If science was right, even if I could change, I’d be a human-sized bird. But I’m not.”
“Then how does it work?”
“Magic.”
“Magic?”
“Yeah, magic,” Abie said. “That’s the only thing I’ve come up with that makes sense. But that’s not the point. I don’t lose my clothes, so don’t get excited, you won’t get to see me naked.”

“Okay, I’m sorry. So your dad found his coworker in his house?”

“Yeah, and he had seen him as the cat. He threw him out and that night we were packing. We knew I was in danger. This guy had known I could turn into a bird and his cat side told him to kill me. He’d spent all this time trying to get me alone so he could do it, too. So we knew we had to go, and here I am.”
“But he followed you.”
“Yeah. My dad will want to move again. But I don’t want to. I hate moving.”

“But he saw the cat man. You’ll have to go.”
“No,” Abie said. “We have to come up with an idea to get rid of the cat man.”

“We?”

“Yeah, you know what I am, so you have to help.”
“Fine, what do I do?”
“Help me come up with an idea.”
Daniel thought about this. “What do cats fear?”
“I don’t know, dogs?”
“Do you know a dog man?”
Abie smirked. “No. I only know the cat man. And this isn’t a cartoon where you can set the dog on the cat whenever he bothers the bird.”
“It was an idea.”
They sat in silence a while longer.
“It’s too bad we can’t have him arrested,” Daniel said.
“Wait, that’s not a bad idea.”
“Yeah it is. He hasn’t done anything wrong. Well, I mean he broke into your house, but he’d be in jail if you could prove it.”
“We could have him arrested.”

“I don’t follow.”
“I’m not talking about the police. What do you do when there’s a wild animal running around?”

“Call animal control?”
“Exactly!” Abie said. “We can catch him as a cat, call animal control, and they’ll take him away.”
“Yeah, until he turns back into a man and they let him go.”
“Hmm, you’re right. He’ll just change back.”

“Too bad there’s no way to keep him a cat. I’d love to see him stuck in that shape forever.”
“I got stuck once,” Abie said slowly.
“You did? As a bird?”
“Yeah. It was pretty freaky.”
“What happened?”
“My neighbors kept chickens. One day I was flying back and I saw them feeding. They had all this seed spread out, so I thought I’d grab a bite.”
Daniel gave her and incredulous look.
“Hey, when you’re a bird, you have the appetite of a bird. It’s really good on diets. Anyway, they had this chicken wire up, only I didn’t see it. I flew straight in and got my head stuck. I put up such a fit that my neighbor came over and cut me out.”
“But that just means you were stuck. That doesn’t mean you couldn’t change back.”

“Actually I tried. I was so afraid the chickens would peck my eyes out that I tried to change back. I thought maybe the sudden shift would break the wire.”
“But you couldn’t change?”
“No, I couldn’t. I was stuck as a bird.”
“We could trap him,” Daniel said. “We could fix him as a cat.”

“We should fix him. Do you spay or neuter a male cat?”
“That’s gross.”
“Okay. It’ll be bad enough to be stuck as a cat. How do we do it?”
“I have metal shop next period,” Daniel said. “I can make a metal collar for him.”

“Yeah, won’t animal control take it off?”
“I can make it look really nice, maybe inscribe it with some nice message and flowers and stuff. I’ll borrow a rivet gun and when we catch Mr. Cat Man, we’ll fix the collar on real good.”
“What’s a rivet?”

“You know those metal things on your jeans pockets that never come off?”
“Yeah?”
“We fix the collar on him with that and he’ll never get it off.”

“What will animal control do with a stray?”
“Well,” Daniel thought. “They’ll give it its shots. Then they’ll probably neuter it.” Abie actually giggled. “Then they’ll put it out for adoption.”

“The new family might take the collar off.”
“Maybe. But once he’s had to get all those shots, get neutered, and looked at all day as a cat, he may figure he’d better leave you alone. He may even like being a pet.”
“It’s not the best plan,” Abie said.
“But it’s a plan. Even if it works we’ll have to keep an eye out for old cat man from now on.”
“We?”
“Yeah, like you said, we’re in this together.”
Abie leaned on Daniel’s shoulder and put her arm around him. Their cheeks touched for a moment, and had the bell not rung, he thought they might have kissed. She let him go.
“Better get to metal shop,” she said.
“Yeah. I’ll see you after school?”
“Sure. I’ll have to convince my dad that the cat he saw wasn’t the cat man. If he asks, you saw a white Persian or something.”

