*Wham!* Walter's foot connected solidly with the center of the locker. "Stupid locker! Open!" he growled. He could have sworn he heard a muffled 'no.' He spun the combination for the fifth time, and cursed the locker's ancestors. Six lockers down, Jayme grinned at the curses used. He got out his books, shut his locker, and headed off to the class he took during second lunch. He smiled and waved at his new girlfriend, Carrie, as she bounced past...wow. Carrie is what most people call an ideal schoolgirl. She was a cheerleader, a pep-club member, a straight-A student, and had been the Prom Queen for two straight years. Carrie was also the most popular female in the school with the boys, for the had curves in all the right places. Smiling, she waved back at that dork Jayme. Since she had been going with Curtis for, oh, about half and hour now, she was going to break up with Jayme sometime this afternoon. Walter gave the stubborn locker one more vicious kick, making a small dent, and quit. He hefted his bookbag and headed off to lunch. Crud...eggplant and zucchini stuff again. He went to get a milk and roll. When he came back from the lunch line, he found that an underclassmen had stolen his seat in the corner. "Excuse me, but this is my seat and I've noticed that yours is all the way across the cafeteria. Would you mind moving?" "Yeah, I mind," he sneered, "Go stuff your head in a urinal, Shorty." Walter shrugged. He had tried to do it the polite way. he shoved the freshman out of his seat and on to the floor. He was momentarily surprised at the strength of the shove, for he thought himself weaker than that. Then he sat and handed the cross ninth-grader his tray. The rest of lunch was uneventful. After lunch, poor, hungry Walter went back to argue with his locker some more. He won. After a bit more 'persuasion', it opened meekly, rattling snide comments all the way. He got out his geometry book and shoved his Spanish back in. Although feeling a bit better since he had won the argument with his now severely dented locker, he was still in an odious temper. He stared snarling at the people that bumped into him in the hall. On his way to class he saw...oh no....Jayme, the human gecko. He had somehow become 'best bud' to the dweeb. "Hey, pal!" Jayme chirped happily. "Bugger off." "Had a nice day so far?" "Bugger off." "Ain't it wonderful that we got math class together? Huh, pal?" "Bugger off." Walter stalked into the bathroom and glared at the chattering Jayme by way of the mirror above the sink. Walter's heart sank even lower when Jayme gaily announced that he had found Walter's phone number and was going to call twice every day after school to talk with his "Buddy." Walter cast a longing look at the toilet, thinking to drown the still-talking Jayme when he noticed his right eye looked...wrong. It had kind of a green-gold cast to the iris and a pale sickly yellow to the white part. Queer. His eyes were usually a mundane grey. He glanced at his watch and realized that he was close to being tardy for Mr. Kruger's geometry class. He left quickly with the diarrhea of the mouth victem, Jayme, following like a noisy shadow. He came in and sat in his seat right by the door. Jayme came in directly after and at in his seat...right behind Walter. They weren't a second too late either, for the late bell rang as soon as Jayme's rear hit the seat. A few seconds later, Carrie bounded in. She handed her late pass to Mr. Kruger, their teacher. Barbaric Mr. Kruger fit his name. There was a rumor that his first name was Freddy, but that hasn't been proven yet. He was tall and burly with a face that would make a warthog jealous. Since he was missing his incisors, he had a wolfish look to accompany his harelip. He also had a cateract in his left eye and ears perpendicular to a liver-spotted head. He tended to wear heavy black clothes even on days that could evaporate an egg and always had a large, noisy key ring clipped to his belt. The keys belonged to the large grey lockers in the back of the room. Some said that he stuffed bodies in there. Probably true. Carrie tried to keep her cheeleader smile on her face as Kruger's hairy hand took the note from her perfectly manicured fingers. Kruger scrutinized the note with his myopic right eye. Grunting displeasure at finding that the note was legitemate, he gave Carrie permission to go to her seat by the window. Taking her pert little derriere to her seat (much to the delight of the boys) she thanked the higher powers. 