• Prologue

    3 months ago, my cat Chang ran away. That day, my mom had gone shopping and I had school. No one could find him and the search ended after 1 month. My mom offered to get a new cat, but no one could replace my Chang.

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    Chapter 1: Unexpected

    “The scientific form for the…” my science teacher kept rambling on. Sometimes he noticed things such as when the room got too loud for people to hear him, but most of the time people texted, slept, or whispered. I am one of those people that just stares out the window all the time but still got good grades. It was the last class of the day so there was excitement in the air even though the room was quiet.
    The bell rang and everyone was out of the classroom in minutes. Even after I left the classroom, I continued to stare outside to my left. It was spring and the sakura trees on the school grounds were in bloom. Chang had always loved chasing the falling petals. I could just picture him in my mind with his bell on his ruby collar ringing as he ran around. My mom tried to convince me he was a Russian blue when I was little, but I know he is a mix. He’d then look at me and I would laugh from the two holes in his left ear and the one in his right looking very pink from the petals.
    “Hey Lan, wait up!” broken from my trance, I turned to see one of my best friends running towards me. Lan Ling is my name. Meilin Qing is the girl now running towards me. Niu Shihong is my other best friend. Mei being the responsible shy one, Niu the oblivious blond, and me the most sociable of the three of us.
    She bent over in front of me with her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath. Her mid-back, red hair fell around her face. For this, I was jealous of her. My hair was brown and never looked good long. Niu’s hair reached her bottom even when she had it in braided pigtails. She always took the time to braid it, even if she was late for school because of it.
    Although I was not jealous of Niu’s golden locks, her eyes completed her look and my jealousy. A bright blue that shown even when she was sad. My eyes are green, and even if my mom says it goes with my hair, I still like blue more. Mei has brown eyes, which in my mind, went with her hair as well.
    Many other students passed by us, trying to get out of school. Everyone was wearing the same thing based on gender. The school’s colors being silver and purple made the main color of the uniform a light gray. The guys had purple shirts with gray pants and ties. The girls had bows that were purple along with the skirts that came in three different lengths.
    “Have you seen Niu? She asked to borrow my notes cause she fell asleep in class, but I need them for homework.” said Mei, who had gotten over her exhaustion. Niu had a tendency to fall asleep in some of her classes and required our notes to not fall behind.
    “She said she needed some flower petals for something. Meaning, she’s already outside.” Now that she was standing again, I was reminded that I was over six inches shorter than Mei. I had always been the average height until high school. Now, I am a few inches shorter than my mom. Niu was four inches shorter than me. She always hoped to be catching up, so she often measured our height difference.
    “We better go find her before she winds up scaring one of us.” I followed Mei down the hall and to the top of a flight of six stairs that led outside. The sun hit my eyes with temporary blindness. It was spring now and it felt like the sun had been itching to shine all winter. “Hey, what’s going on over there?”
    I looked to my right where she was pointing. A large crowd had formed underneath one of the sakura tress. It was then that I spotted Niu. “There she is, at the front of the crowd.”
    “Why am I not surprised?” We went down the stairs and towards the crowd.
    After pardoning and excusing our way through the excited crowd, we got to Niu. “Hey, what are you… doing?” It was then that I noticed what had attracted the crowd. At the base of the tree was a boy asleep. His left leg was flat on the ground, but his right was bent with the knee in the air. Somewhat loose jeans showed no muscle and his feet were bare. A plain white button down, long sleeved shirt covered his torso with the first two buttons at the top undone. His right hand lay on his stomach and his left on the ground with his palm up. His nails were somewhat long and sharp
    My eyes then traveled to his sleeping face. His head was slightly tiltes to the left, showing the right side of his neck. A collar was around his neck that looked like it belonged on a pet. His mouth was slightly opening and closing as he breathed. His balck hair looked unkept and was in his face. A flower petal fell on his nose, making it twitch. After several seconds of twitching, he sneezed. Several girls started muttering about how cute his sneeze was while most others looked at him to see if he woke up. He yawned like a cat and showed that his canines were sharper than normal. Afterwards, he rubbed his eyes with his right hand and propped himself up with his left.
    He opened his eyes and noticed he was surrounded. Quite a few squeals were heard at the completion of his feline appearance. “Must be contacts,” said Mei. For in fact, his eyes were yellow with black slits for pupils.
    He pulled his legs up and put his hands in between his feet to look like a sitting cat. His eyes scanned the crowd, completely unfazed by the looks and giggles, as if looking for something. Then, his eyes locked with mine. Two seconds after he saw me, a wide grin became plastered on his face.
    “Lan, nya!” he uses his position to pounce at me.
    “Aah!” I backup, pushing the people behind me. The boy lands on his face from my unexpected movement.
    “Ow…” the boy is now holding his head between his hands with his legs lightly cross-legged. I started to run, confused on how he knew me and not wanting to be pounced upon. “Wait Lan, nya!” he got up off the ground and started chasing me.
    “Wow, I knew she was afraid of boys, but still.” Mei commented at my running from the boy.
    “Run, Lan, run!” Niu yelled at me while laughing. The other girls started to disperse with their source of affection running off. Several girls muttered about Lan getting all the cute boys, but left nonetheless.
    “Come on Niu. We better go catch them.” Mei started joggin after us.
    “Okay!” Niu skipped after her.