“No problem.
***
Daniel felt like the next period went way to fast. First he had to convince his teacher to let him make the collar. The teacher was of the opinion that putting a metal collar on a cat and attaching it with a rivet was animal cruelty. Daniel explained that the collar wasn’t for a real cat, but for a statue his mother had. It was supposed to be a gift. His teacher agreed to let him do the project, and reluctantly let him take the rivet gun.
He was pretty proud of his project when it was finished, just minutes before the bell rung. It was silver in color with floral patterns going all around. In the middle he had inscribed the words, “A loving cat for a loving home”. He thought that might do the trick. His teacher was impressed with it too. He mentioned that Daniel might consider becoming a jeweler as he had seen bracelets for sale that weren’t as nice. This complement only distracted him from his concern for a moment. He knew that every passing moment brought Abie closer to danger. He knew that eventually someone would take the collar off, and the cat man might just be angry enough to come after her. If he had spent too much time as a cat, could he be taking on more feline characteristics? Might his human side be slipping away?
He had noticed the way Abie behaved. The way she jerked around and bobbed her head like a bird, the piercing glare, and above all, her hair. Why would she leave it like that? Wouldn’t it be like a beacon to anyone looking for her? He would have to ask her.
Daniel hid the new collar along with the rivet gun in his bag and got on the bus heading home. A moment later Abie got on, sitting next to him. The seats weren’t very wide and her hips rested against his. He noticed her scent, now. He hadn’t paid attention before, but she smelled just like a spring day. Clean, crisp, and refreshing. He tried to sit still. He didn’t want to embarrass himself. It was nice, though, having a friend. A friend that lived next door at that. He was used to sitting alone on the bus, staying at home all evening, reading or watching TV. He didn’t have friends to go hang out with. He had never been cool. Now, probably the coolest girl at school was sitting next to him. He tried not to smile.
But he remembered he wanted to talk to her too. It took a few moments to get his lips going. It was amazing. He had talked to her all day and now she was sitting next to him of her own will, and for some reason he was having trouble talking to her. Maybe this was why he didn’t have friends.
“Hey Abie, I wanted to ask you something?”
“Yeah?”
“About your hair. Why do you keep it like that? Isn’t it obvious to anyone looking for you?”
“Shh!”
“I’m sorry,” Daniel said. “I think it’s really cool. It’s just very noticeable too. The cat ma-“
“I said shut up!”
Abie elbowed him and gave him a warning look with her eyes. Now he felt stupid. She wasn’t his friend. She just needed him, and he had seen what she could do. It was a relationship of convenience. Daniel dropped his eyes to the floor of the bus and kept quiet. Fine, he’d help her out with the cat man and then never speak to her again. It was better that way. He just wasn’t cool enough to be friends with someone like her.
He lost track of where they were when Abie elbowed him again and stood up. He looked around in confusion. They weren’t home yet, were they? Abie bent down and grabbed his elbow, pulling him up.
“We’re home, let’s go.”
He followed her off the bus and was about to go to his own house when Abie called after him.
“Daniel. Where are you going?”
He turned to look at her and motioned to his house. “Home.”
“We need to figure out how we’re going to catch this guy,” Abie said. “Come inside with me, okay?”
“Sure.”
She led him to her front door and stopped.
“Let me make sure no one is home, okay? After this morning my dad is probably a little on edge.”
“Sure.”
Abie disappeared into the house and returned a few minutes later.
“We’re clear, come on.”
Daniel followed her in and up the stairs. Her room was on the right with a window facing his. He took a look around the room, curious about how a girl as cool as her would decorate. He saw a few posters for bands he hadn’t heard of. There was a dresser, a little chair in the corner next to a bookshelf, a television sitting opposite the bed, and a hamper with dirty clothes in it. But then he noticed the pictures. They were quite a collection. Apart from the posters, most of the wall space was covered in pictures. Some were framed, but a lot were just pinned to the wall. Some were painted and others were photographs. The painted ones seemed to come in two varieties; framed and unframed. The framed ones looked professional. He wasn’t sure if they were prints or originals. The unframed ones looked like Abie had done them. They were all in the same style and all were signed, on closer inspection, by “Abie”. The startling thing was that they were all birds.
“You like them?” she asked.
“You did some of these yourself.”
“Yeah, before we moved we had one of the bedrooms set up as a studio. My dad didn’t let me go out much, so I’d paint.”
“Only birds?”
“I’ve tried other things, but birds are my favorite. You can probably see why.”
In spite of himself, Daniel was interested. This was an amazing collection.
“You got all this set up overnight? You’ve barely moved in.”
“I know.” Abie blushed a little. “The pictures help me calm down. My parents move me around a lot. Since they found out that I could turn into a bird they’ve been protective. The last city we lived in we stayed too long. Dad thinks that’s why the cat man came after me. If we had moved earlier, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“That must be rough, having to run all the time.”
“It is. I never stay anywhere long enough to really make friends. I put the pictures up as soon as I get somewhere so I can at least have something that’s familiar. It’s almost like my shrine.”
“I wanted to ask,” Daniel began.
“The hair,” Abie said, cutting him off. “Why do I keep it like this?”
“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry I was rude to you on the bus. It’s just that I never know who I can trust. I didn’t want everyone to hear.”
“Oh. So, why do you keep it like that?”
“I don’t have any choice. I’ve tried to dye it. The color never sticks. I’ve cut it short so it won’t be as noticeable, but it grows back overnight. It’s just the way I am, I guess, the way I was meant to be.”
“What happens now?”
“We put the collar on the cat man, call animal control, and let what else happens, happen.”
“But how do we find him? He ran away.”

