I had fallen asleep while working on my laptop again. The lid was open, and Tom, my precious ball of orange fur, was sleeping on the keyboard. I couldn't see what I had been doing; my eyes were crusted with gunk, blurring my vision. I closed my eyes and rubbed them with fuzzy hands.

Oh no. I stopped rubbing. My hands were covered in Tom's fur. It was all over my arms, shirt, and legs! Sometimes, my cat knows I'm allergic to him and rubs it in. No matter; I just needed to take the first allergy pill of the day and deal with the swelling until it kicked in.

I started pushing my laptop off my lap, interrupted by Tom grabbing my shorts. His eyes were still closed. What did he think he was doing? I pushed the laptop again, and he held on while the keyboard slid out from under him. He was now on me, having traded one warm bed for another.

"I need to get up. Tom." I scooted my legs off the bed. Tom came with, still holding on to my shorts. He acted like he was still sleeping, like he wasn't trying to dig in and make my skin puff up. I tried picking him up, but he was like water in my hands. "Tom, I know you're awake. If you don't move, I'll have to take you with me, and you don't want to fall on the floor, do you?"

He breathed.

"Okay, fine." I went four steps before his claws failed him and he fell with a meow, thankfully not ripping my shorts. After that, he followed me to the bathroom.

I opened the medicine cabinet. The bottle of allergy pills seemed to move every time I needed it. Where was it this time? Not by the toothbrush. Not by the comb. Was it behind the cotton swabs? Yes. I reached to grab them.

"Meow." Tom lunged at my hand, knocked the bottle away, and sat on the floor, licking himself as if nothing had happened.

Watching for any sign of him readying to pounce, I bent over to pick up the bottle. He didn't grab it. Now to open the bottle.

I couldn't get it open. Stupid child-proof cap. Was this the one I needed to press down and turn, or the one I needed to pull while turning? I took my gaze off Tom for a second to look. Oh, this was the weird one that needed the cap to be turned one way, then the other. The cap popped off.

"Mrow." Tom watched me. And walked toward me. I set the bottle down. Some people could take pills without water, but I couldn't. My nose started running, and I had to squint. I checked my shirt. There was no clean spot to rub my eyes with. So much fur...

"Tom." Cough. "Do you promise not to take my pills? I need them to be around you."

"Mrow meeoow," he purred, rubbing himself against my leg. I stepped back, and he sat on my foot. "Meow." The tip of his tail twitched.

I closed my eyes. Mucus ran down my throat. I needed to sneeze. "Ah, ah, ah-choo!" Something ripped. I stumbled backwards but caught myself. My feet felt... fuzzy. In the brief period before I squinted for the next sneeze, I looked down at them, unable to see my socks past a pile of orange fur. "Ah, ah..." I raised my head and covered my nose with my hand. "Achoo!"

I fell onto the floor. Light pain lingered in my butt. I rubbed it, but my fingernails got caught in my shorts. Shaking and jostling my hand didn't free it. My hand felt puffy as well. Did Tom scratch there too?

"Mrey," said Tom. "Mran myu raow me." That cat was getting too smart; now he was mocking me. What was he saying?

"Ah... ah..." Pressure built up in my head. "Ahh..." My brain was being squished. My voice sounded distant, as if I was underwater or flying high up. Come on, I needed to sneeze so bad... "Ah-choo!" My ears popped. My nose and teeth blew with the sneeze, stretching out. And, my eyes, there was something wrong with my eyes. My best effort at forcing my puffy eyelids open gave me only a slit to see through, the edges of which were lined with orange fuzz. My nose should have been hidden, but it stuck out like a skyscraper. It was also orange. I tugged my hand, but it was still stuck. I forced down the oncoming sneeze and looked at it. More orange fur. There was more of it on my body than Tom had shed his entire life. It made my hand look just like the paw of a cat, with claws at the ends of my fingers.

Just one pill, and I would be saved, but I needed water. I wiped the tears from my eyes with my free hand. So much fuzz... No matter how much I batted it away from both my hand and my face, the fur clung, like it was my own hair. Mucus ran down my nose and into my mouth; my teeth it impossible to shut all the way. Wait, no, they didn't. I never had that problem. Something was wrong.

"Ah..." The sneezing had to stop soon. "...choo!" Another rip. My shorts! My hand was free. But, instead of feeling naked, it felt like I was wearing sweatpants. I sniffled, wiped my eyes, and looked.

