In a Badger Way (Honey Badger Chronicles #2) - Shelly Laurenston Page 0,42
dogs came running around the corner. They did this most mornings, coming from the Dunn home across the street so that they could roll around in the grass, pee on every tree, and take enormous shits in the middle of their lawn because there was no way that two dogs with the combined weight of nearly three hundred pounds could take small shits.
Thankfully, one of the Dunn siblings always came over afterward to clean up because none of them wanted to hear Charlie screaming, “Why do your mini horses keep shitting in our yard?”
Normally, Stevie would leave the dogs to their own shit-making devices because who wanted to stand around watching dogs crap everywhere? But the cat . . . she’d almost forgotten about the cat. Worried the pair would go after the feral animal, Stevie rushed toward it, ready to scoop it in her arms to protect her . . . or him. She really didn’t know which. But before she could reach the creature, the cat stood over the can of tuna, arched its back, and gave the craziest sounding hiss-snarl Stevie had ever heard.
Both dogs stopped and stared at the cat, but when they didn’t do anything, the cat gave that hiss-snarl again and charged them. Like a tiny bull.
And the dogs ran! They disappeared around the house, the cat hot on their heels.
Stevie had just started to laugh at that cat chasing off two giant dogs when the back door swung open and Charlie ran out, screaming, “Stevie don’t!” But when she spotted Stevie just standing there, Charlie stumbled to a stop . . . and simply stared.
When her sister didn’t say anything, Stevie asked, “Stevie don’t what?”
“Uhhh . . .”
One of the windows on the second floor flew open and a naked, wet Max launched herself out, legs and arms spread wide. And, as she fell, she yelled, “I’ve got herrrr—ow!”
The ow came when Max landed face-first on the lawn, body spread-eagled.
The best part of it all was when the cat returned to eat her tuna she made sure to walk across Max’s back on her way to the can.
And Stevie would have laughed hard—if she wasn’t so pissed off.
“You thought I shifted,” she guessed.
Charlie winced before admitting, “We heard that weird noise you make just before you shift.”
“What weird noise?”
“I don’t know. Kind of a growling hiss or something. It’s weird . . . but distinct.”
“That was the cat.”
“Right.” Charlie nodded her head and adamantly added, “The cat inside you, which we respect.”
“Not the cat inside me,” Stevie bit out, her jaw tight with annoyance. “The cat.” She pointed at the cat now enjoying the tuna by Stevie’s leg.
Charlie gazed at the animal a few moments before suggesting, “You really shouldn’t feed strays. Now we’ll never get rid of her.”
Stevie stepped in close to Charlie. “So I sound like a feral cat to you?”
“Only when you shift,” she insisted.
“How does that make it better?”
“Uh, look, I just think—”
“So I’ve lost so much control, after all these years, that I would shift in the middle of our yard? That’s what you are also saying?”
“You changed your meds,” she said meekly.
“And yet,” Stevie went on, “despite my grotesque shifter size—”
“No one said grotesque.”
“—I still sound like a feral cat that weighs about eight pounds?”
The sisters stared at each other until they heard Max say, “I’m okay. Don’t worry about me.”
“We won’t,” Stevie and Charlie said together, then Stevie stormed back into the house, dropping into an empty chair at the kitchen table.
Kyle was on the other side, eating toast and sipping juice. Catty-corner was a still–waking up Shen who was in the middle of downing a big bowl of cereal, which normally wouldn’t be something Stevie cared about except for the crunching. So much crunching.
“What kind of cereal is that?” she demanded when she couldn’t take it anymore.
“Grape-Nuts,” he muttered.
“Without any milk?”
Shen looked into his bowl . . . as if he wasn’t sure. “No, there’s milk.”
“He added bamboo to his cereal. That’s the noise you’re hearing,” Kyle explained.
“Well, it’s annoying the fuck out of me.”
Kyle’s eyebrows went up but he knew better than to say anything. Instead, he focused on buttering more toast.
Shen, however, gazed deeply into her eyes . . . and continued to chew. Loudly.
* * *
Shen didn’t know what Stevie MacKilligan expected. That he would stop eating? Bears never stopped eating. Because they were always hungry. It was even worse for giant pandas because bamboo wasn’t nearly as filling as a good