A week later, I arrived back home from another nights transformation. I fell asleep as soon as my head touched my pillow. When 08:00am came in the morning, my alarm went off and I had to battle myself to get out of bed. When I walked sleepily out of bed, I thought to myself,

"Right, no one apart from the bird girl and I knows what happpened this morning. Everyone else thinks it is simply an ordinary day, with nothing strange happening. Even though strange things have already happened. I am going to get dressed, have breakfast and TRY to pretend I was not up at midnight, transforming into a bird-winged human!"

It was when I got dressed that I noticed my ordinary form had also changed. All along my arms, there were little freckles where my wings had grown earlier this morning. Thankfully, I had always had freckles on my face so it wouldn't look suspiciously strange. When I went downstairs to have breakfast and get ready for school, my foster parents, Dean and Kate were waiting for me.

"Are you feeling okay Layla? I heard you rush downstairs in the middle of the night again!" Dean asked me.

"Yes, I am fine, I just had a nightmare, so I rushed downstairs and then once I was downstairs, I was thirsty so I ran into the kitchen for water." I lied. Well, I couldn't tell them what had really happened could I?

Dean and Kate looked relieved at my response. I finished my breakfast and began to pack my bag for school again. I never called my foster parents 'mum' and 'dad' because they weren't my mum or dad. My real parents were in Srrin right now... I wondered how my mum was doing in a peaceful part of Srrin. Was she worried about me? How would she react if she knew I grew bird wings at dawn? I decided not to ponder over these questions and instead, chose to forget about them. Worrying about such troubles would never get me anywhere. Finally, it was time for me to leave the house to go to school.

As I walked into school, I thought about the pupils in my class. Some were okay, some were really nasty and/or unpleasant and most of them I had no opinion of, although they did intrigue me. One girl in particular who I had no opinion of was a girl called Catherine, nicknamed 'Cat' for some reason. She was not popular but neither was she a loner like me. She had a bunch of her own friends, who she hung out with a lot, laughing, talking, texting. There was an unusual thing about Cat, her hair. It was shoulder length and very thick, with two strange little tufts at the top of her head. At first I thought these tufts looked almost like ears, but they were just clumps of hair. Cat also wore a lot of mascara, in a 'cat eyes' fashion. The reason I am talking about Cat is because if the following event had not happened, much of this story also wouldn't have happened. It was the first lesson after lunch and my class had an english lesson. During class, my teacher came up to the front of the classroom and told us:

"Okay Senior 3, the book we are going to be a doing a close reading activity of is 'Werewolf Hill"

Werewolf hill! That didn't sound like something I would want to read, as it would probably be full of cliches but oh well. As my teacher began to read it aloud, it lived up to my expextations. It was full of werewolf cliches and so boring. Though looking around the classroom, I noticed some people had more of a problem with the story than I did. Several people around the classroom were shifting uncomfortably in their seats, one of the people doing so was Cat. Then, one of the naughtiest boys in my class made a comment when the teacher got to a bit where a werewolf howls on heathland.

"Hey everyone, Hasn't there been strange howling and yowling noises near the 'Suncliff' mountain range lately?"

The people who were shifting uncomfortably in their seats all replied,

"No, why would there be anything howling on those mountains? There are no howling creatures like wolves in the UK!"

The bad boy continued to go on, with the teacher unable to control my class. He continued talking about how the strange howling and yowling noises had been going on for some time and we should all be suspicious. As he went on, I saw Cat become increasingly stressed. Then I sensed magic in the room. This sixth sense of mine, the magic sense, was picking up magic going on in this room. I looked at Cats table and saw that the tufts of hair on her head were changing shape, becoming almost shaped into... cat ears! I also noticed her eyes had gone all weird, although I didn't really see them properly as Cat saw me watching and covered her face with her hands. Then, I remembered what the bird girl had told me when I first transformed. She had told me you had to NEVER show your transformation or powers to ordinary humans to stay safe. I quickly realised Cat was transforming and was therefore in danger! At her table, the friends she was next to were too caught up in an argument in a strange language to help her. In an instant, I knew I had to get Cat out of the classroom right now. I raised my hand and asked the teacher,

"Can I take Cat to the first aid room? She looks pretty sick..."

The teacher looked at Cat and Cat, with her face still covered with her hands, coughed a few times to look more convinving. The teacher looked at me again and allowed me to take her out of class to the first aid room. I went over to Cat and she got out of her chair. We both ran out of the classroom. As we thundered along the corridor, Cats eyes were on show and I saw how strange they'd gone. They were blue like Cats eyes normally were, but the pupil was slitted: Cats eyes looked like an actual cats eyes. The tufts of hair on her head were now shaped like cat ears and her nails were growing. As we ran out of school speedily, Cat tried to lose me several times, however, I always found her again. We ran out of town and into a forest and Cat tried once more to run away from me and lose me. But, fortunately for me, I am a human who grows bird wings at dawn and the power to always be fit was one of the things I had gained since transforming for the first time. So, I caught up with her easily. Cat saw me effortlessly catching up with her as she went into the forest and seeing she couldn't lose me, hissed at me in frustration. A few metres on, Cat suddenly fell to the ground, landing on all fours. Then, she began to transform. I watched her transform and when her transformation was finished, I saw a panther with glossy black fur and blue eyes where Cat had fallen to the ground. I now knew she wasn't a true human.

Cat was a Werecat.