A few months had passed since that incident. Thankfully, another incident never happened either (thanks for even more over-protectiveness, mother). The suited men seemed to have stopped coming to our door every week, I dunno if they just gave up or what.
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"Are we there yet?" I asked, becoming impatient after the three hours we'd been in the car. My family and I were heading to the Parker's house from Jacksonville for probably the last time. We were finally moving in with them.
I tapped my sister's shoulder, she didn't even turn around. Just grunted. I sighed in exasperation, she was always so stubborn and mean whenever we went to go do anything with the Parker's. I know she didn't want to leave her friends, but she's just making it worse for everyone else.
"Five minutes longer." My mother replied.
"Finally." I muttered.
Five minutes passed and our silver Honda turned into the Parker's drive way. As soon as my mother put the car into park, I pulled the handle on the automatic sliding door. I jumped out of the car and ran to the front door. I knock. A few seconds later I heard the door latch click and Potato was standing behind it.
"Potato!!" I hollered. I gripped him in a giant bear hug. I the. Released his crippled body (it wasn't actually crippled) and skipped back to the car, going to the trunk to get out my suitcase. We needed to start unpacking.
After a few hours of unpacking we finally got all the silverware, plates, clothing, and toys. I sighed, sweaty from being upstairs where the heat drifts up to.
My cat, Mara, had just gone in a three and a half hour car ride and actually WASN'T hiding under the bed. She was snuggling up against Kitty (huge surprise to me, she isn't that welcoming to people).
I smiled. "I guess the cat really likes you, huh?"
Kitty looked at me, a kinda blank expression on her face. "What? Oh yea." She said, looking down at Mara. "Cats just, really like me."
After dinner, which was taco pile on (I had four tacos total), I went over to my mother, who was loading the dishwasher.
"Um," I whispered to her. "When are we gonna tell them?"
Almost at that very second my mother closed the dishwasher and called. "Family meeting! Come downstairs now!"
That was fast. Everyone was now downstairs, staring at my mother, confused. Potato went up to my mom and whispered something in her ear. She whispered something back.
"Okay." My mother said. "Now, this is the secret sharing meeting. If you have a 'secret' that everyone in your old family knows, you must share it."
Time sighed with disgust, and kitty seemed to have gone as white as a ghost. I'm sure her secret can't be as bad as mine.
After everyone had confessed, the only people who were left were kitty and I. "Well, what is it Kitty?" I asked, getting impatient since we had been staring at each other for a few minutes now. "I'm sure my secret is much worse than yours."
I think Kitty snorted, a smirk going across her face. "I don't think so." She murmured. "But I guess I'll go first."
Before I could even blink, or say anything back, the fragile girl I front of me grew a little taller, and small, rounded brown ears grew out of the top of her head. Her nose turned into a muzzle with a pink cat like nose. Her fingernails turned to claws and light brown fur was growing from her wrists up to her elbow. Small whiskers grew out from her newly formed muzzle and her eyes glowed, tinted yellow. She smiled with sharp, panther-like teeth.
I couldn't even move after this crazy transformation of the kitty Kitty."Oh, wait." She then seemed to have sheathed her newly formed claws somehow and reached into the back of her pants. She then pulled out a somewhat long, furry, brown tail.
My eyes welled up with tears. She was... Like me. "How did you..." I wasn't even paying attention to the scared whimpers of my eight year old brother and the strange terrified noises coming from my sister, when I ran up and hugged my step-sister, who was half cat.
"No. Hugs." I released her from the hug, remembering she didn't like them that much. She saw me crying, the tears welling up in my eyes. I sniffled. "Are you afraid of me, now?" The morphed Kitty asked, her yellowish eyes shining.
I chuckled. "Of course not. How could I be. You're just like me." That surprised her alright.
"You, you mean..." She asked, astounded. "You're part panther too?"
I grabbed her shoulders. "Not exactly." I looked outside. "Come on. Let's go outside."
I skidded over to the sliding glass door and opened it. I turned around to see if Kitty, Potato, and Tina were following me. They were, but Kitty had somehow morphed back into her all human self. Everything was gone except the tail.
"What's with the tail?" I asked.
She shrugged. "It's the only thing that doesn't go away when I morph."
I sighed. "At least you can morph away most of the things that scare normal people."
The Parkers followed me outside, while my mother was trying to calm my sister and brother down. I smiled and turned towards the Parkers.
"You ready?" I said. They all nodded. 'Am I ready?' Is the real question, though. I had never shown anyone outside of my family my wings. Well, the Parkers pretty much are my family now.
I unzipped my favorite black windbreaker and stretched out my wings very slowly, letting the unprepared eyes get introduced to this new thing a little bit at a time.
As I stretched my wings out farther, and farther, their eyes got wider, and wider. Once my tawny wings were stretched out all the way, I though their eyes were about to pop out of their heads.
I looked over my shoulder to see my wings, and saw the netting surrounding the Parker's pool. Oops. I forgot people could still see me. Oh well.
"Can... Can you fly?" Tina asked eagerly.
I smiled. "Yes, actually I can. My bones are lighter, but stronger, than normal human bones. I have special air sacs in my heart and my lungs are bigger so I can get more oxygen while higher in the sky. I also need to eat more because I burn more calories than all human beings."
Tina giggled. "Oh. I thought you only ate a lot because you had some eating disorder or something."
I rolled my eyes. I looked over to Kitty, whose's smile made me feel so much better.
"Oh my gosh." She muttered, barely audible. "I... I'm so happy."
I sniffled. "Me too."
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After a few hours, everyone had been calmed down from the oh so crazy secret sharing meeting from before. Max was asking Kitty a lot of questions about her claws and eyes.
"Well, I can see better in the dark when I'm morphed, and my ears." She pointed to the top of her head. "Help me hear better too."
Once it was pretty dark outside, we all went to the front yard. We walked down to the end of the col-da-sac where there were no house (yet). There was enough light coming from the street lamps, that the ones who did not have animal DNA genetically grafted into them could still see me.
I stretched out my wings and started running. The wind was caught in my feathers and I jumped, flapping my twelve foot tawny wings. I was now about forty feet off the ground, and the look of wonder on the Parker's faces were indescribable.
