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How Not To Become Lunch: 70 - Celebrate!
“So, you’re planning to lick every human here so you can find the best one for dinner?”
“Pretty much,” Fiona confirmed.
“Isn’t that, like, a lot of work?” Jack asked. “You basically have to hunt and catch every kid here, but you only keep one.” Hanging with Fiona these past few weeks had definitely made him a bit more matter-of-fact about these things, hadn’t it.
“Yeah, but it’s fun,” the werewolf shrugged and smiled. “Besides, it’s not that hard.”
“I guess they didn’t put you in the advanced pred class for nothing.”
“Geeze, you’re in the advanced class?” Harry interjected.
Fiona nodded, trying not to seem too smug. Harry silently added that to the mental tally of ‘reasons why it was really good he’d gotten on her good side’.
“But wait, if you take all your time ‘taste testing’, your best pick might end up, you know, taken,” Jack pointed out.
“That’s part of the game. The faster I can taste them all, the more options I have at the end. Either way, there are way more prey here than bellies, so I have decent odds.”
“How is it that I’m both more and less terrified of predators now that I’ve met you?” Harry asked rhetorically.
“You get used to it,” Jack consoled.
*dink* *dink* *dink*
There was that sound again, the high-pitched chime calling out above the soft chatter. Eyes began shifting again to the well-dressed man, elevated on his little platform in the center of the room.
“Welcomed guests,” Mr. Belv addressed. “It is nearly time to begin our next scheduled activity. Please, everyone, follow me this way for a game of: ‘mark the meal’.”
“What?” Jack asked aloud to no one, suddenly very uncomfortable.
“You know that game, don’t you?” asked Fiona. The implication that the marked boy should be familiar with a game called ‘mark the meal’, only made said boy even more anxious.
“Please tell me all the preds aren’t just going to chase us around and bite us,” Harry asked, fairly anxious himself.
“What? No,” Fiona replied. “Jack, come on, didn’t we have this at one of your birthday parties when you were a kid?”
“I think I would remember a game called ‘mark the meal’,” he replied emphatically.
“Oh, that’s right, humans have a different version, don’t they?” Fiona remembered. “What was it called…? …Oh, just come on, you’ll see.” She beckoned her friends up from their seats and waved them along with her as she joined the crowd of partygoers slowly trickling across the room behind the Beatricias’ butler. “I know it,” she told herself, thinking hard. “Maybe someone else remembers.”
The werewolf walked casually up to the nearest human she saw. The blonde girl saw her coming and immediately shied away, but Fiona called out.
“Hey, wait a sec. That ‘mark the meal’ game, do you remember what the human version is called?”
The blonde faltered for a moment, stopped retreating and thought.
“Uh… n-no, I don’t,” she replied.
“Oh, alright,” Fiona shrugged. The predator then proceeded to immediately lunge forward and grab the girl’s hand before she could get away.
The werewolf stuck out her tongue, lowered her muzzle and pulled. The slimy streak of hungry pink slipped all the way up the fair skinned forearm, past the elbow, up over bicep and shoulder and then smacked straight across the poor girl’s face.
The blonde ‘eep’ed as the predator’s maw suddenly crashed in to fill her vision, the greedy gullet flashing her its hungry stare as it passed by.
“Oops, sorry,” Fiona apologized. “Didn’t mean to take that big of a taste, just pulled you a little too hard. Hey, um, that shampoo is a good scent on you.”
“Uh- uh… t-t-thanks,” the girl quivered as the pred who just caught her flashed a toothy smile, dropped her arm and then proceeded to just walk away.
Harry glanced to Jack uncomfortably, but the marked boy could only shrug apologetically and motion for them to continue following.
“Ugh, what was the game called?” Fiona asked herself again, as if nothing had happened. They joined the guests that were grouping up where the butler had stopped. Everyone was congregating in a cluster around a wall, lightly spread out into an arc as bunches of humans kept their distance from various hungry bellies. “Paint the python? No, it wasn’t a reptile, was it? Prod the polar bear? Poke the panther? No, no…”
“‘Mark the meal’,” Mr. Belv began to explain to the collecting crowd. “Or as our human guests might understand it, a variation of ‘pin the tail on the predator’.”
“Oh, yeah, that was it,” Fiona agreed.
“Each guest will take turns attempting to sink their teeth” -The butler mage held up a pair of fake teeth, fanged and pointed- “into the target.” He pointed demonstrably at a cartoony rendition of a fleeing human, posted up on the wall.
