Yours Mine and Ours Chapter 2
Chapter three
Year three
Jensen
As Jensen’s third year crawls by Sherri starts to worry again. Jensen shows no signs of his wolf while most other pups his age are. It is true that not all Alpha’s produce Alpha offspring but the percentage is high in favor of like status. If Jensen were an Alpha his wolf should be waking up in his third year, but it isn’t. He isn’t as strong or as social as the other pups and he doesn’t react at the same speed when they hear or smell something interesting. He can smell strong odors well, and he isn’t deaf but there is no way to tell for sure just how heightened or dull his senses truly are. He’s not mentally slow and he isn’t autistic as he swift to learn things like words, numbers, colors, and animals, all the things human children should learn. But he isn't learning what wolf pups learn, like social roles, tracking, play fighting for the future if needed, and hunter/prey relations. She doesn't want to think anything is wrong with her son but the evidence just can't be denied. If he isn't an Alpha he could be a Beta but his wolf should still show signs of being present if latent. He also didn’t show any extra restlessness on the nights of the full moon. Not even when he is set out to bathe in its light, he even fell asleep watching it. She worries so much she schedules an appointment with the healer to run tests just to be sure he isn't somehow mentally damaged. But the healer tells her what Gerald and all the other pack mothers do, that she is worrying about nothing. Jensen had a hard start but he will come into his wolf when he is ready. Sherri and Gerald take turns staying home with him on full moon nights instead of taking him out to the running trails. Because he doesn't display any wolf traits things can get a bit rough with the other pups. Jeff at first complains about this because even if Jensen was slow to develop over his first two years Jeff still likes to show off his baby brother. He also likes to help Jensen and try and teach him what to do but in the end it looks more like training which is bad for their image to the pack. He is told often to wait for the day when Jensen will transform and they can really rough house and play before Jensen can go to the gathering for moon night.
Halfway through Jensen’s third year, Sherri has a pregnancy scare and her panic is confusing to little Jensen who has no idea what is going on. Jeff is nervous and likes to try and talk about what having another sibling might mean. Jensen is too young to grasp the idea but does pick up on nesting somehow and for a week he piles blankets all over the place to sit or sleep in. Gerald wants to take Sherri to the closest hospital but she refuses to go. Instead she spends a weekend locked inside the healer’s house. When the weekend is over she returns home and there is no more talk of another baby. Later when Jensen can understand such things he’ll learn that his mother was either never really pregnant or lost the baby before it even really had a chance. After that Sherri uses Jensen and his supposed problems as an excuse to use birth control and avoid another pregnancy. No one says anything about her issues, which she thinks are not as noticeable as they are. That another baby would turn out to be like Jensen. Or that having Jensen may have ruined her chance at another baby. She had always wanted a house full of children and Gerald agreed with her that they should add to their litter while Jensen was still growing. But with things the way they were at present, that Sherri might not be healthy somehow from Jensen's birth it was decided that another pup during his toddler phase was not right for the moment. Maybe when he was older and had overcome his setbacks they might have another pup or two. Jeff got over his disappointment very quickly deciding Jensen was enough for him. Sherri took some time to go to the healer for a full check-up and some counseling sessions. By the end of the year, things are looking and feeling much better in the Padalecki home. Sherri seems to have shaken off her worries about Jensen and her body. The pack has whispers about postpartum depression but no one will say it out loud in public and they feel a pride that Sherri could overcome such a hurdle in such a short time. It may take time but Jensen will pull through just like his mother and be just as strong.
Jensen’s third birthday is a small simple affair and he gets nervous at all the people staring at him and tries to hide behind his mother who shoos him outside to play. From now on even if his wolf is still sleeping he can play with the other pups, they will just have to keep a close eye to make sure things don't get too out of hand. When he tries to play fetch with the other pups he gets scolded and hide and seek is too easy because they can sniff him out quickly. Tag is hard because they run faster than he does in both forms and there is no slide or swing set like in the park to play on. By the end of the party, Jeff ends up reading stories to Jensen while the other pups run about the yard.
Jared
Jared is big for a two-year-old and he only gets taller as the year goes by. He is as restless as ever. Donna begins to think he might have ADHD but Alan assures her it’s because he is a healthy growing boy. It’s far too early to diagnose him with ADHD, if he does have it they will find out when he goes to preschool. They do notice however that as the year goes by he is very sensitive to smells and sounds.