My hand had some bits of my shorts on it. Shaking it knocked most of the confetti off, but some stuck. I tried picking them off with my other hand, but... I couldn't pick anything up. My thumbs were too small; I started rubbing my fingers together to free the strips.

The swelling in my eyes let up. Everything was orange fur, except my arms and shirt. And, my nose ended like a cat's, not a human's. Something swished in the corner of my vision, long and thin.

It was a tail! I had a tail!

I was right about there not being enough fur on me for Tom to have shed it all. I was growing my own fur. "Tom, what did you do to me?" I asked, but what I heard was, "Mrom, rhaw med mew mew mew mru?"

Tom meowed back a sentence, but all I could make out was 'sneeze', which I did. There was a poof as my shirt strained from new fur. My arms were warm. Tom said something. He wasn't meowing, just speaking, but I still couldn't make out anything more than 'sneeze'.

"Ahchoo!" Air rushed in my ears, drowning out all other noise, drowning out my thoughts, then stopped. The swelling, tears, and gross taste in my throat were gone, but the world was dark. The world also ruffled against my ears when I made any movement. I was in my shirt. I couldn't dig around for a hole out because my claws would destroy the shirt as swiftly as my tail destroyed my shorts.

A shirt four holes, and that many ways to go. There were no dead ends. Why couldn't I find my way out? Tom was out there. "Tom," I called, needing the help of the very creature that did this to me, "help me out!"

There was a tear behind me, then light. I backed out. So much for keeping my shirt intact.

"You're silly," my cat said. His tail was held straight.

I blinked.

"You're a cat now. Of course I can talk to you. You understood me when I told you to sneeze. I'm bringing you to Human School today!"

What?

"You look confused again." Tom was... tall. I backed up a step. Those eyes, those pupils, were piercing into my soul, seeking out my every vulnerability.

"What is Human School?" I asked, eyes shrinking away from his.

"What do you think? It's where we learn about the humans that keep us!" He rammed his head at me. I flinched, but... he just touched my nose. "Now, let's go! Up! Up!"

I no longer owned my house. Nobody did. Everything was the same -- the floor, the ceiling, the walls, the decorations -- but big, huge, out of reach, not for me. Any of the things I thought I knew could fall over and squish me.

We arrived at the door. It wasn't locked, but it was closed. "How are we going to get out?" I asked. "Neither of us have thumbs or are tall enough to get to the doorknob."

Tom shot me a half-squinting glare, like I had asked him what color the sky was. "The way I always do."

"You leave the house while I'm gone?" I sat, dumb. My cat could speak. My cat had a life I didn't know about. I knew little, yet he knew all about me.

"Yes." Tom sat down below the doorknob. After judging the distance, he leaped up, turned the slick doorknob with his paws, and slid onto the floor with a thud.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

"Of course I am. As you know, we cats always land on our feet." He was right. That was a dumb question.

The door cracked open, widened by Tom nuzzling his head between the door and the frame. Once there was enough room, he slid his whole body in the crack. "Let's go."

"How are we going to close the door?" I asked, following him. "Someone could come in while I'm gone and take my stuff!"

"I learned about that in Human School. Some of you humans like to take each other's things, but you have other people who can get them back for you." The police? "It's because most of you don't play-fight. But, you'll be fine. Anyone who wants to take your stuff could leap through one of the windows."

The sidewalk was rough on my paws, but my pads stopped its surface from digging in. Down at this height, the incline and decline of the street created a hill that blocked what was ahead. Tom didn't care. He walked, and I trailed behind. After the hump of the 'hill' was an intersection. At any other time of day, it would be packed with vehicles instead trickling them. However, it was still impossible to cross because one car came every few seconds.

Tom darted into traffic.

"Tom!" I shouted from the safety of the curb. "Get back here! You'll die!"

He stopped in the middle of the lane and stretched his back.

"Tom! The car's coming!"

The car approached from the right, a monster of metal, dwarfing him, racing on rubber tires, unyielding. I needed to run at Tom, save him, tackle him out of the way, but I would be too slow.

"Tom!" My lungs and ears burned. "Run!" All I could do was watch...

There was a horrible screeching. I tensed and covered my ears, falling forward, forgetting my hands were feet. The car ground to a halt about... about.. well, any eyeballed distance would be too big, so about two Tom-lengths away. The driver honked, and Tom walked the rest of the way across, taking his time. I sprinted after him.

