1. Lucy

1

LUCY

L ucy wanted a cookie.

She had already tried asking for one and Daddy’s answer was the same as always. “No, Lucy. I’m sorry, it’s not time for a cookie. We’re getting ready to go on a date.”

Lucy didn’t know what a date was, but it was never time for a cookie.

But cookies were the best and Lucy thought it was long past time she had one. Probably Daddy just didn’t realize how long it had been. She even knew right where they were, on top of the refrigerator.

And it wasn’t like the top of the refrigerator was any kind of real challenge. She could scale just about anything as a squirrel.

She wasn’t supposed to shift without asking, of course, but this was in their house, there were no strangers. There was Olivia, but she didn’t count as a stranger, and she was putting dishes away in the kitchen.

Cookies were sweet and crunchy-chewy and she tried convincing her daddy that she really, really needed one, but whining only got Daddy to kneel down right in front of her so he could meet her eyes. “I want you to promise me that you won’t take the cookies off the fridge until it’s time to have one.”

Lucy lowered her gaze because she didn’t want to make that promise, but Daddy pressed on. “Promise me, Lucy. I’ll trust you.”

“She’s two,” Olivia reminded him, like maybe Daddy had forgotten about her birthday.

“She knows what a promise is,” Daddy said, chasing her gaze around. “Will you promise me?”

“I promise,” Lucy said gravely. And she really did mean it.

But that didn’t mean that she’d given up on a cookie.

It wasn’t that she forgot her daddy said no, it was just that the temptation of a cookie was more giant than the no. WAY more giant.

“I’ll apologize in advance for not remembering how to actually date,” Daddy said to Olivia.

“I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it,” Olivia said kindly.

As Lucy was examining her cookie-related options, the doorbell rang and Lucy ran to answer it.

She wasn’t fast enough to actually open the knob (knobs were hard!), but she could be there when Daddy did. The doorbell didn’t often ring at their house, so whatever was happening, she definitely wanted to be part of it.

There was a boy on the front porch. He was skinny and tall and frowning, but not in a mean way, just in a thoughtful way. He had dark hair in a short cut around his face, and kind of a big nose and brown eyes that were sort of golden. One of his hands was in a weird, thick glove that his fingers stuck out from. He had the funny tingly feeling that other shifters had, like when she hugged a balloon or scuffed her feet on carpet.

“This is Darius,” Daddy introduced. “Darius is going to watch you for a few hours while Olivia and I go do boring grown up date stuff.”

Lucy stared at the bigger boy. He was almost a grown up, she thought. Gil, from day care, had a brother that big, and sometimes he would toss his little brother in the air when he picked Gil up.

“Are you going to be my brother?” Lucy asked.

Olivia gave a snort of laughter and Daddy was quick to shake his head. “Darius is just your babysitter,” he said.

Lucy didn’t like to be called a baby. She could walk and run and feed herself and shift into a squirrel and breathe fire (even though she wasn’t supposed to). She didn’t need a baby sitter.

“What’s that?” Lucy asked, pointing at the thing on Darius’s wrist that didn’t seem like a glove now that she’d had a better look.

“It’s a brace,” Darius said. “I hurt my wrist.”

He had a nice voice, not too loud like some of the older kids, and he sounded sheepish. Lucy was good at knowing when other people did stuff wrong because she did it herself so much.

“Did you fight?” Lucy asked suspiciously. Kids weren’t supposed to fight. They taught that at Tiny Paws.

Olivia made a little noise like she was trying not to laugh again.

Darius smiled a little. “No, I fell off the bleachers at school.”

Lucy wasn’t sure what bleachers were. She knew that bleach was something she wasn’t supposed to drink, though.

“Come on in,” Daddy invited, and Darius followed him in, trudging behind to the kitchen, where Daddy showed him all the food that Lucy was supposed to eat. She cast a longing look at the fridge where the cookies were kept. Don’t take the cookies off the fridge.

Don’t take the cookies off the fridge.