Anything too loud can startle him and he picks up on things that they have to strain to hear. He recognizes when the mailman is coming and runs to the front window to watch. It becomes a ritual for the mailman to try and sneak up to their mailbox before Jared gets to the window to wave but he never succeeds. They now have to be careful of what they say in the house after Jared overheard Alan swear one day while he was working on a project in the garage. He spent days repeating the word wherever and to whoever would listen. They had a very hard time trying to explain that it was a bad word and that he wasn’t supposed to say it.
Smell is another matter and they aren’t sure what to do about it. Donna had a very hard time finding a laundry detergent that wouldn’t overpower his nose with its residual scent. He can’t be in the kitchen half the time when Donna is cooking and walking through the mall can be a bit of a minefield. In the warmer months, Jared loves to be outside where there are lots of scents to try and identify and nothing is too powerful and the wind can take away anything too strong and bring new scents to his attention.
Jared when he is taken to the park always plays with the older kids because he can be a bit rough in his play. Both Donna and Alan try to get him to play nicer but it’s just that Jared doesn’t recognize the amount of strength his bigger body has over the smaller kids. His hand to eye coordination is good so they often take a big ball for him and the other kids to play with. When most of the kids are going home or getting tired Jared is still running wild. He loves the jungle gym and climbs over anything he can get on that is in his reach. His favorite is a two steps log bridge connected by three steps to a platform ending in a twisty slide. He runs full tilt from the base of the stairs, over the bridge across the platform, and down the slide within seconds. Once he's down he starts all over again. The first time he did this about halfway through his second year Donna was following him the whole time as he teetered, tottered and wobbled. He showed no fear or hesitation as other kids his age did. But after a while, she could sit back and watch since he had the hang of it and she grew tired trying to keep up. For his third birthday, Alan builds a mini jungle gym in their backyard that helps Jared burn off his everyday supply of energy. The last few months before his birthday for a few days of those months, Jared would be especially restless and at night he would fight sleep and be cranky. Donna finally pinpoints that this behavior takes place around the full moon but thinks nothing of it other than that some boys are like animals. Even some adults act a little more out of the ordinary on the night of the full moon. In a few more months she would find out just how right she was.
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Chapter four
Year four
Jensen
Jensen’s favorite word soon becomes why and he is always asking it. Why this, why that, why why why? It drives everyone crazy since half of the time they can’t answer him or he finds whatever answer they give him to be unacceptable. He is quite smart for a three-year-old but still lacking in the physical department. They still keep him mostly at home with Jeff for company. They tell him it's to keep him from getting hurt when he asks his favorite question. Why? When he begins to understand that keeping him at home on moon nights means he can’t play with other pups he begins to have tantrums. His parents begin to use this as an excuse as to why they don’t take him out as much. Sometimes it is enough to stop the tantrum but most of the time it isn’t since he knows he isn’t going out one way or another, tantrum or not. So he throws one just because it makes him better like a pup howls it's frustration. His parents don't see it that way since he has yet to show his wolf. It confuses him and leads to more questions, which get ignored or lead to the terrible phrase of "because I said so."
Jensen spends the latter half of his third year sulking, throwing tantrums that even start to make Jeff avoid him, and gaining small independence by dressing himself and eating on his own with plastic cutlery. His parents are grateful that they don't have to fight with him or try to cajole him into eating with their help. Mostly because his asking questions or pouting about something that happened that day make him hard to handle. They are all short on tempers and things can escalate quickly. It's hard on everyone and they can't seem to break the cycle. Jensen's taking the terrible twos to a whole new level at age three. In the beginning he is not very effective at these tasks just yet but he refuses help or sulks. He makes a big deal out of being helped especially when it seems like a chore for the helper. As the year goes by he gets better and better at feeding himself. Sherri is happy to hand him his plate of food and be able to eat hers before it gets cold. If he does ask for help he gets it quickly and he pays as much attention to directions as a three and a half-year-old can so he can do it better himself later. Everyone hopes that his determination at early independence means that his wolf is still somewhere in him trying to find its way out. At this age all the other wolf pups are coming into their own personalities, rank in the pack, and observing patterns of proper behavior.
