This story was written as part of the Canadian Anthro and Cartooning Expo "Iron Writer" contest in 2003 in Ottawa, and received first place! The contest gave writers 90 minutes to compose a story based on the theme, "Is it better to be right, or to be well-liked?"

In 2004, this story appeared in the C-ACE conbook. (Or so I heard. I was supposed to receive a copy but never did.)

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I'm not sure what I did to deserve the honor, but that summer the popular kids decided that I was worthy enough to hang out with them. Their leader, of course, was Sheri. Sheri with an "i" and a little heart instead of a dot. Her and the rest of the pack usually hung around in the mall, sipping smoothies and assuring each other that everyone else in our school were nowhere as cool as they were.

They called themselves The Pack. They were mostly wolves, but there were also the odd tiger or fox. When Sheri came up to me in the mall that summer, there were no otters... Which is why what she said next came as such a surprise.

"So, like, do you want to hang out with us, Julie?" Sheri asked, her voice taking on a bored tone. "I know that you're, like, smart, and we could really use your help this year in school."

I hesitated. I didn't have any friends, and this seemed too good to be true. Sheri watched me for a short moment before sighing. "So, is it yes or no?"

"Yes," I said, nodding before I even knew what I was saying. And that's how I started hanging out with the Pack.

It was actually fun, at first. I was able to put aside my disgust at their complete lack of book knowledge; they were more interested in talking about what Brittany Bears was wearing last week, or when the new Toxic Twins album was coming out. Mostly, though, they talked about how lame other people were.

Looking back, I'm not sure why I continued to hang out with them. No, that's a lie. I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I stayed with them because of Dallas. He was a wolf, a football player, and had the brownest eyes I'd ever seen. A month ago, he had been completely out of reach. Now, he actually talked to me. Even more, he actually seemed to like me.

I should have listened to myself. Too good to be true, indeed.

There were two malls in town – the St. Vital mall in the south, and Polo Park just west of downtown. We usually hung around St. Vital, since it was close to home. But about once a week, we would take the number 43 downtown, and then ride the Polo Park express to the other mall. That dropped us off on the outer edge of the parking lot by the street, and we just walked through the parking lot to the mall.

It was hot that summer, and the beggars were trying to find shade anywhere they could. One of those places was the bus shelter at Polo Park. From the first day I'd gone to Polo Park with the pack, I'd seen the hoofer that hid in the shade of the trees and shelter there.

He creeped me out. There weren't many hoofers up in St. Vital, so I wasn't used to seeing them every day. Still, he was the creepiest I'd ever seen. He was a horse, with a long scar over his left eye, which was blind. He always muttered to himself, and he smelled. He smelled like old urine and liquor.

That day, the hoofer was actually standing up. Usually he was sitting, drinking out of a paper bag, or he was lying half-passed out in the grass just off the parking lot.

As we walked past, he leered at Sheri, and then at Janice. I tried to ignore him, but his glazed eyes slid onto my body and I heard his intake of breath. "Oh, yeah," he groaned. "Give your tail a little shake for me!"

I felt dirty, and wrapped my arms over my chest. I quickened my steps, but I heard him shuffling along after us. "Hey, gorgeous, don't walk away!"

Dallas turned around and took a step back towards me. "Shut up, trotter!" he yelled back at the beggar. He turned his warm brown eyes on me, and wagged his tail "Do ya want me to beat him up for you, Julie?" he asked.

Beat him up? I turned to look again at the hoofer, who had gotten distracted by a cigarette butt on the ground. I watched in disgust as he, unable to use his useless hooves to pick the butt off the ground, got down on all fours like an animal and picked the butt from the dirt with his teeth.

I'd said nothing, but Dallas had taken my look of horror as permission to pummel the poor creature. He planted a punch in the horse's gut. Seconds later, the hoofer was piled on by other guys from the pack.

Wincing at the soft juicy sounds of kicks and punches finding their mark, I edged back until I was standing next to Sheri. She and the other girls were watching the hoofer getting beaten with an almost transfixed look of delight. "Shouldn't we stop them?" I asked.

There might have been an edge of hysteria to my voice, as Sheri turned her head and looked at me as though my fur had just turned green. "Why?" she asked. "He's, like, so gross. You saw the way he was looking at us. Besides, he's just a hoofer. No one's going to care."

I glanced up at the bus shelter. There were a few people watching the fight, most with a bored expression. One, a bear in a business suit, blinked at the scene once before slowly turning away. It was just a hoofer.

Dallas came up to me afterwards, gaping his jaw open happily. But he didn't look cute anymore. If anything, he looked dangerous now. I could see his teeth when he opened his mouth, and I realized how strong those arms really were. And his eyes were more beady than I'd noticed before. I couldn't see the warmth anymore, and every time he spoke I heard the sound of those punches landing.

I stopped hanging out with them about a week after that. Sheri called me once, but I told my mom to tell her that I was out with my friends. I didn't actually have any friends, but hanging out by myself was better then hanging out with people who beat up hoofers for fun.

That's what I kept telling myself, anyway, as I sat alone in my room for the rest of the summer. But every time I told myself that, I heard Sheri say, "He's just a hoofer."

Just a hoofer. Who cares, right? So why did I?