“He’ll be back,” Abie said. “If he found me this fast, he’ll come back. What we need to do is bait him. Get him to come to us when we want him to.”
“If he sees me again, he’ll just run away.”
“I know, so you’ll have to hide.”
“And you’ll just sit in plain sight?”
“Yep.”
“I guess that’s okay,” Daniel said. “If attacks you when you’re in your human shape, he won’t be able to hurt you.”
“That won’t work. He doesn’t want the girl, he wants the bird. I have to be a bird.”
“No, I don’t like that. You won’t be safe. I saw what he did to your shoulder. He could kill you.”
“If I do nothing, he’ll kill me eventually,” Abie said. “You’ll just have to rescue me in time.”
Daniel sighed. He didn’t like this, but he didn’t have much choice in the matter.
***
Daniel and Abie spent the next hour or so planning what they would do. Eventually they came up with a plan they thought just might work. First, they had to get rid of Abie’s parents, and if they could, Daniel’s as well. If the cat man came by when her parents were home, they’d just chase him off.
It was Abie that remembered that their school was having a parent-teacher open house the next night. It was a chance for parents to be able to meet their children’s teachers, without the children being present. It would get both sets of parents out of the house for a few hours. But they had to convince Abie’s parents to go.
Daniel stayed until her parents got home so they could convince them to go.
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Abie’s father said. “We just moved in.”
“But Daniel and I could hang out,” Abie said. “We’d be okay together.”
“I don’t know. I don’t mean to be rude, but I just met your friend this morning.”
“But I know him. He’s safe. He even found that poor old woman’s cat this afternoon.”
“Cat? What cat?”

“The one I tripped over,” Daniel supplied. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but it belongs to a woman down the street. It was still around when I got home from school, so I took it to her.”
“What kind of cat was it?”
“A Persian,” Daniel said. “A white one.”
“Oh,” Abie’s father said. “Well, I suppose the two of you can hang out this evening. Just stay in doors, okay? I don’t want you going out alone.”