'Whew,' she thought, 'Good thing I didn't have to explain the real reason I was late...besides *smirk* that's only between me and Alexander...sigh. Forget Curtis, I'll tell him goodbye later.' "All right, listen up! Class has started!" Everyone jumped. "You're having the first part of your exam today, so separate!" The class let out a mutual groan and began scooting their desks away from each other. The most horrible noise filled the room as the desks grated upon the floor, but Kruger smiled at the symphony as he passed the first part of a three-day exam out to students. "Begin!" Mr. Kruger spat. Walter scowled fiercly at his exam, calculator and pencil to scare them into immediatly producing the answers. It didn't work. With a sigh he began. Jayme frowned as he looked at the eight test papers. This is kindergarden stuff! Ha, this test will be easy. Carrie panicked. She couldn't do this! This is, like, college crap! She looked around and saw that almost everyone was about halfway through the first page already! Heck, it looked like Jayme was almost done with the second page...I should have sat behind him...and Walter? Walter looked reddish. Huh. Must be thinking too hard. She looked back at her exam. Ooooh! Help! A bit later, Jayme glanced up when Walter slammed his fist into his calculator. Hmmm...he must be having a bit of trouble. Poor guy, he should have studied with me the other day. Walter stared at his fist. It had..had crushed calculator! As he stared at his calculator and hand in astonishment, a small subterranean voice in his head said that this is ridiculous! He couldn't have done something like that even on a good day, his hand was red like he had a sunburn, and to top it off, he was hungry! Suddenly his nose began to itch, and itch and itch. He dropped his pencil on his desk, and with both hands, began to rub furiosly at his nose. Ahhh...much better, but what had caused that? He shrugged and reached for his pencil, then stuck the end of it in his mouth, giving the wood a gentle nibbling bite. *Krrkk!* The pencil had broken off where he had lightly bitten it and there were all these little pin-like holes...like teethmarks. Sharp teeth. Too weird. He went back to the test. Carrie had looked up at the small noise the pencil's breaking had made...and stared! Walter was turning the red of a young rose. As she stared at him, his slowly flattening nose merged with the top of his gradually protruding mouth. Ah, done! Jayme put the finishing touches on the fourth page then glanced up. He sarted to turn to the fifth page, then took another look. Walter's ears were gone! Oh, there they are. They're crawling up the side of his head and turning into two fin-like objects. Nothing unusual. He went back to his test. Wait a minute... Carrie watched Jayme look up, look down, look up, shrug, then go back to his test. Didn't he see Walter's ears?! Oh my gosh! The eyes are moving now. Ohmigosh!! Walter suddenly found his test paper leap out in sudden sharp detail, very much like how he imagined a hawk's or other sharp-eyed predator's sight to be like. Then he felt a sharp pain in his left hand. His thumb dislocated! As he watched, his thumb rotated slightly downwards and the bone on the tip broke through. He watched in pain as the bone growing out formed a long, sharp claw. As the bone growth finished, small blood vessels and tendons crept along this new extension, but stopped before they got too far up on the claw. Then the skin began creeping up. It became thick, pinkish, and leathery, and it also stopped before it got too far. Then a dense, yellowish substance began to slip up from the base of the claw to coat it in a tough protective covering all the way to the tip. Then his other digits began the same painful process...all at once. When the cloud of pain passed, he had hands with long claws. Something like lizard forefeet. Then his shoes split. What had happened was that at the same time his hands were changing, his feet were also. He didn't notice the pain since he was...rather preoccupied with his hands. The bones in his shins had shortened. The bones between the toes and the heel had lengthened and melded into four long bones, and as they did this, pressure had built up until the shoe burst. His 'knees' now scraped the bottom of the desk and his feet lay amidst a small pile of leather and rubber. Carrie had stared as quietly and as silently she was able, but when she saw the huge feet bursting out... "AhhHHHHHH!!!!!" It started as a small rush of air and grew into a full blown scream of terror. The class jerked back into the concious world and joined her in a mass outburst of incoherent shrieks and yells when they saw why Carrie had lost it. The student beside Walter frantically dashed out of her seat as his green, slitted pupils looked confusedly at her, not understanding what was happening himself. He turned around to face the front of the room and gripped the two upper corners of the desk in a white knuckled hold. Panic! Just then he arched his back as what felt like lightning