As for all the questions they soon only answer just what is important for this growing independence. Or they give him a picture or easy primary reader book so he can find the answer for himself. His reading skills are a little above average because of this and Jeff reading to him at night. But not yet high enough to enroll him in early classes since the rest of his skills are still at a normal level. But by the time of his fourth birthday and there is still not a single sign of his wolf. Sherri begins becomes a little depressed again but not like before. Jensen seems to be aware that his mother is sad and that he makes her sad but doesn’t know what to do to fix it. So he tries harder to be more independent so his mother won’t worry and be sad for him. It’s a cycle that will last for a long time.
Jared
Jared’s energy continued to be boundless and he continued to be bigger than the rest of the kids his age. Alan had to haggle with Donna about enrolling Jared in an early gymnastics and sports playgroup. Jared still played a bit rough but Josh and Donna were working hard to get him to be gentler. It was still a bit of a chore for a few days of each month and it continued to puzzle them all. Around this time Jared even though he had good hand and eye coordination is not as good at balance. Mostly because of his size and because he is in such a hurry and often distracted by everything going on around him. He is a messy child who prefers to eat with his hands and run around barefoot and as unclothed as possible. When he does dress himself it’s in clothes that are his brothers and too big for him. When asked why he tells them he hates the feeling of being held tight by his clothes that are his size and he can’t take them off as easily. So Donna makes a compromise with him. He can have clothes a half size bigger or even a complete size bigger if he won’t take them off in public. With four months to go until his fourth birthday Donna loses her energy to keep up and Jared’s mood changes almost overnight. He can still be a bit cranky but he begins to spend the time he would normally be a terror cuddling with Donna. He keeps sniffing her and clinging to her when she sits down. Two weeks later Donna throws up three days in a row and having no fever she goes to the doctor’s office.
Jared is excited at the idea that he’ll have a new brother or sister to play with besides Josh. It took the fact that the child would live with them for Jared to understand the full extent of the news. The next morning Jared shows everyone the bed of blankets he has made for the baby and the toys he is willing to share. Donna has to tell him that the baby won’t come for a while yet and Jared has a little fit not understanding why the baby can’t come now. Alan has to take him to the park to calm him and run off the energy he had built up. To help him understand the wait they explain that the baby must grow like a plant before it’s born. Donna and Alan come up with a way to keep Jared’s questions at bay with its progress. Alan uses a washable marker and will mark off a time line of growth on the door frame like a normal child’s height chart on a door frame. Everything seems to settle until the week before Jared’s birthday.
The week before his birthday Jared wakes up cranky and achy but without a fever and is moody all day. He swings from tantrums to wanting to be cuddled, to crying in pain, to running up the walls with restlessness and energy, to sleeping for a long time, to not sleeping at all. He eats large amounts of food at one sitting only to not be hungry at all at others. Donna is also very sick and weak at this point thanks to her pregnancy and Josh is acting up to get attention too. Alan has his hands full and wants to take Jared and Donna to the doctor’s but Donna assures him that her symptoms are natural and there isn’t much to be done. Jared will even out soon and if he doesn’t then they will go but not before his birthday. The night before his birthday is a full moon and Jared is sleepy all day so he is put to bed early. When he isn’t up and running around like usual the next morning Donna goes to check on him. When she opens the door the room is a mess and there is a puppy on the bed chewing on the nightshirt Jared was wearing when she put him to bed. It looks up at Donna with familiar hazel eyes and gives a yip, tongue hanging out in a version of a smile. Donna takes it all in and screams bringing Alan running to her side.
“What is it?” Alan asked as he looked at his wife who was blocking the door to the nursery. When she didn’t answer he had to grab her shoulders to move her so he could see into the room. It was a mess and at first, he thought that someone had ransacked it since he didn’t immediately see Jared. After a few sweeps of the room not seeing his son, he took notice of the puppy who was sitting on the bed its head cocked looking back at them. “What is that?” His question seemed to break Donna’s spell of frozenness and she gave a softer scream and began to cry. This got a whimper from the puppy who ducked its head and slinked off the bed as if it knew it had done something bad. After a moment it came forward and Donna began a low keen that stopped it short. A moment later it began to run in circles chasing its tail. Josh who had been drawn out of his room by the noise pushed at Alan’s legs to get a view and saw the puppy’s antics.