Over and over, Lucy tried to figure out a way to still get cookies as she trailed around the house as Daddy pointed out the bathroom and Lucy’s bedroom. “These are mine,” she said firmly when she thought Darius might be looking a little too avidly at her toys.

“She speaks really well,” Darius said as he picked up a stuffy from the floor and handed it to her. She snatched it away and went to hide it under her pillow. She had a grownup kids bed, because she could climb out of her crib when she was a baby and Daddy said there was no point in it.

“She’s precocious,” Daddy said in a way that suggested it wasn’t quite a compliment. Lucy didn’t know what precocious was, but she knew that it always made him sound weirdly tired and proud at the same time when he said it.

Don’t take the cookies off the fridge.

They toured the rest of the house and the backyard and Lucy was still thinking about cookies when they circled back to the living room. Everyone stood around looking at each other awkwardly. Olivia put on her coat.

“She’s a good shifter,” Daddy finally said, which surprised Lucy, because they didn’t talk about that in front of strangers. “But she’s not supposed to.”

“My kid brother is, too. He’s a griffin.”

Lucy didn’t know what a griffin was, but she had a stuffed puffin. Maybe they were the same. “I’m a squirrel.”

“Yes, you are a girl,” Darius said.

Lucy didn’t know the word for patronizing, but she knew what it was and didn’t like it. “SQUIRREL.”

“Oh!” Darius looked a little impressed. “Okay, a squirrel. That’s fun.”

“She can climb anything,” Daddy warned. “But she has promised not to climb the fridge to get the cookies. Right, Lucy?”

“PROMISED,” Lucy agreed. She was still hoping he’d just forget.

Daddy talked about what they would eat for dinner and phone numbers. “I guess that’s all you need to know,” he said at last. “Don’t hesitate to text if you have questions.”

Then everyone looked at Lucy.

What was she supposed to do?

Daddy knelt down and gave her a big hug. “We’re going to go now,” he said. “Be good for Darius.”

“Bye, bye.”

It wasn’t until he and Olivia actually left the house that Lucy realized that she was going to be left behind and she started to protest. “I wanna go! I wanna go on the date!”

“Do you want to play a game, Lucy?” Darius asked, clearly trying to distract her.

Lucy remembered the cookies and took him by the good hand to drag him to the kitchen and point up to the top of the fridge. “I wanna cookie.” Maybe Darius could get her the cookie off the fridge.

Darius gave a reluctant hiss. “You promised your dad you wouldn’t go up and get a cookie,” he said firmly. “If you’re hungry, do you want a carrot or a cracker?”

Lucy did not want a carrot or a cracker, even if they started with the same sound as cookie, and she debated pitching a fit to try to sway Darius. He looked like he might be the kind to give in, but then, so did Cherry and Addison at Tiny Paws, and they didn’t let her get away with anything .

A little sniveling got her a sippy cup of milk, which would have been much better with a cookie, but Lucy nursed it and pondered her plan of attack until Darius found a ball in her toy bin and set up two play traffic cones in the living room.

“Can you roll the ball through the cones?” Darius asked.

Lucy put her milk down on the floor and went to try. She missed the first two times, but the third, Darius nudged it through with his foot. “Score!” he said, and Lucy couldn’t help but be excited, putting her arms in the air to dance.

Darius gave up on setting rules to their game or taking turns and let her roll the ball through again and again. “Score!” he’d cry, every time, even when he had to help the ball.

“Score!” Lucy agreed happily.

He got bored before she did, and poked through her toys, setting out a train set and town. “This looks fun, doesn’t it Lucy? Want to put up some buildings with me?”

Lucy crouched down beside him and helped put up the police station and post office.

She still wanted a cookie.

Finally, like Seltzer springing to the railing on the porch, the idea came into Lucy’s mind. If she couldn’t take the cookies off the fridge, she just had to get the cookies to come off of the fridge by themselves.

It made perfect sense.

Lucy waited until Darius was reaching into the bucket to set up the train crossing signs, and then she made her move.

She could shift with her clothing now, and vanished into the kitchen without leaving her dress behind to betray her change of shape.