stay here as comfortable as they can.”
“And why exactly are you down here in the Other Way Round?” I asked, getting angry for her. “There is no way in all of Uncle Jed's dirty underwear that you deserve to be in Shifter Purgatory. You never did anything wrong in all the years I knew you. Damn, you were straight as an arrow. One of the good guys. Never even jaywalked. Hell, you only lost your temper with us kids when we really deserved it.” Leaning forward, cupping my hand on the side of my mouth, I whispered conspiratorially, “And we deserved it way more than you ever did it. Thanks for that.”
Back upright, getting madder by the minute for my old teacher, my voice got louder with every syllable, "What wires got crossed? Who do I need to complain to? How do we…"
"Shut up!" Cassie snarled, making my jaws snap closed as I spun towards her. "Did you not hear the hitch in her voice when she said 'our'?" My pain-in-the-ass alter ego sassed. Throwing her hands in the air, she made air quotes with the feathers at the ends of both her wings. "Are you deaf? Well, I know you're not deaf. You just have selective hearing. I've told you about that shit a hundred, thousand, million times. If I didn't know better, I’d swear you were male. You only ever hear what you want to hear. I swear.”
Turning towards Miss M, my Canary kept right on bitchin', "Did you have that problem with her in school? I mean, I was in there just not awake until her tenth birthday when we…" Slapping her wings together so hard that yellow feathers went flying in every direction, Cassandra did not miss a beat. "We became one. Wam! Bam! Thank you, Clem! She whipped up the magic, I woke up the feathers, and well, as they say, the rest was history. But back to what I was asking, has Clem always been so damned hardheaded?"
"Yes," Miss M was way quicker with her answer than I was completely comfortable with, and the tumultuous nodding of her head just pissed me right off. Still, it didn't matter because she and my Birdbrain alter ego just went right on talking about me like I wasn't even standing right beside them in the middle of the magical recreation of the gymnasium at Tallulu Parish Elementary school circa nineteen-I-had-no-clue.
"Clementine has always been brilliant, very intuitive, a very bright girl. However, keeping her attention and getting her to pick up on the finer details of any subject was always a challenge. I blamed it on the fact that she could see the past, present, and future all at the same time."
“Yeah, but her daddy…”
“Yep, he did, but…”
“Yeah, that did help, but…”
“HOLY BIRD SHIT ON MY SNEAKERS!” I screamed. “Can y’all stop! This is not the Underworld’s version of This Is Your Life, Clementine Sue Cooper. This is… This is… Well, I don’t know what this is, but it is not that.”
"You are right," Miss M pacified, her eyes all big again, and her cooing was setting my nerves right up on edge. "You are here for a reason. It’s just been so long since I had someone with half a brain to talk to that I got carried away.” Closing the distance between us, she laid her hand on my shoulder and rubbed little circles like she used to do when I was a little Canary Chick having a hard day. “I’ve missed you, Clementine. You were always one of my favorites. You and that Flock of yours. All good girls. Really good girls.”
"Aww, thanks, Miss M," I gushed, suddenly not upset at all and really wanting to spend some time with the old Muskrat. "That's so sweet of you. And maybe I can come back and visit, but the little voice in the back of my head, the one that doesn't squawk and has manners…" I stuck my tongue out at Cassandra then turned back to my old teacher as quick as I could before the Birdbrain could retaliate. "Is telling me that my visit to the Other Way Round, to see you, was for a very specific reason, not to play catch up. Which sucks big, hairy Water Buffalo Balls."
"Still got the gift of gilded gab, huh, my girl?" She sadly chuckled, "And you are right, sadly, you are here for a far more serious reason," Miss M went on with a slow nod. "You