Shorts: The Furry Years Read Online Free Page A

great pains to act like it was no big deal and even gave Rasha an official ID. I though it was because I had been a contributor to the Sheriff's last re-election campaign. Rasha had other ideas.
    "You smell that in there?" she giggled as we drove off.
    "What, the dogs? They have a canine unit here, that's all."
    "That wasn't a dog, hon, that was a wolf!"  She grinned and licked my ear.
    "Hey, watch it, I'm driving!" I protested weakly. "So it was a wolf, how do you know that anyway?"
    "I met your friend's wolf last year remember? It means that somebody at the Sheriff's office has changed, too! I wonder if this many people have changed all over the world?"
    "Good question, Hon, good question."
     
    The next couple of days, we stayed home and kept a low profile. I took care of some tasks around the farm I'd been putting off. Rasha dug out one of my old monitors -- Seems she knew all of my hiding places!-- and hooked it up to the VCR to watch the news. I did go trade in the car early one morning and got a late model Mercury Cougar.
    I couldn't resist, I admit. Also I wanted something with a big engine and dark glass.
    "Well here's how it looks Hon." We were sitting around Sunday evening thinking about doing a little shopping early the next day and Rasha was summing up the news. "Throughout most of the country about two percent of the population has undergone some kind of change.
    "Here in Oregon , it seems to have gone a little higher than that, maybe four percent. But several other rural areas seem to have had the same rates, so there's nothing really unusual about it. Magic is a fact of life now, and I for one am going to start practicing!"
    "Magic? You're kidding right?" I chuckled.
    "No, I'm not," she replied. "Think about it; things, people, they're all objects. I know how to manipulate objects already...."
    "You do?" I said skeptically.
    "Sure, object orientated programming. That's what that guy at your company did. Just applied it to the real world, now that you can of course!"
    "I don't buy it."
    "Of course you don't," she foofed at me. "It goes against your solid engineering training."
    "Which you've got as well," I pointed out.
    "Yes, but I'm a tiger not a human! I know that reality isn't exactly what it appears to be."
    "I will concede that point. But, you're not a tiger anymore than I'm a human." And I launched myself across the room at her. We wrestled for a while, until I let her pin me.
    "We should really be doing this outdoors you know," Rasha said.
    "I can't help it, I just get these terrible urges to play sometimes. How did you ever resist?"
    "Oh, I had this really horrid master who would just pout everytime I got out of hand or broke something," She started to say.
    "Okay, okay. I get your point. Wanna go outside and play?"
    "Sure!"
    And off we went. It was like being a kid again, when everything was new and different.
     
    We did manage to try and live normally that week, but it turned out we were both becoming 'popular' as word about us got out. Everyone wanted to hear our story, even the local news media wanted our story. I wasn't pleased, but Rasha rode herd on my temper, making me give them an interview and be polite.
    Few people knew where I lived, so we didn't receive any real harassment. But the station forwarded us two large bags of mail. Seems a lot of folks had an interest in us to say the least! We used the paper to start fires in the woodstove.
    Then of course there was Rasha and her learning magic. I was skeptical at first, but there were one or two stories on the news about people doing things using magic, it wasn't wide spread, and more likely then not people made mistakes.
    Rasha's first attempts were annoying, I'd walk into the house and it would be full of some awful stench, or a burned spot on the wall or something. But when she turned all the gold in the living room into lead, well, I banished all of her practicing to the back shed.
    "I'm sorry John, I didn't realize that your computer and