Taken By The Shark

“Nothing at all,” Jill assured her. “Now, try turning into an alligator. We need to start you toward animals that like being in the water.”

“Any tips for reptilian transformation?”

“There’s no difference, Chelsea,” she told her once again. “The only differences are in your mind. You simply must learn to let go of that thought process.”

“Fine,” she sighed. “I really am trying, you know.”

“It doesn’t help that you’ve been trained in biology, where their favorite thing is to divide animals by their classifications and such. Here’s a tip: they are all members of the animal kingdom. You only need to know if you’re transforming to animal, vegetable, mineral, or anti-matter, and poof, you can become anything you like. Now go ahead and do it.”

Chelsea forced herself to stop thinking like a human biologist and simply transform, and this time it was much easier than before. Jill had no idea how much her little speech had helped with her concept of shape shifting. To give her a clue, she next turned herself into a crab without even turning human again. Then she returned to her own form, feeling a bit tired afterwards.

“Remember this, Chelsea, it’s very important,” said Jill then. “If you use up all your energy transforming to other things before returning to your own form, you’ll have to rest in whatever form you’ve taken instead. More than one of my students has made that mistake, and usually I don’t even warn them, but I don’t really want to explain to anybody around here why there’s a crab in the station. Besides, they might want to eat you for all we know. So do try to be careful.”

“I will!” Chelsea agreed, her eyes wide with alarm at the thought.

“We’ve done enough transformation today,” Jill said. “I want you to go back onto your computer and study the document I wrote up for you the other day. And remember, don’t leave it open when you’re done. We don’t want anybody to read it and ask if it, too, is part of the ‘game’.”

Rolling her eyes, Chelsea nodded her agreement at that. Of course, she would refrain from telling Mark what a dork he was, since it was likely he would say it instead, but that didn’t mean that she couldn’t wholeheartedly agree once he did.

*****

When Chelsea returned to her room she found Mark lounging on her bed waiting for her. She laughed as she cast him an inquisitive stare.

“I’m such a dork,” he grumbled, covering his face with his hands.

“You don’t look like a whale to me,” she smirked.

“I never make such careless mistakes,” he said. “I was just too focused on wanting to talk to you and must have pressed the wrong button. I really need to be more careful than that.”

“That’s true,” Chelsea agreed. “But at least you didn’t say anything too incriminating.”

“Maybe we could use a few hours at home,” he suggested then. “I could just clear my mind and take a deep breath, and say anything I want to without having to worry about anybody else hearing it.”

“You want to just disappear from existence into another dimension when somebody could be looking for you at any time? Come knock on our doors and we’re not here, and then they look all over the station and don’t find us anywhere?” Chelsea inquired. “Good idea—sir.”

“They won’t be looking for us in the middle of the sleep cycle,” he pointed out. “But if it would make you happy, we could set an alarm on the doors. If anybody knocks, it would tell us they’re there.”

“But I’m supposed to be doing my homework,” Chelsea pointed out.

“It’ll still be there when you get back,” he reminded her. “Besides, I think you might be ready to try turning into ocean animals next. Would you like to try being a shark? We can start you out at about a hundred feet. And more to the point, you won’t feel the pressure nearly as much, so you wouldn’t feel as weird about arriving there in human form first. Remember, I did tell you that gifted people don’t have to breathe. You’d find that out firsthand if we did that.”

“Wait, first you want to go home, then you want to go out in the water and swim with the fishes?” Chelsea laughed. “Which one is it?”

“Both,” he said. “Although, we could always start with a swim.”

“What if I can’t turn into a shark once we get there?” Chelsea wanted to know.

“Then swim as a human,” he chuckled. “Maybe once you run out of air you’ll understand it all better.”

“Would my shark form require water?” she wanted to know.

“I suppose not,” he shrugged. “Why, do you want to try that first? We could go home and do it there, and then when you’re confident that you can do it, we could go out the front door instead.”

“You said the city is at six thousand feet, though,” she reminded him.

“Haven’t you realized yet that it doesn’t matter?” Mark chuckled. “The human laws of physics no longer apply to you. You must learn to think with gifted laws instead”

Chelsea nodded at this. “All right, let’s go then. I’m willing to give it a try.”

“Then open the portal, sweetheart,” he said. “Let’s see if you can find the way.”

Lifting her finger up, Chelsea concentrated as she traced the outline of a doorway, and suddenly a bunch of water began pouring in. Mark quickly shut it again.

“Sorry, my mind is too much on going out into the water,” she said contritely. “I must have opened a door there and didn’t erect a barrier.”

“I’ll do it for now,” he smirked. “But you’d better get rid of this water before it sets off the alarm.”

Concentrating hard, Chelsea made the water return to the sea. Then she followed Mark as he opened a door to their home and stepped inside. Since they went there often, Chelsea was now used to the place and she easily made her way into the kitchen while Mark went to sit down on the sofa. She got each of them a drink of lemonade and brought it out to join him there.