Chapter 5: New Yeti

“No,” Kegan’s mother said for the tenth time as my best friend tried to reach for the skip button.  She reached over from the steering wheel to swat her hand.  “We’re not changing the music.”

“Do you want Lisette to think you’re uncool?” Kegan complained from beside me in the backseat.

“Amazingly, the thought doesn’t bother me,” her mother said.

We had been listening to soundtracks from musicals for the past ninety miles.  Honestly, I didn’t mind it.  Right now, we were listening to a sappy love song from Brigadoon, which was apparently a musical about a bunch of Scottish specters whose village only appeared for one day out of every hundred years.

Kegan sighed and rolled her eyes at me.  “It could be worse.  My dad likes opera.”

Her dad wasn’t in the car with us.  His company had paid for an airline ticket for him, but because it was cheaper, Kegan’s mom had decided to drive rather than spring for three more tickets for the rest of us.

I was perfectly happy with the showtunes.  This one had catchy music, and some of the songs were funny.  I wondered what the story was like.

“How do the specters in the story make the village disappear?” I asked curiously.

“It’s never really explained,” Kegan’s mom said.  “They call it a miracle.”

“What’s the village’s clan?” I asked.

“They never say.  And honestly, the cast was a mix of specters, which is pretty obvious if you pay attention, so your guess is as good as anyone’s.”

“In other words, it makes no sense whatsoever,” Kegan piped up.  “And the accents are totally fake.  It’s lame.”

“It’s one of my favorite movies,” her mother retorted.

“Like I said!”

I listened to the music, idly tapping my fingers on the part of the car door under the window.  What was the werevulture clan like?  I had checked Wereconnection and called the clan leader to let him know I was coming for the full moon, and he had said fine, and I had asked him what the address was to make sure I had the right address on my phone, and that had been about it.

Would they be fascinated by my different species?  Would they be grossed out by it?  I daydreamed about a hot guy my age asking if he could pet my gorgeous brown wings.

“At least put on Phantom of the Opera,” Kegan complained.  “I like that one better.”

“We can play that one next,” Kegan’s mom said.

I’d seen that movie.  The music was great, but . . .

“The ending of that one is weird,” I said.  “The nix girl ends up with the creepy duergar instead of the cute nymph guy.”

“Exactly,” Kegan said with satisfaction.  “The Phantom is much more interesting than dumb Raoul.”

Even though we stopped at several gas stations along the way to refuel and stretch our legs, we were all tired and stiff and cranky by the time we reached New Yeti City.

We perked right up once we checked into our motel (it was a cheap one, but the prices were still crazy) and got settled in, though.

“Ooh!” Kegan cried, grabbing my arm in excitement as a limo drove past the window.  “Look at that!  Can we rent one of those to go shopping?”

“You must be out of your mind,” Kegan’s mom said.

“I want an advance on my next ten allowances,” Kegan said, her eyes bright.  She bounced up and down on the balls of her feet.  “Can I have one?  Please?  Please?”

“You can have an advance on your next two,” her mother said.

“Good enough!”

Kegan’s excitement was infectious.  I couldn’t wait to go shopping with her.  Not that I had that much money — I’d blown most of my savings on long-sleeved shirts with low backs or slits for my wings.  I couldn’t shift into my half-form without hurting myself if my shirts didn’t have space for my wings, and I preferred long sleeves because they hid the downy feathers on my arms while half-shifted.

“Shopping, nothing,” Kegan’s mom said dreamily, stretching out on one of the two queen-sized beds.  “I’m here for Bansheeway.  I have tickets for Werecats tonight.”

“That is the most boring show in all of existence,” Kegan informed me.  “It’s literally just a bunch of werecats in half-form pretending to be real cats.”

Kegan’s mother ignored her and started singing some song about memories.

“Hey,” I said nervously.  I’d had a great idea on the way here, but I hadn’t had the nerve to bring it up until now.  “Can we . . . um . . . can we call the werevulture clan and see if there are any vultures our age who might show us around the city?”

