The mall arcade isn't the best one. It's small and kinda crummy and they haven't added any new machines in years. The better arcade is in the Mayfair Village strip center across town, next to Randalls. They have Mortal Instinct II and the carpet isn't sticky. And they have a Galaxitar that actually works and isn't covered in cigarette burns. Still, the mall arcade, which doesn't even have a name aside from "Arcade," was the place to go. It was cheaper. I could get there on foot. Mostly though, that's where I went simply because that's where everyone else was. Stevie Fegan was there that day, with one of his stupid friends, abusing the inside of an OutRun machine. He wasn't the most captivating person socially, but cool people could be expected to come around at some point. He was being loud and distractingly obnoxious, which I found handy to blame for my own poor performance on Commando Hunt. I was on my last quarter, having managed to feed the game everything the bill changer gave me for a ten in an embarrassingly short span of time. I didn't intend to spend the whole thing. Two dollars at most, no more. But I got so frustrated I just had to keep pumping in quarters until I felt redeemed. At the end of my last attempt, it turned out that redemption couldn't be bought for ten bucks that day. I stood there staring at the Game Over screen, watching the identical, featureless drug smugglers scamper witlessly about the jungle, still shooting their machine guns as if I, the single threat to their criminal enterprise, was not already dispatched. It made the burden of dissatisfaction they left me with a bit worse to know that I had been utterly humiliated by an enemy without the brains to even realize they had defeated me. I was seriously considering putting the other ten-dollar bill in the changer when Stevie started yelling louder than usual. I looked up, following the trajectory of his voice, and saw that he was addressing Melissa Whitmer and two other girls in my English Lit class and someone I didn't know, all sitting at a table in front of the Great American Gourmet Pretzels. You could see most of the food court from inside the arcade. I say he was "addressing" them the same way you would describe a spitting llama at the petting zoo as "addressing" the visitors to his stall. I don't remember what he said, but I remember that Sharon told him to go eat a sack of assholes. I saw his rat tail swinging behind his head as he approached them, then whip around as he began to retreat. The girl I knew only as Amber had stood up to chase him off, and had done so without getting far enough from her metal chair to require a step backward to get back in it. The group murmured some assent to the idea of going someplace else, and they began to stand up. Melissa had noticed me though, and headed in my direction.
"Everybody thought you were sick today," she said, leaning accusatively against the side of the machine I had just doubled the value of.
"My family left for Florida on Thursday night. Why wouldn't I skip on a Friday?" I replied, and her face had to concede there was some logic in it.
"You could have just gone with them. Then you could have missed school with a legit excuse instead of getting busted later," she said. I just shrugged.
"Our family trips suck. I don't wanna go waste my weekend sitting in the car with my boring family then be forced to hang out with my idiot cousin while everybody plots what horrible restaurants we're gonna go to. I'd rather have the house to myself for once," I said rather petulantly.
Melissa shrugged. "Whatever. We're gonna go walk around I guess. You can come with."
"Nah, I'll just go home. Enjoy all the peace and quiet," I replied.
I would have gone with them, but truthfully that guy they were with gave me the creeps. Later that month he ended up going to jail for stealing drugs from the veterinarian office where he worked, so I guess my instincts about him were right. I left the arcade and started heading home, thinking about what I was going to say about the ten bucks. A condition of my staying behind was that I would weed and mulch all the flower beds, which I hate, but sharing a car with my brother for six hours is marginally worse. Mom left me twenty dollars for mulch, and now I didn't have enough. There was no covering it myself, seeing as my wages were then being garnished at a rate of 100% to cover the damage I did to Dad's car with a curb and a large rock. I told them a family of ducks ran out in front of me. I was actually playing with the radio. I walked past the storefronts looking at the linoleum floor, converting my guilt into a more palatable anger. Just as I was deciding that I didn't want to do it anyway and any punishment I earned would be easier than weeding five hundred stupid flower beds, and that I didn't owe it to them in the first place because... I looked up. Right into a face that made me jump and stop dead, stiff and startled. I kept staring, feeling the adrenaline twinge in my gut slowly dissipate. The clown stared back. It was just a mask. For a fraction of a second, his face seemed real, but when I realized it was some kind of rubber job it was hardly frightening at all. Just weird.
"Hey kid. Want a balloon?" the clown asked me.
The way he was grinning I knew he could see that he'd scared me, and he thought it was funny.
"I'm not a kid," I shot back.
"Of course you're not," the clown replied gently. "Not on the outside."
He kept making that stupid grin, twisting a balloon in his white gloved hands. He was making some animal out of it. He didn't look like a normal rent-a-clown. No rainbow wig, no big red shoes. He was all in white, a baggy outfit with black pom-pom buttons and a big ruffled collar like he was about to start singing an opera. Little pointy Jack-in-the-box hat, white face. There was something old and outdated about his appearance, like he was dressed up for a silent movie. He did have the typical round red nose though, stuck on the end of this long, dog-like snout. That face was what kept me standing there, unable to walk away.
Uh, I'm good," I said. "I don't need a balloon animal."
"All right then," he said, putting the finishing twist on a pink poodle.
The mask covered everything, made it look like he had an animal head. I don't know what animal it was supposed to be. I remember it being very much like a dog, except for the ears. They were way too small. The mouth moved when he talked. It looked so real.
"How about a magic trick?"
I didn't know what to say to that. Instead of refusing, I just stood there dumbfounded, staring at that unsettling face. He wasn't looking at me through holes. The mask was blended around his real eyes. He had these little, narrow eyes that didn't seem like they were in quite the right place. The pancake makeup made it easy to hide the seams of the mask I'm sure, but even knowing that it looked so uncannily real... He stuck his hand out, straight at my head. I flinched, and got a look up his sleeve when his glove touched my ear. I remember his arm being covered in short brown fur for some reason. He held up a coin, pinched between finger and thumb like the "okay" gesture.
"Great," I said, finding the courage for sarcasm again. "My uncle does that one."
He snickered and flipped the coin at me. I almost didn't catch it. I hesitantly thanked him, looking at the quarter in my palm and back up to those eyes. They were too far apart, and there wasn't enough white in them. I was slowly regaining the fear I had lost earlier.
"Life is tragically dissimilar to video games in a lot of ways," he said, thick whiskers bouncing on either side of his shiny nose as he spoke. "Not the least of which being that in real life, we so seldom get second chances."
He smiled in a way that troubled me, and I started again on my way. Some other people had already started lining up behind me for balloon animals, and I heard the clown ask some kid on a sugar high what animal he wanted as I mixed back into the crowd. I couldn't understand why they all weren't more bothered by that creepy face. If I was running the mall I wouldn't let a clown that looked like that come in to peddle balloons or anything else, but I supposed I was being oversensitive. I kept on towards the exit, feeling the quarter in my fingers. I started to think that I really wanted one more shot at the arcade game, and there wasn't any harm in spending this one. It was a freebie, right? What difference did it make? I doubled back for a little way and cut through the Dillard's so I wouldn't run into that freaky clown again on my way back to the arcade. When I got there I was surprised to see Melissa and her friends still hanging around. Apparently they decided to get pretzels.
"Back again," Melissa said, more of an announcement than a question.
"I found another quarter in my pocket," I said, holding up the coin I got from the clown.
"Hey, lemme see that..." she said, reaching out to keep me from lowering my hand. "Is that a quarter?"
For the first time since receiving it, I looked closely at the coin. I realized right away it was unlike any quarter I knew of. It was certainly a quarter; it said "Quarter Dollar" on it and "United States of America" and everything. But the eagle was in flight and looked realistic, and on the other side there was a lady with a shield instead of George Washington.
"Yeah, it's a quarter. Must be a new one," I said.
"It says 1918 on it, you space cadet!" Melissa said with surprise, tilting the coin in my fingers to see it in the fluorescent light.
I made some mumbled acknowledgement, and turned towards one of those shooting games with the pink and blue plastic guns on it.
"You're not gonna use that in a game, are you?" she asked.
I shrugged. "Why not?"
"It's like, really old! I think quarters were made out of real silver back then. That might be worth a lot more than twenty-five cents."
"It's just a quarter," I declared, wanting more than ever to have one good run on a game, any game, so I could go home feeling good about myself.
"Whatever you say," Melissa said, tossing her hands up and following me into the arcade.
I passed by the Commando Hunt machine, not wanting to make things worse by failing a forty-first time. I walked up to an older machine with what looked like an easier game. It was called Penga.
"Come on, there's a rare coin shop like, two blocks away. Just show it to them," she said, leaning on the Penga machine. "Don't be dumb."
"Too late," I said, dropping the quarter into the machine.
Melissa sighed and shook her head.
The Penga machine started playing a twangy, jovial electronic tune and I pressed the Player 1 button. It wasn't a hard game to understand. Like most of the old ones, it was just a single screen. You are a blue penguin, the titular Penga, navigating an ice maze trying to defeat the Walrus Wizard. He's probably called something less silly in Japanese. Despite the straightforward nature of the game, it was still fairly difficult. I had died twice before beating the first level.
"Go through there and you come out the other side of the screen," Melissa said, offering me pointers. "Those guys can't get you if you have the bucket... If you shoot your ice blocks over there you'll block them in..."
I halfheartedly tried to do what she said, knowing she was only trying to be helpful, but I obstinately wanted to succeed my own way.
"Wait, wait! Stop! There's a trick you can do here! Just wait until they line up and..."
I blew the chance and pushed the ice block too early. Almost immediately, a crab got me. Our shoulders slumped, and the Game Over tune bleeped out of the cabinet speaker.