"You're worried very often," Tom said before I could question what in the world he was thinking. "Humans know cats are better than them and wouldn't dare to hurt us. Most of the time." He had a smug look on his face; meanwhile, my heart was pounding.

What to say back... There were many things to say back, but Tom was a cat, a predator. I was one too, but I had the experience of five minutes of cathood while he had been around for five years=. There were many ways to prove him wrong -- humans were at the top of the food chain; humans ran the world, not cats; humans kept pets, but pets didn't keep humans -- but in his shadow, words failed me. I was weak and scared, while he had the courage to cross the street.

"I thought you would say something back at that."

"Well," I said, but my arguments disappeared while he stared at me. Those eyes, those teeth... "What if the car didn't stop?" That was weak. What was I going to say, again?

"Because the human knows cats are superior! 'But why don't you hunt me and eat me?' you may ask, and that's because we let you keep us as pets because it's easier to get food and sleep from you. And, you're entertaining. Especially when you don't know how to be a cat."

We stayed silent while I digested the response. Was my pet getting his revenge? I thought I was keeping him safe, making sure he didn't go out of the house and get lost, but he left anyway. My house couldn't have been a prison to him, since he chose to stay, but that didn't mean he had to like it. For as long as I knew Tom, I acted like he was dumb for the sake of being cute, raising the pitch of my voice around him, when he really knew everything. I had always been the dumb one, and now I was proving it.

"How far is this Human School?"

"The Human School is in your human school."

"What?"

"Where human kittens go to."

After a few more minutes of walking, I found out he meant the local elementary school. The lights were off and the windows were shut, except for one classroom on the first floor. A few cats poked their heads out as we approached.

"Hewwo!" one of them yelled. Her face was a dark tan. I understood Tom's 'L's without a problem, but hers sounded like 'W's.

"Hello," Tom said.

"Who ih hat?" She stared at me with an open mouth and rapidly-expanding pupils. She was missing her front upper teeth. I never realized pets had trouble with teeth too. I hoped they were just baby teeth -- and that cats had another set of teeth to grow in.

"He's my human." Not owner. Human.

"How did you do it?" one of the other cats asked. She had cream fur, and her neck fur poked out of the window.

"You know how he keeps me even though he has allergies? I made him sneeze himself into a cat."

"Ooh, that is nifty," said the cream cat. "You should tell us how you did it."

"I can't wait!" exclaimed the tan cat. A chill ran down my back.

"You don't have an owner."

"That won't stop me from turning peepoh into cat-ih! Hum of hem deh-herve it!"

"Are you coming?" Tom asked me from the top of the wall. When did he get there? He was just right next to me.

I walked up to the wall. It was made of brick and mortar, not fabric, so how would my claws would be able to stick? One time, Tom had jumped from my kitchen floor to my ceiling lamp, but that was with landing on the counter halfway through. The window was higher up than the counter, and there was no intermediary to land on. Could I do it? I stepped back about one me-length and looked at the window's bottom. I could do it; my claws would catch on to the wood. But what if I missed? I might be able to hold on, but I might instead fall. Hitting the ground wouldn't hurt, but scraping against the brick wall... Yeouch.

"Look at his eyes, Tom." said the cream cat. "He's going to leap up." They all talked like I wasn't here. I could leap. I wouldn't be weak in front of several cats. I was as much of a cat as any of them. I had to be; that was the only way to survive whatever was coming for me.

I pushed against the ground with my feet and pounced upwards. As my back legs smacked against the bricks, I thought I was going to fall, but my grip held on -- a bit too much. My claws were going to break! My weight dangled from such tiny things, threatening to rip them out.

The cats -- the cream one, the tan one, and Tom -- opened a space for me, but none of them extended a paw to help. I was never a bodybuilder, but my limbs did seem stronger, nimbler...

Pulling myself up was weird. It was more like I was pushing down with my toes, or like I was going up a large staircase with both feet at once, but I had another set of feet dangling behind. After fighting with my claws, I unhooked myself and stood among the cats on top of a bookshelf. The typical classroom furniture was here -- desks, shelves, chalkboards, and more shelves -- as well as a fish tank. How long did fish live?

"Hello, human," said the cream cat. The floofiness of her neck extended all the way down her body and to her tail, which swung like a pendulum. She sniffed me before licking the back of my head. I closed my eyes and tensed up. She stopped. "Is something wrong?"

