FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A rough day

Summer started to wane at the Sturmholdt Center. The loud ping of acorns bouncing on the roof woke me up mere minutes before the alarm was set to go off, but I still resented the stolen minutes of sleep anyway. For not the first time I considered getting some of that contraband coffee James was keeping in the Popsickle stasis chamber.

Nearly a month had passed and the shock of my regression and transformation had mostly faded into the day to day routine of classes, playtime, tv, and homework. Except for the fact that playtime involved playground equipment instead of VR games it was embarrassingly similar to college. In lieu of alcohol our still underdeveloped prefrontal cortexes provided amusement from the simplest things and the more than occasional lapse of judgement.

One big difference from both college and my first time around was the schools casual acceptance of "boys will be boys" and an unwritten rule of not bringing the adults into problems.

In other words, people got made fun of and hit a lot.

I got a taste of that one morning on the way to school. The acorns had begun falling filling the air with the tannins that screamed fall to my nose even if the leaves had only just begun to lose their deep shade of green. Under that there was a hint of woodsmoke drifting on the breeze. Amok and I were walking from the dorms up to school for breakfast and he was yammering on about plans to use the ionosphere as a giant world wide listening device.

"Even in wooded areas, even in your homes. Not that they'd need to because of the Santa Clause Protocol but still..."

"Why would they make something they didn't nee..what the heck is that?" I covered my muzzle as soon as I'd said it, as it wasn't very polite.

Sitting in the morning's shade of the big oak tree in front of the school was an enormous digitigrade Wolf puppy. He picked up a leg sized branch in his muzzle as if it were a twig and chewed on it, leaving deep gouges in the tough wood while shaking it back and forth. He tossed it into the air where it landed right in front of him and he pounced on it with his front legs, not caring that lifting his tail in the air like that made the bulge of his padding under his shorts completely obvious.

"New Classmate. Kinda. I watched him come in last night around midnight. He's got some special needs I think. He had a nurse with him but I don't see her now"

A gaggle of students came up to unabashedly gawk at the new kid, us uncluded. With minimal contact with the outside world and vidstream limited to child appropriate shows we were easily entertained with anything new. One of the monitors sat next to him shaving pieces off a block of wood that looked as gnarled and tough as it's whittler.

The Wolf rather slowly turned his head and growled at something on his left, mouth open and ears flat against his head. The students there tried to shuffle away from the source of his ire, but he was staring at something well past them.

"Whoa, erm. Down boy. What's got your fur up?"

I gave a sniff in the direction he was looking "Smells like smoke coming from over there" after a second I remembered to add "Mister Hicks"

"You sure?" he asked shading his eyes against the morning light. "Hey Collar, This Lil fox wouldn't fib about something like that would he?"

He paused at the lack of an answer. Amok stuck in "His is too "Advanced" for a speaker. It's probably..." the guards phone beeped audibly " ... willing to answer you on your phone though. The lil snitch"

A calm imperial but obviously synthesized voice on the other end of the guards badge opined that "Something serious like smoke? Absolutely not. Cookies or ice cream through..."

We "HEYED" as the guard laughed

"And if I leave her in charge of little Fenny here?" The guard ruffled the Wolfs ears, mindless of the snarling.

"I believe you can trust her intentions but as to the results..."

"Close enough for me. This is Hicks" the blade of his whittling knife withdrew into the hilt as he plopped it in his pocket "I've got a possible fire reported on the property. I'm going to go check it out. Keep it to a dull roar will you? " He picked up an ornately carved walking stick and headed off into the woods.

The adult had been out of sight for all of four seconds before one of the older kids picked up and acorn and flicked it at Fenny. I hopped in front of him

"Stop that!" ugh my voice was high pitched at this age.

"Who's gonna make me? YOU short fluff?" the wall of boys parted to reveal a tall lanky tow headed kid to step forward tossing an acord up and down in his palm. He took a step left and slung his projectile sidearmed, and I stepped right and swatted it with my tail.

" Come on. I got left in charge. If you tick him off with that you're going to get me in trouble"

"you're gonna get me in trouble..." he repeated in a high pitched mocking tone. His friends started laughing and then everyone in the crowd picked it up.

"That isn't even funny you just said what I said with a different voice."

