Cautionary Tail

She sat in the same position everyday; Lucy and Jodie walked passed
her each morning on the way to school. Cross-legged, against the wall
in the alley, round the corner from the butcher's she resided, a woman
well into her seventies at least. Her hair was lank, grey and greasily
matted together. Obviously homeless, she wore and lived beneath ragged
clothes and blankets, duller than her skin, which was wrinkled so that
her face resembled a shrivelled grey plastic mask that has been burnt,
close range. Next to her was a cage, inside of which lay three,
surprisingly subdued rats. They didn't move, they didn't squeak, they
didn't so anything at all except lie there, resigned it would
seem.
Jodie thought that this woman was quite possibly the most horrible
woman she had ever seen in her life.

"She stinks," she would tell Lucy, almost everyday on cue after Lucy
had dropped her usual fifty pence piece into the mouldy grey hat.

"Thanks, dearie," would come the reply and then-

"I don't know how you can," Jodie said sticking up nose, her tight
black ponytail swishing about as she stalked on. Lucy practically had
to run to keep up since their strides differed so much due to their leg
lengths. Jodie's pretty elegant stalks were far longer than Lucy's
clumsy stumps. Jodie didn't really like Lucy, she was nowhere near in
the same league and since Lucy had about as much self-confidence as a
soggy Kleenex, she could never really come to terms with this
fact.

"She's a poor old woman."

"She's a weirdo."

"She's obviously homeless. With no company but the rats she keeps,"
Lucy mused.

"Exactly. That's why she's so weird. I don't like that woman," Jodie
stated again with a scowl, picking up her pace as they neared the
school and the bell rang.

"She's a dirty old hag."

Lunchtime was always the same affair with Jodie and her friends. Of
course, Lucy tagged along as well- she had no one else. But really, the
only reason they walked to school together was because they lived five
minutes apart and had known each other all their lives. They had grown
and changed into completely different people though. Jodie, who was
extremely pretty, wore only the best clothes and hung around with
people equally beautiful. Her complexion was flawless and Michelangelo
could have sculpted her cheekbones.
Lucy on the other hand was dull by comparison. Her parents were both
very poor and so she never had anything much of her own and her clothes
were the cheapest money could buy. She was a curvy girl whose hair was
mousy, wild and thick- an uncultivated nightmare that took her an hour
every morning to tame. Jodie's friends regularly made comments to Jodie
to ditch Lucy- that she made her look 'ordinary'?

"You don't want to keep hanging around with her. She's a geek- she'll
sooo get you a bad reputation." Jodie's friend, a curly haired beauty
named Violet informed her at the table with two other girls before Lucy
had arrived.

"I know, but if I do that, I'd have to walk to school on my own past
that disgusting old hag on the corner- y'know, the one by the butcher's
"

"Ooooh, the one with the rats! She is just toootally foul."

"Yeah, her."
Jodie faked a shudder at this point, while secretly thinking of ways
she could maintain her accomplice to the school gates, but leave their
'friendship' out side of them.

"Hey guys," Lucy said, sitting down beside Jodie and opening her
lunchbox.

"Hi," Jodie said weakly, casting a quick glance at the other three
girls who raised their perfectly plucked and pencilled eyebrows in a
be-warned sort of way.
Lucy, a strict vegetarian, opened her lunchbox, to reveal her usual
fruit and salad sandwiches.

"Yeah, those rats," Felicity, a platinum blonde, exceptionally pretty
netball team captain continued once Lucy had sat down. She was eyeing
Lucy's salad suspiciously, as though only completely bizarre people
should consider not having burger and chips for their lunch.

"Now they are just seriously gross, I mean she keeps them as PETS.
Urggh."
Lucy chewed her sandwich slowly, looking at Felicity with equal
disapproval.
Jodie nodded profusely and slammed her hand down on the table. She had
an ideal way to get Lucy wound up and ultimately expelled from the
group.

"The only thing those filthy vermin are good for," she said loudly, so
that most of the cafeteria could hear her, "Is vivisection."
While the other girls nodded, Lucy gasped and stared at her
friend.

"What? NO! How can you say such a thing?" She asked, mortified.
"Vivisection is completely wrong- wrong!"