"No," I said. There was, though: none of this should be real.

"You're a human!" the tan cat yelled, blowing back the fur on my face. Tiger-like stripes ran down her fur, but her coat was such an unkempt mess that they faded together. "Hair ih ahways humhing wrong wih you! You awh do weird hing-ih."

"That's why I brought him," Tom said. "You can get your questions answered."

"Why ih it hat--"

"Let's wait until Oreo gets here. Otherwise, you and him will need to repeat yourselves. And, his ears might be hurting. He's probably used to straining them from being a human to hear anything."

"I could hear just fine," I said. Why could I defend myself now, in front of all these cats, the tan one of whom seeming like she had been in a few fights, but not when Tom ran into the street? "Though," I added, "this is kind of nice." I rotated my ears around like a radar. I looked up, but I couldn't see them. There wasn't much to listen to but the wind... and whatever clanking starting in the vent on the other side of the room.

"I think that's him," Tom said.

The vent cover swung open, and a cat tumbled onto the floor. He had dark gray, almost black fur that was white at his face. "Hello," he said, a whisper compared to the tan cat.

"Now we can start," the cream cat said. She jumped off the bookshelf and onto a nearby desk. Even though she was my size and now below me, the cat's gaze made me feel short. "I'm Boo. Over there is Oreo, and the other one is Sam." Tom, Oreo, and Sam followed Boo. I hesitated before jumping across the gap, and my claws scratched the desk's smooth surface.

"Didn't you just get done telling me about people ruining other people's things?" Tom said. "You should retract your claws."

He may as well have asked me to explain color to a baby. How would I start? My first attempt had me flexing my toes. But, there was a muscle in my feet, a tendon, something tense; like a cramp, it needed relaxation, release. After flexing my toes a few more times, I figured it out, and my claws pulled into my toes. I jumped a little. It happened so fast! Nobody saw that, right?

"See, Sam, you don't have to worry about him. Even if he did know how to use his claws -- or 'murder mittens', as he likes to call mine -- he wouldn't hurt you anyway." The fur on my tail was standing on end. Everyone did see.

On the edge of the top of the desk was a large and colorful name tag, with someone's name written on it in large, blocky handwriting. "Is this the kindergarten room?" I asked.

"Maybe," said Boo. "I haven't been in here when people are here."

Oreo and Sam leaped off the desk and onto the rug. It was a blue oval that took up a fifth of the room, ringed on the outside by the alphabet in twenty-six different colors. As I walked across, my paws kept getting stuck in the fabric, leaving a trail of frayed footsteps.

"Your claws," Tom reminded me. "Your paws are turning blue."

How did my claws come back out? I retracted them again. Easy. I brought them back out and back in, then again, then again. No matter how much I relaxed my claws, they didn't sheathe all the way; their tips hid in my fur. Cats had to look dangerous, even if they weren't trying to be.

The cats spread out along the edge of the carpet. There wasn't a spot for me -- they were spaced evenly apart -- so I sat next to Tom. He had no comment or objection about it.

Boo cleared her throat. "Since Tom was able to bring his owner here today," Boo said, looking at me, "today will be different. After sharing what we've learned from yesterday to today, we'll ask Tom's owner questions. Let's begin."

"The humans are hiwh getting rid of our cwahs!" Sam blurted out. She began pacing. "Anuh-her cat I know jut had hih torn out by hih owner! How ih he huppohed to defend himhewf if hih owner deh-hides to hurt him further?" She panned her eyes across the room, slowing near me and Tom.

"Declawing was made illegal a few years ago," I said. "I'm sorry about that. What that person did was horrible." Not only did it cause pain to cats and de-arm them, it also made the simple act of walking difficult. How could someone do that?

Sam looked at me for a second, like she had never heard of a human showing empathy to a cat before. She might not have, considering her missing teeth. And, although she was on the carpet, she had her claws out as much as possible.

"I think turning me into a cat is illegal too," I said to Tom, "but that's reversible, right?"

He acted like he didn't hear me. I knew what those ears were capable of.

"I don't think I've said this," Oreo said, "but humans are making cars that let them see behind them while they're backing up. Sometimes I scare my family by jumping in front of the camera while they're coming home. I feel a bit bad about it though."

"You mut keep hem afraid of you," Sam said.