"YOUR voice lil girl. " He reached his hand out to grab me only to miss by a foot as I sidestepped, then dropped to all fours to duck his attempt to grab one of my ears.

"You know Jason" Amok put in "The last guy he got into a fight with wound up losing a few things near and dear to their heart. But you keep that up if you want. "

A good half of the crowd put their legs together and stepped back a bit, Jason among them.

"I don't fight babies anyway. Or dogs." His voice cracked a bit. He glowered and roughly shouldered his friends, who started spreading out in a circle. The rest of the kids flocked in with them. "Dog fight" he said low and slow

"Dog fight dog fight dogfight dogfightdogfight!" the crowd picked up a chant, rising to a crescendo. A couple of kids reached out to try to slap Fenny, making him whirl and snarl a little. It was one of the kids picking up the stick that got me to move though.

"Alright ALRIGHT we'll fight..." I stepped forward on two legs but hunched down, fists up. That was how you punched right? "Just try to hit me. I'll make it look good okay?" I told him without losing my muzzle. I had no doubt if he could hear me. Whether or not he understood I wasn't nearly as sure of until he nodded, "Raarrred" and brought his arm all the way back and then forward in a slow exaggerated swing. Even before ducking the blow was a good foot over my head.

"you are terrible at this" subvocalizing was hard but necessary. I vented a little frustration throwing an actual punch upwards towards his stomach. The fur and babyfat padding had a surprising amount of muscle underneath, and only made him perk his ears up at me and loll his tongue out with a stupid dog expression on his face. The crowd laughed and boooed. I ran on all fours between his legs and kicked at the back of his leg with equal effectiveness to my opponent and the crowd. An uppercut to his padded rump got a squish and a wide backhand swing. I let it hit me and rolled with it, tumbling through the grass, pebbles and dirt exposed by generations of playing children. Even in jest it was enough to send me a good six feet with what I hoped wasn't too much exaggeration. I popped up and ran head first into his belly which at least got an omf and another slow overly dramatic attempt to grab me.

"No. I'm flynning with YOU. YOU try to hit me for re.EEEP" his next swipe was fast period, not just for something his size. The wind from the blow whooshed by my ears as his claw nicked a small piece out of it despite dropping into a forward roll. I came up between his legs without enough forward momentum to stand and grabbed onto his tail rolling left and right to avoid his slamming fists and build up enough momentum to roll onto all fours. I turned a doggie sit position into a backward roll to go backwards, only to have a Cougar from the wall of onlookers push me back into the fight and directly into a cuff to the head that bowled me into the onlookers and sent three of us to the ground.

He took advantage of the situation to put a hand around my belly. In response I wrapped my legs around his arm and kick kicked the rough pawpads of my feet against his skin, but he just sat on three limbs like an ape and hoisted me off the ground. The Wolf paused to sniff me of all things, and then unceremoniously dropped me to the ground and sat on his rump, panting with his tongue out of his mouth. The crowd erupted with laughter, and my overly sensitive ears picked up the voices of my so called friends joining in. I popped up, tail bristling and...

Found myself going limp in his jaws. If I thought his swipes were fast , he had me in his mouth, turned, scruffed and helpless in the blink of an eye.

"Heeey..." he took off through the crowd like a bowling ball through pins. Even half of the kids that he knocked over were still laughing. He jaunted across the playground over to a knot of girls and deposited me in front of a rather large, jet black rat with red eyes.

"May I help you?" She asked as if nothing was wrong, quirking an eyebrow. E

In response the Wolf poked me in my padding and then pointed at the group of girls. He at least had the decency to look ashamed when I swatted his paw.

"No, we do not poke there." She looked at me "And we do not hit" she stated firmly. The dire canine putting his paws behind his back and shuffling shyly with his tail tucked between his legs, pointed his nose at me and then to the class.

"The Fox is... allowed to play with the boys. I can't say how good of an idea it is. But it is permitted"

The Wolf whimpered and flattened his ears.

" Go on. Your teacher is coming for you"

Scurrying (I hated to be speciest, but the description fit) across the field with her skirts flapping wildly was a white rat with a gray hood of fur running into her nurses uniform.

"Oh Fenny area you alright?" she stood up on tippy paws, and even then the Wolf had to sit down AND lower his head for the Mouse to turn it left and right, as if I could have even reached it. She looked at his arm with a little bit of friction burn and glared at me.