“Sure,” Abie said. “We’ll have a good time.”
***
As soon as Abie’s parents were on their way to the school they put their plan into action. Abie turned into her bird shape and sat on the windowsill. Daniel went back to his house and hid behind the bushes around his porch. It was, after all, a great hiding place. As soon as he was in place, Abie flew from the window and did some circles around the yard. She made sure not to go too far.
After a few minutes she started to sing. It was odd for Daniel to hear her. It wasn’t really the sound of any bird he had heard before, but then Abie wasn’t like any girl he knew either. She continued her song a moment longer, then landed. It was the signal.
Daniel peered through the branches of the bush, pulling one aside to get a better view. The sun was low in the sky, but there was enough light to see by. He saw the cat at the edge of the lawn. It was crouched down, watching Abie.
Abie was doing her part right. She was poking around the yard with her beak, not paying any attention to the cat. It started to creep forward, inch by inch, in grass that hadn’t been mowed in a few weeks. Daniel started to move. He crept around the bushes and went around the other side of his house, the part not facing Abie. Once out of view, he ran as fast as he could to get to the other side. The cat was halfway across the yard and Abie seemed oblivious to the fact that a great cat was bearing down on her. All part of the plan, of course.
Daniel was behind the cat, now. He started to move in behind it, moving as quietly as he could. Abie chirped twice to indicate that she saw the cat. She kept poking about in the dirt, not making any move to escape. The cat was only a few feet away from her. It stopped moving and crouched lower. It was getting ready to pounce. What happened next, no one could have anticipated. Abie’s job was to play the bait, but she had done it too well.
From the other side of Abie, a black cat jumped at her and struck. It latched its teeth onto her back. Daniel felt a thrill of terror wash over him.
“No!”
He jumped from where he was and came at the black cat. It scattered immediately, but the cat man was off too. In its panic it actually ran towards Daniel. He had only a moment to decide. Grab the cat or help Abie. He went for the cat. He knew he might not have another chance. He just hoped Abie was okay.
He grabbed the cat man across the neck, knowing that if he held on the cat wouldn’t be able to switch back to a man. The cat twisted and clawed and bit but Daniel held on. His hand and arms bled slightly from the cuts inflicted by the cat, but he knew he could handle it. He was better off than Abie.
For a moment the cat slipped free. Instead of trying to escape, though, it launched itself at Abie. That wasn’t rational. The cat man must have spent too much time as a cat and was starting to think like one, instead of thinking like a human.
Daniel grabbed the cat again, but couldn’t get a good grip on it this time. He knew that if the cat switched back to his human shape, he’d get away. Daniel couldn’t stop a full grown adult and the police would never believe their story.
With the cat laying the way it was, Daniel couldn’t grab him and every second that ticked by, the cat could change. Finally he just reached back and punched the cat in the face. He couldn’t believe he’d done it. It was a cat after all. How could you punch a cat? The cat seemed to be thinking the same thing because it stopped struggling and stared stupidly into space. Daniel took advantage, grabbed the cat by the neck again, and positioned his legs on either side to keep it from running away. He pulled the metal collar from his pocket and put it around the cat’s neck. It struggled, but not enough to get away. From his other pocket he pulled the rivet gun and fastened the collar on. That was it, the cat was stuck.
Daniel fell to his side, taking deep breaths to steady himself. He realized, then, what he had forgot. Abie. He searched through the grass for her, hoping he hadn’t crushed her in the struggle to get the collar on the cat man. While searching, the now stuck cat man ran off.
Daniel found Abie sitting a few feet away, blood trickling down her back. He reached out to her and touched her feathers where the black cat had struck. As soon he touched her, she changed back to human form. She arched her back and screamed out in pain.
“Help me, Daniel,” she said. “Get me inside.”

“We need to call an ambulance.”

“No! Just get me inside.”
***
Getting Abie inside was harder than Daniel thought it would be. He had to half carry, half drag her in the door and up her steps, being careful not to touch her back where she had been injured. He thought about asking her to change back into a bird to make it easier on him, but decided it was best not to. It was quite possible that the change took a lot of energy and would weaken her further.
Once inside Abie’s room he helped her to the bed and she collapsed on her stomach. For the first time Daniel got a good look at her injury. There were four gaping holes in her back. Two in the middle, two at the bottom. Daniel was breathless.
“How…,” he began. “It looks like you were bit by a tiger.”
“I was!” Abie moaned. “To a bird, a cat is just as big.”
“What do I do? We should get your parents.”
“No! We took care of the cat man. If we tell them now, I’ll just have to move again.”
“But you’re really hurt. Besides, you just moved here. It’s not like you’d be losing anything.”
Abie turned her head to face him, gasping with the effort.
“I’d lose you, Daniel. You’ve been a good friend.”
Daniel’s mouth opened and shut. He didn’t realize how close they’d come in just a few days. Okay, she was his friend. How weird was that?
“What do I need to do?” he asked, his voice much calmer this time.
“There’s some alcohol in the bathroom. Get that and some clean towels. There’s also some gauze and medical tape. Bring that too.”
“Alcohol? That’s going to hurt like…”

“I know. But you have to clean the wound. An infection can kill me just as easy as a cat.”
“Okay.”
Daniel rushed into the bathroom and started opening cabinets. He knocked things over trying to find what he needed, but barely noticed. His male instincts had kicked in. Guys weren’t the best when it came to emotions, but they were problem solvers. In a moment he was back in the room. Abie had taken her shirt off and was lying facedown on the bed. Daniel tried not to notice the color of her bra.
“Now what?”
“Pour some of the alcohol on a towel and wash the wounds out. The alcohol will make them bleed a little more, but that’s okay.”
“Got it.”