"His owners made a hole in their door so he can go out of the house while they're gone," Tom whispered in my ear, making it twitch even though the volume didn't hurt. "Can you trust me with that?"

"I suppose so," I whispered back. "I just learned you leave the house often on your own and have never gotten in trouble, so I'll get someone to make one when we get back."

"Thank you." His toothy grin was cute. His response also implied that he would turn me into a human again since I would need to be one to ask someone to do setup the door or to even do it myself.

Boo circled around the rug and licked Sam and Oreo. "For me, I've been working on trying to understand the way people write. I'd like to read a book some time. I took a break, though, to work on speaking. I can imitate the way they greet each other pretty well. Anyone want to hear?"

Tom, Oreo, and I nodded yes. Sam paced more quickly.

"Hello!" Boo meowed. "Hello? Hello! Hello. Hi! Hello."

"That's... really good," I said. "I'm not kidding." If she was on the other side of a wall and said that, I would think it was a child.

Tom looked at me. "Of course you're not a kid."

"'Kidding' means 'joking'."

"Why is that?"

"Kids tend to be silly and playful."

"Humans are silly no matter the age. You also like to play with us even though you're full-grown."

Boo came to our side of the circle. I didn't want to be licked, but I didn't want to appear afraid her, so I waited until after she licked my back to scoot forward. Tom came with. Now that Boo was done with her lap, the circle seemed to have shrunk since everyone else had also moved inward.

"Anything you want to share?" Boo asked Tom.

"No, other than realizing how little my human knows about being a cat."

I coughed. I was right here! They needed to know I was capable of speaking for myself.

"That concludes that, then," Boo said. "Please, introduce yourself." She was smiling.

"Hello." I raised a paw and failed at waving it. "I'm Tom's owner." This was backwards. Shouldn't I have done this right after I got here? "I didn't have much time to come up with anything to say ahead of time, so ask away, and I'll answer."

Sam stopped pacing. The group came closer, giving me about three cat-lengths of space ahead of me. Sam stayed a bit farther back, while Oreo was the closest.

"Why--"

Tom cut Sam off. "Why do humans have different ways of talking to each other?"

That was an easy question. "People from different places speak different languages," I said.

Tom stared at me. "But you're all human."

"I don't understand."

"We're all cats. We understand each other. That's also why you and we can talk to each other."

"So you all just have one language?"

"Of course. Animals of the same species can talk to each other; everyone knows that. Why would we come up with different ways of speaking? All it does is make it harder to talk."

Cats made no sense. There was no way a cat from the other side of the world could talk to one from this side of the world.

"Why do you make uh eat huh hame food everyday?" Sam yelled. People walking past the school could probably hear her.

"I'm not everyone else, but I try to give Tom a bit of what I'm eating if I'm pretty sure it won't be bad for him -- meat and fish, usually. People give cats kibble most of the time is because it's easy, and it can be left out in a food dish so you can eat when you want instead of needing to call for your owner every time."

"Speaking of fish, I could use some food," said Oreo.

"Let's have food then," Boo said. Everyone looked enthusiastic except Boo and me, but Boo was calm. I was the odd one out.

"Can we eat the fish in here hiss time?" Sam pointed at the fish tank with her head.

"No. They're the pets of the people who come in here when we're not here."

"I'll get the door," I said.

"I've already got it," said Oreo, dangling from the doorknob. The door drifted open.

We walked off the carpet and made our way into the hallway. Sam's claws clicked. Mine stayed in.

The walls of the hallway were lined with pictures, drawings, and models created by children. Farther down, by the higher-grade rooms, they improved in quality, but became research projects instead of art for the sake of art. There were also a few manuscripts and typed papers; again, those for the younger grades were short -- super-short -- stories, while the older grades' were research papers and analyses of other people's stories.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Where the people keep the food," Boo said. So, the kitchen.

"Isn't that stealing?" I asked Tom. "Now we're really ruining people's stuff." Why they would keep food here overnight was beyond me, though. That was just asking to have it taken by coworkers in the morning, unless the people who left it were also the first to come in. Or, maybe there was a lock on the food, but then we couldn't get in.

"One of them leaves it out for us," Tom said. "There's a few freezers, but the human keeps putting their food in the same one, in the same place, every day. They're okay with letting us have it."

The staff lounge was at the end of the hallway, before it opened up into an open lobby. The door was locked. Before I could ask how we were going to get in, or even see where Oreo was, he came with a key. When he jumped at the doorknob, he moved the key into a paw and unlocked the door, without any thumbs! Tom was right. The food was for us. Why else would the key be left out?