“Well, that’s not so bad,” Harry muttered.
“While wearing a blindfold,” Mr. Belv added.
“Yup, there it is,” the spectacled boy sighed. Naturally, the safest condition for any human was blind and surrounded by predators.
“If you are a bystander during a round, as most of you will be, you will be engaged in a different capacity. You are encouraged to cheer on the player; however, you are required to pick one of these-” He swapped the fake teeth he’d been holding with a big, clear bowl filled with little bits of paper. “On each of these slips is written a single direction: ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘left’ or ‘right’. Each turn, the single word on your slip is the only guidance you are allowed to give. No other hints will be permitted, but for a single exception: once per turn, you are free to call out any of the four directions. But only a single time within a single round, and no other instruction other than ‘up’, ‘down’, ‘left’ or ‘right’.
For the sake of clarity, I will repeat these rules once more…”
“Sounds kinda overcomplicated, doesn’t it?” Jack whispered.
“Well, it helps keep things interesting. Hopefully everyone will be able to follow,” Fiona replied.
“Hey, um…” Harry interjected. “Is that… you?” He pointed to Jack, and then at the ‘target’ on the wall, shaped and painted to look like a human running away, except there was something taped in place where the human’s head should’ve been. It was a picture. A picture of a familiar marked boy’s face. A few whispers had actually already started up through the crowd, as kids noticed the image and the party guest it resembled.
Over to one side, at the edge of the gathering near her butler, Sarabeth stood with a pleased, elegant smile. Nothing malicious or out of the ordinary, just a girl enjoying her birthday party, watching her clandestine message spread through her guests with a hidden, devious pride. She saw Jack and Fiona finally take notice, and a moment later the werewolf started towards her. Just as expected; she readied her prepared response.
“Hey, Sarabeth, what’s up with the picture?” Fiona asked, her tone clearly giving her good friend the benefit of the doubt.
“Excuse me?” the vampire replied with ‘surprise’. She turned to the game target. “Oh, goodness,” she remarked, just as Mr. Belv concluded his address, and just loud enough for most people to notice. She walked over and promptly plucked her photo of Jack out of sight. “I’m afraid I must offer an apology,” she told everyone. “Someone clearly thought it would be a mirthful jest to post this image of our guest, Jack Eten, here on the target board for ‘mark the meal’. Likely because Jack Eten himself is, unfortunately, marked as prey. I will tell you I don’t find it amusing in the slightest. In fact, as a gesture of good will, I would like to forego my right as lady of the evening, and allow Jack the first turn of this game.”
Jack felt all eyes turn to him, guided along by Sarabeth’s gesturing hand. He felt a jolt of fear- somewhere between stage fright and mortal terror- but forced himself to step forward. Despite his instinct to shrink back and hide, he knew his best move was to attempt to accept as gracefully as he could.
“Oh, um, thanks, Sarabeth,” he said, creeping out into the open. He glanced to Fiona for comfort. She smiled back at him with a somewhat ignorant expression that said ‘everything is fixed and I’m happy about it’.
Sarabeth’s smile returned too, now that she had stepped out of the spotlight. Perhaps it was even a bit wider. She’d done exactly what she’d intended: bring Jack’s mark to the forefront of the minds of every guest- of every predator- in the room, and then put him up on a proverbial pedestal for anyone to claim.
Mr. Belv handed Jack his blindfold, and then began his task of distributing paper slips to all the onlookers.
As Jack braced himself, Fiona finished patching things up with Sarabeth and decided to return to her previous spot with Harry. It was a thoughtful gesture, really. She thought the boy- not to mention Jack- would appreciate her keeping an eye on him. That wasn’t exactly wrong, but this was also the first time Harry had been ‘alone’ with the werewolf, sans-Jack.
“So… um… if someone goes after Jack, do you, like, rush in and try to stop them?” he asked, trying to sound casual and keep his nerves from making him say anything weird. He’d never realized the stupid things he tended to say when he was scared until today, but that probably had nothing to do with meeting Jack.
“If I have to,” Fiona answered. “But no one’s gonna do that. I’ve looked around and we actually know pretty much every pred here,” she assured him.
“You do?”
Mr. Belv passed by, and they each took a slip of paper from the bowl as they continued their semi-awkward exchange.
“Even… her?” Harry pointed as inconspicuously as possible to his greatest source of terror, the lethargic looking panda girl reclining in a chair at the edge of the crowd.
