The Orphan Read Online Free

The Orphan
Book: The Orphan Read Online Free
Author: Robert Stallman
Pages:
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and laugh until I am foaming at the mouth.
    The Nordmeyers have two yard dogs, one a large female Springer Spaniel named Josie, the other a witless German Shepherd named Biff. Josie leaves me alone, crawling under the brooder house whenever I appear. Biff has never learned anything in his life. He is so stupid that he swallows the cockleburrs he pulls out of his fur, unable to think of anything else to do with something that is in his mouth. He hears something (me!) behind the milk house, and while Josie is retiring to her hiding place, I hear him tiptoeing up to surprise me. I lie flat in the grass, my body spreadeagled like a bear rug, my jaws yawned open. Bill springs. from behind the milk house, stiff legged and masculine, expecting to find a neighbor dog. He has no nose, really. I look up at him from behind my gaping muzzle, trying not to laugh.
    Biff stands there, astonished at the bear rug in the grass. He approaches inch by inch, stretches his neck out, jerking back at an imaginary sound, stretching again to sniff my outstretched paw. Suddenly I snap my jaws shut loudly and grab him by the throat. He cannot make a sound and coils up like a salamander trying to get away.
    “Nice Biff,” I say, holding him by the neck, not choking him much. “Wanna play, Biff?” I roll over on my back and hold him with all four paws, just tight enough so he can’t get away. The minute I let go of his throat he begins to squeal. I have never heard a dog squeal before. It is an interesting sound. I set him on his feet with his back to the milk house wall. He stands hunched up, a dog hunchback. Very funny. I reach out to pat his head, and he crumples as if I had hit him. I get down, butt in the air in dog play position. He stares at me from his crumpled shape. I get up and hop about him like a big demented bunny. His eyes roll, and he looks as if he wants to become part of the cement wall.
    Then it seeps through my foggy brain. I really do want to play with him, roll on the ground with another creature and bite in fun and rough each other up. Could I shift into a dog shape? The thought unsettles me. I giggle. Biff groans. The two dogs are always playing, running in circles, rolling on the grass, chasing the bull Humphrey out in the back pasture, going halves on a rabbit.
    I get down on all fours. “Now watch this, Biff,” I say playfully. I concentrate as much as the beer will allow, on Josie. JOSIE, I think, trying to pull my mind into a doggy point. JOSIE! Something happens. Biff jerks back, bumping his head against the wall. I am almost Josie, but my head and shoulders remain me. Must look awful. I try again. I concentrate. Shift. This time I’ve got it. I look back over my shoulder: dog from ears to black spotted tail. I wag the tail. Biff is terrified, looking at my legs. Oh cripe. I am a large edition of Josie but I have four of Little Robert’s legs, pink toes and all. As I close my eyes to concentrate again, Biff makes a break for the corncrib where he has a hidey hole. I follow him slowly, shift back to my own form and peer under the building at the drooling, quivering dog.
    “Just a minute, dammit,” I say to Biff. “I’m doing this so we can have some fun.”
    It is becoming difficult to hold an image. All this concentration with my weakened mind is tough to do. I manage another shift. No. Wrong again. I hear Biff scrabbling back further under the crib, banging his head and elbows on the floor joists. I am dog on one end, nothing on the other. I look like a horrible, dog faced caterpillar. Biff begins to howl a deathly, hollow sound from under the crib. Maybe I can’t be a dog. It is like squeezing a balloon. One part gets squeezed into the right shape, but another part pooches out wrong, so to speak. I let it go and shift back to my natural form.
    “Ooooeet?”
    Damned smartass owl. I catch his vibrations from the first branch of the walnut tree next to the garden fence. I slip into the shadow of the fence, drift
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