I stuck my paw out in front of my face and wiggled my toes. Maybe they were more dexterous than I gave them credit for. In fact, on my former hands, I had a small toe where my thumbs used to be, but I couldn't do much with them. Didn't Tom say something about leaving the house through the window?

Inside, the freezers were unlocked. They all also opened from the front, not the top, making getting inside easy. Oreo pushed one open, delivering a blast of cool air into the room, and fished out the lunch bag. It was a blue box, covered in felt and closed by a zipper. Oreo zipped it open with his teeth and pushed the cover open. Inside were... granola bars. Was this really what they ate? It seemed quite lowly for a species that considered themselves to be above humans.

"I have a queh-in," Sam said, clawing the packaging apart. "Why do you humans do hih to your food?"

"It keeps it safe," I said.

"But how? It duh-en't bwend in wih anyhing. It make-eh the food hih-tand out more wih the cowor."

"It's not for keeping people out." I grabbed a bar and tore the packaging off. With my sharp claws, I was able to skip using the easy-tear pull that often made more issues than it solved. "The wrapping helps stop the food from going bad."

Sam started to eat, but looked sad.

"What's wrong?"

"Nuh-hing." She stuffed her mouth full.

I took a bite of my bar. There wasn't much of a difference in taste from when I was a human. It was bigger than my leg; would I be able to eat the whole thing?

"Is this what you normally have here?" I asked Tom.

"Yes."

"Don't you get tired of the taste?" I felt bad, since it meant I was being unappreciative of the free meal, but seeing as one of the questions was about humans and the taste of food...

"It's better than kibble, and it doesn't smell." That was true. I licked my nose. The lack of smell was the same, but the scents of the other cats became stronger. Tom faintly smelled like my house. Boo and Oreo smelled much the same, but Sam... She could use a bath.

I scooted over to Tom and lowered my voice. "How long has she been out on the streets?"

"I don't know. I don't think even Boo knows."

"I wonder if I can convince her most humans really aren't evil. She sounds and looks like she's been through a lot." I took a bite. "You do like living with me, right?"

"Oh, definitely. I complain sometimes, but so do you."

"Thanks."

I didn't eat my whole bar. Everyone else was done and were eating the little crumbs left on the floor. Before I could make a comment about it being unhealthy, I remembered Tom would always eat bits of kibble he had dropped.

"Everyone good?" Boo asked.

We all nodded, then headed back. Oreo stayed behind to tidy up and shut the door. I hoped he didn't leave the empty lunch bag where he had gotten it from before remembering that person was fine with it.

Oreo sneaked up on us a few steps away from the classroom. "How do you sneak around like that?" I asked.

"It comes naturally," Tom said.

Wow, thanks.

I lightened my steps on the way back on the carpet, but I felt like I was still walking on loud, flat human feet. We sat in a circle. There wasn't any pacing going on; the food must have calmed everyone down.

"There's one question I've always had," Boo said. "People don't have tails, and they're always standing up because they have only two legs. Yet, instead of falling over all the time, their balance is great. You do trip sometimes, but so does every animal. Is there something special you do?"

I scratched behind my ear with a leg. I had never thought of that before. How did people not fall over? Two feet gave a tall body a small base. "I don't know," I confessed. "I feel like falling over when I'm tired, but... yeah, I'm not sure. Sorry."

"Why do some owners have better places than others?" Oreo asked.

Did cats understand how money worked? "Personal preference is part of it, but usually, the more money someone makes, the more they have in their house, so the more things the pet has if they have one. Unless someone is evil, it isn't about how much we love or don't love you."

Sam perked up at the last part. "Why is moht of your fur on huh top of your head?" she asked.

"Most of our heat escapes through our heads. It doesn't matter much for the rest of the body because we put on more or less clothes depending on how warm or cold we are. We also have heaters and fans."

"What are those?" Sam asked.

"They make the room warmer or colder. Not as hot as an oven or as cold as a freezer, but comfortable."

"That sounds nice." She was about as quiet as Oreo. "I was always dying in my fur or free-hing..."

"My owner always has the house at the right temperature," Tom said. "Sometimes he and his cold skin have it a bit too high, but I let him know."

Sam paced around, but when she was done, she sat closer to me and Tom. Her tail fell to the rug.