"We were just playing?" Yeah that wasn't going over well.

Her whiskers bristled at the two of us. She took fenny by one finger and started pulling him back towards the dorms, She sniffed a little "YOU may as well come too"

The girls giggling and tittering was quieter than the boys guffawing, but no less embarrassing. It wasn't like THEY would have had dry shorts with that behemoth trying to hit them.

"You're REALLY fast. you were screwing around the whole time?" I tried speaking quietly while being lead towards a bungalow off of the other dorms. The Mouse looked around Fenny and tilted her head with a "Really?" look on her face and I resumed talking normally, even moving my muzzle.

For his part the giant canine nod nodded dopily "Yaaaaaa asssttt"

"ooo you talked!" the nurse exclaimed , giving one of the wolfs legs a big hug. "Say something else!" He looked down tucking his tail and shook his head.

"I can just get cha..help from my A.I. "

"Nonsense" she said so sweetly that I felt a new trickle of warmth into my padding. "It's always nicer when a real person does it for you"

The cottage had a small multi tiered garden with ropes and ladders connecting pots on stone masonry spires. The enormous oak laminate door opened as we approached, revealing that the cottage was mostly one giant room. The expected smells of a Fenris grade Wolf , babypowder, and mouse smelled the room. But the smell of oak wood shavings and the old guard were a little surprising.

"Can you be a good cub and show the baby how we get changed?"

I stepped forward only to be stopped by a pink paw. "I was speaking to the Wolf"

"I'm NOT a baby" I said Much more childishly than I would have liked

"Of course you're not sweetie." She rubbed my ears. "But try explaining your situation to Fenny here."

With his enormous tail wagging the canine padded around the room, gathering up an enormous diaper roughly the size and thickness of a comforter and laid down on his back, hind paws up in the air. The Mouse pulled his shorts off, striped the diaper off while rolling it into a ball and proceeded to thoroughly wipe the boy down from front to back, ignoring the Wolfs leg twitching in the air. I put my paws over my eyes but couldn't resist a peek. It was the first time I'd seen a... boy since my change. It made me fidget a little uncomfortably as I was reminded of my own change in equipment, but mostly thought it looked kind of funny and out of place. You had the fluffy fur smooth lines everywhere else on a body and then that sticking out kind of at random.

"Be a big girl and toss this in the trash" She handed me the sodden padding despite my paws ostensibly being over my eyes. There was no need to ask where that was, even a rather valiant attempt by the receptacles air circulation system couldn't hide that completely. By the time it was tossed in the Wolf was oiled, powdered , and laying on his belly so the mouse could wriggle the padding up his tail and fasten it in place with the gecko grips sewn into the side.

"Your turn"

I flattened my ears and felt my cheeks flush but was in more than enough trouble already. I got down on my belly and let her slip the diaper up my tail. "Roll over, no this way..." she patted the ground to my right. Oh right I was facing down so it would be that way. She then lifted my legs up and down and up and down a few times

"Relax hon. I'm not going to be mad if you get the steps wrong" and slipped my shorts off my feet, lifted my legs way up in the air and set me down on some thick pink padding. I opened my mouth but she just nudged my paw into it and taped my nose "Shush" . I held out a whole three seconds before sucking on it.

"Fenny, Can Rona borrow Reynard?"

There was a low rumble

"Please? She's really nervous right now"

A large fox plush, almost as big as me, flew over the Rat and landed on me. I huffed, but with some of the nurses help took the plush and held onto it. She then untapped my padding, slid it off my tail, and put my legs down on top of the new padding. She shook my tail a bit "And I thought Fenny was bushy. Bushy wooshy bushy wooshy..." and shook it back and forth, making me giggle.

"Roll over, nope, the other way.. there we go."

Despite my less than heroic willpower I cooed as she wiped me down, hiding behind the plush as best I could. I still saw Fenny peeking at me between his paws, much as I'd done to him

"Hey no peeking!"

"Fenny...." the Rat warned, whiping her tail. The mountains worth of of Wolf tucked his tail before the little Mouse and put his plate sized paws back over his eyes. For all of three seconds.

"Like you didn't peek" she teased, giving me a very thorough oiling and powdering.

"That's different." I turned my snout up "Imma..."

She tsked. "you can't be a boy and then complain you're a girl so he can't peek. Fenny...no peeking"

He whined.