CHAPTER 2
I thought it was everything I wanted. I thought I would be perfectly happy once all the irritations that chafed against me daily were removed from my surroundings. Despite being gifted with three days of solitude and privacy, I found myself feeling and acting no happier. The only difference was now I had the freedom to brood on the living room couch rather than my bed. I told myself it was the arcade. I had a bad week. I was off my game. My lousy performance wound me up worse. I'd feel better tomorrow, surely. I thought of these things staring up at the ceiling fan, watching the slow blades blur and morph ever stranger the longer I stared at them. Meditating in this way usually had an abating effect on my anxious nerves, but the disquieting sensations I had been filled with ever since returning home from the mall didn't seem to be fading. I seemed to get antsier as the minutes passed. Not only that, but I became more physically uncomfortable as well. I couldn't lay in a comfortable position. I got strange tingles. I was alternately hungry and sick to my stomach. I rolled side to side on the couch, kicking the pillows to the floor. The most uncomfortable sensation was one of being too hot. It was not warmer than one would expect for late spring, and the air conditioner was working. Still, I was roasting. I began to think I was getting sick. I cursed my luck for being given a weekend of total freedom only to have to spend it puking from food court poisoning. I got off the couch and found myself very unsteady. I was disoriented, and my body didn't respond the right way when I tried to move. Looking back, I believe the changes had already begun at this point, but I was too foggy to realize it. I began heading up the stairs to the bathroom, either to find some Pepto Bismol or lose my lunch. I toddled up stair by stair, foreign-feeling hands grasping at the railing. One of the vague images I have of these moments is of my hand, reaching for the banister, with the fingers all pressed together. I couldn't spread them out. I opened the bathroom door and veered over to the mirrored door of the medicine cabinet with the strange reflection in it. I pried it open and pawed through the contents, but I could only find a bottle of antacids. I ate a couple of the minty tablets anyway, thinking it was better than nothing. I still felt awful. More than anything else the sensation of being too hot bothered me. Must be a fever, I thought. I glanced at the bathtub and thought what a relief it would be to lay in cold water. They say that's what you're supposed to do, don't they? I lifted the toggle to stop the drain and opened the cold tap fully, then wobbled backward and sat on the toilet. I watched the tub fill, the thunderous splashing reverberating off the walls and seeming to make my head hum. I began to disrobe awkwardly. It was like my clothes suddenly were too ill-fitting to come off easily, and I struggled to pull my shirt over my head. I felt stranger by the minute, my sense of scale totally distorted, my arms feeling like they were floating. I was becoming afraid, thinking that I was becoming dangerously feverish. I wished my parents were there. Finally I got up and shut off the faucet, which seemed harder to reach somehow. The whole bathtub felt different, but I didn't care. I slid in headfirst, and instantly I felt better. The water felt wonderful. I lay in it with my back on the cold porcelain, staring up at the giant, distant ceiling. I had just started to close my eyes when suddenly I was submerged. The bathroom had been growing all around me since I came in, but in that moment the tub seemed to abruptly double in size. I thrashed in the water, my senses brought back all at once the way a bucket of water in the face would do in a movie or something. I struggled against the slippery tub and my own confusing body for a moment before I grabbed the edge of the tub and hauled myself upright. I was no longer sick, or foggy in the least. I was totally alert now, and I realized instantly that things were extremely wrong. I had no arms. I was holding on to the side of the tub with a pair of fuzzy flippers. I scrambled over the side of the massive tub and felt further alarmed by how wrong my body was. I felt like a potato with feet. I fell onto the mat almost in a panic, still sputtering water out of my... What was even on my face? I had nostrils but where was my nose? I looked down at myself, supine on the floor, and saw a round white belly and two yellow, scaly feet beyond it. I didn't want to believe they were mine, but I could move them. I pushed myself upright with those flat flippers and felt my face. I had a beak. If I crossed my eyes I could see it, blurry and yellow. I got to my feet and waddled over to the sink cabinet, which was as tall as I was. I was frightened of what I would see, but I had to look at my reflection. Failing to climb up, I grabbed a little stool I used to use when I was four or five and used it to get on the counter. I froze in horror the moment I saw the mirror. Looking back at me was a pudgy bird. A penguin, no mistaking it. Except for my round white cheeks and my belly, I was bright blue. I spent some time opening and closing my beak and moving my flippers while I watched my reflection, just to convince myself this chubby, feathery little creature in the mirror was actually me. Eventually I had to concede that it was. Very carefully I dismounted the sink counter and, after a few moments of trying, figured out how to get my smooth wingtips to open a doorknob.

