Learning to Bear It
"Hello, Uncle Foggy," said the little boy at Foggy's feet. Foggy glanced down at his nephew with a smile, trying not to show that he wished he were anywhere but here. He loved his family, but there were certain aspects of family reunions that he could definitely live without. Still, it wasn't the kid's fault ... and maybe nothing would happen to-day.
"Hey, Jayden," Foggy said. "How's it going? Are you in school yet?"
"I can turn into a squirrel," Jayden announced.
"That's great," Foggy said, groaning inwardly and trying to sound sincere while glancing around the room, hoping nobody else would encourage the boy. His parents were still talking to his sister Candace and her husband Chris, and Jayden's statement seemed to have gone unnoticed, so Foggy tried to change the subject. "What's your favourite tv show?"
"Grandma, Grandpa, I'm going to turn into a squirrel now! Watch me turn into a squirrel, everybody!" Jayden cried. He closed his eyes, scrunched up his face, and a moment later, his body shimmered, dissolved, then resolved itself from head to toe into a grey squirrel. He raced around the room a few times and even tried using his claws to climb Foggy's leg. Foggy grimaced as they sank through his suit pants into his skin, but before he could catch the squirrel, it had reached his knee and jumped off again. Once on the floor, the squirrel turned back into a boy.
"Didja see? I'm a great squirrel, right?" Jayden asked.
"That was really good," Foggy's mother announced, clapping delightedly. Even Foggy's father nodded approvingly.
"I can see I'd better not act like a nut when you're around," Foggy said.
All the adults laughed, but the humour went completely over the boy's head. "Dad said he's going to teach me to become a bird next. Maybe a magpie!"
Emma, Jayden's older sister, who had been hanging around her mother the whole time, suddenly marched over and announced, "Dad says I'm a magpie already!"
"Your dad says that?" Foggy asked, and his brother-in-law Chris interrupted his own conversation to explain why.
"She's always taking the shiny objects out of my wallet, that's why!" Chris announced, and everybody laughed again.
"I learned how to be a squirrel two years ago," Emma said. "Now I'm working on shifting into a hedgehog!"
"Hedgehog?" Foggy replied. Hedgehogs were rare in the Nelson clan. Maybe she'd got it from her father, who came from another shapeshifting clan. Foggy glanced over to his parents and watched them beam proudly at their grandchild. Feeling the familiar twinge of disappointment, Foggy tried to bolster himself up by remembering that he was a lawyer with a good practice and good money. Or at least there would be good money soon. There had to be good money soon.
"I saw hedgehogs on tv! They're so cute!" Emma replied, and then she asked the question that Foggy had been dreading ever since he'd arrived and discovered his sister there with her family. "Uncle Foggy, Mom told us that you can turn into a bear."
Foggy sighed, then leaned down close and pulled out his most menacing whisper. "That's right. A hedgehog-eating bear!"
Emma shrieked and ran away to her mother for reassurance that bears did not eat hedgehogs, and that Uncle Foggy would never hurt his precious niece, and Foggy took the opportunity to stand up and wander into the kitchen. He wasn't particularly hungry after supper, but finding a cookie was a good excuse to get away from the subject of shapeshifting. Unfortunately, he turned around from the cookie jar to see that Emma and Jayden had followed him.
"Can you really turn into a bear, Uncle Foggy?" Jayden asked.
"Um, yeah," Foggy admitted. "Hey, you guys want a cookie?"
Emma shook her head. "Show us!"
Foggy picked up the cookie jar and made a show of waving it around, then opened it and shook the contents invitingly. Emma and Jayden both shook their heads, and Emma said, "Not the cookie jar! The bear! Show us the bear, Uncle Foggy!"
"I've never seen a bear up close," Jayden said.
"I think I hear your mother calling," Foggy said, taking another cookie and putting the jar away.
Unfortunately, Candace had come into the kitchen just then. "Aw, come on, show them the bear, Foggy. They'll love it. The biggest thing Chris can shift into is a badger."
"Daddy Badger is so cute!" Emma cried.
Foggy sighed, wondering if he could race into his parents' bedroom, leap out the window and slide down the fire escape, but he'd left his coat and his bag in the front hall, so he'd have to slink back sometime and get them. It probably wouldn't be worth it.
"Come on, Foggy Bear, please? Just once for the kids. We hardly ever see you anymore," Candace urged.
"Foggy Bear!" Jayden was delighted to learn a new nickname.
"I told you not to call me that," Foggy hissed in a stage whisper, shooting his sister an angry glance as he went back into the living room.
"I have to go home now, it's time for me to hibernate," Foggy said, making his parents both frown. But the kids had followed, and were now dancing around his legs. "Foggy Bear! Foggy Bear!"
"Hey, I don't think I've ever seen you turn into a bear, either," Chris said.
"Yes, you did," Foggy reminded him. "At your wedding reception."
It was a clan tradition that everybody showed off their shapeshifting abilities at weddings and funerals. Foggy had tried to slip out, only to be dragged back inside and then totally humiliated by a well-meaning in-law who didn't even have the excuse of being drunk, just uninformed.
"Uh, I don't know if you remember, but Candace and I left the reception early?" Chris said. "Because, you know, wedding night! So come on, bro, what do you say?"