It was all moot a second later. The padding was firmly secured and my.. modesty was firmly out of sight. She slipped my shorts up and I tried to bolt out the door but was stopped by a "Sit" so firm both fenny and I wound up on the couch at the same time. It was hard to think of yourself as an adult and someone else as your equal when they'd just diapered you... which might have been her plan come to think of it.

"Why were you Fighting Fenny? Did he do something to you?"

"No. Erm. Miss Mouse Ma'm."

"So you were fighting him because...? And don't give me any of that boy code nonsense"

I crossed my arms. "I wasn't fighting I was Flynning. They wanted a fight and someone was gonna fight him and one of the boys picked up a stick and I didn't want him to bite the kid cause I know how much trouble you get in if you do that" I blurted out in a rush. Wow. That felt good to say.

She mmhmmed at me skeptically. "Those looked like some very real punches towards the end"

I fidgeted with my tail. Or Reynards. Whoops it was Reynards. And looked down.

"Didn't mean to. I just got hit and kinda.. just..just..." sniffling.

"Had your heart in the right place and lost your head. Again. I WOULD have thought you'd learned your lesson on that." she tapped her paw at me.

My lip started quivering and I looked down fidgeting.

"Can you think of anything else you could have done?"

I sniffled a bit and wiped the back of my paw over my nose

"Run away? he might have Followed me, or left the Wolf alone. or he might have gone through with it and hit him with the stick. His friend was mean enough"

"And running away would have been the girliest thing possible? or.. well. The second girliest"

I huffed at her and tucked my tail and pulled down my shirt. "It WOULD have been but that wasn't on my mind. I just imagined the human doing something stupid, getting his arm bit off and then Fenny being in more trouble than.. what ever got him sent here."

"HE isn't a criminal" she said indignantly. As my ears flattened again she sighed, and picked me up into her lap. " Not that you are or aren't, exactly. I don't see why you shouldn't know, Fenny here got hurt pretty badly in a Forest...conflagration." she paused for a second to make sure I knew what the word meant "Saving a literal boatload of Rats. Put them into a canoe, flipped the canoe upside down and swam it right through the "conflagration". They didn't think he was going to make it, but fortunately the river was almost as cold as an injector. Cooked then frozen. That's what he did to wind up in the same place as you."

Fenny was on the carpet wiggling back and forth scratching is back. I wondered if that was him, or just a pup that had been grown from his brain or...

"Alright alright. I got it.This place isn't supposed to be a punishment. " There were a lot of arguments I could have made, that forest fires just happen but this was done to me which made it worse because.. something. Or that he was still him but... I had no way of knowing if that was true. How much of a person did you need to lose before. Everything seemed to get jumbled up in my head without making it out of my mouth, like trying to drink from a fire hose.

"Alright, as much as it's nice to see you thinking about something you're late for class" she shooed me towards the door, stopped me , took my pacifier out and re shooed me out the door.

Even with a full four-legged sprint to class I was still.

"Late. Detention."

I opened my muzzle and then shut it. And walked to my seat.

"Sorry"

Did I get hit in the head too hard or did Mister Gris' tail wag?

I didn't deserve a detention for being late, but I probably did deserve one for not handling Fenny better. Maybe. Least this wouldn't look like fighting on my permanent record.

I zoned out for most of my class a little more than usual. Mister Gris' voice wasn't even in the back of my head and my paw was making little scribbles on the paper rather than the usual resemblance of notes I usually managed. At one point he actively waved a paw in front of me and grumbled something about already having detention when I was saved by the ringing of the bell.

"Hey You okay? You forgot your paper"

Mikel caught up with me handing me my notes

"Huh? yeah. I'm fine. Just thinking.

"Weren't thinking this morning. I heard you took on the Fenrir? Lost badly but you tried. Punch a little into your weightclass, or do it somewhere we can get the video huh?"

Despite the fortunate prohibition on phones or recording devices, enough kids had seen the fight to put on a play for the ones that hadn't, so I walked into engineering to see one of the Rats of all people playing at going limp in the jaws of some imaginary beast and flailing about. They even went so far as to snicker and point at me.

"Yeah yeah yuck it up. See you do better trying to keep some human from getting his arm ripped off and getting him in trouble. " Sitek cocked her head at that but Mister Nikklas appeared in the doorway to cut the conversation short.

