NINE

Dad was unhappy. You could see it in his brow, and in the creases shielding his mouth from the onslaught of his flubby cheeks. Worried rolls of skin knotted his forehead, and as he paced before Fox and I, wringing his sweaty hands, I knew I had done it this time.

“We can’t possibly keep it,” he said at last.

We were at home in the apartment, but the rush of air entering my lungs made it sound like we were outside braving record-breaking gales. I had been holding my breath just as firmly as I held the squirming Fox in my lap, waiting for any sort of response—be it good or bad— my dad would give me. Upon entering our home and flipping on the light, Dad had dropped my suitcase and pointed at the couch. No verbal command was necessary; I knew without him saying that I was in floundering in deep water. I sat and knew I would keep quiet until he spoke, no matter how long it meant sitting there.

Fox, however, had no such convictions. Being the fanciful god he was, he wanted to explore his future home. He was bored of just “sitting still”, and tired of being cooped up in my bags and in my arms. Mentally, he begged me to release him so he could stretch his legs, but I ignored his pleas and held him steadfast.

But then Dad had spoken, and it was time for me to do my best—for Fox’s sake and my own.

“Dad—” I began, but he cut me off.

“We can’t have a pet, Sally! It’s against the lease on our apartment!”

“But—”

“If the landlady caught any animal in our apartment, she’d have us on the street so fast—do you want to be homeless, Sally?”

“I—”

“And why a fox? Why couldn’t you pick up a cat or some ordinary pet? What possessed you to bring home a wild fox?”

“Dad,” I said, annoyed. “You’re not letting me explain—”

“Furthermore,” he added, his face twisting to reveal his true fear. “You know we can’t afford another mouth to feed.”

The tenseness of my father admitting just how poor we were made us both uneasy. Fox, of course, was oblivious.

“I’ll get a job,” I said, surprised by the suddenness of my own idea. My father looked at me, and his face said he was just as skeptical as I was.

“You? Work? Sweetpea, be serious.” He didn’t sound amused.

“I’ll pay for all of his expenses, and I’ll never ask for spending money again.”

“You’re not even old enough to work,” he pointed out.

“And I’ll keep him in my room, too,” I continued, ignoring him. I’d find a job somewhere—someone would hire me, even if I was only fifteen. I’d be sixteen in December, and that only a handful of months away, after all. I had to give Fox a home; I had promised him I would.

Dad sighed. He was relenting, and I was glad he was.

“Is it feral?” he asked, eyeing Fox with suspicion. I laughed a bit when the kitsune’s ears drooped.

“Of course not,” I said.

“Why does it have two tails?” Mentally, I cursed; I hadn’t realized Fox had forgot to hide his extra tail.

“Er...a mutation?” I offered lamely. Dad’s brow bristled.

“How did you come across it, anyway?” Dad hesitantly stepped closer, peering at the “wild animal” laying strangely docile in my lap.

“He... sorta chose me,” I said, smiling softly. I caught the animal god’s eye, and I saw a twinkle there that I knew was shining in my own. It was a sheen of a shared secret, a sparkle of tangled cosmic strings tying us together.

Dad seemed satisfied, because he sighed and scratched Fox behind the ears. “He is kinda cute.”

With that, I knew I had won the battle, but it was little comfort. A war loomed ahead; Fox could stay, so long as I got a blasted job.

- - -

In the morning, after Dad had went to work, Fox and I went job hunting. Seeing as neither of us had no idea what this entailed, I decided to go to the library and glance over a few reference pieces, hoping the advice within would help me get employed as soon as possible. Mostly because walking around with a six-foot tall man wearing short shorts and frilly tank tops was attracting a lot of unwanted attention, and short of wearing my father’s khaki shorts, (shorts that would fall off of Fox’s bony hips within the first step or two,) there was nothing I could yet do about it.

From there, we picked up the want-ads and I began to scour, circling anything and everything that could possibly work for me. Once I had finished and Fox had thoroughly explored the library, we set out.

If my life had been a movie, Fox would have been the guy in the theater who sat dead-center in the first row wearing an obscene, ten-gallon hat. He was the guy who hooted and hollered at every unexpected twist—the obnoxious prat who threw popcorn at the screen and shouted into his cellphone when the plot lulled. He snuck in his own drinks and left their empty shells all over the floor when he was done. He would be, undeniably, the biggest pain in the history of cinema.

He was kind of like that when it came to job hunting too.

