Changes - Part 1.6

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Changes

Part 1.6

by Dego

Author's Note: This is a very long story about a fox. If you're not interested in sitting in for the long run, don't read it and don't give me a bad vote. The story is split into 10 sections and numbered 1.0, 1.1, 1.2... and so on. I will post a new section each day. Please enjoy.

*****

Theater was ok. Charlie sat at what he now called 'his spot,' at the other end of the table from Ethan. The sophomores were talking about politics, which Charlie didn't really keep up with. He was in high spirits so he added something to the conversation which got the furs thinking, but beyond that he didn't contribute. The theater exercise today was just something easy; tongue twisters. Everyone had to do the 'Red Leather, Yellow Leather' and 'Seashells from the Seashore' tongue twisters. Charlie stumbled a bit on 'Seashells' but did fine.

English was fun too. Well, not the class, of course. Charlie was able to tell Jack that his parents ok'd the event. Jack proudly reported the same. The class itself was just some stupid journal assignment where Charlie had to write about his feelings about his summer vacation. The paper was not the happiest, to be sure.

Thankfully computer class was not the same. The vixen had nothing to say and the fat footballer on Charlie's other side did, for the first time. Charlie breezed through the assignment and was done pretty quickly, so the 300 pound German Shepherd footballer asked Charlie for help. He was just forgetting a simple step and Charlie set him on his way.

Lunch kept turning out to be Charlie's favorite time of the day. They were serving pizza, another of Charlie's favorite foods. He sat across from Jack and they made plans: "Where do you want to meet after school?" asked Jack.

"I dunno. How are you getting to my house?"

"I thought I'd just take the bus with you."

"Oh ok that's fine. I take bus 7031. I'll save a seat for you. Just get on after class." Charlie paused momentarily to think about Lucas, the tiger.

Jack noticed his pause. "Anything wrong?"

"No, it's just that I usually sit next to a tiger."

"Oh? Are you guys friends?"

"Well he..." Charlie was about to say 'came out to me,' but he realized the host of awkward questions that would bring on. To avoid any problems, he took the easy road: "He just usually sits by me and I guess today I'll have to tell him he can't. It's fine."

"Ok." Jack replied.

The plan was made and Charlie was ecstatic. Finally a friend.

The rest of the day can be summarized as follows: distracted. Charlie barely noticed anything going on around him, which caused his 7th period biology teacher to yell at him pretty loudly to get his attention. None of it mattered though, because Charlie left the school with a big grin and climbed the stairs of bus 7031. However, he passed Lucas. Lucas looked up at him and Charlie could tell that he had something to say. The fox pointedly broke eye contact as quickly as he could and shuffled past the dismayed tiger. He felt bad, but he needed two seats to accommodate him and Jack. The fox moved towards the back and found two empty seats. He sat down next to the window and laid his paw on the open space as a signal. A couple furs filed past him and looked like they wanted the seat, but luckily they respected his seat-saving paw until the grey akita came and took the seat. "Hey! Thanks for the seat." he said.

"No problem."

Jack scooted closer to the fox to free up the aisle space for passing furs. Their hips were touching, and Charlie noticed the difference between how he sat with Jack and how he sat with Lucas. Lucas was always pressed up against the window taking up as little space as possible, so Charlie was able to separate the distance between them by at least a couple of inches. In this case Jack was nearly squishing Charlie, but Charlie found that he liked it, oddly enough. He liked being close to his friend.