Chapter 4

            The front door opened and the fox scrambled out of his chair to see my mom walking in. I was proud of what I’d gotten done in an hour, but a wave of accomplishment washed over me when he defiantly said, “Hello!”

            She froze, looked at him and started talking to him, “You can talk now?”

            He made a balancing gesture with his hands, and then had to carefully think out every sound he made. “Nn… No… Not… W… Weh… Well. N-not well.”

            She had a very confused look on her face, “But you can understand me?”

            He paused, thought about what she had said and then looked at her, grinning, “Not well.”

            I came around the corner and leaned against the wall like, ‘fuck yeah, I did this, bitch’. Mom noticed the swagger in my body language and leered at me, “Oh, and what mighty means have you of teaching him to talk?”

            I opened my mouth when he blurted out a single word, “Read!”

            Mom was absolutely lost so I figured I should actually explain, “He already knew how to read. It’s just a matter of assigning sounds to letters and pointing out all the stupid crap about English. Like how English should be pronounced En-glish or Ang-lish, but we say ing-glish.”

            She nodded, “Okay, good to know. I figured we’d have lasagna tonight, you know, trick him into thinking dad actually cooks every night.”

            “That’s a good plan, I can second that. So is dad gonna be home soon?”

            “Not until seven, but I can get the sauce going while we wait.”

            “Okay. Can you take over with teaching him to talk? I was planning on heading over to Al’s. Like, right now.”

            She shrugged, “Be back by seven.”

            “Thanks! Bye!” I grabbed my coat and walked out the door, making the quick jog down the street to my boyfriend’s house. No car, curtains in his window drawn closed… Yup, I’ma have to try on costumes for an hour and a half.

            I walked in the front door and made the quick turn into his door, where I suddenly entered a wonderland of gay. I mean, I’d seen his room many a time, but it still struck me every time I walked in. He’d put up rainbow wall paper around his room, which contrasted nicely with the duller, softer shades of the unfathomably huge mound of stuffed animals, blankets, and pillows on his fold-out couch. His desk was a pit as always, and I couldn’t distinguish the new furry art on his corkboard from the old furry art, let alone make heads or tails of what each animal was. … I think… that’s a tiger?

            I turned and found him in his closet, which, when we were kids had seemed unjustifiably huge, but now that we were teenagers and he’d spent fuck tons of money on furry paraphernalia it’d started feeling cramped. I remembered playing space ship games in here, but now decided it best to let him have the one square foot of clear floor space in his closet and just let him bring out whatever costume thing he wanted me to wear for Halloween.

            See, every Halloween we had a huge party in our house, and this year with the Gayes- I’m not even kidding, that’s their actual name- moving in over the summer, it suddenly had become unanimous that it was going to be a block party, fit with bouncy house, punch, and Halloween decorations. Honestly, this already sounded fun, but when they decided having a costume competition would be fun, everyone flipped and was ready to jam. I swear to god, if they revealed themselves as masterminds trying to get us to buy Halloween shit, we probably wouldn’t care.

            Now, our town flips over Halloween as is. No matter what day Halloween is on- this year it’s on a Monday, for example- they cancel school the day after. For every school in the district. The idea is probably so that kids get to stay up late and party more and don’t have to worry about going to school sugar comatose the next day, but seeing as my mom was a Kindergarten teacher I knew the truth was really that the teachers want to stay up drinking booze and not have to go to school hungover. I could appreciate both reasons.

            So, naturally, Halloween at school is always treated like some sort of occult ritual. The week before is always a second spirit week, the day of Halloween, sometimes the day or two before is a chance to strut around in your costume for even longer, and most importantly: no schoolwork. The students are obsessed with getting good costumes, the teachers are planning Halloween day pranks and getting their own costumes, and everyone’s buzzed about Halloween night.

            Last year for Halloween I’d been an uruk-hai, indulging in the beautifully weird looks I got from people when I had to explain fuckin’ Tolkien to them. The year before I’d been a Zombie Pigman from Minecraft, because, well, I’m a fuckin’ dork. Unfortunately, no one, and I mean no one, could compare to the jaw dropping perfection Al always pulled off. Freshman year? Fallout Ghoul, with fake beating heart and stubby, singed-looking hair. Sophomore year? Revealing of his fur suit, wearing clothes over it in just the right way that made it obvious it was a full suit but still made even the dress code apply to the fur suit. Junior year? A second fur suit, not of a fox, but of a dragon, with fake wings, moving jaw, and light up eyes, mouth, and even nostrils. Both years he made the school mascot look like a waste of money, and compared to our rival school it was a work of art.

            And now, for the senior year, I got to join in on the fun. I sat on the bed, waiting for him to come out. There was a loud clanking sound and he came out of his closet with a crook and tossed it to me, “Look farmerly.”

            I shrugged and stood up, trying to look proud with the crook planted into his carpet. He nodded, “I guess you could pull it off. I mean, I could probably pull it off better, but you won’t want to wear a quad suit, let alone of a goat or something.”

            I scoffed, “Dude, how many fur suits do you have?”

            He paused as he took the crook from me, “Uhh… More than you will ever want to see. A lot are just partials, but when it comes to quads, I gotta have full suits, and honestly, dad makes enough money that I can spend it on whatever I want.”

            “Right, and, I’m sure you’ve explained it before, but, what are quad-suits?”

            He nodded, “Yeah, third time. Basically they’re fur suits that are designed to be bent down on.” He went into the closet and grabbed to gloves, slipping his hands into them. I was confused about why they didn’t have fingers and why they stuck out so awkwardly from his hands, but he bent over into a strangely natural position and started to explain, “So, if I had the rest of my goat-suit on you’d see it better, but basically the idea is to make it look like you’re a feral animal as opposed to being an Anthro.”

            I nodded slowly, “Uh-huh. And you went with goat, because…”

            “Because I already had one for fox, wolf, bear, and cow. And, honestly, ‘sheep’ would be more accurate, but ‘sheep’ is a weird word that doesn’t roll as smoothly as ‘goat’ does.” I just stared at him and he sighed, “I also have a horse, German shepherd, and lion quads, and all of them double as normal fur-suits except the horse, cow, and wolf, because I already have a wolf fur suit, and it’s a slightly different color and my dad fucks banks for a living so I can buy whatever the hell I want.”

            I nodded, smiling, “That’s right… Admit to your obsession, you horny little mutt.”