Kegan’s mother stopped singing.  “That’s a great idea!” she said.  “We should call the banshee clan, too.  We’ll be hanging out with them during the full moon.  There are hundreds of banshees in it, so there’ve got to be a number of teens your age.”

“I want a hot guy,” Kegan said immediately.

“Double date?” I asked with a grin.

“Totally,” she said.

We bumped fists.

Kegan’s mother eyed us suspiciously.  “If you’re talking about getting a date with a total stranger, I have to approve the boys.”

“Awww, Mom!” Kegan complained.

“Yours, too,” her mother said, looking at me.

I shrugged.  “Okay.”

“You find your date first,” Kegan directed me.  “I bet there are fewer werevultures to choose from.”

My heart thudded.  She had a point.  What if there weren’t any werevultures my age?  Or what if they were all girls?  Or what if there were cute guys my age, but all of them had girlfriends?

Like, seriously, we were talking about guys who were as close to the same species as me as possible right now.  These were guys who might actually be, like, boyfriend material.  If any existed.

I’d always wanted to marry someone in the same clan, like my parents had, so that we’d have a lot in common and our kids wouldn’t be forced to choose between two different clans.  I’d dated guys from all the races, but I would never consider getting serious with anybody who wasn’t at least a werebird, and preferably the same species.  New World werevultures weren’t the same species as me, but they were close.

Well, okay, the long-distance thing would be a major bummer if I met a guy here I really liked, and I wasn’t really sure I wanted a boyfriend now anyway, but still.  Still.

Still, this was my first chance to possibly meet a “maybe.”

My fingers were slick as I brought up the werevulture clan leader in my contacts.  I pushed his name to call him.

“Hello, this is José Wereclanvulture,” the man said after the fourth ring.

“Hello!” I said, way too loudly and quickly.  “This is Lisette Wereclanvulture again.  Thank you for letting me come to your clan for the full moon this month.”

“Think nothing of it,” he said.  “We get visitors all the time.”

My heart leapt in my throat.  “You mean — there are other vultures out there without a clan?!”

“Oh, sure,” he said.

“What species are they?” I asked excitedly.

“Hmmm,” he said.  “Mostly turkey vultures.  The occasional black vulture.  A few yellow-headed vultures.  A California condor who drops in from Florida occasionally.”

My heart fell.  Those were all New World species.  “What about griffon, bearded, white-backed, or hooded?”

“Nope,” he said.

My shoulders drooped.  I supposed I shouldn’t have been surprised.  After all, if anyone else had accidentally turned into an Old World vulture like me, the government would have tracked them down by now, and been really excited.

Of course, I didn’t know for sure if other Old World werevulture species would have the same power I had.  Sometimes closely-related species had the same powers, and sometimes they didn’t.  Apparently all of the different species of werebuzzard were immune to taint, so that gave me hope that Old World werevultures might be the same way.  But I didn’t know that for sure.  Nobody did.

It mattered because some of my early turnings were certain to go wrong, and the most likely way it would happen would be to turn people into closely-related species.  If all Old World werevultures had the same power I did, that would be just fine.  If they didn’t, well, we’d wind up with an awful lot of random vultures who did not have a power to untaint things.

“They’re all older, anyway,” he said.

“Oh, of course,” I realized.  “You mean they’re survivors from other clans?”

“Yep,” he said.  “Some ran away from their clans when they heard about the serial killer on the news.  Some were living abroad.  Two were in the hospital on bedrest.  One was in prison.”

No wonder they were all New World werevultures.  They had all been turned with werevulture turning stones.  They’d become their species on purpose.

“Did any of them get turned accidentally?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said.  “Not till you.  I saw you on the news a few weeks ago.  Interesting power you’ve got.”

“Yeah,” I said.  “Do turkey vultures have a magical ability?”

“Nope,” he said.  “Sorry.”

I nodded silently.  I’d figured as much.  New World werevultures hadn’t been rare before the eighties.  If they’d had a power, everyone would know about it.

