At exactly 4:30 am, the clamorous ringing jolts Lou awake. She hits a button on her actual alarm clock, since she doesn’t use her phone, and shuts it off.

What does she wake up so early for? Feeding her friends.

Even with a rough wake up call, she skips to the bathroom and gets herself ready first. Pulling back her blonde strands into a ponytail, she gears up for the big undertaking of feeding all the animals in the house.

It’s not a chore though. She loves making breakfast for them.

Setting all the bowls out, she pours, scoops, and dumps different foods into metal dishes. It is a loud process that gets the attention of the creatures in the house.

For today’s breakfast, she has a favor that she needs to ask.

Today is a family picnic with some of her extended members of the Haines pack. It’s not very often that they host anything at their home with all of her friends. Some of her family are not as keen on the animals. So it’s extremely important for this to go well.

“Ok everyone, best behaviors please!”

Ajax leads the group in promising her. She appreciates her effort. The ‘yeses’ and ‘ok’ and ‘okie dokies’ and ‘yeps’ do comfort her and reassure her that everything is going to be ok.

“Hey Lou.”

She yelps and nearly falls over if not for Snoopy behind her, keeping her steady. “Jones? What are you doing here?”

“You invited me to your picnic,” he said, eyebrows raising, acting like she forgot that she had done that. She can recall just fine. Just had a lapse of memory.

“But why are you here so early?”

“Greg told me to come at 5 am. Which I thought it was early, but he said you might want some help,” he answers, eying the lizard perched on the back of the couch.

“Greg!”

The lizard chuckled and stuck his long tongue out. She mirrors him.

“He was messing with you,” she points out.

Jones doesn’t seem fazed as he observes all of her furry and scaly friends. “You weren’t kidding when you said you love animals.”

“I don’t kid when it comes to my friends.”

Turning to Jones, the human is gone and a dark grey cat in his place. Jones jumps over to Ajax and they brush against one another like cats do. Then he leaps and in midair, he transforms into a wolf.

Ash, who was previously laying on the ground with a bone, perks up. “I like your friend Lou. He’s like us.” He bounds up and they pounce on one another. Like puppies.

Lou isn’t sure that she’s seen anything cuter.

So much so that she almost forgot about the human picnic. Almost.

OoOoO

“Lou!” She feels like she is being pulled in a million directions. Every human in a mile radius is calling for her.

Her Aunt Marlie pulls her by the elbow under the shade of a maple tree and asks, “Who’s that nice young man?”

She rubs her elbow where her aunt’s nails punctured her skin like claws. Her aunt is a bit nosy, so she shouldn’t be surprised.

“That’s my friend.”

“Well don’t be rude, introduce us!” She insists.

With her family not normally hosting these gatherings, her extended family haven’t really met any of her friends. She supposes that it is normal for them to question a new person.

Lou sighs and calls over Jones.

“Jones, this is my Aunt Marlie.” She swings her arms between the two. “Aunt Marlie, this is my friend Jones.”

Like a predator waiting to pounce, her aunt does, “Do you have a soulmate already? What is your ability?”

Her cheeks heat up in embarrassment at her aunt’s brashness. Why are humans so obsessed with soulmates and powers? Can’t they all just pet a cat or something? “Aunt Marlie! You shouldn’t just ask someone that.”

Instead of verbalizing the answer, Jones shapeshifts into a dog, a smaller lab like Scooby.

That would have been fine if it were anyone but Aunt Marlie. Who had been attacked when she was young by a big dog and therefore had a terrible phobia of dogs.

Aunt Marlie shrieks as loud as a lion. She stumbles away, knocking into the table, which of course topples over. The food that her mom stayed up all night to make belongs to the floor now. Lou has never seen such a mess before, and she has many animal friends that are not always clean.

Everyone gasps and hold their hands to their faces. No one moves, unsure what to do.

Jones, to his credit, immediately transforms back to human and apologizes several times while helping Aunt Marlie up. But the damage has been done.

Aunt Marlie slaps his hands away and attempts to push herself up. That only ends with her falling into the mess again until her Uncle Paul gets her up and ushers her to the bathroom.

The party tries to continue as if nothing weird happened, but it does break up after a half an hour.

After her mom, dad, brother, and Lou put the table and chairs away, she returns inside to her friends.

Woodstock flies over her head and lands on the back of the armchair. “It’s probably for the best that it didn’t go well.”

She tilts her head and raises an eyebrow.

“Woody’s right. Less people coming around,” Ajax purrs, rubbing against Lou’s legs.

“I didn’t like Aunt Marlie anyway,” Herbert comments from his tank, resting on his rock.

Lou giggles as she just hangs out with her friends. A fly buzzes near her ear. A normal person would swipe at the air, but she values every life. She just chooses to ignore it.

Then the fly is right in her face which makes her steps stutter and she falls into her couch.

The fly then grows bigger and it takes her mind a moment to catch up to realize it’s Jones.

The second he is in his human form, he apologizes profusely, “I am so sorry. I had no idea that would happen. But that doesn’t excuse what I did. I’m just sorry.”

She opens her mouth to accept his apology, but he keeps going.

“I didn’t know about Aunt Marlie. But I should’ve thought about it. Sometimes I do stupid things without thinking and this was one of them.”

Lou holds up her hand to silence him. His eyes are pleading, fixed on her, his hands practically clasped together in his begging. She decides to put him out of his misery.

“Don’t be. That was the funniest thing to ever happen. I don’t like family gatherings anyway.”