Chapter 1 - One

“But I can't control what's on the site!” Kari exclaimed as the group of teachers looked at her critically.

“That doesn't matter, you still went to it though you knew there could be language like that on there,” Mrs. Naton said. She was a particularly annoying English teacher, and Kari had a feeling that she had it in for her just because of a particular water bucket on April Fools Day that went astray from its true target.

“Look, I have an account on there. The site's just for fun! I go to the forum page all the time and I've never seen language like that before!” Kari said.

This was a lie, of course. She had seen some mild language, but this hadn't been all that minor this time. Usually, this would have just skimmed under the radar and the teachers would have never found out about it. The problem was that this time she hadn't been in her dorm, she had been surfing the net in free time in computer class. So, naturally, the teachers checked what you were looking at and there had been a particular swear word that they frowned upon, but is typically used in any PG-17 movie.

As far as Kari saw it, they were overreacting.

“You went to the site, and that's all that matters,” Mr. Vient said gruffly.

Kari believed that Mr. Vient hated her too, but not for any personal reason. She knew that he was a chauvinist and prejudice, and hadn't been particularly keen on getting on his good side during class. This was aided by the fact that he had called one of her friends a skinhead for having a World War 2 book, and another one of her friends stupid.

Teachers don't understand that the youth of today don't care, do they? She asked herself mentally as she rolled her eyes to the ceiling and sighed.

“Look, I didn't write it, so why should I be punished for it?” she asked, tiredness working its way into her voice.

The teachers on the board, excluding Vient and Naton, looked at each other and began talking quietly. Naton shot daggers at Kari with her gaze, and Kari just tried to stay looking sincere and not shooting back an equally evil glare.

Mr. Schultz, a particularly nice chemistry teacher, looked at her and began to speak. “Since the matter is not entirely in your control, we've decided not to penalize you this time,” he said. “But if you surf any sites during class again with that sort of language, your internet license will be suspended.”

“So you're just going to let her off with a warning?” cried Mr. Vient angrily.

Mr. Schultz threw a hard look at him. “There is no proof that she intended to see it or went to the site to write that sort of language. And you are out of order, Vient,” he said sharply.

Mr. Vient used to be the head of the board until they looked at his record and realized that he let boys off for doing things that he brutally punished girls for doing, with twice the usual punishment. Mr. Schultz had taken over after the incident and they had developed a healthy hatred for each other since that time.

Kari decided to keep quiet until they came back from looking as though they were ready to kill each other. “Thank you, sir, and I promise it won't happen again,” she said politely.

“It better not,” Vient growled.

She tried to keep her face calm even though she felt like slapping him into next week.

Quietly, she stood and walked out of the court-like interrogation room. As soon as she turned a corner down the hall, she broke into a full sprint. She wanted to be as far away from those teachers as possible.

Not all of them were bad teachers or hated her, of course. But still, something about meeting them always left her with chills.

As soon as she reached the dorm areas, she stopped running and rubbed her arms to drive away the cold. Almost immediately, she arrived at her dorm and quickly ducked in before anybody could see her.

Reva, her roommate, was lying on her stomach on her bed reading an anime magazine. She looked up from it and her green eyes quickly looked over Kari. “Get caught?” she asked.

Kari nodded and plopped down on a bean bag chair after grabbing a soda to calm her nerves. She leaned back and looked up to see Reva's shrine of Orlando Bloom. That made her smile, and the chills stopped coming so forcefully.

“Yeah, I was surfing Gaia during class. Somebody swore in the forum and they found out about it,” she said, sitting back up and taking a sip of the Pepsi.

“Schultz let you off?” Reva asked, beginning to read the magazine again.

“Yes, thank God. That man is a Godsend, I swear it,” Kari said, relaxing in the chair and closing her eyes.

“Anybody would be a Godsend compared to Vient,” Reva reminded her, turning a page in the magazine.

“True,” Kari admitted, not opening her eyes, but taking another sip. The chills had completely dissipated now.

Reva blew a black hair out of her face, and her wolf ears twitched as they heard the beans crinkle in the chair.

“So how's the after school magic self tutoring going?” Reva asked, dragging a notebook from beside her and beginning to sketch a funny ad that was in the magazine.

“Okay, so far,” Kari said, rubbing her own pointy ears nervously.

“Nobody found out about them yet?” Reva asked, still sketching.

“No, thankfully. It stills scares me though whenever I think about it,” she said. “But that camouflage charm that you gave me is working like a… well… a charm.”

Kari smiled, trying not to laugh. Reva quickly burst out laughing and dropped her head onto the bed, her tail wagging behind her. The mix of human and wolf emotion was odd, but it got the point across. Kari joined in on the laughter soon after Reva collapsed.

“Well, you're welcome for the charm, anyways,” Reva said, wiping tears from her eyes as she fought to stop laughing.

“Yeah, how're you getting on? Anybody notice the anthro in you, yet?” Kari asked as she stopped laughing.

“Nah, these charms work, remember?” Reva said, picking up the magazine and resuming sketching the ad again.

Kari only nodded and took another sip from the soda as she sat silently, waiting for Reva to finish.

Smiling, Reva held up the notebook to show the comical ad. Kari glanced over it and smiled. “You stole my chocolate!” she cried, mimicking the cartoon.

“I know, isn't it great?” Reva cried.

“I love it!” Kari exclaimed, jumping off the bean bag chair and walking over to look at it more closely.

Reva offered it to her, and Kari quickly grabbed it up and sat down on the bed next to her. Then she flipped to the beginning of the notebook and looked through the sketches.

“Hey, it's me!” she cried, pointing to a picture of an Elf.

“Yes, yes I know,” Reva said with a smile.

Kari cackled and moved on to the next picture. “That your brother?” she asked when she got to a picture of a wolf anthro that was clearly male.

Reva smiled embarrassedly. “Yeah,” she said.

“No reason to be embarrassed,” Kari assured her. “Everybody misses their family sometimes.”

“Yeah, I know, but he hates me so I feel dumb for missing him,” she said, cupping her face in her hands and looking at the magazine again.

Kari just fell over and laid on her.

“Kari, Kari, you're squishing me,” Reva squeaked.

“Stop being sad!” Kari cried.

“No, seriously, I can't breathe,” Reva said.

Kari released a little bit of the pressure. “Oh, sorry, excuse my lard if you will,” Kari joked.

“You are not fat!” Reva cried.

“This coming from the girl who has to push her stomach out just to look anorexic,” Kari joked.

“I'm proud of my abs, leave me be!” she exclaimed.

Kari laughed and sat back up. Reva started laughing as well as soon as there was air in her lungs again. Kari really had been crushing her, she just didn't have the heart to tell her.

“I'm sorry for crushing you,” Kari said, patting Reva on the back.

“Oh, it's okay. I'll live,” Reva said. She reached down and picked up her notebook, which in the midst of Kari crushing her had fallen on the floor. Kari started laughing again, but quickly stopped when she realized that one of the pages in her drawing book was ripped. It was the picture of her brother.

“Dude, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen,” she said quietly.

“It's not your fault,” Reva said, her voice even quieter and she tried to fix it by smoothing it out.

Clearly, she did think it was her fault.

Kari reached into her one of her overly large pockets and pulled out a roll of tape in an orange holder. “You can fix it with tape,” she offered.

Reva gave her an incredulous look as she accepted it. “Why were you carrying tape around in your pocket?” she asked with a laugh in her voice as she fixed the drawing.

Kari stared blankly at her for a moment, as though she had forgotten that the tape had come from her pocket. “You know… I don't know,” she told her.

Reva burst out laughing. And after Kari wiped the blank look off her face, she did too.

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