"Another thing I wanted to know," said Boo, "what goes into a name?"

"It depends. Oreo, I guess your owner named you after a kind of cookie that looks like your fur. Tom, your name is a pun of 'tomcat'. But it's a human name too. Same for yours, Sam. I've never heard of someone named Boo before, but I like the name."

Tom did not look impressed, Sam brightened at the comment, and Boo didn't do anything.

"I need to go," said Oreo. "My humans are coming home soon. I can't let them worry about me."

"Bye!" "Goodbye." "See you." With how much Tom clung to me at home, I didn't expect the cats to let one of their own leave so easily.

"I suppose I should go home, too," Boo said. "My family will be happy to play with me." She and Oreo jumped onto a nearby chair, then the desk, then the bookshelf, then out the window. Sam, Tom, me, and the fish were left.

"The door is still open," I said. Whoever went out to shut it wouldn't be able to get back in. However, that person should be able to leave, seeing as Oreo came in through the school. No, he had come in through the vent, so he might have come in from the roof and then made his way here...

"We can weave it wike hat," said Sam. "They wiww hink someone forgot to wock it at he end of hih day." My heart ached. Did Sam even know where she would go tonight, what she would eat, where she would sleep? Nobody deserved that. On the outside, she shooed away people, wanting no more of them, but the truth was leaking out. She wanted, no, needed someone to call family, somewhere to call home.

I caught Tom before he went out. "Would you be okay if I took her in?"

"If you don't like keeping your face in one piece. She might kill you, but she seems like she's warming up to you."

Sam and Tom took the same path as the others and jumped out the window. I followed. There was a rhythm to the jumping. Standing over the ledge, I extended one leg out into the open, but when I looked down at the concrete... I didn't know. What if I fell funny? Would I have the instinct to land of my feet? I would be fine; if I didn't have that, I would have my human sense of balance that Boo complimented me on. I looked up at the sky, imagined I was in a bouncy house, and leaped forward.

Thud. Other than some pressure on my feet that faded away after a few seconds, it didn't hurt. The mystery of how the other cats could be so silent while jumping still stood.

Because of my delay, I trailed behind Tom and Boo. They were side-by-side, having a quiet conversation, but with these ears, I could listen in.

"What do you think of him?" Tom asked.

"He... He heems wike a good per-hun." Sam's tail fluttered. "He didn't make fun of my wisp," she added.

"He does do silly things sometimes, like keeping a pet he's allergic to. All humans are silly, though, and they think we're silly most of the time too."

"I'm not sure what I want to do... I don't want to be on huh hih-treets if I don't have to, but..." She looked down.

"Want to come home with my human?"

"I, ah, wehw, I haven't had an owner in a wong time. And, my jaw is messed up. I was awweady a bad cat once; I don't want to be one again..."

Tom drew closer to her. "There's nothing wrong with you. Humans get cats from rescue shelters often. They're places that take in hurt animals, usually from bad owners."

"Reh-wee? How do you know?"

"That's where my human met me." I couldn't help but smile.

Sam didn't say anything more, but her head went back up. Traffic was busier now that it was later into the day. Tom didn't try darting into traffic again; instead, he stayed by Sam.

When we got back to my house, the door was slightly open, as Tom had left it. Sam paused at the door. She may have been fighting bad memories, staring for what felt like minutes at the door, the knob, and the inside of my house in turn. Tom and I waited; I didn't know what he was thinking, but I remained silent so she didn't feel forced to go in.

She took one step forward, then another, then another, and pushed the door in. We followed after her. I put more effort in walking on my toes so I could be about as quiet as Tom. I left the door open; no need to make her feel trapped.

Sam took her time going through the house, step by step, not saying anything. By the look on her face, though, she was holding her surprise in. She broke her silence in the kitchen. "Wow... I just... Your howh ih ho cwean! I never knew a howh couwd be so cwean. How? There's nuh-hing on the fwoor... And hat's cwean, and hat, and hat..." She pointed everywhere with her face.

"Want me to clean your fur?" I asked.

"Mm-hmm." Her tail shot up.

I went into the bathroom. On the floor was a mat of orange fur; it must have acquired a mind of its own while we were out and started multiplying. The pill bottle was still open. I hopped onto the toilet seat, then the sink. My comb was sitting on the edge. I tried picking it up with a paw, but it was too big to grab, so I bit it between my teeth. It was heavy, but I could do it. I leaped off onto the fuzzy floor and went back to Sam and Tom.

