Ugly

Suddenly, Mom came through the door. Niko shifted to normal-rat mode and began doing rat things. I unfortunately just looked antsy.

"You okay, Sophie?" She asked. "You look pale."

"Yeah, I'm fine." I lied.

Mom looked like she didn't believe it, but she didn't press more. Instead, "Well, I was looking for your brother's old Star Wars toy... I figure it'd be in The Room Of Useless Junk." She started rummaging through the tub of old toys. "This is the place where we put our stuff we have no space for anyway." She chuckled.

"I think we should name the rat Niko." I said.

Mom stopped and looked at me, then at the rat, smiled, and said, "Hm, I like that. It seems to fit him."

---

I avoided Niko for a while, trying to clear my head. It was strange at first. Ethan would play with him and I'd think, "wow, Ethan is being pretty rough", or, "Geez, I wonder what Niko thinks of this. I wouldn't like to be handled like a mindless animal."

Eventually I came back to Niko's cage. I sat down in front of him and stared.

"Hello, Sophie." Niko greeted. "Thought you went back to thinking I was a hallucination."

"How come you don't talk to Ethan?" I asked bluntly.

Niko sniffed. "I think it would scare him."

What? "And you thought it wouldn't scare ME?" I nearly exploded. "Ethan would probably think that a talking rat would be the coolest thing ever!"

Niko shrank back, looking scared. "Sorry."

I shut myself up. "It's okay." I really had to be careful around him; he was just so frightened...

"Okay..." I collected myself. "So... what made you a rat?"

"Well, a witch didn't do it." Niko said. "I think it was some of my friends."

"Why would they do that?" I questioned.

Niko was silent. Then he said, "Well, I didn't give them much of a reason to like me."

I swallowed. "I mean.... how would they do that?"

"They were messing around with a Ouija board about a week before I changed. I wasn't into ghost stuff, so I didn't know what they were doing. The last thing I remember as a human was that I was drinking Pepsi. I don't know if that has any connection."

"What's a Ouija board?" I asked. Some chills ran up my spine.

"It's basically a board with letters, numbers, and "yes" or "no" on it. They have this little marker trinket thing that moves around and spells stuff out. Supposedly a spirit will move it through the person." Niko groomed himself.

"Well, it just contacts ghosts, right?"

"I think so. But Sebastian was always into the paranormal, so he could've been doing other stuff."

I was quiet for a moment.

"Can I call your parents?"

"No!" Niko burst out. "No way!"

"Why not?" I was miffed. "I could just look up your parents in the phone book and find out their number. You're stuck in a little cage. You can't stop me."

Niko fluffed up his hair with his paws, frustrated. "Please, okay, please don't call them."

"What would they do?" I frowned. "They'd believe it if you talked to them."

"They'd think it was some ventriloquism or something." He twitched his nose and looked away.

"Were you with them when you were a rat?" I inquired.

"Yeah. They took care of me before I was put into the adoption center."

"Why didn't you try to talk to them?"

Niko started pacing. "Because..." He stopped. "Because I was scared outta my mind. They were scared outta their minds too. They tried everything they could to find me. They called the police, made posters, everything. They were so stressed out they forgot to feed me or give me water. Eventually they kinda... just got swallowed up in their depression and just gave me away because they knew they couldn't take care of me."

My heart sank. I wavered between asking a question, but then just said, "Then I'm sure they'll be happy to know you're still alive."

"Please don't call them. Please."

I tried to change the subject. "How old were you when you were human?"

Niko rubbed his face. "Seventeen." He sounded washed out.

"How long were you a rat?"

"Dunno."

Niko sounded like he didn't want to talk anymore. I decided to leave it at that, though I tried to ask another question.

"Can I call your friends?"

"I don't care anymore. Their names are Sebastian, Walker, James, and Phil. I'll give you their numbers, but I'm not really sure if I remember them all."

"Okay, I'll call them right now." And I pulled out my cell and waited for the numbers.