Ouchie

Jimmy was at the beach with his parents. An average 8 year old, Jimmy always enjoyed the beech, and he often came there with his parents. Today was different, his parents both had a feeling that something was going to happen, but they couldn't put their fingers on exactly what it was. The beech was strangely empty that day, it was open, yet there was no one else there. His parents set up their umbrella and blanket and watched as Jimmy ran down the beech towards the water and started to make a sand castle.

The visit had gone without incident when Jimmy was digging in the sand and felt a prick on his finger.

"Ouch! What was that!" he said. He reached up to look at the finger, a small streak of blood ran down it.

"What pricked me?" he asked himself. Then he saw it, sometime sticking out of the sand. Carefully digging it out, he saw that it was a needle.

"Ack! This is bad!" he said. His ears suddenly started to feel odd, they started to tingle, and felt itchy. He reached up to scratch them, and felt something odd and very unexpected. His ears weren't where they were supposed to be! He felt around his head for them and found them at the top of his head. They felt strange, they were furry and round!

"What's wrong with my ears!" he said.

"I'd better let Mom and Dad see this!”. As he ran up towards them his face started to feel strange, as if something were pulling on it and making it itchy. He got up to his parents to tell them what had happened, when they started to freak out.

"Jimmy! Your face what happened?". Jimmy told them about the needle and how he hack pricked himself on it as he started feeling his face. His face felt warm and furry. He felt a muzzle, which had whiskers growing out of it and had a small black nose at the end of it. His neck and chest were starting to feel itchy and he could see fur starting to grow.

"What's happening to me?" he asked.

"I don't know, but we have to get you to a hospital!" his parents responded. In the time it took to say that, Jimmy seemed to have shrunk a bit, his bathing suit was now very big on him. The fur that was starting to grow down his neck and onto his chest had become thick, like a pelt, and the growth of fur had expanded to down his chest, all the way to his belly and on each of his arms, down to his elbows. Jimmy seemed more fascinated then scared over what was happening to him.

"What am I turning into?" he asked, apparently knowing what was happening to him. His parents examined the fur on his body, it was brown with some gray mixed in, but the telltale sign was the coloration of the fur on his face. Around each eye, he had back fur, which looked like a mask. This combined with the shape of his ears and color and texture of his fur led them to only one conclusion.

"Jimmy, I think your turning into a raccoon!" his father said. Jimmy suddenly shrunk even more, so much that his swim suit fell of! The fur on his chest continued to grow, and his entire chest was quickly covered in a thick pelt of brown fur. The fur on his arms proceeded down, reaching his hands. The top of each hand became covered in a light covering of fur. His hands reshaped and his fingers readjusted themselves such that he still had 5 fingers on each hand, but he had no real thumb. Small claws grew from each finger and his fingers seemed to get longer and more nimble. The fact he was now naked didn't seem to bother him, in fact it seemed almost like a relief.

The fur growth reached his waist and as it reached his hips, they started to change shape drastically and he found himself falling forward. His hips and legs adjusted themselves for 4 footed movement rather then 2 footed. The lengths of his arms adjusted and matched up with his new legs, making standing on 4 feet perfectly natural and comfortable. Fur grew all over his legs and his feet. His feet changed shape slightly, with a toe on each foot being absorbed into the foot and the foot changing shape such that 4 toes was normal. Small claws grew from the base of each toe. Jimmy continued to shrink, as he shrunk, he felt a tingling at the base of his spine. He was not surprised when a tail grew from it. The tail was furry and had several black rings on it. Jimmy tried to say something, but he found that he could no longer speak. He was only able to make growing and warbling sounds. He continued to shrink until he no was bigger then a baby raccoon that was well developed by still very young.

The little raccoon looked up at his parents, he was scared, not knowing what was going to happen to him next.

"Don't worry son, we'll take good care of you", his father said, as his mother picked out a pair of apples from the picnic basket. Jimmy immediately jumped at them and chowed down on them, devouring them in a matter of minutes. Satisfied, he warbled happily and curled up in a little ball on the blanked and went to sleep.