The first job we checked out was promising. Busing tables couldn’t be too difficult, right? My father was a waiter—he might have been proud of me for succeeding him in the quote, family business. They seemed to like me well enough, and they (bless them) gave me a shot. All I had to do was clear tables and not cause any trouble, and I’d have myself a job. At first, it went well. Great, even. Then, Fox got bored.

While I was craftily balancing a gigantic try of plates and glassware, Fox thought it’d be hilarious to hide beneath a table and stick his foot out in front of me. I tripped, lost my balance, and dropped the tray. A hundred pairs of eyes focused on me and the dishes in pieces at my feet. Fox’s raucous laughter was only a snicker from beneath the table to most, but to me, inside my head, it was deafening, magnifying my humiliation. I hastily recalled something from The Dos and Don’t of Getting Employed saying, “Smile: potential employers like to see those charming pearly whites!” My pained, embarrassed grimace-of-a-grin only caused Fox to laugh louder.

Needless to say, I wasn’t hired.

The next jobs went much the same way. I tried a babysitting job; Fox thought it would be funny (for some indiscernible reason) to not only have a water fight in the kitchen (i.e.:douse the children with the pull-out sprayer), but to also hold them kicking-and-screaming out the top-story windows to dry. A respectable cleaning job at a retirement home resulted in a bunch of unconscious, senile old people having mustaches drawn on their faces; when they woke up and saw each other, they went into a panic and screamed, and, like a set of dominoes in motion, the entire facility was soon disquiet and in uproar. Dog walking was a disaster—the canines were lucky they didn’t die, and I was lucky I didn’t get arrested.

By that time, the sun (and my hopes) had began to sink behind the distant mountain. Dismayed, I trudged back to the library to return the reference material. Fox walked—pranced was a more fitting word—next to me, humming to himself, completely oblivious to the stares he attracted.

“Today was such a fun day! We should go job hunting again tomorrow, Sally!” he exclaimed joyously.

I stopped in my tracks and gawked at him. Sensing I wasn’t at his side, he turned and looked at me. He blinked twice. “What is it?”

“Fun? You thought today was fun?”

“You did not enjoy?”

I stood there a good while, sputtering. There were so many ways to sta rt a sentence—“Are you insane?”, or “You humiliated me!”, or even “How could today be fun?”

None of them really did my infuriation justice.

“You just don’t get it!” His eyebrows furrowed. Fox was just so...innocent. So naive. He was so out-of-touch with the world that he was plain incapable of realizing what he was doing. He certainly had a human’s shape and he had certainly been cursed with a human’s heart, but he was not human. “You’re just unable get it, aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?” Fox was beginning to look troubled. “I do not understand. Was I supposed to get you something? What do you want? Are you not feeling well? Have I done something wrong?”

“Fox, listen to me,” I took a deep breath and placed my hands on his bony shoulders. He looked down at me curiously. “If you’re going to continue living with me, you have to promise me something.”

“Anything,” he said without any hesitation.

“And no crossing your fingers this time, either,” I remarked sullenly. He smiled sheepishly and held his hands up for me to see.

“I will do my best to live up to your request,” Fox said humbly, bowing his head.

I sighed and released him. “When you live in the human world, you can’t go around pulling pranks all the time. You’ll get me into serious trouble. If you’re going to live with me, you’re not allowed to trick anybody, you got that?”

Fox looked as if I had struck him across the face. “What?”

“You can feel guilt now, can’t you? Why don’t you feel bad for humiliating me today? For tormenting those old people and those children, and good god, those poor dogs?”

“I–I hurt you?” Fox’s face was full of disbelief.

I rolled my eyes, shrugging off that smarting ache in my chest. “You’re such an idiot, you know that? Just don’t prank me anymore, alright? I’ll never get a job if you keep this up.”

“I am sorry!” Fox was crying all of a sudden, clutching and clawing at his heart as big, dewy tears poured from his eyes. His knees gave out beneath him, and his haggard breath was only worsened by the sobs shaking his frail, thin chest. People passing us on the sidewalk stared at us, hastily swerving to avoid any contact at all. “I am so sorry!”

“Christ, Fox,” I moaned, exasperated, dropping to my knees. “Pull yourself together! It’s not a big deal!”

“I thought we were having fun!” he sobbed. “I did not mean to cause trouble for you!”

“Oh, please,” I rolled my eyes. “I cause more trouble for myself than that every day.”

His tears halted for only a second, in which he looked directly in my eyes. “You lie.”

“Well—” He burst into tears again, leaving me unable to cover my lie.

“I do not know how to live in your world! I do not know any better!” he wailed.