"Don't stop on my account. Ronan, try a Skoll or Vuk or two before you try a Fenrir.

I grumbled and crossed my arms "How about a Garm?" He laughed.

"Alright, end of class, sure. For my weapon I chose... " he held up a weird looking pneumatic tube "ping pong balls at 15 paces. You have until the end of class to make your weapon.

I put together a nice simple chain driven repeating ballista. Unfortunately when it came time to fire it, the rats collaborative effort at a treadle wheel powered pneumatic platform shot me 3 times in the face. Since I'd forgotten to put a top on my ammo supply, all the ping pongs went bouncing across the floor when I instinctively protected my eyes with my paws. My one shot DID manage to catch Mr Niklaas right on the nose. But of course his multi barreled monstrosity plunked me mercilessly. I sat down on my back and mimed waving a flag.

The performance earned me one of my rare Bs from that class. Wasn't sure if it helped or hurt that he was right that the design hadn't been "adapted to its intended use". Even if that use was something as frivolous as a ping pong ball fight.

Migel meanwhile had a C for effort, which he was happy with.

"Don't you need to fix things on your ship?"

"I have people for that. And the sort of Jerry rigging he likes? you'd get tossed off your own ship if you didn't use the EXACT specifications you were supposed to. Literally. See you in five"

He ducked into the boys locker room while I got to use the gym teachers office to change. At least there there was only one snooping boy. We were swimming today so I had to wait for the teacher.

"Look, I've had enough boys trying to peek at me today. Not in the mood Jacob

He titters echoed around the room like something out of a horror movie. Did he set the rooms acoustics to do that, or just through his voice? Kin in general didn't have much of a nudity taboo. I know I hadn't cared before hand, and Rats were even more nonchalant about it. Except when they wanted to tease Foxes apparently.

"Hey there you are. Heck of a morning I heard" Of course she had "well down these go off these go on these go and off we go" she slipped my padding off, slipped the shorts on, kicked the padding into the can and carried me out the door and to the pool. With the doors still swinging from her hip check she unceremoniously tossed me into the pool.

"SWIMMING. The most valuable lesson you can learn. It may save your life. It's one of the few things your AIs CAN"T do for you. Some of you will still have an instinctive ability in your DNA to do a rudimentary doggie paddle, as Ronan is thankfully demonstrating or I'd be in trouble..."

I coughed out a bit of water and paddled for the ladder, ears flat and fur soaked against me and deathglared. With little effect.

The rest of the class went about as well.

"DEEP breath.. deeper. Deeper... You should be able to.." The Mouse holding me up as I floated face up let go and I immediately went under the water coughing and gurgling. "Float a little. Or not" She picked me up out of the water and dragged me to the deep section "he.. HEY...." I was NOT screaming.

"Swim back. Don't want you panicking. so I'm not giving you time to panic. Paddle paddle paddle... good . When you fall off the horse you have to get right back on. We'll try going under water first. Blow bubbles out your nose okay?"

She let me sink under the water. I didn't need to blow bubbles I knew how to regulate the air presuCOUGHgurglecough

She yanked me up. Looked at me sternly. "BUBBLES. Like in a milkshake. Out your nose in 3...2...1..." and dunked me back under. This time I blew bubbles like crazy and heard a GOOD! even through a foot under water. She hoisted me up and set me on the wall coughing with a "Next" stepped to the next boy in line in the water. Even though Mulligan wound up puking onto the deck I was the one they kept making fun of.

Swimming always conked me out, so I after break I woke up wrapped in a towel and a dry diaper with Ms rat stuffing me into shorts a shirt and sending me on to art class. Which surprisingly was the best part of my day. I only hot glued myself to a collage three times.

I passed the guard from that morning on the way to the playground. He'd taken custody of the stick that had caused so much trouble that morning, and was halfway towards turning the top of it into an owl.

"Way to get me in trouble with the misses" he said, tipping his hat with a laugh. "Don't worry. I know what you were trying to do. Worked too. I don't think I've seen Fenny have that much fun in a while."

"How'd the fire go?

"Kid left before I got there. Had a pretty safe stone ring so he wasn't trying to burn anything down.." and grabbed his knife close to the end of the blade for some detail work, so I left him to it.