"No," Jodie said, looking Lucy straight in the eye. "It's completely
right. Think about it- not only would we get the foul little creatures
off the streets, but we get medical research out of it as well."

"But?but you should know that testing products intended for humans on
animals is absolutely pointless! Not to mention CRUEL."
All four of them were looking at her now, unimpressed.

"They spread disease"

"They make the town filthy"

"They bite"

"Vivisection," Jodie said, loudest of all. "Is not simply a good way
to put dirty, germ-infested rodents to some use, but it's
NECESSARY."
Lucy was livid.

"N-necessary?" She spluttered, spraying Jodie with bits of half-chewed
sandwich.

"Yes," Jodie said firmly, wiping the offending white-green paste from
her cheek.
Lucy looked down at her feet, and then at her sandwich, then she got
up.

"I?I'm not really that hungry. I might go to the library..."
Jodie knew that Lucy was deeply hurt by her behaviour and she surprised
herself when she realised that she didn't actually care. She thought
that she would feel a little guilty, even if it was just a tiny bit.
But she didn't. She felt relieved, like a burden had been lifted
completely from her mind. So she may have to walk to and from school
alone now, but she had saved her reputation. As her three gorgeous
school-friends smiled at her, and Lucy, shocked and stunned by the
revelation that Jodie was in fact incredibly insensitive made her way
out of the cafeteria alone, Jodie knew she had made the right
choice.

For the next three days, Jodie walked to school and back on her own,
which bothered her a little because it meant that she had to set out
earlier than she used to, so that she wasn't walking at the same time
as Lucy. The worst part about walking alone was that she had to pass
the old woman with the rats by herself. The old woman would smile at
her, showing her yellowed teeth and black gums clearly and every time,
it made Jodie feel ill. But there was no way that she was going to get
back with Lucy- not after the way her companions now treated her for
losing her neighbour. In fact, she had been doing the exact opposite,
telling as many people as she could when Lucy was in hearing distance
that vegetarianism was unnatural and stupid and that people like Lucy
cared more about disease-carrying vermin than her own human race.
One particularly dull Wednesday morning, when the sun seemed to have
made only a half-hearted attempt at rising and the clouds were hanging
around it like large immobilised grey bats, Jodie walked as quickly as
possible to school hoping, as she did everyday, that the woman would
not be there. She didn't know why, but the more she passed the woman on
her own, with the unnaturally still rats, the more she felt
uncomfortable.

"Change dearie?" Came her usual high-pitched ring of a voice, as Jodie
approached.
Jodie didn't reply. She walked on as quickly as possible, careful to
look at neither the woman nor her rats. Then, just as she passed the
old woman as far to the other side of the alley as possible-

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!"

One of the rats sprung up, quite out of character, and caused the cage
to roll forward towards her. Backing up against the wall, Jodie noticed
that all three of these rats were wearing collars. The woman was quite
out of her mind surely? Furious, Jodie kicked the cage back towards the
old woman and screamed at her,

"Keep those nasty beasts away from me! The only thing they're good for
is- vivisection!"

"Vivisection?" She heard the old woman repeat, before laughing. "Do
you really think so?" More laughter.
Yes, the woman was definitely mad all right, Jodie thought as she
hurried away to school as quickly as she could without actually
running. (She would have run, but running has a way of making you look
badly composed and disorganised. It completely destroys a hairstyle
that has taken all morning to achieve for a start.)

However, as Jodie left the alley and headed towards her school, a very
strange feeling came upon her. Her head began to spin and dizziness
swept over her so that she thought she was going to be sick. She
stopped in her haste and shut her eyes, holding her head as she felt
the world begin to revolve around her very quickly indeed. Then the
movement stopped, just as quickly as it begun and it felt as though she
had been thrown off a merry-go-round moving at supersonic speed. She
fell to the floor at once, unable to stop herself and grazed both knees
and her head. Then a different feeling began working its way through
her very insides. A tingling, itching feeling that started from her
toes and gradually moved upwards. Still feeling nauseous, she tried to
stand up placing her hands out in front of her on the floor to help her
to her feet. She screamed at what she saw.
Well, at least, she tried to scream. But all that came out was a sort
of screech like a strangled animal. Animal in this case being the
operative word. All over her hands, thick brown hair was sprouting at
an astonishing rate, but before she had time to comprehend this, she
realised with dismay that she was shrinking.