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    “Quit chasing me!” I yelled. We had now reached the park near the school.
    “Then quit running, nya!” the boy yelled back.
    “Quit saying ‘nya’!” I retorted. “No nya!” he defiantly responded. After several minutes more of running around, he tripped and fell. I saw this and stopped running. He flipped to lay on his back and continued to lay there breathing heavily. No longer thinking he would pounce on me, I went and bent over him breathing heavily as well.
    “You can’t run very well.” I told him.
    “You try being on four legs for most of your life then switching to two.” He retorted. We continued like that for several minutes even though I wondered what he meant.
    “Who are you and how do you know my name?” I asked him after straightening up and crossing my arms. He sat up and turned around with his legs crossed.
    “You don’t recognize me?” he had a sad look in his eyes as he said this.
    “I’ve never seen you before.” I looked confusedly at him.
    “It’s me, Chang.” He whined, nearly crying. Not that I looked at him, he did look somewhat familiar. His eyes and hair were the same color as Chang’s. He also had two holds in his left ear and one in his right. The collar was even the same ruby red color.
    “But you can’t be Chang, You’re human.” I started to doubt myself by looking at him. He looked up at me, with tears in the corners of his eyes, but sparkling with hope.
    “Lan!” I looked up and saw Mei and Niu running towards us. Mei bent over in front of me trying to catch her breath for the second time that day. Niu just fell on the ground breathing heavily. “Who’s the kid?” Mei breathed.
    “He says he’s Chang.” I told them. Niu stood up suddenly and went to stare directly into the boy’s face.
    “You can’t tell me that’s true.” Mei stared at me. “Chang is a cat. Cat’s don’t become human.”
    “Chang!” Niu exclaimed and glomped him. They fell over with Niu snuggling his left shoulder.
    “Niu you don’t even know this boy. Why are hugging him?” Mei scolded her.
    “It’s Chang.” She simply stated.
    “That can’t be Chang. He’s human.” She retorted.
    “It doesn’t matter, this is Chang.” She sat up dragging him with her. “They have the same eyes, hair and smell.” She took a deep whiff of his hair.
    “Niu, 1: that’s gross. 2: That doesn’t automatically make him Chang. Lan, please talk some sense into her.” She turned to me.
    “I don’t really want to get into this. I honestly don’t’ know what to believe right now. The obvious answer is that he isn’t’ Chang, but I have this feeling he is.” I told her staring at his face.
    “Fine, let’s all hop on the crazy train. But, if you get hurt in the end, don’t blame me.” She reached a hand to Niu and the boy to help them up. “So now what do we do?”
    I pulled her to the side so they wouldn’t hear. “I kinda want to take him to a doctor. See if he’s related to anyone or is an escape mentalist patient.” I whispered.
    “And we tell the doctor what?” she questioned.
    “I don’t know,” I paused thinking.
    “Maybe we could get Niu’s dad to do it.” I suggested.
    “I guess that could work. I’ll call my sis and have her give us a ride.” Niu’s dad was a doctor that usually took care of all our checkups. Mei’s sister often gave us rides and loved to embarrass her around us.