CHAPTER 3
I had no idea what to do with myself. I felt a novel mixture of confusion and depression, which was paralyzing in both parts. I sat on the living room carpet and stared at my clawed feet. From where I sat I could see myself in the sliding glass door that led to the backyard, Which at night showed only a black reflection of the living room, and occasionally I would look up at my bizarre countenance. Mostly I just hung my head and stared at my belly. It was better than seeing all of me at once. As horrifying as it was, I couldn't shake this morbid fascination with what had happened to me. I was in the middle of prodding myself, feeling how fat and squishy I was, when a noise in the kitchen almost stopped my little penguin heart. I didn't know what to do. I was caught between trying to stand up and crawl under the sofa. I couldn't decide on either, and just fell over. Through my panic, I tried to force a rational thought. There was definitely something in the kitchen. I was not imagining it. Was it something I didn't need to fear? I couldn't imagine. I scooted on my belly across the carpet and peered around the couch. The next moment felt like a dream. I was looking at a giant crab slowly scuttling across the kitchen floor. It was bigger than I was, which wasn't saying much, but it was coming towards me. At this point my rational mind failed me. I plunged into the reflexive semi-consciousness of someone having a nightmare. I made a squawking sound like a baritone kazoo and made a stumbling sprint for the sliding door to the backyard. I couldn't open it. I couldn't grip it, and it was too heavy anyway. As I flailed and scraped at the glass, I could watch the crab approaching in the reflection. The closer it got, the more frantic I became until internally I exploded with fight-or-flight terror. My mind chose flight. I ran as fast as I could move, which was a frustratingly hindered waddle. I plunged randomly through the house, not looking back, until I ended up in the mud room. There was a doggie door there, for our old dog. I dove into it headfirst, and my head and chest went through, but my middle got stuck. I was too fat to go through. I squawked and thrashed with desperation, expecting to feel pincers on my tail at any moment. I finally popped through and collapsed on the pavement. It was more than a little painful to force myself through that little hole, but that didn't stop me from getting up and continuing to run. I didn't know where I was going, and it didn't matter. Whatever part of the brain makes plans like that wasn't working anyway.

How much longer I don't know, but before long I was spent. Physically and emotionally exhausted, I lay under a shrub curled in a ball. Eventually my wits rebooted, and I wanted to know where I was. I poked my beak hesitantly out of the bush. I recognized the house I had taken shelter beside. I was only three doors down from my own. I groaned. Where was I to go next? I couldn't go home. Not only had I lost my proper form, I had lost my proper place in the world. It occurred to me that I was fairly close to Melissa's house. She lived on the next street, not more than a couple more houses down from this one. I resolved to go there, not really wanting to but needing someplace to hide from giant crabs. I waddled through the cool grass between my neighbors' houses, wondering how I was going to explain myself. Could I even talk? I hadn't tried yet. I was pleased to hear my own voice come out of my beak when I quietly attempted to recite the poem I had to learn for English Lit. "To a Nightengale." Ha. I was feeling a little calmer as I came out from between two wooden fences and started across the front lawn of a house on the next street. I was a little worried that someone would see me, but what could I do? I was more worried about crabs anyway. I kept swiveling my head to look for them as I plodded down the sidewalk, avoiding the illumination of a street light, hurrying through Melissa's yard. There were lights on in the house. It wasn't really that late. I went to her window and looked up at the bottom of the brick sill. What would I say? Maybe I wouldn't say anything. I would just pretend I couldn't talk and wouldn't bother trying to inform her of my identity. I couldn't think of a way to get her attention. I couldn't reach the window to tap on it with my beak. I didn't want to start squawking and bring her whole family out. I stared up at the screen-covered pane with frustration, worried I was being followed, wishing I could hit it with something. That will seemed to channel through my body and something launched outward from seemingly the middle of my face. Melissa's window shook from the violent thump it received, and little broken crumbles showered the grass around me. I didn't have the faintest idea what had happened, or if it was even something I had done. I didn't have long to be confused about it. A flashlight beam was scanning the window, and the latch was being opened. Melissa slid the window up, and I saw the dim beam of light scanning the grass under the window. I had chickened out and hid in the bushes against the house. She couldn't see me.
"Is somebody out there?" she asked. She sounded more accusatory than scared.
I stayed quiet, but when I heard the window starting to close, I piped up, not wanting to be abandoned.
"It's me!" I said.
"What?" Melissa answered. "What the hell are you doing in my bushes?"
Her flashlight scanned where I was, but she still couldn't see me.
"I need your help!" I pleaded.
"Yeah, you need help all right. How are you inside that bush?"
"Please, can I come in? I'm scared."
The genuine distress in my voice moved her. She didn't sound irritated anymore.
"Yeah, yeah, what's going on? What happened?"
"Something really weird happened to me..."
"All right, I'll help, just come out of the bush."
I did as she said, slowly scooting out on my belly and standing up, the beam of her flashlight reflecting off my bright feathers. I could barely see her face, but "shocked" didn't really sum it up.
"What the fuck?!" was all she could think to say.
I just stood there sadly.
"You're... You turned into a penguin."
I nodded.
"...You're adorable."
She held on to my flippers and pulled me up through the window, dragging my belly over the sill. I tumbled onto her floor, and she shut the screen and the window. At last I felt safe.
"Jeez, you're heavier than you look!" she said, lifting me up on my feet.
I just groaned.
"How in the world did you get turned into a penguin?" she asked me, looking down with disbelief at me, illuminated dimly by the single reading lamp in her cluttered room.
I groaned again. "I don't know! It just happened. I felt sick and awful, then I almost drowned in the bathtub, and suddenly I'm a penguin. And then I got attacked by giant crabs!" I gushed out my pitiful story.
"Wait, giant crabs?" she said with a hint of realization. "You mean like... Oh my God, you're Penga!"
I hadn't made the connection myself until she said it, but I immediately realized she was right.
"Holy shit I am Penga," I said flatly.
Melissa got on her knees in front of me to look me over closer.
"You're a dead ringer for the penguin on the side of the cabinet. You're just missing the bow tie."
I felt my neck. Penga had a red bow tie. I was glad one hadn't somehow sprouted from my skin...
"That raises more questions than it answers," I observed.
"Hold on, wait," she said, remembering the other important thing I said. "There are giant crabs out there? From the video game? Are they chasing you?"
"Well, there's one at least. In my house."
"Can it get OUT of your house?" she asked, keen to hear the answer.
I just shrugged.
"Well it better not show up here." She stood up and sat on her bed, still looking down at me.
"Can I stay here tonight?" I asked.
"I guess so," she replied. "You can sleep on the beanbag. Good thing you don't need to borrow a toothbrush."
I felt a little flush of embarrassment. She was referencing an incident that occurred when I had slept over at her house before, back in elementary school days. The "extra" toothbrush I grabbed was actually the one they used on the dog. Who brushes their dog's teeth?
"We'll have to figure something else out later," she went on.
I didn't want to think about it. I was too tired. My brain felt like wet macaroni. I crawled up on her purple beanbag chair and sunk into it defeatedly. I must have gone to sleep immediately. I never even heard her go to bed.

