A local five-person band had just finished its latest concert, with its jazz cover of “Mighty Wings.” The band’s leader, a fox anthro, took in a deep breath as she rested her trumpet against her chest as the audience applauded and cheered. “Thank you and good night, everybody!” she called out. In her mind, though, Catherine was bemoaning the large numbers of eyes on her, as she never was one for the attention of a crowd. All five of them lined up and took a bow as the audience began to leave, and they went to start putting their equipment away.

“We put in a mighty fine performance tonight,” their drummer, the wolf Karina, drawled. Her ebony fur glistened for a moment as she walked through the beam of a spotlight that was constricted to shine specifically where the bass guitarist had been standing. With a grunt, she lifted the kick drum and started carrying it to her car. The rest of the band followed suit, all carrying their instrument and a part of Karina’s drum set and following Karina outside. The wolf opened her small car’s trunk, then pointed to the kick drum, followed by a pinching gesture. At once, the drum shrank to the size of a baseball, and from there the wolf knelt down, picked it up, and put it down, swiftly repeating the process with the rest of her set as her band fellows brought it to her.

Once that was done, Catherine, after a big yawn, asked, “Shall we plan the next practice session and maybe get some new songs, or should we just call it a night?” The vixen looked to the four other anthros who had been her friends for many years,standing under the harsh yellow light of one of the streetlamps that illuminated the pavilion parking lot’s reserved area. Already, numerous vehicles had already created lines on the other side of the building as those who had been in the audience got into their own cars to head home.

“I had a couple of ideas,” the bass guitarist, the tabby Kaze, said, scrolling through some website or another on his phone, searching for ideas. He opened up his own car, and proceeded to put his own instrument in the back. He turned around to add something to the discussion as he shut the door, then suddenly stumbled, and so did their trombone player, the arctic vixen Aileas.

“Kaze, Aileas, are you two okay?” Lehua, the other red fox and the saxophone player, asked. Catherine turned to look at what was going on, and now nobody had their eyes on Karina, and thus could not have noticed that smirk of hers. Meanwhile, Aileas and Kaze looked at each other - Kaze’s green eyes had taken Aileas’ blue coloration, and vice versa. Everyone, sans the wolf, stood there quite confused as the arctic fox and tabby cat sputtered at each other, at least until Aileas stumbled again, and Lehua gasped.

Then Karina giggled. The other four turned to look at her nervously, to find the wolf pointing with one hand at herself, and another at Catherine. Karina tilted her head a little, and then turned each hand around. Catherine felt as if she was being spun around very rapidly while falling as everything around her went black for a moment, and when her vision returned, she found herself looking at herself over Karina’s snout! The wolf giggled from Catherine’s body, looking back at her with eyes that had been hazel, but were now piercing yellow. They did, however, maintain the thin, vertical pupils of a fox. “Ya like it?” Karina asked through Catherine’s body. “I’d almost forgotten that I can do this!”

“Undo this,” Lehua said through Aileas.

“Aw, but it’s fun! Come on, why can’t we all just stay like this for a day or two?”

“Fine,” Catherine relented. “So, are we all going to our homes or the homes of whomever’s body we’re in?”

“I say the former! A day or so in each others’ shoes won’t hurt, right?” Karina declared. A few sighs went around as each person climbed into their vehicle and drove home one by one.


* * * * * *

The following day, after Karina gave her a brief rundown of how everything worked to make sure the know-how had successfully transferred over, paired with a series of what-if questions, Catherine unlocked the outer doors to the library and stepped in, pushing the inner doors to the vestibule open and heading to the desk, homing in on a single lamp that was intentionally left on overnight to provide just enough light to get behind the desk and turn on the rest of the lights. Thunder could be heard outside as very dark clouds moved in, the storm detected a few days ago rolling in right on time.


The wolf was alone for almost an hour before a small group of young adults came in, and who should have followed a few minutes later, but Catherine’s wife, the tigress Ning! She gave a knowing grin to the wolf behind the desk as she went by, starting for the history section, but stopped and turned. “Hey, honey,” she said.

“Morning, Ning. Been thinkin’ of doin’ this more often, I like how quiet it is here. That, and I reckon bein’ a raccoon or a snow leopard for a time may be fun.” Among other things the body-swap had done, the accent managed to stay with the original body somehow, and Catherine was having fun with it. “Nothing long-term or anythin’ like that, I like having my own memories and thoughts, even if they’re tangled with my friend’s - and definitely no leaving my fate to an Internet poll.”

Ning shook her head. “Not even I… what kind of person would do that to a friend or lover?”

“At least when we transform people, they either ask for it of their own free will or they do something to bring it upon themselves!” She looked over to her right, towards a window that had been smashed and swiftly replaced a few weeks ago. She jabbed a finger at the pane of glass that was now there. “The latter means you, Steven.”

The attention of both anthros was brought over to the back of the room by the sound of books being tossed about and torn, the group from earlier shouting excitedly about what was going on back there, and the tigress caught a glimpse of a phone poking out from one of the shelves, its camera pointing at the couple at the desk. It quickly disappeared as Catherine leapt over the desk and bolted across the room. “You!” she roared. “What do you think you’re doing!?” She arrived at a scene of total mayhem, various books, many of which were older than her, destroyed!

“Well, recording a video, duh!” one of the group said as if that would undo all the damage he was causing. That made something click in Catherine’s head, and she held her hands out, open, with the palms towards the ceiling, and closed them suddenly and tightly. Five of the six bodies went stuff at once, shrinking and compressing into rectangular prisms made of leather and paper, splitting up into two or three apiece to replace the books that they had destroyed. Ink formed on the pages that had once been parts of people, exactly replicating each piece of literature that the brats had destroyed for their online attention-seeking, and the paper they were now made from yellowed as it was magically aged, leaving one untransformed and shaky young woman, still holding the phone and shaking with fear, surrounded by novels scattered about the floor and the wreckage of the originals.

“Get out,” Catherine ordered, pointing to the door. The woman stood there for a moment, and then bolted hard enough to make the floor shake. “Sheesh. Now, I can quite easily fix what you destroyed,” she said as she started putting the newly-made books in their proper places, “but I think spendin’ a few days like this should teach y’all an important lesson.”


Some three hours later, alone again and on her lunch break, Catherine decided to check her phone, and found that she had gotten a message from Karina. Can’t hold down the fort for one day without chaos rearing its head, can you? It read. After that was a link to a video, the very thing that had been recorded in the library further. It was titled, Library Destruction Prank (GONE WRONG) (MY FRIENDS GOT TURNED INTO BOOKS) (THEY’RE STILL THERE) complete with the thumbnail being made of “shocked face right in front of the camera” and the red arrow pointing to some blurry detail in the background inside of a red circle.

Catherine could not help but laugh, texting back, Please enjoy my contribution to cheap entertainment. She looked up and out one of the windows of the small break room, seeing how strong the storm had become, knowing she’d have to walk through that when this day was over, but at least this body’s winter coat was growing in! “I should be a wolf more often,” she said to herself.