"I say I'm going to bite you all," Foggy murmured, and cursed himself for being such a pushover. After shooing the kids to a safe distance so that he didn't take them with him when he transformed, he knelt down reluctantly onto his hands and knees and shifted into his bear shape.
He hadn't shifted since the wedding, because really, what was the point? Now he realized that being a bear, or rather, having a bear's senses must be a lot like being his best friend, Matt. Matt had been blinded in an accident when he was nine, but the toxic chemicals that had taken away his sight had enhanced his other senses. He'd admitted to being able to hear heartbeats across a room, hear conversations going on several buildings away, and even smell whether Foggy had eaten onions for lunch up to forty eight hours earlier.
Here, in the middle of his parents' living room, Foggy realized for the first time that he could pick out any member of his family with his eyes closed, just by the their own unique scents, not even counting their shampoo, their body wash, or their laundry detergent. As a bear, he could also hear the next door neighbors punctuating a reality television show with pithy comments. One of them was particularly funny, and he wanted to laugh, but it came out as a bark instead.
And as a bear, he could also feel four little hands and one big one running up and down his back, stroking his fur. It felt nice, and if it hadn't been his inquisitive little niece and nephew, he would want it to continue, and might even roll over for a belly rub. One hand strayed down his front leg and even touched his claws. Candace said, "Careful, Emma."
"Can I sit on him?" Jayden asked, already taking a great handful of Foggy's fur to pull himself up until he was straddling Foggy's back. He even kicked Foggy in the ribs with his feet. "Giddy-up, Foggy-Bear! Giddy-up!"
Foggy was happy enough to give his younger relatives pony rides as himself, but not as a bear. He heaved a great whuffling bear-sigh and lowered himself flat to the floor, resting his muzzle on his front paws – and whoa, his parents really needed to get their carpet cleaned. Thankfully, Chris lifted his son away and told him not to do that again. Well, that was enough of that. Duty done, Foggy shifted back, then straightened up to his knees.
"That was cool," Chris said. "Wish I could turn into something that big. I'm working on a fox now."
Foggy didn't commiserate by reminding him that, even though he could turn into a big bear, it was the only animal he could shift into. The last he'd heard, Chris had mastered nine different ones. He really didn't want to know that Chris was practicing a tenth, or what that animal was. He especially didn't want Chris's pity.
"I wanted a panda bear," Emma said. "Panda bears are so cute! What kind of bear were you, Uncle Foggy?"
"Just a regular black bear," he said, getting to his feet.
"You weren't a black bear! You were yellow!" Jayden pointed out.
"Black bears that are yellow are called blond," Foggy said, pointedly not looking at Candace. He still remembered the insult she'd once thrown at him during a teenaged fit of anger, saying that his bear form looked like a long streak of piss. She'd apologized, and maybe she didn't remember now, but he still remained sensitive about his colouring.
"There are black bears that are white, too," Candace put in. "They're called albino. Black bear is just the name of the kind of bear, not necessarily its colour."
"When it comes to Foggy, I always say, blond hair, blond bear," Foggy's mom said brightly. Jayden liked the rhyme and began to repeat it. Foggy decided it was – marginally – better than hearing "Foggy Bear" over and over again. Still, it would have been nice to hear "Uncle Foggy is so cute!" instead.
"So, now you've seen the bear, now I really do need to go home. I've got lots of work to do for to-morrow." That was a lie, but Foggy didn't care. His family would never know. For all their ability to shapeshift into various animals, they couldn't detect lies the way Matt could. At least, he didn't think they could.
"Nice to see you, everybody!" That was another lie that he didn't care about. "Have a nice night!"
Everybody except his mother said good-bye, and Foggy's dad helped move the conversation away from Foggy by asking, "Okay, kids, who wants to see Grandpa turn into an eagle?"
Foggy turned away from the squeals of delight, gathered up his stuff, and went out. Of course his mother followed him out into the hallway and gave him a big hug. "Thank you for being a good sport, Foggy. I know it's hard for you, only being able to shift into one animal."
Burying his face in his mother's shoulder, Foggy made a resigned sound.
"I'm glad you haven't lost your ability to shift altogether," his mother went on. "I've been worried about that."
"I wish I would," Foggy admitted, letting go of his mom and looking away. "I mean, what's the point? At least you and Dad can shift into dogs or cats or ferrets, and go outside for a walk, hunt rats, play with mice, or whatever you do. If I go outside as a bear, people would run away screaming, or try to shoot me. Or both. I can't do anything as a bear. It's a complete waste!"
"Well, you never know what might happen." That was one of his mother's favourite sayings and she applied it to almost every situation. Foggy did not think it applied here.
"I really don't think the bears of Yellowstone Park are going to rise up and take over the world, with me as their supreme leader," he said. "I also don't think that being able to shift into a bear is going to help me survive the zombie apocalypse. And before you say one word about passing it on to the next generation, Mom, just don't. You don't even know if I can, or if my kids will end up as disabled as I am."
"Foggy, you are not disabled," his mother told him firmly. "And I wasn't going to say anything except that I love you."
"If you say "just the way you are," I won't come back," Foggy threatened.
"I wasn't going to say that." His mother pulled him in for another embrace. "I really was just going to say I love you, I'm proud of what you've achieved, and I want you to be happy, and that's all that matters."
"Aww, mom." Foggy hugged her back. "I love you, too."
Go to Part 2