“Well, no, not her,” the werewolf admitted. “Why, do you?”
“She… she ate me yesterday,” he recounted for the second time that day (aloud, that is; the incident tended to play on repeat in his head whenever he saw her white-furred maw, or tie-dye covered tummy). “She had me all the way down… I barely made it out alive.”
“She coughed you up?” The reply was a tad surprised, if anything, but starkly casual and matter-of-fact compared to Jack’s sympathy when he’d heard the same.
“One of us…” Harry responded. “There was another- Wait, you don’t remember? You and Jack were passing us in the hall when it happened. It was around lunch time.”
“Really?” Fiona thought for a short moment, but quickly dropped the attempt. “Huh, guess I don’t.” It didn’t particularly surprise her; she saw dozens of kids having human lunches every day at school. Even her own meals tended to be largely forgettable experiences for the most part.
“Oh… Well, she, um, swallowed me with another kid, a girl…” He almost dropped the uncomfortable subject, not like he would be getting any sympathy from a predator, but then:
“…Did you know her?” Fiona asked, a softness in her voice. She… she did have some experience with losing friends to hungry bellies… Even if the experience was secondhand, and the belly was her own… she felt she’d come to appreciate, at least on some level, the pain that could stay behind long after the digestion was over with.
“No,” Harry answered. “But I’ll never forget her…” He glanced sideways at the white-furred gut across the room, now flat as the moment the panda had grabbed them. “…And now she’s gone… totally erased… nothing left at all…”
“Not quite,” the werewolf replied quietly.
He looked over to her, waiting on her words of wisdom.
“Speaking from experience, if she had the girl for lunch yesterday, there’s probably still a little left in there somewhere. Not to mention the added weight-” she lowered her voice further- “That panda doesn’t look like she gets too much exercise.”
“Er, uh… thanks,” he stuttered uncomfortably.
“Look, for what it’s worth, I think you’re a nice kid. …I’m sorry that happened to you. You don’t deserve to have to go through something like that twice.”
“Um… twice?” he asked, almost wishing she wouldn’t answer at this point.
“Well, I mean… Most humans get gurgled eventually, right? But try not to worry about it too much, most humans don’t have a werewolf looking out for them.”
She smiled at him; her vaguely intimidating predator smile. And he smiled back, if a bit uneasily. It hadn’t been a good attempt at comforting him, but it had been an attempt, and he appreciated the effort. It was more than any other pred in school had shown him, that’s for sure.
“Please don your blindfold,” Mr. Belv instructed.
Both Jack’s friends stopped to watch as he nervously covered his eyes with the band of fabric. The butler quietly uttered a spell that would begin spinning the boy around to disorient him, but neither of them quite heard it, because at that moment Harry noticed something:
“Look,” he said, with a covert point of his finger and a bit of urgency in his voice.
Fiona glanced over and her eyes fell on the panda girl; she was getting up from her chair and glancing over at the crowd, one hand conspicuously rubbing her empty belly.
“Left!”
“Right!”
“Right!”
“Up!”
“Left!”
Various calls from various bystanders overlapped in the air as the game began and Jack stumbled toward the target, but Fiona and Harry found themselves a tad distracted.
“…She’s going for him,” Harry said, fear bubbling up in his chest, his mind helpfully replaying the moment he’d watch the black and white predator devour that girl in front of him- only now she was substituted for Jack.
“No,” Fiona said hopefully, but everything from her tone to the way her eyes narrowed said she was more than a little worried he was right. “Sarabeth promised none of the preds here would eat him,” she told him- and herself.
The panda rubbed her gut again and looked pretty firmly in Jack’s direction, walking toward him through the swarm of guests.
Sarabeth, unnoticed, grew the tiniest of smirks, silently watching from her place at the head of the crowd.
Fiona began to move, feeling a bit of fear herself. That girl was not small; she was a panda bear after all. A thought returned to the werewolf’s mind, a memory from one of Jack’s first days back in school. Grizz had grabbed him, and she’d been powerless. She’d watched her friend loom closer and closer to the bear’s gullet and hadn’t been able to do a thing to save him. What would she do now if this panda got her hands on him? Bargain? What could she offer that would be better than Jack? Charge in wildly again? Appeal to her better nature? Call out for help and start a brawl? Sarabeth would hate her for that, but she’d do it if it meant saving her friend’s life.