"What's happening?" She tried to say, but the only sound that left her
lips was, "Aiiieeee".
WHAT'S HAPPENING TO ME? She thought. Then she realised, with utter
revulsion EXACTLY what was happening. As her clothes fell away from her
and her pretty little hands became paws, her meticulously manicured
nails elongating as they shrunk to form tiny claws, she knew that she
was changing. Changing, it seemed into a rat. The world around her was
enormous.

"No!" She tried to wail. The only sound she heard was "EEEE!"

"Please, please NO!"? "EEE EEE EEEE!"
She turned the corner- she was surprisingly quick on her feet now- and
looked with horror at her reflection in the massive window of the
butcher's shop. A rat. A filthy, stinking, disease-infested
rodent.
OH MY GOD. OH MY LIFE. WHAT ON EARTH IS HAPPENING TO ME? AM I DREAMING?
PLEASE GOD, LET ME BE DREAMING.

"Get out of it!" The butcher took a clean swipe at her with a meat
cleaver. But she was quick now. She darted away from him as she heard
him cry,

"Bloody pests!"

Before she realised where she was going, she found herself back in the
alley- back with the old woman. The old woman grinned her horrible
toothy grin down at her, and before Jodie had time to register this and
take flight again, she was grabbed and shoved into a cage.

"You see, dearie," the old woman said, jovially, "My pets here was all
like you once."

Jodie panicked and tried to escape the huge prison, but it was no
good. She couldn't get through the bars; there was no way. No
way.

"Now, now, now," the old woman
continued. "Lets see 'ere," she fumbled around in her ragged pockets
until she found what she was looking for. A dark, mossy-green
collar.

"NOOOOO!" Jodie cried?all that came out was one long terrified shriek.
She tried to struggle as the collar was placed around her neck, and
then, as her heart thumped with hope in her chest, she saw Lucy. Lucy
was running late, but she still stopped to drop her fifty-pence piece
into the old, grey hat.

"Thanks again, dearie," came the usual reply. Lucy smiled down and
Jodie took her chance.
She leapt up and threw all her weight against the side of the cage,
screaming,

"Lucy, it's me- the old woman's bewitched me- she's turned me into a
rat- help me help me HELP ME!"
But all that Lucy heard was:

"Eeeek eeeek aiieeek iiik eeeeeik eek eeek EEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!"
Lucy jumped back in alarm.

"Sorry about that, my dear," the old woman said.

"That's ok," Lucy replied, smiling weakly. "I used to have a friend
who I walked to school with, if she was here she'd have been much more
scared."
Then she turned and walked off, before Jodie had a chance to try
again.

"Well, well, well, we are a feisty one aren't we? Well, they all are
at first of course. But of course I 'as me ways."
Then she raised her right hand and muttered,

"Thrortopich Conthrollisa
Bonsilla Dormiscasimunt."

Jodie felt something happen to the collar she was wearing, as though it
was reacting to the words that she had spoken- like some magical
incantation. Then she realised she couldn't struggle, she couldn't
squeak, she couldn't do anything except lie there.

But she could still think.

The woman reached into her pocket once more and pulled out a business
card.

"Of course, you know the only thing you're good for now, don't you my
dears?"

She asked rhetorically, flipping over the card and revealing it to the
four docile rats in the cage.

Dr. M Matthews
Scientific Research Manager
Unit 12
Farthing Street

And then, scribbled in what looked like the old woman's handwriting,
the word
'Vivisection'.
Jodie's eyes widened. So did the others'.

"You see, most people know that tests on animals for human medical
research is pointless. We're not the same biological make up, see? But
then, you aint biologically rats on the inside- just on the outside. I
was careful to make you still VERY human on the inside. You will react
to testing the same way any human would- only nobody'll ever know.
'Cept the good Dr o' course. Imagine his glee when he discovered me,
eh?"

"Ah, there you are Tilda," came a male voice behind her. "This week's
bunch eh?"

"Yes, this is them," she replied with a nod and a grin as the man
opened his wallet and took out fifty pounds in cash. She took the cash
and as the Dr. took the cage away to the van, added,

"I'm sure you'll find 'em most adequate. Good bye, my dears."