***
As it happened, Mommy took one look at her and declared that she was staying home. Sallie didn’t argue- just rolled over and went back to sleep once Mommy had finished taking her temperature.
She woke again closer to noon, to a strangely quite house. This most likely meant that Mommy was working on her art down in the basement.
Perfect.
Sallie hopped out of bed and padded over to the closet, where she discovered that sometimes wishes really do come true; Zeb was still sleeping, curled up under an old skirt of hers. She wasn’t sure how much longer that would last, but considering how hungry she was, Sallie figured he would be ravenous when he finally awoke. She shut the door on him again and ventured downstairs to try to figure out what a ring tailed lemur might eat.
Normally she’d have just looked I up on the internet, but she knew perfectly well that her parents checked her browsing history, and she didn’t think it would be wise to show a sudden interest in the eating habits of lemurs the day after one went missing from the menagerie (for surely there would be an outcry) especially in light of the “dream” they thought she’d had. So- no internet, and no getting to the school library today, either. Sallie chewed her cereal and thought.
Mommy had said lemurs were primates, like monkeys- and like humans. It stood to reason that Zeb’s diet couldn’t be that different from hers. Then she remembered his sharp fangs- animals with sharp fangs ate meat, she knew. And probably the sharper the fangs, the more meat they ate- after all, Sallie’s fangs were pretty blunt, and her family only had meat once or twice a week. In fact, there were some leftover hamburger patties in the fridge right now… Just then something rubbed up against her leg and let out a piteous mew!
Sallie looked down- it was Miss Underfoot, their calico cat. She let out a gigantic yawn, displaying her rows of needle-teeth, before nuzzling her head against Sallie’s knee. Sallie frowned. Miss Underfoot should be a meat-eater, too- and she did in fact bring home many small animals she’d killed- but for the most part she ate dry cat food. Which, come to think of it, didn’t seem to be all that different from the cereal Sallie was eating now. Hmmm…
In the end she brought two bowls back up to her room- one with dry cereal in it, and one with crumbled up hamburger patty- plus a banana for good measure. She also brought a sports bottle full of water, because she couldn’t imagine that lemurs drank anything else.
Zeb was still asleep, so she left the food inside the closet with him, and headed into the bathroom for a shower. While she was in there she had another thought- where did lemurs go to the bathroom? Zeb had still been in diapers when he disappeared- Mommy and Daddy had only just started potty training him, so who knew if he’d remember about toilets.
Sallie wanted to bang her forehead against the blue-and-white tile wall. No one ever mentioned all the inane details of adventures in the books she read- how was a girl supposed to be prepared for potty-training a lemur?! She gave her head a little bang, just to see if it might help.
It didn’t.
She felt much better after the shower, and the scratches on her arms didn’t look nearly so dreadful. Mommy would probably assume she got them the normal way, climbing trees rather than breaking and entering. Sallie changed into a fresh pair of pajamas (shorts and a tank-top, this time), grabbed a pen and a notebook, and climbed back into bed.
Time to start brainstorming.
A light knock on the door brought any brewing storms to a screeching halt, and Sallie quickly tossed the notebook to the floor and reached for a book on her night table. Mommy’s head poked through the door.
“Oh good, you’re awake!” she said, and came in. Sallie pretended she was putting down the book she hadn’t picked up. “How you feelin’, sweetie?”
“Better,” Sallie said. “Maybe a little weird, still. But I took a shower and that helped a lot.”
“And ate some lunch, I saw. You forgot to put your dishes in the dishwasher.”
“Whoops,”
“Yeah, whoops,” Mommy teased, and kissed her on the forehead. “But I forgive you because you’re just so pitiful. Hmm, you don’t feel as clammy as you did this morning, either. Maybe it was just a twelve-hour bug.”
“Maybe. I don’t suppose…” Sallie hesitated, knowing that it would be utterly unlike her not to ask the next question, but wanting very, very badly for the answer to be no. “I mean, do you think I ought to go to school now, since I’m feeling better?” Sallie held her breath, but relaxed when she saw Mommy making that face she made when she didn’t want Sallie to know she was trying not to laugh. Really it wasn’t very subtle at all.
“Oh, I don’t think you look that much better. I think you’d probably better stay home, just to play it safe. We wouldn’t want to start a plague in your class, now would we?”
“Definitely not!” agreed Sallie, relieved. “But I think that, if I’m staying home from school and all, I’d better stay mostly in my room, and study.”
“You’re such a good girl, sweetie. So responsible,” Mommy kissed her on the head again, and Sallie couldn’t help but feel guilty that the kind of responsible she was being wasn’t necessarily the kind of responsible her mother meant. “I’ll be down in the studio, if you need anything, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Oh, and Sallie?”
“Yes Mommy?”
“Maybe you should study outside a little bit, too. Get some vitamin D to help stave off those plague bugs.”
“Yes Mommy.”
***
A clattering sort of noise drew her attention back to the closet. When she opened the door there was Zeb, sitting in a pile of spilled cereal and ripping the banana to shreds. He gave her what she assumed was a lemur grin, let out a satisfied purr, and devoured the rest of the fruit. Next he picked up a bit of hamburger, smelled it with apparent suspicion, and put a bit in his mouth. His eyes closed in bliss and he grabbed for more.
“Yeah, I thought you might like the hamburger. I’m sure it’s not natural lemur food, but you’re still my little brother, after all.” Sallie crouched down and started picking up the cereal before he could grind it into the carpet. Zeb watched her for a moment, then began to help with his clever little hands, carefully picking up a single piece at a time before depositing it back into the bowl, glancing up at her every so often for approval, which Sallie smiled at him. For some dumb reason the entire process made her want to cry. She scrubbed angrily at her eyes and took a steadying breath.
“Okay Zebbie, we have to figure out how to get you back to human-shaped. Mommy and Daddy are just too grown up to see beyond your fur, you know?”
Zeb made a sad sound and clutched worriedly at his stripy tail, much as he had once clung to his blue blanket for comfort. Sallie couldn’t help but reach out and gather him into her arms; he sighed and snuggled close her.
“It’s okay, Zeb. We’ll turn you back, and then everything will be okay.”
But how?
Another nice edition to the story. I like your dialogue quite a bit, not just in this story but overall.
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