“So, got a reason you called?” he asked.

“Oh!”  I jumped.  “Yes!  I was hoping you have some werevultures my age?  Maybe I could get together with one before the full moon?  Like, uh, maybe, like, a date, or something?”

“Sure,” he said.  “I’ll give you my grandson’s number.”

Grandson!  A guy!  A date!  Yes!

I gave Kegan a thumbs-up and grinned.

“He hasn’t been turned yet,” the man said.  “But he’s a nice boy.  He can show you around the city.”

“O-oh,” I said.  That dashed my hopes of having a date I could fly with.  I’d been hoping for someone with a flyer’s license already.  Not to mention wings.

But I couldn’t say that to the clan leader.  This was his grandson.  I mean, it was awkward enough to ask him for somebody else’s number so that I could set up a date.  It would be even worse if I told him his grandson wasn’t good enough for me.

So I accepted the phone number, wrote it on my hand with a pen I found in the drawer of the dresser in the motel room, and thanked him profusely.

When I hung up, Kegan rounded on me.

“So?!” she asked eagerly.

“Got a phone number,” I said, holding up my hand.

“Yay!” Kegan cried.  “Call him, call him!”

“He isn’t turned yet,” I said, trying not to show my disappointment.  “So we can’t fly on our date.”

“You couldn’t anyway,” Kegan pointed out.  “Not if we’re doing a double date.”

Well, that was true.  Banshees couldn’t fly.

Man, now I secretly wished I could ditch Kegan!  I felt guilty.

“I’ll call him,” I said, tapping the number into my phone.

“When I was in high school, we used to wait for the guys to call us,” Kegan’s mom commented.

“Back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth?” Kegan asked with a smirk.

Kegan’s mom cuffed her.  “Making fun of my pet pachysaurus, are you?”

“Always!” Kegan grinned.

I let myself be distracted from pushing the call button.  My heart was pounding, so I didn’t need that much of an excuse.  “Hey, how come there are no weredinosaurs, anyway?”

“Because they’ve been extinct for zillions of years?” Kegan said.

“Yeah, but dodos are extinct,” I said.  “There are still weredodos.”

“Dodos only went extinct a few hundred years ago,” Kegan’s mom said.  “I’m guessing that’s the difference.”

I thought about that.  “So, like, there are only weres of animals that have been alive at the same time humans have been?”

“Think so,” Kegan’s mom said.  “There aren’t weres of dire wolves or saber-toothed tigers, either.”

“Hey, are you ever going to call the guy?” Kegan asked, leaning over and poking my phone.

“Don’t touch my phone!” I cried.  “Okay, okay, I’ll call him.”

The screen had gone dark, so I turned it on again and swiped my finger across it in the password.  Then I hesitated, my finger hovering over the call button, took a deep breath, and pushed it.

The phone rang three or four times.  Then it went to voicemail.

“Darn it!” I said out loud, and then realized I’d said that after the beep.  “Uhhh . . . hi, I’m Lisette.  I’m a werevulture visiting New Yeti for the full moon.  Your grandpa gave me your number so that we could set up, like, a double date, or something.  With my friend Kegan who’s here with me.  She’s getting her own date.  Uhhhhhh, call me back, I guess.  Bye.”

I hung up, super embarrassed.  Kegan’s mom was right.  It was easier when you just let the guys do the asking.  Except then they wouldn’t ask you, and you’d just sit around wondering when some cute boy was going to get the hint.

Not that I knew whether the clan leader’s grandson was cute.  I just hoped he was.

“What are you doing?” Kegan’s mom asked, leaning over her shoulder.  Kegan was busily scrolling through her phone.

“Checking the profile pictures and relationship status of the guys in the banshee clan on Faunbook,” she said.

“You could just call the clan leader,” Kegan’s mom said.  “I’ve got her number in my phone.”

Kegan rolled her eyes.  “That wouldn’t tell me whether they’re good-looking, Mom.”

“Oh, of course,” her mother said dryly.  “How important.”