CHAPTER 4
I awoke the next morning thankfully undevoured by crabs. I was alone in Melissa's bedroom. I could tell it was fairly late in the morning, but I didn't want to get up. The only thing that roused me was needing to use the bathroom. I had no idea what that would entail, but I was compelled to find out. When I emerged from the bathroom a bit later, I found Melissa in her room.
"There you are," she said, leaning back on her bed with her hands sinking into the mattress. She stared at me, a little blue silhouette in the door frame, hiss of the refilling toilet tank in the air. "God, it's even weirder seeing you now. Last night it was like a dream, but now here you still are in the daylight."
"Yeah, I was kinda hoping I wouldn't wake up as a penguin," I said, plapping my flippers against my sides.
"It's too real." She shook her head and got up to dig something out of her top dresser drawer, and beckoned me closer.
I waddled over curiously, and she knelt down in front of me. She put a red ribbon around my neck and carefully tied it into a neat bow.
"There. That's all you were missing," she said, standing up to admire it.
I laughed, probably for the first time in quite a while, feeling the ersatz bow tie with my flippers.
"Plus, now you're not naked in my room anymore."
I suddenly realized how hungry I was. "Is there anything for breakfast?" I asked.
"Oh, sure. Stay here, I'll get you something."
She jogged back to the kitchen, and I crawled back into the bean bag. My round, heavy body sank into it like a bowling ball. A minute later, Melissa came back with a box in her hand.
"Here you go," she said, holding it out to me.
The box had a familiar fisherman in a yellow rain slicker printed on it.
"Fish sticks?" I asked skeptically.
"That's what penguins eat, isn't it?" she responded. "Frozen fish..."
I took the box and poked my beak into it, retrieving a single fish stick. Eating with a beak felt a little weird. There wasn't really any way to chew, but I didn't need to. I crushed the frozen stick a few times and found that I could still taste all right, which was bittersweet considering what I was tasting. I let the freezer-burned hunk of breading slide down my throat just because I was so hungry.
"Well?" she asked.
"How about a bowl of Cap'n Crunch instead?"

I felt much better after I had a bowl of sugary cereal in me. I was finishing it off, holding the bowl in my wings to pour the lukewarm, oversweetened milk into my beak, as Melissa thought out loud.
"It's a good thing you weren't playing the Ms. Pac-Man machine, or you'd be in real trouble," she said.
"What do you mean?" I answered, after a brief pause to hiccup.
"Well, imagine if you got turned into a sentient yellow pizza with a bow. Oh jeez, what if someone has been?"
"You think I could be not the only one?" I asked, not having considered the frightening possibility.
"Maybe the whole arcade is cursed or something. Transforming kids left and right. Some poor kid could be stuck as the car from Buggy Bop right now."
I briefly wished I had turned into the protagonist of Commando Hunt instead, but just as quickly I started to doubt that would have actually been preferable.
"If it's happening to more people, I guess we'll hear about it. Sounds like a big news story," I said.
"Yeah. People getting attacked by Inky and Blinky is bound to end up on Action News," she replied.
"Speaking of attacks," I sighed, "I gotta do something about that crab in my house."
"Oh yeah..." She replied. "Don't worry, I'll help you. Wait a minute, how big was it exactly?"
I held out my flippers to demonstrate my recollection of its size. About two feet across.
She considered it briefly. "Okay, yeah. I'll help you."

It being Saturday morning, Melissa's parent's cars were still in the garage. I had a place to hide between them as Melissa dug through a tall metal locker.
"Here it is! Old reliable." She declared, pulling out an aluminum bat and holding it aloft like Excalibur. "I have one of the other bats I used when I played softball as a kid. It's smaller, maybe you can use it?"
I shook my head. "I don't think so."
"Well you need something... Hey, this is perfect!" She held up a very small turtle costume.
"Perfect for what?" I asked.
"For a disguise! You don't want people to see you like that, do you?"
I stared at the costume. It was green and fuzzy and kind of filthy. "No, but... Why do you even have a tiny turtle costume?"
"The dog wore it for Halloween once."
I sighed. She had a point though. Better to be thought a badly dressed dog than a talking penguin. "Fine, gimme the costume."