Most of the guys were gathered around the geodesic dome in the middle of the playground so I looked for an open spot to see what was happening. All I saw was Madorik on the far side, talking with the tow headed kid who'd started the incident this morning. I asked one of the older kids what was going on

"A fight" Which made sense. With all the kids climbing on the dome the grown ups wouldn't be able to see inside.

"Who's he fighting?" I asked, and as an answer got a hard shove from behind that sent me sprawling muzzle down into the mud inside the dome.

"Of course..."

Triangular ears picked up the sounds of Madorick's footsteps coming in close so I ran on all fours off to his right, then turned and slammed my shoulders into the back of his knee. Since he was lifting one leg to kick where my head had been he went down in a heap. I jumped on his stomach and rolled off and onto two legs, making the crowd cheer.

"Round One to the Vix!" the bully from this morning yelled out. I readied for round two by circling around to the other side. Some of the crowd stuck their arms into the dome to whap at Madoriks head, one of them even gave him a wet willie he was getting up. He swatted their hand aside and stood up. As he made his way towards the center of the ring with his fists up one of the boys on top of the dome dangled his leg in and kicked him in the head.

"Hey hold up a second Ronan..." he jumped up, grabbed the offender by the knee and pulled him sideways into the battle dome. The carbonized rubber bars bent to absorb some of the blow as he hit his head on them falling.

The ground. Not so much.

Madorik kicked him on the butt as he crawled out of the dome, groaning. He then turned to face me "you're next" and ran over. I stepped back from his uppercut and then his straight jab was aimed at my cheek. He shuffled his feet, alternated hands and through a jab at my face which I blocked by ducking my head and letting him punch the top. He swore and tried his other hand again.Not used to fighting kin apparently he didn't realize that the sides of my face were nothing but a mass of fur. His fist past through my fur harmlessly and smacked into the bar behind me. "Safety" material or not it wasn't meant to be punched at full speed with bear knuckles. I took advantage of him holding his hand to drop to all fours, kick off of the dome and ram my head into his stomach doubling him over onto his knees.

"Round two to the Fox!" Heh. If I kept this up I MIGHT get recognized as a todd by the end of the day. The announcer continued as I stepped back. "Alright for round three I want a nice clean fight. No hair pulling, no tail grabbing, no spitting. FIGHT!"

Right. So of course Madorick was going to try to pull my hair and...

YANK. Someone VERY painfully grabbed me by the tail. I yelped and turned around, giving the human enough time to grab my headfur. He brought his fist straight into my snout and the world exploded into pain and diamond shaped lines of light crossing my vision. A second hit brought about similar results along with the world lurching around the edges. Rather than take a third I opened my mouth and growled. Milk teeth or not, ramming an already injured fist into those would hurt him more than me. He stopped the punch and tossed me to the ground. I tried to roll with it but halfway through my ribs spasmed in pain, giving him time to walk over and kick said ribs once. Twice.

"He's down you cheating Hobknocker" Brock backed up the call to stop by grabbing Madorick around the neck and slamming him face first into the bars. He then climbed into the dome himself and stood next to me. " You stop when they're down. He did"

"You gonna let em do that Jason?" asked the kid who'd gone for the stick.

"No. No I am not" the bully dropped down into the dome from above, hanging onto the bars for a second before letting go.

"Get up if you can." Brock whispered "Can't let em see how hurt you are. Not gonna fight your battles for you but if they're gonna make you fight they're gonna fight fair. " Out loud "Alright, that was a nice warm up. How about a main event?"

"That sounds like a good idea" the older kid cracked his knuckles and looked back at his friend. But the crowd chanting "Brock the Rock, Brock the Rock" instead of being on his side made him pause. "T. Tomorrow" he stammered. "Fuzz incoming"

It turned out that I COULD get up. Albeit only onto all fours. Two legs were NOT happening. He hoisted Madorik up to his feet "Shake you two.

I grumbled a bit. Mad definitely didn't deserve it. But I did it for Brock anyway. It was the least I owed him, even if he came in a little late. Mad and I were shaking just as Mister Hicks walked up.