“Puppy!” he shouted which startled the puppy into falling down. It didn’t have the chance to get back up as Josh darted into the room before Alan could grab him and picked up the puppy. “Oh thank you” he is swinging back and forth with the puppy in his arms wiggling like mad. Josh almost dropped it as the wiggling turned into what looked like severe full-body shivers. Or a seizure. The puppy let out a keening howl and then in the blink of an eye was gone. Josh was now holding a naked Jared who was big and heavy and he dropped him and screamed before running back out of the room. Donna followed him. Alan and a now crying Jared were left looking at each other. Alan although confused wanted to comfort his son but he couldn’t seem to make himself move forward and embrace him. It takes Jared turning literal puppy dog eyes up at him and holding out his arms wide, his hands making grabby motions and crying out for his “daddy” that do him in. He picks Jared up and holds him to his chest feeling Jared’s tears and snot wet his shirt as he rocks up and down, back and forth shushing him. Whatever has happened to Jared to turn him into a puppy and back must have exhausted him because he is asleep in no time. Alan lays him in his bed, cleans up his face with his ruined nightshirt, and tucks him in before leaving to find Donna. Josh is probably with her so he doesn’t have to worry too much about him. He finds both of them in his and Donna’s room. Something similar must have happened with Josh as with Jared only that Josh is still awake but sleepy-looking as he lays in their bed. There is no need to tell Donna that they need to talk she must know. So she kisses Josh’s forehead and tells him she’ll be back before he leads her to Josh’s bedroom.
Once inside Alan closes the door and they take a minute to just stand opposite each other in silence a moment. He is the first to speak but he doesn’t look away from her. “And here I thought it was us who were supposed to give Jared surprise gifts for his birthday” he tries to lighten things up.
“That is not Jared!” It’s almost a shout and she covers her mouth with her hand as a sob tries to escape. “I want my son, where is my son?”
“Honey he is still our son, he’s still Jared.” Alan wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. Jared and the dog were one and the same and he couldn’t deny his son.
“That’s a dog! Actually, I’m not even sure that it is unless it’s is some kind of husky or shepard mix. And what it did to Jared, it…I don’t know what it did to Jared but that thing isn’t him.
“It is Jared, not an it, and really he looked more like a….” he couldn’t finish but she could tell he had an idea.
“What Alan? He’s a what?” She didn’t say it this time and he counted that a step in the right direction. He just hoped she wouldn’t take two steps back when he said what he thought to be true.
“A wolf. He looks like a wolf.” They are quiet for a moment as his words sink in.
“Wolf….Werewolf?” Donna says it first tears rolling down her cheeks even as she shuts her eyes. She begins shaking her head and wrings her hands. Alan pulls her to him and holds her and lets her cry much as he did for Jared just a short time ago. Once she has calmed he takes a step back so they can finish their conversation. She turns to Josh’s little nightstand to grab a tissue from the little pile there that she has yet to collect and throw away. They are dirty but she doesn’t care looking them over to pick the least wadded which will be the cleanest. When she finds what she’s looking for and plucks it up her hand bumps a little popsicle stick picture frame. Jared had made it with her help and it says best big brother in blue. Inside was a picture of Josh and Jared tangled together in an all-consuming hug, big grins on their faces their eyes sparkling with happiness. The same eyes that looked back at her from the face of a puppy and a naked crying boy and she knows that she loves Jared no matter what he is.
“Do you still want me to call the doctor for him?” Alan asks bringing her back to attention and the matter at hand.
“No!” she turns on him rapidly “don’t call anyone. We don’t talk to anyone about this, anyone! They’ll take him away from us if anyone knows about this.” She can’t quite say werewolf again just yet but Alan will know what she means. “I didn’t carry him around for nine months” Alan looks as if he’s going to say something but she keeps right on going. “Okay seven months, and put up with his bratty behavior for the past four years just to have him taken away. No more doctors from now on unless he’s dying or needs his shots.”
Alan looks relieved that Donna has come to her senses about their son “So what do we do now?”
“We take it one day at a time for now and see what happens so we can better know what to do in the future. Now I have to get cleaned up so I can bake a cake for Jared for dessert. I’ll leave you to talk to Josh for now.” Donna collected the pile of tissues from the nightstand and walked out towards the kitchen. Alan smiled after her before going back to their room to swear Josh to secrecy.