The heat was suffocating. It wasn't summer yet, but for a pudgy penguin in a thick, padded polyester suit, the sun might as well have been an open furnace. I went as fast as my awkward feet would go, but that only made me hotter. Melissa walked slowly at my side to keep pace.
"I should have just carried you," she said, swinging her bat.
"We're almost there!" I said with relief, seeing my own front door. The trip back hadn't felt as long, which was a mercy. We reached my front porch and Melissa tried the door.
"It's locked," she said, staring at me.
"We've got one of those fake rocks with a key in it somewhere," I said, stifled by the hood of the costume.
Melissa started to dig in the flower bed, checking the rocks to find the fake one. I stood there in agony, wishing like hell she would hurry and find it.
"Come on! I'm gonna die of heatstroke!" I squeaked.
"Hold on, hold on! I got it!" She said, and put the key in the door.
We walked in cautiously, bat raised. It was all quiet. As soon as I felt certain nothing was going to lunge at us, I started stripping the turtle costume off as fast as I could. I yanked and tore at it, hopping in circles, until I fell over. Panting, gratefully nude aside from my bow tie.
"Feel better?" She asked.
I nodded.
"Okay, let's sweep the house. Just stay close to me."
I followed her quietly across the carpet. Through the dining room, into the kitchen. I expected to see it there again, but there was nothing. Just the sunny, beige stillness of an empty house on a spring morning.
"This is where I saw it," I said as we rounded the kitchen island.
"No trace of it now..."
She led me through to the living room, and we cautiously peered around the furniture. Still nothing. I was getting more antsy by the second from the anticipation of being attacked. A sudden noise startled me, and that was enough to make me squawk embarrassingly loudly and leap onto the couch.
"That was me," Melissa said apologetically, holding the jacket that the thermos had fallen out of.

It was beginning to seem like the crab wasn't there. I was beginning to hope that desperately, at least. We had been everywhere downstairs and everything was dead silent.
"It's not that I don't believe you," Melissa started to say, standing in the hallway that led to the guest room. "But like, are you SURE there was a giant crab?"
"Yes I'm sure!" I said, distraught. "I didn't imagine it!"
"All right. We'll look upstairs, but if we don't find it after that I'm gonna..." She opened the door to the half bath we had been standing next to and screamed. The crab was waiting right behind it. She scrambled to lift her bat and get away at the same time. I fell over again.
"It's way bigger than you said it was!" She yelled, holding the bat out to block its path.
"Just hit it!" I said.
She took a swing that landed directly on top of its bright red carapace. This seemed to have no effect. Horrified, she swung a few more times. Nothing happened. It reached out and pinched her leg, and she shrieked and dropped the bat before fleeing. I ran too, but not nearly as fast. I went around the other way and turned up at the bottom of the stairs shortly after she started up them. I honked at her, struggling to climb, and she returned to drag me up the stairs by the flippers. Fortunately my feathers prevented rug burn. We got to the top and collapsed, breathing hard.
"That was so much bigger than you said!" Melissa repeated angrily. I shrugged.
"Are you okay? Did it get your leg?" I asked.
"I'm fine. It just grabbed me; it didn't even hurt..."
"What do we do if it's immune to softball bats?"
"I don't know, does your dad have a gun or something?"
"I don't think so?" I clasped my flippers on my head. "How do you kill them in the game?"
Just as I wondered that, my bedroom door opened. We spun towards the creaking of the door in horror to see another crab. Melissa screamed and tried to scramble away, dragging me along as she went. My eyes were locked on the crab as her arms frantically squeezed my chest like the Heimlich maneuver. That's when the ice cube just popped out of me. My beak opened and there it went, sailing for the crab. It struck its mark, and the crab was instantaneously encased in a cubic block of ice.
Melissa was frozen too. "Wh... How the hell did you do that?" She stammered.
"I unno..." I answered, also shocked. The crab was motionless, suspended behind a few hazy inches of ice. White fog slowly drifted downward from the surface of the frosty cube. I left Melissa's embrace and hesitantly poked a flipper on the ice cube. It didn't feel heavy. I slid it across the carpet towards the stairs, then gave it a good shove. It tumbled about halfway down the staircase before shattering and a moment later, evaporating without a trace.
"Holy shit," Melissa said, staring down the carpeted ledge. "Go! Get the other one!" She nudged my behind. A hasty descent later we found the other crab waiting, still in the hallway. I aimed my beak at it and, somehow, my body answered my will and fired another ice cube. This crab too was solidified in a nearly three-foot cube of ice.
"Yeah! That's what you get, grabby!" Melissa said excitedly. She approached the ice cube and tried to shove it across the floor with her foot. Her sneaker squeaked on the damp ice, but there was no movement. She tried again, harder, with a little grunt, but she couldn't move it an inch. "What the hell? This thing weighs a hundred pounds!" She exclaimed.
I went up to the ice cube and gave it a shove with both flippers. It slid away from me, gliding across the carpet like a curling stone.
"How are you so strong?!" Melissa demanded.
"I'm not. It feels really light..."
"Well it isn't. It weighs a ton."
The ice cube bumped the wall and shattered like the other one.
"You got some freaky powers," Melissa stated.

CHAPTER 5
We scoured the house in search of more crabs, and thankfully found none. Not until we checked the backyard, where I had to dispatch another. Then on the other side of the fence, we spotted one more. We pursued it down the street, I in my disguise, and covertly eliminated it. We continued in the same direction, compelled to hunt for more. Was there an end to the creatures? It didn't matter at that moment. What else could I do but fight them? Apparently I was the only one who could. We came upon a bus stop shelter. There were people waiting in and around it, and nearby something strange was waddling along a fence.
"What the hell is that?" Melissa asked, pointing at the orb-shaped creature.
"I think that's from the game too," I said. It was. The circular thing with the huge goggle eyes was called a borble. They first appear in level 2.
"What do we do? There's people watching," she asked. I didn't have an answer.
I was startled by a noise behind me. Another borble stumbled out of a bush and advanced toward me. I staggered back and started to run.
"We have to lure them away, or something!" Melissa hissed, looking at the bus stop people.
She only had to jog, but I was running hard. It was miserable in the stupid turtle suit. The borbles were faster than the crabs, and it easily kept pace with us. What happened if it touched me, I wondered? If all the game rules applied, I would die. The thought terrified me. I crouched behind a mailbox and tried to fire an ice cube at it. I missed, constrained as I was, and I didn't have time to try again before the horrid fuzzball was on top of me again. Melissa couldn't help me. She tried kicking it back, but she couldn't slow it down. Nothing she did seemed to affect it, like when you punch in a dream and it just doesn't work. The people across the street were starting to notice. What they thought was happening, I can only guess. A girl walking unruly dogs? A really awful babysitter kicking at children? It's sort of comical now, but at that moment I was about to explode from terror. Tied up in a turtle suit, backed into the corner of a bakery doorway, watching what I had to presume was instant death toddling towards me. I did explode. I had to fight for my life and nothing else mattered. I ripped off the turtle costume and froze the borble. I kicked the block into a wall and watched it explode with no small amount of satisfaction. I looked across the street. The people at the bus stop were staring at me, dumbfounded, too stunned to notice the other borble waddling past the bus shelter. I didn't care. I started running towards them in my silly waddle. I wanted to go faster. This powerful urge made me dive onto my belly, and to my surprise I landed on ice. As it was happening, I remembered it from the game. Penga can dash in a straight line by sliding on a trail of ice. I zoomed across the street, jumped to my feet, and iced the other borble. Then I ran away.
Melissa had to sprint to catch up with me, again sliding on my belly further down the street. "Nice moves," she said.
"It wasn't that hard, actually," I replied. "I'm built for it. It's easy if there's nothing holding me back."
"You probably sent those folks at the bus stop to psychotherapy," she said, stopping beside me. I had come to rest at a sidewalk tree planter.
"I don't care," I said. "Let them see me. I might have to live the rest of my life like this. People are just going to have to deal with it."
Melissa sat on the bench that surrounded the planter, catching her breath. "What about your family?" she asked.
I shook my head. "I don't know. You can accept me, I guess they will too." I sat on the pavement and looked at my yellow toes. "I mean, they accepted who I was before..." I remarked, reflecting on what a little shit I had been for some time.
"I could be worse," she said cheerfully. "You're a pretty cute little penguin. If you were the ship from Asteroids, your mother might have a harder time loving a glowing letter A." She patted the tuft of blue feathers on top of my head.
I stared down the street. "There's another one," I said eventually.
Melissa saw it too. "Are we going to have to chase these things all the way out of town or what?" she said tiredly.
I thought about that. The enemies were appearing in more or less a straight line, and they never returned behind us. We were progressing to somewhere, but where were we going? Then I realized this was a familiar route. "I think we're going back to the mall," I said.