stabbed his shoulderblades in a flare of pain. Jayme, who was sitting behind him too scared and shocked to move, saw two long and bony things inside his back thrashing wildly. Suddenly, they stopped and...and seemed to strain against the restrictive barriers of skin and shirt...then they weren't. Two bone wings burst out of his back, knocking Jayme and the desk behind back a good eight feet. Jaayme shrieked in pain as the claws on the tips of the wing bones ripped up the underside of his forearms and chest as he threw his arms up to protect his face. Walter turned and knocked out a desk as his new tailbone spat out like a reverse spaghetti slurping. Then the pain of growing muscles began on the wings. Carrie cried in horror with the pack of students in the back as she watched the blade on the end of the slowly fleshing-over tail slice through the leg of a desk. It was sharp! She saw Jayme duck and crawl his way over to the windows as Walter's near completed tail sliced the air near his head. Then Walter's desk broke apart. At the moment, Walter's brain was in turmoil. It was as if some horribly intelligent creature, of such an appallingly carnivorous magnitude, was trying to implant its mind into Walter's, and gain his memories in order to become one tremendous lump! "Grargh!" Walter bellowed as he fell to his knees. The alien mind had touched his and...and it didn't hurt anymore! He grabbed his head. Ahh! Yes it did! Jayme had a wild look in his eyes. he had gone mad. He laughed. Walter's skin grew too large for his body! Oh, how funny! As his laughter increased, Walter began to grow into the huge skin. It was like he was being inflated like a balloon to fit the skin. Then all this clothing was torn to tatters by the sudden growth spurt. Hahah! Carrie watched with interest, for it seemed that he had lost....something. Oh, he's blushing all all over! No, that was too deep for a blush...he was turning RED! Deep dark red! He was growing longer too. As his neck and torso stretched out, she could hear what sounded like extra vertebrae popping in. His head molded into a long, thin, and tapered triangle. Oh well, time to scream again. Walter melted into a long, sinewy and scaled form with hues from rust to cherry shimmering across his still growing and....BUTT-NAKED body!! He quickly turned to the wall and cowered, waiting for the laughter...but it didn't come. He turned around and looked at the class over his shoulder. They were screaming? He knew he wasn't exactly a studmuffin, but he wasn't this bad, was he? He cocked his head. Ow! He hit the light! Wait a sec. The light? How did he get up here? He was the shortest kid in the class! What's that? Oh, Jayme laughing...the freak. "GRARH FROOG, HYEYMEH!!" "AIIIIEEEE!!! "........." was all Walter could say, for when he had faced the insane Jayme and yelled for him to shut up, not only did he roar like a beast, but a great spout of red-hot flame had leapt out. As he stared at the crumbling husk that had been Jayme, he heard silence echoing loudly throughout the room. There was a dull thud as Mr. Kruger fainted into the large trash can in the can in the back of the room and then a succession of minor thuds as the teacher's pets followed suit all over the back of the room with him. Pretty soon everyone but the ones trying to beat Walter's foot up, some of the girls, and the ones too stupid to faint when they should were standing. Walter realized that his foot was beginning to hurt where some guys were hitting it with chairs, yardsticks, and broomsticks. Then Walter realized his foot was scaled, muscular, heavily clawed, and as big as them. Cool. He gave his foot a little shake and sent them all flying. He grinned. This is fun! Then his stomach gave a small complaint. He ate one of the cheerleaders, then turned to stop the guy throwing stuff at him. "Yah!" Walter spat the taste of miniskirt out of his mouth (which actually tasted pretty good!) and frantically tried to retch up the remains, but his stomach held on tightly. Ew! Yuck! Gross! Sick! Nasty! Ptoo! Then, with a gentle brush of the almost complete merging on minds, he dismissed the thought of expelling the tasty human and wanted more. Yum! Carrie was seriously flipping out. Just a second ago she had been hiding behind Jeanne. Then next, she saw a flash of silver teeth and Jeanne's shoes disappearing into Walter's maw! Carrie saw the key ring on Kruger's belt and snatched it off. Then, thinking herself very clever, she slipped to the lockers over by Walter's tail. She unlocked the largest one very quietly and slipped in. She left a small crack in the door so she could get back out. Walter thought he saw a bit of movement near the lockers and shifted his tail so he could see. There was a clunk as his tail shut the one