She readied herself for action, claws bared, walking quickly through the curving crowd as they called out directions. The two of them would meet just at the inner edge, just before Jack, werewolf and panda bear collided. She’d turn that white fur red before she let-
The tie-dyed predator stopped. Only a moment or two from meeting Fiona, she’d come to a halt to talk to… Mr. Belv? The butler was standing near the game target, waiting patiently. The panda leaned in and said a few words, and the man pointed across the room and said a few more in reply. Then the lumbering predator turned around and calmly trodded off away from everyone.
She’s… not going after Jack, Fiona realized.
She’s not going after Jack!? Sarabeth screamed internally.
The wolf girl watched the panda head for the doors that led into the northern wing of the mansion, and having visited before, she knew that could only really mean one thing.
She was just asking for directions to the bathroom!? Sarabeth scowled.
“Phew!” the werewolf breathed, quickly relaxing. She wasn’t going to have to pry Jack out of a panda’s palm after all! Oh yeah, Jack! she remembered.
She turned to see he was only a step or two away from the board, arm outstretched with fake-teeth in hand, and he was just slightly off from nailing the target right on the shoulder. Fiona thought fast; she hadn’t even looked at what her little slip of paper said, but this would be her only hint, so it didn’t matter.
“Left!” the werewolf called.
Jack moved his hand sharply le- …right, missing the little fleeing man entirely. Rounds of ‘aww’s and ‘haha’s ran through the crowd as the marked boy removed his blindfold.
“Rats,” Fiona frowned, walking over. Her adrenaline was still a bit high, and her instincts were urging her to keep him close. “Sorry, I tried to tell you, but I guess you couldn’t hear me over everyone else.”
“Oh, no, I definitely heard you,” Jack replied with a little smile, as if hinting that the idea he wouldn’t be able to pick her voice out of a crowd was ridiculous.
“Huh? …What, did you think I was messing with you then?” she asked with a raised brow and a smirk, her tone a playful accusation.
“Of course not. You always steer me right. I just… didn’t really want to win this one. …You know.”
Mr. Belv walked up, and Jack handed over the teeth, the marked boy having failed to ‘mark his meal’.
“Oh, yeah… I can understand that,” Fiona replied with a touch of awkward guilt. She probably should have thought of that. In fairness, she’d been a bit busy keeping him outside of a panda’s stomach, so that probably made up for it, even if it was a false alarm.
“Oh man,” Harry blurted as he arrived. He kept his voice at a reasonable level, but his concern was still easily heard. “I thought you were a goner, Jack.” Then he turned to Fiona. “What happened? What did you do?”
“Nothing, I-”
“Wait, did something happen while I was playing?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, the panda who ate me yesterday was coming to grab you while you were blindfolded.”
“She was!?”
“No,” Fiona asserted. Harry looked at her with confusion.
“But… but if she wasn’t trying to eat Jack, what was she trying to do?”
“Probably take care of that girl from yesterday,” the werewolf answered candidly.
There was a moment of silence as both boys put together what she meant, and the silence only continued as they followed up by awkwardly shuffling their feet.
Eventually, Fiona broke the hush herself.
“So, Harry, question: when it’s your turn, do you want it to end marked or unmarked?”
“M-my… turn?” He eyed the werewolf, suddenly more uncomfortable and scared than he’d been since meeting her. The question drew his eyes to her belly as it gave a quiet grumble. His turn!? His turn through a predator’s guts and out the other side? Was she really asking him whether he’d rather be bitten before being digested alive? Did she actually plan on making him her dinner after all!? “I- …I-I- guess whatever makes it end the fastest,” he whimpered.
“Wha-? No! Harry! Come on, I mean the game! ‘Mark the meal’? Do you want to actually win or not?” She spoke a tad forcefully, but caught the look on his face and instantly lowered her voice. She moved her hand with the deft skill of a predator but planted her claws on his shoulder with the gentlest of touches. His eyes shot up and locked on hers, staring back at him, intent but friendly. “It’s okay, I’m not going to eat you.”
Harry felt goosebumps at her touch, just about everywhere he had hair. The last time a predator had laid a hand on him… But no, this was different… she was different. He took a breath and nervously adjusted his glasses. She kept still.
“O- okay,” he said, managing to keep most of the tremble from his voice. He offered a weak smile.
She smiled back, and he did his best to overlook all the pointed teeth.
And Jack smiled too. After everything that had happened, it was just… really nice to see his friends getting along.