Indeed, the more enemies I eliminated, the closer we got to the mall. They were getting stronger, but I was getting better. I was becoming more confident in my abilities, more familiar with what I could do. It actually felt pretty good. I was strong, I was fast. By the time those seals with the big ice tongs were attacking us, Melissa had to keep far back and let me handle it. I'd learned how to ride ice blocks, how to bounce them off walls. I was starting to feel untouchable. We made it all the way to the mall entrance. I stared up at what seemed like giant doors to me. In the reflection of the glass, I could see the group of people that had started following me. By this point, Melissa's role had evolved to crowd control. Stay back, don't touch the penguin, don't panic...
"You think the Walrus Wizard is in there?" Melissa asked, looking down at me from close by my side.
"Probably," I said.
"You ready to take him on?" she asked.
"Yeah." I pushed on the door as hard as I could, swinging the massive tempered pane open. It was crowded, as one would expect on a Saturday. Everyone was staring at me, of course. The number of eyes on me was becoming uncomfortable, even if I had decided not to care about it.
"We can't start the fight now, can we?" Melissa said.
I shook my head. She was right. I imagined the mayhem it would cause. "We have to get away from these people somehow," I said.
Melissa pointed to a service corridor. The door was propped open with a mop bucket. "Hide in there. I'll meet you at Musicland later." She then turned away from me and pointed across the way. "There's a monster polar bear attacking Benetton!!" she shouted, and everyone looked. I took my chance and skidded away.

CHAPTER 6
I had been watching the entrance to Musicland for a half hour or so. I was at the Kay Bee Toys across from it, so when Melissa finally showed up she didn't see me at first. She stood out front, went inside, came back out. She looked worried, but I didn't dare try to get her attention. It would give away my hiding place. She finally spotted me, as I knew she would eventually. She came up to me with a smirk and stood right in front of me, looking down through the glass.
"Very clever," she said.
I didn't move. I just smiled at her, sitting on the floor with some big stuffed animals in the window display.
"Think you can stay like that until the mall closes?" she asked.
I nodded subtly.
She giggled. "Okay, maybe I'll go pretend to be a mannequin or something. See you later."

It was a bit dull pretending to be a stuffed animal all day. It was barely noon when we got to the mall, so I had a good nine hours to wait. I watched people. I looked out for seals, but fortunately none appeared. Mostly I just reflected on my life. I had plenty to think about. The more I thought about it, the more regret I started to feel. I couldn't deflect it like I usually did, not in my present predicament. I had gotten myself turned into a penguin. There were no two ways about that. And it wouldn't have happened if I had just listened to anyone. Or just done what I said I would do in the first place. It's easy to write it here now, a few obvious sentences a short distance into a trite paragraph. But it took me a long time to reach that on the day, sitting in the front window of a toy store. Forced to meditate. Unable to distract myself. Noting to keep me from peeling back the layers bullshit in my head until I finally faced the truth which is simple and uninteresting for you to read now. But it hit kind of hard at the time.

