I turn to face the mirror once again. ‘Oops,’ I say as I take in the two violet ears sticking out of my head and the fluffy violet tail swishing back and forth behind me. I panic and use both hands to tug at an ear to try and pull it off, 'It hurts, it hurts,' I say, letting go. I turn to the side and stare at my tail, waving.
‘Janie, I need you to pull my tail off,’ I tell her.
‘What? No,’ she says, flicking through the pages of her spell book. ‘There must be a spell in her to change you back or a potion that reverses the effect of potions.’
As I impatiently wait for her to find a way to turn me back. I slowly poke my tail with my finger and shriek, realising I’m not imagining any of this and that it’s real.
‘I can’t find anything in here,’ Janie says with concern.
I walk over to her and turn around, having my back to her. ‘You’re just going to have to pull it off. Don’t count. Just rip it off,’ I tell her.
‘What if it hurts?’ she says hesitantly.
‘I can’t go home like this, Janie. I can’t go to class like this, and I sure as heck won’t be living my life with two big fluffy wolf ears and a tail. We have to remove it,’ I tell her sternly.
I hear Janie take a deep breath before she swiftly grabs hold of my tail, sticks her foot against my backside, and pulls. I scream in pain, and she falls into me, and we topple over as Mrs Twittlebug barges into the room.
‘Is everything okay? I heard screaming!’ she says, worried.
I’m lying flat on the floor with Janie on my back. Janie quickly sits up and laughs nervously, ‘Oh, we’re fine. It was just a spider crawling up Rose’s back.’
I try to lift my head to breathe, but Janie slaps me to keep me down, ‘Oh, see. I got it,’ she says, pretending to have just squashed it. ‘Where all good now, mum,’ she tells her.
‘Oh, okay then,’ Mrs Twittlebug says, leaving the room and closing the door.
Janie moans and flops herself down on top of me again in defeat.
I mimic Janie and groan before rolling over and causing her to fall off me. We then sit up and stare at each other.
‘Well, that was a close one,’ Janie says.
‘A close one? Janie, I have wolf ears and a tail. How am I supposed to go home like this?’ I ask her, feeling frustrated and helpless.
‘Call your mother, tell her you’re sleeping over tonight. That will give us some time to figure this out,’ Janie suggests.
‘All right,’ I reply; pulling my phone out, I dial my mother’s number. ‘Yeah, hi, Mum. Janie and I have a project due tomorrow, so I may as well sleep at her place since we’ll be up late working on it together. Okay great. I love you too, Mum. Bye,’ I say to her.
‘Bye, Mrs Peregrine,’ Janie shouts into the phone.
‘Mum says bye to you to Janie,’ I tell her and end the call.
It's silent momentarily before Janie speaks in a curious tone, ‘So, how does it feel to have a tail?’
‘Strange,’ I tell her as I stand, look over my shoulder, and make my tail wiggle. ‘And my ears keep twitching every time I hear a sound,’ I tell her.
Janie giggles, ‘Well, at least you're cute.’
I glare at her, ‘Janie, this isn't a joke.’
‘I know, I know. I'm sorry,’ Janie says, trying to stifle her laughter. ‘We'll figure it out, I promise.’
‘The sooner, the better, but for now, we need to figure out how to hide this from everyone,’ I tell her, pointing at my wolf features.
Janie nods in agreement, runs over to her closet and rummages through, pulling out scarves, hats, and headbands. She tries to fashion them in different ways, hoping to cover my wolf ears and tail. But no matter what she tries, the ears and tail remain visible, or my ears are too big for the standard hats to fit over.
With a defeated sigh, Janie pulls out a navy-blue beanie. ‘I'm sorry, Rose,’ she says, ‘but this is the only thing left.’
I reluctantly let Janie pull the beanie over my ears, ‘Look at that. It fits,’ she beams.
‘I don’t want to wear a beanie,’ I whine.
‘Well, there’s always the mop bucket you can put over your head,’ she shrugs.
‘Janie!’ I growl. ‘That’s not funny at all.’
‘Oh, come on, it’s a little funny,’ she smiles. ‘But we still have to figure out how we’re going to hide that tail of yours,’ she says, tapping her chin. ‘Oh, I know!’ Janie runs from the room downstairs, returning with a long piece of rope. ‘We can use this,’ she says, pressing my tail against my back. She wraps the rope around my waist and pulls my shirt over.
‘Well, the good news is the rope works,’ she smiles.
I wriggle around, ‘And the bad news is, it’s extremely uncomfortable,’ I frown.
‘It’s only until we can find a way to reverse the potion's effects,’ Janie assures me.
Mister Kal creeps slowly towards me, sniffing my scent. My body instinctively gets on all fours and chases him around the room as I growl at him. Janie’s lamp, knick-knacks and potions are knocked over, and her bedroom is a complete mess as she shouts for me to stop chasing her cat. Mister Kal turns and swipes at my nose, scratching the end as he hisses at me before quickly hiding under Janie's bed.
I whimper like a puppy and hug myself in the corner of the room.
‘Please tell me, Rose, that you did not just chase Mister Kal and whimper like a dog right now?’
‘I don’t know what came over me. I couldn’t help it,’ I tell Janie.
‘Maybe we should go for a walk to calm ourselves down?’ Janie suggests.
I feel my tail trying hard to wag to show Janie my happiness about her mentioning a walk. ‘Did you say a walk? Like walkies?’ I ask her as I jump back on all fours and spin around in circles, ‘Yes, a walk, let’s go for a walk!’ I say to her. I am now jumping up and down on the spot, overly excited.
‘Erm, maybe we should wait until it gets dark? I don’t want the neighbours worrying about your behaviour and thinking you’ve lost your mind,’ Janie frowns.
My tail stops wagging under the rope, and I abruptly sit my bum down and feel my ear lower back under the beanie in sadness. ‘Fine,’ I sook.