with the keys in it. That's odd. He could have sworn he heard a stifled scream. He snapped up another human that was trying to get to the door and forgot about it. Carrie quelled her scream. The door had shut! Walter must have seen her! She tensed, waiting for the razor-sharp tail to slice open the door and the golden claws to pick her out like a booger! Then she heard a shriek and a crunch...and it wasn't her! She shifted some textbooks around, piling them so she could sit on top of the tall stacks and look out the vent at the top. It was unsteady, but it worked. She knelt and peered out. There was a large blind spot from here, about two thirds of the room. She took a second look, and from what she could see, Walter seemed to be playing a cat and mouse game with Mr. Kruger. She didn't see many classmates. Walter was having fun with the funny cursing human. Human goes to the door, Walter flicks him away. Human goes to the door, Walter flicked again. This went on for about five minutes until...huh? The human was lying down with his shirt slightly torn and his neck at a funny angle. What's the matter with it? Walter was only playing. Carrie watched Kruger's life drain away like sand in an hourglass. Then she slipped. With a loud crash and clatter, Carrie made her way gracelessly to the bottom of the locker. she froze. Her heart was pounding so loud that she couldn't hear. What's happening? Did he hear? She moved again. Ow! More books fell on her! Walter's now fully draconic head perked up at the clatter in the large locker. His earfins had sensed the noise and Female Movement. He didn't know how, he knew it was female, he just did. He listened for more Female Movement. Ahh. It sounded like royalty in it's grace. Queenly or princess-like, he thought. The small subterranean voice screamed--for it was hard to be heard in the large predatory brain--that it was royalty. It was Carrie, the Prom Queen. Besides, she's the only one besides Jayme and Kruger that he hadn't eaten. Walter inquired if his stomach was still hungry. It replied with a polite, 'No, thank you.' 'Well,' Walter thought to himself, 'what will I do with her?' He knew! Dragons kidnap royalty! It's all in those fairy tales and stuff! Carrie kicked herself, quite hard, mentally. There's a vent at the bottom, stupid! She looked out. She couldn't see anyth--oh no. Walter's foot was right in front of the locker! Suddently there was a horrible, nails-on-chalkboard screech above her. Walter had picked up his tail in his fore claws and deftly stuck it in the locker's top like a can opener, wincing at the sound. In a matter of minutes, he had cut open the locker and picked Carrie out. She screamed and threw her hair over her shoulder and kicked her feet in a nymph-like and quite fetching manner as she dangled above the floor in Walter's armored paw. Walter shifted her around in his hand so that she wouldn't be hurt when he broke the windows. He was way too big to even get his head out the door anymore. He covered her with his right wing and used the three claws on his other to tear through the curtains on the windows. Then, after the curtains were gone, he used his flame to melt through the windows and metal supports. It made a big hole in the middle. He enlarged it with wing claws and tail scythe, still covering Carrie. As the was precariously perched on the edge, the door burst open. A zoo veternarian leapt in with an elephant tranquilizer gun at ready. The principal hovered a few feet behind. He had summoned the man when he saw what was happening through the door when he walked by earlier. Walter was preparing to take off and didn't see the man kneel to fire the dart. *Pheshew!* The green dart shot through the air to embed itself in Walter's thigh as he launched upwards to the sky, unfurling his enormous wingspan to claw and pump his way to a higher altitude. A new portion of his tail spread out to become a stabilizing fan. Airborne! Carrie was quiet. She was too amazed to scream. She looked back and saw what looked like the whole school outside and staring at her. She felt giddy. She waved even though she knew it was useless. Walter and she were probably a mere speck by now. Walter was frustrated. His right hind leg refused to obey! It hung limply and tingled, refusing to curl up under him. he took a backward glance and saw why. A small, green-feathered canister stood in stark contrast to his red haunch. He'd soon fix that. He went into a sharp, fast dive and stopped short while twisting his back protion violently to tear it out. Finally, with a small bit of skin accompanying it, the green dart flashed angrily in the sun as it fell. Carrie watched it go down, its barbed point glittering furiously as its quarry escaped. 'Cool,' thought Walter as he headed away.