Kegan’s idea was genius.  I wished I’d thought of it.  But when I searched for the werevulture clan, they didn’t even have a Faunbook page.  Who didn’t use Faunbook?

At least they’d been on Wereconnection.  But that was legally required.  Weres took their clans seriously.  We had to be able to find similar clans to spend the full moon with if we were out traveling.

“Got it!” Kegan said gleefully.  “I’m going to message this one.”

She held her phone out to me.  On it was a picture of a guy who was totally hot.  As in, drool-worthy.

“I am so glad that you have such exacting standards for finding a date,” Kegan’s mother said, her voice dripping with sarcasm.  “I hope you don’t mind if I call his mother to make sure he’s a decent person.”

“I do mind,” Kegan said.  “That would be totally embarrassing.”

“Tough patooties,” Kegan’s mom said, pulling out her phone.

Kegan groaned.

In the end, Kegan’s mother wound up vetoing that guy because he turned out to be in college, and she had an unreasonable prejudice against her high-school-junior daughter dating a college sophomore.  But she did approve Kegan’s second choice, who was our age and not bad-looking.

Kegan pouted a little, but when she messaged the guy who was her second choice, he immediately messaged her back, and he said he was free for the rest of the day, so she brightened back up.

She was in the middle of that when my phone rang.

I grabbed it.  “Hello?”

“Uh, hi,” said an awkward voice.  “My grandpa said you want to set up a double date.  Uh, when?”

“When?” I called to Kegan, who was across the room and typing.

“Tonight, duh!” she said.

“Yeah, but, like, at what time?”

“I dunno,” she said.  “Six?”

“Werecats starts at six thirty, and I want plenty of time to approve the boys,” Kegan’s mom informed us.

Kegan rolled her eyes.  “Okay, okay.  Five thirty?”

“Five thirty?” I said into the phone.

“Tonight?” he asked.

“Yeah.  We’re only in the city for a few days, and I want to get together with someone from the werevulture clan before full moon.”

“Okay,” he said.

I gave Kegan a thumbs-up.

“I’ll tell Dominic five thirty,” she said, typing rapidly.

“And you’ll be back by nine, or you are dead meat,” her mom told her.  “Your dad’s plane will have landed by then, and we’re all going to go out to dinner.”

“Am I included in that?” I asked.

“Do you eat?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, then.”

I have to admit, I balked a little to be told to be back by nine, since my usual curfew was nine thirty.  But whatever.  Going out to eat with Kegan’s family sounded pretty fun, too.

“Okay, you’ll meet us at the lobby at five thirty,” I said to my future date.  “What’s the address?” I asked Kegan’s mother.

She wrote it down, and I read it off for him.  Then I hung up, catching sight of the time.

“Ack!” I cried.  “It’s five!  We barely have any time to get ready!”

“It’s four,” Kegan’s mom said.  “We’re one time zone over.”

Oh.  I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Did you bring any clothes appropriate for a date?” Kegan asked.

Ooch.  I shook my head, wincing.  I’d mainly brought comfortable clothes.  I had one cute outfit that I’d brought to wear when I met the clan, but I hadn’t thought to bring more than one, since I hadn’t realized I’d be going out on a date.

“I brought plenty of cute stuff!” Kegan said, looking thrilled.  “You can borrow some of mine!”

I gave Kegan’s mother a panicked look.

“Emergency shopping trip,” she said immediately.  “Get off the phone, Kegan.  We’ve got half an hour to find something Lisette will look great in.”

“But I have this super cute corset —”

“Kegan, your taste is bizarre,” her mother said.  “I let you wear it, but you don’t have to force it on poor Lisette.”

Kegan made a face.  “Your taste is ugly,” she said, pointing at her mother’s ratty tie-dyed T-shirt and jeans with holes in them.

“Banshee prerogative,” her mother said with a grin.  “Nobody cares what we look like.  Now, are you coming, or do you not want me to buy you a new outfit for your date, too?”

I’d never seen Kegan move so quickly in my entire life.