Page 39 of Bears Behaving Badly
“He didn’t touchanyof them.”
“Nope.”
“Not even my favorite.” She was staring at half-a-dozen beautifully decorated red velvet cupcakes with chocolate buttercream; the other half dozen were chocolate cupcakes with salted caramel frosting. David idly wondered which was her fave. “Damn.”
“Welp.” Mama Mac spread her hands in a these-kits-today gesture. “He’s worried about you.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Annette snapped. “I’mthe one who worries abouthim. It’s in my job description.”
“No it isn’t.”
“Mama, he has to keep clear of this. Whateverthisis.”
“He’s a grown man, m’girl.”
“It doesn’t matter how old he is. Some things you stay away from whether you’re five or fifty. I’m keeping him out.”
Now what the hell was this? From the few interactions David had seen, Annette didn’t much care for the guy. It’s not like it was a secret.
She doesn’t? Then why is she always slipping him food? And why is she worried about him? What could be so bad that a werewolf in his prime couldn’t handle?
Great. Another mystery.
Meanwhile, the older woman had held out a small, wrinkled hand, and Caro tentatively shook it. “My name’s Meredith Macropi, but everyone calls me Mama Mac. Welcome to my home.”
Caro tried a tentative smile.
“Yep, she said you’re a quiet one. Wait, I have…” The older woman opened a kitchen drawer, clucked her tongue at the contents, closed that drawer, opened the one beside it, mused, “Sothat’swhere that is now,” opened the cupboard above the drawer, gasped in horror at whatever the hell was in there, slammed it shut, opened the cupboard beside it, took out a notebook and a pack of felt-tip washable pens, then handed them to the teenager. “Here’s these if you feel like talking. So t’speak. Oh, I s’pose everyone makes that joke, don’t they?”
“She hasn’t been with us long enough for there to be a running joke. And I’m sorry again to drop in with next to no warning.”
“Don’t be a silly sweetie. You only do it when it’s important. Or if you’ve skipped lunch. Or—remember that ridiculous Shift Away Stables movement?”
“Problematic for their idiotic rhetoric if nothing else,” Annette muttered.
“You had to hide some kits here to prep for their testimony. Poor things stepped up, didn’t they? Even though they had to testify against their folks.”
They had. The SAS movement was to Shifters what the KKK was to humanity: ignorant, violent, terrible uniforms, utter hypocrites. While a segment of the Shifter population advocated for coming out, SAS wanted to take over. Violently, if necessary.
The one-percent isn’t about privately held wealth, SAS insisted. It was about biology, evolution, and how Stables didn’t deserve the dominance on the planet they’d enjoyed for multiple millennia. But what they really hated was that Stables classified themselves as apex predators, and their message was as simple as it was devastating:How much more of the planet are we going to let them ruin before we take back what’s ours?
Several of the violent, murderous species-ist dumbasses were in prison, and it was safe to say they were not missed by most.
“All right, that’s settled,” Annette was saying. “Mama Mac, David and I have to go to IPA and do stuff I can’t tell you about.”
“Oh?”
“Yes. And then we have to do some other things I can’t tell you about, so we can help Caro with something I can’t tell you about, and then we can all do something else except I don’t know what that will be just yet. So I can’t tell you.”
“Yes, just another Monday. Nettie, I get it.”
“It’s Wednesday.” Annette pointed to the three-year-old calendar featuringDeadpool’s Blind Al hanging beside the fridge. “If you had a smart phone, you’d know the date. Since you don’t, you have to actually switch these out every twelve months.”
“Never!”
“You’re the only person in the world who thinks Blind Al is the protagonist of theDeadpoolfranchise.”
“Well, she is! That nice English bird you work with gave that to me, and I’ve treasured it ever since.”