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Chapter five
Year five
Jensen
Jensen is taken to the healer for the first time he can remember and he does not like it one bit. He is poked and prodded and looked at and none too kindly. He has to sit in his mother’s lap as the healer asks her questions instead of going out to play. It’s boring and it takes forever and it becomes a ritual that will be repeated every three months. He has a feeling the healer is just as tired of seeing him as he is of her. But Sherri won't be swayed and they go no matter how big a tantrum he throws or how much he pouts and ignores her for the rest of the day. The other pups tease him about this and he becomes clingy for a bit wanting his mom to comfort him. Sherri just shakes him off and tells him that he has to play outside with the other pups so he can learn from them. He isn’t sure what he is supposed to be learning but follows her instructions as best he can to his understanding. He hopes it makes her happy but as time goes by he sees that it doesn’t. She is sad every time he comes back walking in the door on two legs instead of four. Once he tried crawling in on hands and knees to see if it helped and she told him to stand up because he was getting his pants dirty. He wants to please her and at the same time he is angry at her and he doesn't understand why. All the adults walk around as human except for the time around the full moon so why is she sad and mad when he's just like them? Just like her and dad who is gone most of the day and tells him to listen to his mom when he's at work.
One day he overhears his mom and dad talking. They sound mad and his name is said a lot. His mom is trying to get his dad to take them to another healer. Not the healer here but one in a different place. His dad sounds tired like he does when he comes home from work the night after a full moon. He says that his mom is overreacting and that he, Jensen, is fine. He might be a little confused why Jensen hasn't turned wolf yet but there are others in the past who didn't shift until they were in school. Jensen doesn't start school until next year. He is excited to go to school. He will be around other pups his age all day and no one can stop them from playing then. He also likes books because he gets read to a lot and he likes the happy endings. When he is really sad he also wishes life was like a book, where everyone is human and no one has to go to the healer because of it.
There is a new pup born that summer and he is excited to see it at the party for its introduction. But after he gets a quick look at the baby girl he is ushered to a back room of the house and given some toys and told to play. The other pups are outside and he wants to be too, but he also wants to be a good boy too. So he plays in the room for as long as he can stand before finally going outside. The other pups are in wolf form and ruff housing on the grass. The bigger ones won’t play with him because he can't be a wolf and they don't want to chase a ball. So he crawls around chasing after the youngest and smallest ones until he is scooped up suddenly and his name is all but shouted in his ear. He is carried inside where his mother makes apologies to the new parents and takes him home. He doesn’t understand what he has done wrong and his mother doesn’t tell him. Instead, she reads to him for a bit and lets him play with his toys. In the summer he spends a lot of time in his own backyard and Jeff spends less time playing with him. Jeff has his own friends who don't want to play with Jensen. He spends the days he's outside playing in the dirt or with sticks laying in the yard. At times he plays with stuffed animals pretending they are the pups he doesn't get to play with which concerns his parents. His fifth birthday is half spent with the healer and the rest is spent at the park. The best thing he gets is a large metal toy dump truck and a tow truck that have some of the other pups over to play with him. He is so happy they are playing with him he isn't upset at the earlier trip to the healers.
Jared
Jared’s parents watch him and it makes him nervous and he is unable to control or notice when he is a boy and when he is a wolf. Besides the full moon any time he is too stressed or scared or occasionally even happy he is a wolf. For the first few weeks after his fourth birthday they keep him and Josh at home and family and friends away. They worry about Jared turning into a puppy at any moment but as the weeks pass they understand his triggers and come up with ways to avoid them. They also try and teach Jared to keep hold of his human side. Calming him down works best, asking him questions that he has to think of answers to works well too. Josh kept his distance for the first few days but with his parents leading by example and playing or cuddling with puppy Jared he comes around. After the weeks of exile ended, he is eager to have puppy Jared around. Donna comes out of the kitchen one afternoon to find Jared a puppy on the end of a crude leash made of jump rope with Josh holding the other end asking to go for a walk. Donna freaks and rushes to Jared thinking that the jump rope will choke him as he has no collar. It takes some time to calm Jared enough to be a boy again and she and Alan have a long talk with Josh about the fact that he can’t treat Jared like a dog even if he looks like one.