"Everything alright here?" He looked around at the crowd, which had shrunk with near supernatural quickness at the mention of the grown ups.. Madorik kept his arms folded to hide his hands while I leaned against Brock a little "Yeahfine"

"Lemee see your hands..." Both I and Brock put our hands out. "And your mouth..." I HEYED at the implication but AHHHHhhHHHED and lolled my tongue out at him. "Suppose I need to check YOURS if I don't want to be a speciest" Brock AHhhed as well. Madoric vanished into a herd of a passing soccer game, that otherwise had no business coming in our direction. He blew out his mustaches derisively.

"TRY to stay out of trouble"

Environmental science and history made that easy to do. The most interesting thing that happened was the Popsickles stopped by, peeking in the window to the door before their tour guide prodded them along. I was feeling

Detention however didn't leave enough time to run back to my room and get changed. Instead I went to the bathroom and with a lot of wriggling got my tail out of the training pants like the ones I'd been using for the last few weeks.Getting them off was annoying, but getting the new ones on was a nightmare. I'd settled on the trick of using Suzies ribbon to tie onto my tail, thead the ribbon through and then step in. This wasn't normally easy, but trying to do it without the crinkle of the diaper being heard by the other boys in the bathroom was more like a game of operation than something I could do quickly. I sat and waited for them to go, but they seemed intent on gossiping like a bunch of girls as my minutes ticked away.

I flushed the toilet as a distraction and got the padding on as quickly as I could. Then ran out of the bathroom to wash my hands. The snicker going through the boys made me think that they'd heard me until one of them said.

"Hold up little girl"

As mortified by responding to being called "little girl" as by realizing I'd left the ribbon on my tail, I just froze. The speaker, an older Wolf kid reached down and tied the ribbon losely, sticking his tongue out in concentration as he tied it like a pair of shoes with bunny ears. The two humans he'd been chatting with snickered, making the canine ask "Whaaat?"

I outran the clock and most of the laughing getting to detention. The only other person there was Staccata. Wasn't sure why I was surprised the room wasn't staffed, it's not like Mister Gris would be there feeding on the misery of the kids.. or would he?

"Detention has now started. Please take your seats and use your time productively and ruminate on how you can not get sent here next time"

The board showed ruminate along with a definition and an explanation of the words origin.

"So what are you in for...specifically not generally. All the fighting?"

I grumbled " Nah, didn't get busted for that. Just late for class. Because of the fighting. You?"

"Got caught with a black market radio. Want to listen?" the other Fox asked.

"Huh? If you got busted..."

"With a radio. First rule of economics, buy in bulk! Just keep an ear out for any teachers. The computer nanny is still bound by electronic surveillance provisions and won't rat us out. " He was a lawyer so he should know how that worked... in theory anyway. But hey, I couldn't get in trouble for listening to music right?

He turned the old style knob back and forth, zeroing in on a (probably illegal) radio station. H I tapped my paw along to some golden oldies death metal and got a head start on my history reading. Between songs the announcer rang in with

"TRIAL OF THE CENTURY UPDATE. Growf Ziggler of Ziggler Industries today pleaded not guilty on the charges of" the radio have a harsh WHiiir. The nanny program wasn't going to tattle on us, but that didn't mean it wouldn't censor some of the choice bits with a little electronic interference "I thought I was the trial of the century" I pouted. Silly thing to be upset over but if I was going to go through this I could get some recognition dammit.

"Yeah, normally it takes about 10 years before they have another one. This guys accused of doing..erm. THINGs to some of his female employees. Weird thing is they say it never happened. He's getting ready for his last rejuvenation so if he's found guilty it's girlhood for life."

I grumbled noncommittally. I'd been for that kind of punishment before but being on the receiving end had given me mixed feelings to say the least. The history chapter bored the ideas out of my head after three pages.

Detention passed, leaving me relieved at getting it over. Staccata and I headed out to the playground where a large group of kids were watching a mostly human group run up the enormous log jungle gym as fast as they could while wrestling and pushing each other. Someone I didn't recognize got to the top first, raised his fists up and got a cheer from the crowd. With a little squinting I could make out Brock shaking the winners hand before starting the climb down. .

"Don't even think about it."Stacata warned. "Most of the ones in this race are a lot bigger than you."

"It's just a race what could go wrong

"Three. Two. One. GO!!!" one of the kids announced, sending a swarm of kin with the occasional human towards the structure at full speed, arms legs lungs and heart pumping with the reckless energy of youth.

"Losing time gotta go..."

