Feral Curse by Cynthia Leitich Smith Read Free Book Online

another sort. I tried to dye my fur once, but it reboots to its natural spotted pattern with every shift.
    “I’ll be back before you know it.” I pause with my hand on the doorknob. “Let’s keep Peso inside the house unless someone’s with him, at least until traffic lightens up in town.”
    Mom agrees, and a moment later, I rejoin Yoshi behind the gnarled oak.
    He’s talking on the phone. “No, no, for the time being, I’m fine in Pine Ridge,” he says. “The Chihuahua is fine, too. I ran into his owner, who was out looking for him, and now we’re going after the Coyote —” He blinks at me and tells whoever, “I’ll call you back.”
    I hear a faint female voice protesting as he ends the call. “Your girlfriend?” I ask.
    It slipped out. Did it sound jealous? Am I jealous?
    No,
no.
Ben hasn’t been gone that long. It’s only normal that I’d be fascinated by another Cat. I almost feel like I can be myself, my whole self, with someone for the first time in my life. Almost. There are too many unanswered questions for me to sink too far into this potential friendship. For the foreseeable future, I’m tabling the whole dynamic.
    “
Friend
-friend.” Yoshi uses one hand for balance to spring over the picket fence.
    “Don’t show off,” I say, using the swinging gate. “Someone might see —”
    “I know how to be careful,” he replies.
    “Be
more
careful.” I gesture down the street. “Sheriff Bigheart lives in that blue house.”
    That gets his attention, and Yoshi’s manner becomes more subdued.
    As we skirt downtown, he mentions that he’s from Austin. “But only for a few months now. I’m living with my grandmother in a two-bedroom apartment near UT. We don’t have a big fancy house.”
    He says it with a hint of a grudge. Jealous? Competitive? Ben used to compare our houses, too. “Real estate is a lot cheaper here in the boondocks than in Austin.”
    “I know,” Yoshi replies. “In Kansas, we had a big farmhouse and livestock. The animals have been relocated to my sister’s land now. She has this giant hog named Wilbur that —” He nods toward the yoga studio. “Friend of yours?”
    Jess waves at me, coming out of an evening class. Her mom is waiting for her on the front step. They exchange a few words, glancing our way, clearly curious about my new friend.
    “Are you visiting someone in Pine Ridge?” I ask Yoshi, waving back.
    “You, apparently,” he replies.
    I’m in no mood for cryptic. It occurs to me that Yoshi, who I just met, is my only eyewitness source on the supposed werecoyote and that I’m chasing after them both into a badly lit, probably otherwise abandoned park, heavily obscured from downtown by tree and shrub growth. However much I’ve longed to have another Cat to talk to, I can’t automatically assume Yoshi’s a safe person. I’m glad that we were seen together and that he knows it.
    “That was Jess,” I say. “She’s one of my oldest friends and the sheriff’s daughter.”
    He nods, his gaze flicking back in that direction. “You have a lot of friends?”
    I shake my head. “Not close friends.”
    “Good,” Yoshi says. “Best we keep this between us.”
    Whatever. We cut across the bank parking lot, and for no apparent reason, I find myself wondering about Cat mating rituals. Are there rituals? Is that what they — we — call it? Mating?
    It sounds so animalistic.
    At the winding concrete path, I hesitate. “I’m not interested in anything physical.”
    “I can’t promise the Coyote will mind his manners,” Yoshi replies. “He scared off easy last time, but that doesn’t —”
    “No, I mean . . .” I didn’t used to suck at this. Before Ben, I was fairly composed — if not especially experienced — around boys. “I’m not interested in getting physical with
you,
romantically or sexually.” Wincing, I realize I didn’t need to reference sex at all.
    Without turning to face me, Yoshi shrugs. “I don’t need to come up