Alan and Donna know that they have to prepare for the future and the possibility that Jared won’t get to do the normal things that average children do. The first being that depending on his aptitude tests he could end up going to kindergarten early in the fall even if he is still four. That can’t happen if he randomly turns into a wolf pup. Also, daycare and sitters are out since anyone of them might freak out and tell someone about Jared. Donna was working part time and had taken off the day after Jared’s first transformation. Money will be tight but they come up with a budget and ways to cut corners to save money so that Donna can stay at home and watch Jared. She looks into what she would have to do to home school Jared should the need arise. When Josh finds out that Jared will get to stay home he wants to as well but Alan convinces him that he wouldn’t want to because he would still have classes and there would be no recess and he would miss all of his friends. Jared doesn’t have a whole lot of set friends yet just kids he would see at the daycare he no longer goes to. That will be the hardest part of their new situation, avoiding kids that Jared used to play with. They save money from no longer using daycare but they are still on a tight budget. Donna looks into hobbies she can do while watching Jared that don’t have a lot of material cost and can bring in enough money to be worth the effort of making. When spring comes Donna tries her hand at gardening to take up time in the day and get Jared outside. She takes to it well and what she grows helps with the grocery bills. She makes charts and asks Jared endless questions about how he feels, what he is doing, or thinking when he transforms. She does her best to understand and try to help Jared stop any change when it comes or change back when she finds him in his wolf form.
In the summer they go for a camping trip and set up their tent in a lesser used part of the campground. They almost leave the first night when Jared transforms into a wolf pup and won’t change back. A ranger sees them and admonishes them for not filling out the paperwork for having a dog on site. After that, they calm a little and end up staying. Alan sacrifices a belt to make Jared a collar and Donna gets flustered whenever she sees it poking out of his fur. That is when the first pictures of ‘Jay’ their hybrid dog are taken. In the middle of summer in one of the hottest weeks Donna gives birth to a little girl she names Mackenzie. Josh is happy but absorbed in his own activities while Jared is fascinated by his new little sister. Jared spends as much time as a wolf pup as he can and has a hard time adjusting to any kind of schedule once fall starts. By winter he has a fairly good grasp on his transformation now, turning back and forth at will most of the time. Donna still decides to home school him and keep him at home until he no longer transforms when surprised or really tired, scared or extremely happy.
For his fifth birthday, he gets the usual toys and books of a growing boy with a loving family. He also gets a special collar that was handcrafted from a design Alan worked on after talking to numerous owners of show dogs and dog breeders. It’s worn soft leather that will stretch a bit so he can wear it in both forms and it won’t choke him. It has a quick release clasp that he can handle with his human fingers. The inside is soft cotton cloth so that it won’t rub and he won’t get marks. On a D ring in front there is a solid metal tag with ‘Jay’ carved ornately on it along with their home phone number and address. They hope that he won’t ever lose the collar because there is no way in the world that they are getting him chipped.
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Chapter six
Year six
Jensen
Jensen spends most of the next year scared and worried and in a high state of anxiety. He takes to scratching at his arms and kicking his own ankles when he is sitting in any chair high enough for his feet to dangle. His parents and his pack are always watching him and he keeps thinking he has done something bad. When Jeff tells him that they are waiting for his wolf he does everything he can to imitate the older pups so he will become a wolf like them. It doesn’t work and it seems to make the other pups not want to play with him which makes him try harder. He focuses on watching them so that when they react he does to a fraction of a second later. He copies their reactions to things they taste and mimics their faces. At first, his parents think that maybe his wolf is waking up but when he doesn’t react without any other pups present his parents catch on to what he has been doing. They should have been comforting him and praising him for how smart he is to come up with an idea like he has but instead they only scold him. The trips to the healer are worse than ever as they keep making him do things. They test his reflexes, they want him to concentrate, to focus harder on his hearing or sight or smell to find things they have hidden in the clinic. When he fails they give him foul-smelling and icky liquids to drink and try to provoke him by scaring him and pressuring him. They make him run for a long time or stand outside in the cold under the light of the full moon. Nothing works but they keep trying at least once a month.
One month Jensen hides so he won’t have to go but his mother sniffs him out and chides him for making them late to their appointment. Another time he throws the biggest tantrum he has ever had and ever will have since when his mother can’t calm him she eventually gives him a spanking to make him behave and he does after the sixth hard whack to his bottom.