I dashed across the field on all fours, passing the racers who'd been closer. I took a gamble to avoid the scrum by running to the far side of the jungle gym and hitting the wide metal slide at a full sprint. My momentum gave out just short of the top and I had to dig my claws into the treated wood and pull myself up, right under the legs of only cougar I'd seen here.

"Coming through!"

He looked down in surprise and hit his head on a log overhang.I hopped over him and started running around and around the gym heading for the top. The rest of the kids caught up with him, but I had a half spiral head start and wasn't slowing down. I heard the cougar growl, put his arms around a mast and climb, scramble, climb, before just leaping up , settling on my level, and then leaping up again to reach the top just as I was coming up behind him.

"awwww..." I'd thought for a second I was going to win. I climbed up next to him and stuck out my paw. "Good ga..."

A felt the pads of the paw imprint on my nose before colliding with my face, followed by an instant of weightlessness and panic. My tail flagged out behind me puffed up for more wind resistance as I flipped over to the right just in time to land. Digitigrade legs meant to power a super soldiers sprint across a battlefield absorbed much of the blow, but it had still been almost a 40 foot drop to the ground. My rump hit hard, the padding exploded, and if it hadn't been drenched from a boring detention it had certainly become so during the fall. I sat on all fours waiting for an explosion of pain but only felt warm dampness pouring down my legs

Squatting like a girl

In front of half the school.

Who at least waited a few seconds to see if I was okay before laughing uproariously.

Running wasn't the girliest thing I could do after all, but I did it quickly for my dorm as fast as my injured ankles would let me. The doors opened well before I got there, parting on a path to my room. I ran into the bathroom so fast I didn't even notice James and Kaa playing chess on the floor between the beds and wondered where he was when I checked his basket.

"I think I'm being paged. One moment." and the helper AI slithered inside "Oh dear..." He went into his basket and came out with a bottle, some footed pajamas and a new pawpers.

"No fussi...good kit" the snake said as I put the bottle to my lips and started sucking desperately. His eyes lit up and started to scan me, starting at my feet and working up. He very gently wrapped his coil around my ankle, moved my leg up and down a little on each leg individually, then flexed around my knees, and used a coil to press on my belly, then arms, and fingers. He sat across my belly and used his tail and head to gently press on my chin, jaw, and temples.

"Need your eyes open for a few seconds kit. Try not to blink."

I managed to keep my eyes open the second time. Kaash didn't seem to mind.

"You really should go see Miss Norveg. Should I call her?"

"Black rat, red eyes? Really sca...erm. Determined?" Kaash nodded "I think we saw enough of each other today"

He grumbled "I'm going to need your bottle for a second then" I passed it off and deliberately kept my thumb out of my muzzle. He returned to his basket and did something with it, shook the bottle, and returned it to my muzzle.

A warm feeling started creeping from my belly, spreading nicely along my limbs as the pain receded.

"Didn't need a soother..." I grumbled, but he paid me no mind, stripped my clothes off set the water pressure low and the temperature warm. A quick rinse and blowdry later he wrapped the extra thick pink pawpers around my tail I tried to lift my legs but they wouldn't move.

"It's more a muscle relaxer. And the milk started with it. What I just added was an anti concussion medicine. " Couldn't argue with results. I probably couldn't move my leg otherwise. Well I still couldn't but at least now Kaash could. The thick nighttime padding felt warm and cushy under my bottom, reminding me that I didn't need to worry about running to the bathroom to change the flimsy trainers. The bottle emptied quickly and Kaash nosed me with his head.

"Can you walk to your bed?" he formed himself into a cane to help me up and slithered his way to the next room "step step pause for the rest of me step step..." every motion pulled the sleeper against me, against my bottom, reminding me of the my helplessly padded state. So why was my tail wagging?

"There you go. " he was being so nice. He even fluffed my pillow, handed me my teddy bear and tucked me in. I didn't even care if James saw.

As Kaash returned to his chess game the teddy bears eyes lit up. Dr, Ockerman wanted to talk and was calling me on the bear. In response I tossed the teddy bear down , upsetting the board. He opened his eyes, looked around at the board and in Dr. Ockerman's voice said "I... take it that's a "no" on talking to Ronan?" the bears muzzle moving in time to the words.

I held my own tail, burrowed under the covers to get as far away from this day as I could and let the day fade to black.