“Come on, please stop crying?” I brushed a tear out of his slanted, golden eye, smiling softly. At times like this, if it wasn’t for his long legs and godly aura, I might have mistaken him for a child. I caught myself mid-dab and jumped back. Fox was not a child in need of having his eyes dried, and I was not his mother. Fox was an animal—Fox was a god.

And I was the person who would teach him to live with a human heart.

“I need to get these back to the library,” I said, standing and reclaiming my books from the sidewalk. “If you’re going to sit here and cry, you can do it by yourself.”

Fox stared at me, bewildered.

“You are leaving me here? Alone?” I was almost suckered in by his pitiful puppy-eyes, but I managed to look away and save myself.

“Yeah, unless you get up and follow along. I’m not afraid to leave you here.” I started walking, and sure enough, it was only a few moments before Fox was trailing behind me, his bottom lip sticking out in an upset pout.

“Gotta love that reverse psychology,” I mumbled to myself.

“What?” Fox asked. “Did you say something?”

“Not a thing.” I replied with a smile, being sure to keep my head angled so he couldn’t see. “Nothing at all.”

- - -

“How’d the job search go?” the librarian asked over the top of her magazine as I dropped my books in the return slot. I glanced at Fox, who was busy tapping on the glass of a nearby fish tank, amusing himself as the fish swam away.

“Calamitous would be an understatement,” I replied with a wince. The librarian and I were on good terms. Her name was Leslie, and when she wasn’t a librarian, she was an artist. She had frizzy blonde hair, a middle-aged, sun-kissed face, and she always dressed like she was about to go hiking.

There was a sense of chumminess between us due to my frequency of visits— due to the fact this tiny, dusty library was rarely visited by anyone else. A few months ago, a massive, state-of-the-art library opened on the other side of town, and although this one—this archaic, inner-city mockery—was both understocked and outdated, I liked this library the best. It had a charm about it that put me at ease.

Plus it was closer to home, and books are heavy.

“That’s a shame.”

“You’re telling me. Nobody’s going to hire me with that lunatic following me around,” I mumbled, jerking my thumb in the kitsune’s direction. He was sticking his fingers in the water and attempting to scratch his newfound aquatic friends’s underbellies.

“I think he’s endearing,” Leslie remarked. “In that quirky, weird sort of way. Who is he anyway? Boyfriend?”

“He’s my—cousin. He’s staying with me for a while.” I said awkwardly.

“That’s a bigger shame. He’s real cute.”

“At least you can tell he’s a he,” I observed as I grabbed my bag, turning for the door. “Fox! Come on—we’re going!”

“Sally,” the librarian’s voice caused me to stop and turn. Had I forgotten something? “If you’re willing, I could use someone to cart books to that new library across town. Sometimes people request some of the crap stored here, and it usually falls to me to get them over there, but I just don’t seem to have the time anymore. I can give you two-hundred a month.”

“Two-hundred a month?” I repeated dumbly. Was she offering me a job?

“I’d need you on the weekends and on Wednesdays, shuttling books between libraries,” she stated. “I know it’s not really a glamorous job offer, but...”

“No!” I blurted. She was! Someone wanted to hire me! “It’s great—perfect, even. I’ll do it.”

“Great! You can start immediately, then,” she said with a laugh.

“Sally has found a job?” Fox’s ears perked and he trotted over, turning his attention to the librarian. “You have employed Sally?”

“I have,” Leslie replied, amused by Fox’s eccentricity.

“Thank you so much for employing Sally! She needed this job very, very much!” Fox ensnared the woman’s hands and meaningfully stared into her eyes. I didn’t miss the light blush that cast itself across my new boss’s cheeks, or that girlish giggle that escaped her lips.

Oh, great. Fox had an admirer.

“Thank you.” I said, bowing slightly. My gratitude had no other words to say.

“I’ll see you Wednesday,” she replied, smiling knowingly. Her smile turned to one of personal conquest, and she glanced back over at Fox. “And don’t forget to bring him with you.”

Commentary:

Well, this two two months longer than I had expected. I had hoped to get this out by April 1st in order to prank you all, but I, quite frankly, did not feel the trickster vibe. However, I woke up this morning ready and willing to finish this chapter, so here you go. It's just one of those chapters making way for what's to come. Hope you liked it. Next chapter includes the introduction of our second Trickster, so be prepared for fun and carnage! :D

Now that it's getting closer to something interesting, I might update faster. ;) R/R, please! They'll fuel my need to write, for sure!

-Skylar Alexander