“Oh and Daniel?” Abie turned her head to look at him again.
“Yeah?”
“Don’t stop cleaning no matter what I say. This is really going to hurt.” He heard a tremble in her voice. “It’s best to get it over with in a hurry. Like pulling off a band aid.”
“Right.”
Daniel readied the towel and pushed it onto the top puncture wound. Abie’s back stiffened and she dug her hands into her sheets. He kept going. He poured more alcohol onto a clean part of the towel and moved to the second wound. He could see that the first one was bleeding again. Obeying Abie’s command, he didn’t stop. By the time he got to the third wound she was writhing on the bed and pulling away from his touch. He didn’t let that stop him. He shoved the alcohol soaked towel onto the wound and massaged it. Abie screamed.
“Stop! Just give me a moment.”
“It’s just one more,” Daniel said, readying the last clean corner of the towel. “It’ll be over in a minute.”
“No more. It hurts too much.”
Daniel ignored her and cleaned the last wound.
“That’s it,” he said. “It’s over.”
Abie, breathing hard, shoved her head into a pillow. In a few moments she calmed down.
“Thank you,” she said.
“Sure.”
Blood from the now clean wounds was trickling down her sides and onto her sheets. Daniel took a second towel and started to mop up the blood so he could put on the gauze.
“I’ve never used this stuff,” Daniel said. “Is there any special way I should put it on?”
“Just fold it so it covers the wound, then tape it on.”
“These holes are kind of big. Maybe you need stitches.”
“No chance. Just tape it on. It’ll heal.”
“Okay.”
After several more minutes Daniel finished patching up Abie’s wounds. It didn’t look pretty, but it was done. Abie stood up and Daniel quickly turned around. He heard her rummaging around in a drawer for a moment.
“You can turn around now, Prince Charming.”
Abie had put on a new shirt and sat back on the bed.
“I just didn’t want to look.”
“Yeah you did,” Abie said, smiling. “Every guy your age wants to look at a girl with her shirt off. Thanks for not doing it though.”
“No problem.”
Abie gave him a considering look.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re pretty strange, you know. Not many people would put themselves on the line for someone else. Why did you?”
“It was the right thing to do.”
“That’s not an answer,” she said. “People don’t just do things because ‘it’s the right thing to do.’ If they did, the world would be much better.”
“Okay, I did it because I like you.”
“You just met me. You couldn’t like me. Besides, I’m not a great person. People like you and people like me don’t get along.”
“We could,” Daniel said. “If we don’t prejudge each other. I think that’s why people like us don’t get along. We look at the other and think, ‘we couldn’t possibly get along, so why bother?’”
“You might be right. Anyway, let’s get these bloody towels and sheets in the wash before my parents come home.”

Daniel picked up the towels while Abie grabbed the sheets from her bed. They took them to the basement and threw them in the washer, adding much more detergent than called for.
“There’s one thing I haven’t sorted out yet,” Abie said.
“Oh?”
“I can’t believe you punched that cat!”

“I know! I felt so bad. I mean, I know it was really a man trying to kill you, but how do you punch a cat? I’m going to feel bad about that for a while.”
Abie put her arm around his shoulders.
“It’s okay,” she said. “Maybe you’re more of a dog person.”
“No,” he said with a smile. “I think I’m more of a bird person.”

And the winner is...Emily!

Emily won our game of find the smell. Her prize was a can of used
grease that had started to mold.

In other news, I fixed our bed and planted our bushes. Why can't a
day off ever be one of leisure? I swear, I miss that whole "day of
rest" idea.

And here's a picture of our winner:

Not a really fun game

There's a fun game my wife and I tried tonight. It's called, "Find
the Smell". It's a game that, if you win, it means you just stuck
your face in something nasty. If you lose, it means you get to play
the game again tomorrow. Tonight, there were no winners.

Sent from my iPhone