"Watch this," Tom said. He began to groom her. I sat and watched, not joining because the thought of me licking someone else -- and getting hair on my tongue -- was gross. However, her fur wasn't getting any better, and the smell of wet fur filled the room.

"Here, let me try," I said, taking Tom's spot and holding the comb. Hands and height would be good to have now. My mouth was so non-dexterous that the comb wobbled and was ready to fall any moment, while at the same time holding the comb well enough that it felt like it was one wrong move away from jabbing into Sam. After experimenting with the comb, siding with caution, I found the balance, and was able to brush her fur. Snags were everywhere, so I was alternating between giving light strokes and harsh tugs, all while not dropping the brush.

Tom grinned out of the corner of my eye. I had to be looking stupid, tilting my head while contorting my body. Oh well. I had always brushed one cat's fur, and I wouldn't let something like not being a human stop me from giving another the same treatment.

I couldn't do much around her face, and she twitched her tail away whenever I tried to fix it, so I left those parts be. If I had tried doing this just yesterday with her, she would have clawed my eyes out, but she was standing still, not in fear but in cooperation.

"Want to see how you look?" I asked.

"Mm-hmm."

"It's okay; you can move." I led her to the bathroom. After thinking about how we would reach the mirror, I jumped onto the sink and then climbed up the towel hanging over the shower curtain. She did the same after I stood on the towel as a paperweight. "What do you think?"

She checked herself out in the mirror, turning around and around on the perch. It was like she was seeing herself for the first time. She probably was. "Wow! I wook amay-hing!" Her tail bent downwards, making a horseshoe shape. I had seen Tom do that only once, and that was when he was a kitten, bursting with energy and trying to chase himself throughout the house.

I hopped down to give her some room. She came down when she was done. "Anything I can get you?"

"I gueh I'm a wittwe hungry. And thirty. Where do you have... what do you caww them?"

"Food and water bowl?"

"Mm-hmm."

"I keep them in the bedroom. Tom likes to stay by me, so I keep them in there."

We followed the trail of orange fur back to where it began. Sam mixed some of her own into it, any that didn't come out with the combing. She sniffed the air, then darted toward Tom's dishes. Even though she had eaten at the meeting, she devoured nearly the whole bowl of kibble, then washed it down with a heavy helping of water.

"Don't worry," I told Tom. "I'll get another set of dishes. I don't think I want you to turn me back into a human yet, though -- you can do that, right? -- I want to be able to talk to you, and you talk to me. We're family, and if Sam wants to be, she is part of the family too. If you turn me back into a human, would we lose the ability to understand each other?"

"I think so," said Tom. "And yes, I can turn you back into a human. Stop worrying about it. It's harder, since you don't have a human allergy, but I can make it work. Turning you back into a cat would be much easier."

"Well, don't do it just yet. I want to make sure she's comfortable before leaving her alone for any time. Whoever had her last never gave her the attention she deserved, it seems like, and that's not something you can heal in one day."

"You're a good human. Thanks for coming with. Boo, Oreo, and I couldn't let her suffer like that any longer. You were the most likely of all of our owners to not run away, so we chose you to come along."

"Hey!" I flattened my ears. "Are you saying I'm easily bullied?"

"Maybe. Now give me a treat."

"No."

"There you go," said Tom.

"I hink I ate too much," said Sam. "I need to way down."

"Sleep wherever," I said, "but Tom likes the bed."

Sam leaped onto the bed and curled into a little ball. She was a loaf of fur.

"I hope it works out in the end," I told Tom. "And, maybe, if you don't need someone to be allergic to what you're turning them into, you can turn Sam's old 'owner' into a cat and have the other cats teach whoever it is a lesson."

"I think that person deserves more than a day of Human School."

Figures of speech would continue to be a language barrier. "I think you know what I mean. Give whoever it is a good chase."

"Now you're thinking like a cat. No matter how much I try to understand you, you surprise mee."

"So do you."

With Sam asleep, now would be a good time to go out and get her dishes -- she would definitely be eating more than Tom for a while, going to reliable food from whatever trash she had eaten on the streets -- and figure out what I needed to do about the pet door Tom wanted, but there were other things to do first.

I opened up my laptop, opened up my messaging client, turned on my camera, and waited for someone to come online to make question their reality. Making mischief sounded like a feline thing to do.