Eventually closing time was approaching. I couldn't see a clock, but I could feel it. The crowds dwindled and went home, the sunlight coming through the glass ceiling turned orange. I listened to the employees cleaning the store after hours, joking and cutting up, blowing off steam after a long shift. One had a very amusing impression of a particularly difficult customer. 'I don't see why there have to be so many different batteries,' he bellowed, face bunched up in his hands to mimic her expression, to howls of laughter. Eventually the vacuum cleaner went silent and the lights went out. They drew down a metal gate and sealed me inside the store, and I was at last alone. I started to worry that Melissa wouldn't come, that I would be locked in the store all night. But she did come, approaching hastily through the empty plaza, lit now only by moonlight.
"You're still there!" she said with relief to find me just where she had left me.
I hopped to my feet and pressed my flippers on the glass. "Is that pizza?!" I squawked desperately. I had never been so hungry in my life.
"Yeah, I thought you might want something to eat by now. It's all for you." She opened one of the triangular paper boxes with the Sbarro logo on it.
"GET ME OUT OF HERE!" I honked, hopping up and down.
"Sure. Uh... How?" she asked.
There was no way to open the gate drawn down over the doors. I looked frantically for a gap I could squeeze through, but small as I was, I was still too big for that. She passed me some pizza slices through the gate, which at least made me feel better.
"You'll have to go through the ceiling or something," she said.
I looked up at the drop ceiling tiles. I knew I could get up there. "I'll try it," I said, and I started stacking ice cubes. I could make one appear beneath me every time I jumped, and it wasn't much trouble to get up there. I pushed a tile up and into the ceiling I went. It was precarious to walk up there, and I had no idea where I was going, but soon I was sure I was on the other side of the gate. I peeled up a tile below me and looked down, grateful to see the tiled plaza floor.
"I'll catch you!" Melissa said, appearing below me.
I couldn't stack ice from that distance, so I had no other option. I hesitated, but found the guts to jump through the hole. A surreal, weightless moment followed, then Melissa caught me. To say that she simply cushioned my fall is more accurate. She crumpled under me when I landed on her, and we were both shaken when we reached the floor. Unhurt though, fortunately.
"I forgot how heavy you are," she grumbled.
"Thanks," I replied meekly.
"Fatty..."
I devoured the rest of the pizza right there on the floor, and by the time I finished it I had earned that epithet. Melissa tossed the torn-up boxes in a trash can, and I realized we weren't being very discreet.
"Hey, where are the security guards?" I asked.
She shrugged. "I haven't seen any since closing. I guess they forgot they were supposed to come to work today."
I stood up, stuffed and wobbly. "That's convenient..."
We started the trek to the arcade. That was the logical place to expect the final battle. Melissa didn't have to walk slow for me anymore. I could skate along on a sheet of ice that dissipated behind me. It actually beat walking, I had to admit.
"How did you manage to hide after closing?" I asked.
"Oh, it was actually pretty easy," she replied. "I hung around the L.L. Bean store until closing, then I hid inside the canoe hanging from the ceiling."
I nodded. "Wait, how did you get in the canoe?"
"Moose," she said simply.
This was explanation enough. I recalled that there was a life-size stuffed moose next to the canoe which one could plausibly climb. We trudged up a motionless escalator and arrived at the arcade. It was immediately apparent that we were at the right place. In the pitch blackness of the closed arcade, we could see a pair of square, humming lights casting a yellowish glow on the dead machines surrounding them. The marquee and screen of Penga, the one machine that was still on.
"Oh, that's really spooky," Melissa said in a put-upon tone.
"Got a quarter?" I asked.
A second later, the machine made the credit sound, and the music for level 1 started to play. We got closer, watching the ice maze draw itself on the screen, and when the music stopped the machine flew apart like a truck hit it from behind. It scared us out of our minds. The booming noise of the explosion echoed through the empty mall, and the sound of tinkling quarters raining like hail covered the floor all around us. We scrambled away in a panic. I didn't know where Melissa went. I found myself stopped by a wall of ice growing out of the floor. The food court was turning into an ice maze, with me in the middle. Maybe he came out of the destroyed machine, I don't know, but looming above me was the Walrus Wizard, cackling through his tusks, flippers crackling with evil magic. He was huge, and absolutely horrifying to look at in real life. He shot a ball of fire at me, and I ran away in a frenzy. Suddenly, my confidence from earlier had waned considerably. I was playing the game for real now, and it felt a lot more dire than just shooting ice at crabs. Every corner of the maze had enemies waiting around it. They rushed at me, and I shot them with ice cubes, but they were faster now. They were out for penguin blood this time, and I could barely keep out of their grasp.

There was no jolly music. Just the sounds of clattering feet and creaking ice, and the thunderous laughter of the Walrus Wizard. It felt like a war zone. I would ice a crab in front of me and immediately spin around to find one attacking me from behind. I knew I was supposed to get to the wizard, but without being able to see the maze from above, it felt impossible. I was lost, retreading the same corners over and over, barely evading monsters which I was sure meant instant death if they laid a claw on me. I found a moment to collect myself hiding in an alcove of ice. I stood there, back to the wall, panting hard. I could hear them all around me, and I waited, hoping they would just go away. They didn't. I found myself cornered by three seals, all advancing quickly with murderous expressions. They were so cute as pixels... I iced the one in front, but I was still cornered. If I pushed him now, the others would break him out. I was trapped, and the iced seal, the only barrier to the others, was melting. I knew I had gotten into an impossible spot. My heart sank so hard it felt like it fell out through my belly. I knew I was just prolonging the inevitable. I was going to die. A second before the seal broke out, though, his ice cube blasted backward and instead of catching him, the other seals were crushed against a wall, leaving no trace but floating numbers where their corpses should have been. My savior appeared from beyond the wall of the alcove. A penguin who looked exactly like me, only green.
"I tried to show you that trick earlier," the penguin said with a bashful grin. It was Melissa's voice.
"M-Melissa?!" I stuttered, scrambling out of the alcove. "Not you too! How?"
"It's okay!" she said, steadying me with her flippers. "I'm Player 2!" She pointed at the Penga machine, still partially standing at the bottom of the maze nearby. It was pretty much demolished, but the peeled-away front still had a coin mechanism and a flickering screen. She'd put in a quarter from the floor and pressed the Player 2 button.
"Thanks for saving me, again..." I said.
"Forget it. We still have to beat the Walrus Wizard," she declared.

It was a lot easier with the two of us. Melissa remembered the maze a lot better than I did, and now that she had the power to clobber the enemies as well, she was enjoying it to the fullest. We made short work of the level, even if it didn't feel like it, and reached the top of the maze. We stood below the Walrus Wizard. His attitude hadn't changed much. He was still cackling, still shooting fireballs. That's about all he did, really. We waddled to the side to avoid another scorching blast.
"Any tricks for beating this guy?" I asked.
"Uh, not 'till level 5," she answered.
"Great. So what do we do?"
"You gotta reflect the fireballs. With those guys." She pointed her flipper at some kind of shiny ice beetle marching towards us.
"I knew that," I said.
We positioned ourselves on either side of the Walrus Wizard. It was hard to stay where we could freeze the beetles in the right place while avoiding the fire. Once, one got close enough that it singed my feathers. I got the first hit. The wizard's fireball bounced off the ice and returned to him, hitting his weird face. It was truly awful seeing him as an actual, real monster, so far from the silly pixels on the screen. He bellowed and flashed when the fireball hit him. The sound and the sight was beyond anything movie special effects could replicate. The swirling, plasma-like magic energy flashing across the food court casting bright colors on every surface, his jiggling, blubbery face, his glistening hollow eyes. Twice more we hit him. Whose ice it was I don't know. He died with a tempestuous fury which I didn't witness most of as I was curled in a ball cowering under my flippers. When the noise and the shaking floor and the columns of flame subsided, I looked up. He was gone. Everything was gone. There was no ice, no scorch marks, no smoke. Just a food court full of scattered chairs. Melissa waddled up to me and held out her flipper. I let her help me to my feet. I was shaken and bobble-headed and drained.
"We got him," she said, gently but triumphantly.
"Yeah, we got him," I said, walking beside her. "I hope he doesn't come back for another level."
The mall seemed like a mausoleum. Dead silent and still. We came to the banged-up Penga machine. It was still running, somehow.
"Oh hey, you got the high score," Melissa said. She pointed to the screen. It was waiting for someone to put in their initials. I hopped up on an ice block and took the joystick in my flipper, selecting my initials, and entering them one at a time. On the last one, the machine went back into attract mode, our achievement immortalized on the screen with three little letters.
"That felt good," I said, hopping to the floor. "I wasn't planning on working that hard to get there, but it felt good."
Melissa patted my shoulder. "Well, now you.." she started to say, before going woozy.
"Are you okay? What's wrong?" I asked. She clutched her middle, looking sick. The next instant, she turned back into a human.
"EEEEK!" She shrieked, covering herself. Her clothes were probably somewhere around, but they were not on her.
I frantically covered my eyes and spun around. "Sorry! I didn't see anything!" I insisted. I heard her running away.
"Wait here; I'm going to the Gap!" She shouted back at me.