He hopes that this won’t go on after his next birthday he would run away if it did. He decides to try it to see what happens but he doesn’t last very long because he gets hungry and didn’t take any food. When they tell him that they plan to take him to the next full moon run to socialize with the other wolves he talks back for the first time. He tells them that he isn’t a wolf but maybe he’s something else like a bat from the book Dracula that Jeff read to him. His parents scold Jeff for reading him such a book and tell him that he doesn’t know what he means. That he is a wolf but that right now there is something wrong. It can be fixed, he can he healed, he just has to try harder. He is the same as them, as his brother. He just can’t transform yet. In the end, he never gets to go to the full moon run because he is healing from the worst spanking of his life. The morning of the full moon he had decided to draw fur onto his skin with markers. When his markers had run out he had used the ones in his father’s desk. They, unlike his own, were not washable. He also cut the fur off all the stuffed animals in the house and glued them on places where there was no marker hair. It took days of hard constant scrubbing to come off and he found all his markers replaced with crayons and his father office door locked.
Some of the cubs had seen him before his parents had and they always all make fun of him now when the adults aren’t around. He dreads going to the park and avoids it as long as he can but will eventually have to go back. In the fall he is glad that the weather keeps him in doors more. Unfortunately, fall also means he will have to go to school and be in kindergarten. He once thought it would be the best place to be but not anymore. The class is tiny and he knows everyone and they know him. He doesn’t make any new friends and the slightly older kids are Jeff’s friends. His birthday that year is just his parents and Jeff since none of the other pups want to come and there wouldn’t be much for them to do anyway that they are interested in.
Jared
Jared is disappointed that he doesn’t get to go to school like the other kids. Josh teases him sometimes and he gets so frustrated that one day he changes and bits out at Josh in his wolf form. He gets a spanking for that and a time out and he doesn’t do it again. Josh got a spanking too and had to apologize to Jared. After that, they form a wired bond over school. Josh doesn’t like to go so when he gets home he tells Jared about what he did and Jared helps him as best he can with the homework. In trade when their parents aren’t watching Jared acts like the pet that they aren’t allowed to have. This leads to Josh asking Donna one day if he can take Jared as Jay the wolf to school for pet show and tell day. That night they both get a long lecture that while Jared may sometimes look like a dog he isn’t one. Even though he has a collar he isn’t going to be lead around on a leash, it’s not right. Since Jared doesn’t have full control over his transformation what would happen if he changed in the middle of class? Everyone else would be scared and Jared would be taken away, they might never see him again. That someone might hurt Jared because they were scared. At this Jared got scared and started to cry. He was so emotional he transformed his little wolf self, howling in despair. It took a lot of hugging, petting, and telling him they wouldn’t let that happen and that it was safe for him to calm down. They point out that while Jared is safe at home they still have to be careful. Especially when anyone is over, even friends and family. They might wonder why Jared and Jay were never in the same room together.
For the next few weeks, Jared and Josh go around looking over their shoulders and all around when they want to play as before. But as with all children who haven’t experienced that bad thing from nightmares, their vigilance and worry wore off with each passing day they were not discovered. Their parents did catch on that Jared was helping Josh and made sure that Josh did his homework alone, free of distractions. Jared was to be signed up for homeschooling and a counselor comes out to evaluate the situation and make sure that Donna knows what it is she has to do for Jared. The meeting goes well thanks to all the preplanning and research. In the fall Jared’s course books arrive. Jared is smart and it takes no time at all before he is halfway through the course work. All his private lessons with Josh have helped. The counselor makes a visit to test Jared to see how advanced he is and if he can and should jump ahead. In the end, it is determined that while Jared knows what answers to put down he doesn’t fully grasp all of the concepts. He has memorized a fair bit from Josh’s past work. He will continue on as normal but be made to explain his answers so that if he doesn’t understand completely Donna has time to explain.
For recess, since he doesn’t get it like normal school students he gets to go to the park every other day for an extended period of time. Sometimes he goes as himself and sometimes he goes as his wolf self. On days when he insists on being his wolf self, Donna only takes him for a walk around the park. She is fearful that people will ask questions or that Jared won’t be able to control himself and accidentally transform. She encourages him to be himself when they go to the park and bribes him by allowing him to stay longer to play if he can hold back any transformation. He makes a few friends there and for his birthday his parents have a cake and play date in the park so his friends can come. It isn’t too long and they make sure he has the chance to be Jay before they go so his wolf self will be too tired to come out when they are at the park. It works and Jared gets to be Jay at home after too. It’s one of his best birthdays ever he thinks.