CHAPTER 7
We found an unlocked door and made it out of the mall. We walked back to our neighborhood through dark streets, but not remotely abandoned ones. It was barely 10:30 pm.
"I thought you would have turned back into a human by now," Melissa said, wearing an outfit that she couldn't have dreamed of affording. She got one for me too, but it looked like I wasn't going to need it.
"I guess I can get used to it," I replied, looking at the pavement. I dejectedly watched the black spots of gum pass below my rotund little body, still covered in bright blue feathers.
"Well maybe... Sorry. I dunno." She couldn't think of anything to say. We got to her house, and I carried on alone to mine. Now the streets were empty. No cars, no noisy bars. Just me and the streetlights. At least I wasn't afraid. I felt safer as a penguin than a human, now that I knew what I could do. Yeah, it wasn't so bad, was it? I was small and goofy-looking, but I was powerful. I went inside. Hungry again, I assaulted the refrigerator. Another nice thing was that food seemed a lot bigger. I crammed into my beak a big hunk of an ice cream cake that my mom had brought home from the office. Somebody retired, I think. Who cared if I put on weight now? I was already a fat penguin. I swallowed it without remorse, and I went to bed.

I woke up the next morning and was not surprised to find that I was still a penguin. I climbed out of my enormous bed and waddled to the bathroom to wash my beak out and look at myself in the mirror. It didn't even bother me anymore. The fluffy bird reflected at me was becoming my own true face. I didn't expect any crabs or seals to appear, and none did. It was in all regards an ordinary Sunday morning. I'd beaten the game, and now I had nothing to do. I set about trying to enjoy myself. It could be the last peaceful day I had for a while, I reasoned. I had more cake for breakfast, lying on the couch, watching Sally on channel 6. Sufficiently stuffed with ice cream and finding absolutely nothing else flipping the channels, I wandered outside. The sun felt nice. I wondered if I would be really miserable in the summer. Or if I could stand the winter better now. I waddled through the grass, feeling it below my scaly feet. I saw the flower beds. Full of weeds. Ugly as sin. Well, at least I had a good excuse for not doing them now. Who could fault me, having suffered this bizarre fate? ...No, that was a cop out. That wasn't good enough anymore. I went upstairs and found the $20 t-shirt Melissa stole on my behalf. It was wrapped around a cache of quarters that weighed at least five pounds. We had gathered them off the floor before leaving. I hefted the expensive money sack and hit the road.

People surely found it strange, but what could they do? Arrest me for being a penguin? I skated past them on the sidewalk, feet gliding on my sheet of ice a bit like how Gumby gets around. I made it to the hardware store in no time, sack of coins slung on my back. I went straight to the back of the store and found the potting soil. The fifty-pound bags were bigger than me, but it didn't matter. I encased two of them in ice cubes and rode them effortlessly to the front counter. The guy working the till was flabbergasted to say the least, but I just didn't care. I tossed the whole bundle of quarters on the counter and kept going, sliding right out the door.

My ice was a little melted when I got home, but it still pushed along just fine. I went straight to the backyard and started weeding. There wasn't much my powers could do to aid me, aside from disposing of the refuse. I had to pull the weeds by hand still. Flippers, rather. And beak when my flippers got tired. Lunchtime passed, as did snack time and second snack time. It was late afternoon when I finally had but one little patch left. I cleared it and spread the mulch, which took a lot less time, thankfully. I should have gotten three bags. Even if it was spread a little thin, and I missed some weeds, the job was done and I was exhausted. I was strangely at peace, though. I floated in the bathtub pondering this feeling, and I realized that I had finally found the redemption I was after. I was free of nagging failures. I beat the game, and I lived up to my word. No one could be disappointed in me, even if I was a bird. Not even me. I felt good about myself.

I stared out my window into the darkened street. Colors looked more vibrant and interesting as a bird, I had finally noticed. Even at night, the world looked like a beautiful painting. I wondered if I still had to go to school. Probably not, right? They don't let penguins in schools. I flopped back on my mattress. I had more questions as yet unanswered about my future. How would I live? Would I have to move to Antarctica and live with the other penguins if I couldn't get a job? It didn't really matter. I would be okay.

CHAPTER 8
I was awoken the next morning in a rude and chaotic way which I was somewhat accustomed to.
"I can't believe you're still here! You should have been at school two hours ago!" It was my mother. She had barged into my room. The rest of my family was still unloading their belongings. "Honest to God, can't you get out of bed without me here to drag you to your feet? Get up! You're late!"
I clutched the bed sheets around me. This is what she was mad about? Really? Hadn't she even noticed I was a freaking penguin? Only, I wasn't... I looked down at my completely human body in shock.
"Don't just sit there with that blank stare. You have no reason to be tired. Let me tell you how exhausted I am! Now get out of bed this instant!" She left me to dress.
I put my clothes on in a fugue state. I had almost forgotten how. I couldn't find my shoes. I wandered down the hall wondering where on earth I had lost them, and I saw my mother again.
"You're not dressed yet! Where is your backpack? You don't have time for breakfast; get in the car. I can't believe you're making me drive you to school right after we have been on the road for hours! We had to get up at four this morning, you know."
"Sorry," I mumbled.
My mother held me by the shoulders. "Thank you for doing the flower beds," she said, tone much softer. I just nodded.
I found my shoes in the bathroom. And Melissa's red ribbon. I pulled my shoes on and stared at my old face in the mirror, ribbon in hand.
"Come on!!" I heard her calling me. I tied the ribbon into a bow around my neck and went downstairs.