Raven’s Instinct (A Day Care for Shifters #6)

4. Alan

4

ALAN

A lan didn’t have time to spare thinking about Kendra after she left. A little boy of about two immediately tugged on his hand. “Potty!”

Alan swiftly walked him back to the bathroom, half hunched over to hold his hand. “What’s your name?”

“Bland,” the boy muttered.

“Bland?”

“RY-an.”

“Oh, Ryan. Do you need help?” They had gotten to the bathroom and Ryan shut the door firmly.

“No.”

Alan was taken aback. “Why am I here, then?”

“Luck hoverboard.”

“Luck… hoverboard?”

“LUCK. OVER. BOARD.”

Ryan made it clear by pointing that Alan was to look over THERE and Alan tried not to fidget while the boy fussed with his pants, picked up the seat of the toilet, and took his sweet time tinkling in the bowl.

“Do you need more help now?” Alan asked, when he seemed to be done.

“NO.” More rustling.

“Can you get your pants buttoned?”

“NO.”

“So, you want help now?”

“NO.”

Alan had no idea what to do. It wasn’t like he could overpower the boy and fix his pants and drag him out of the bathroom.

“Can I do something now?” Alan begged.

“NO.”

Alan wasn’t sure how long he would have been trapped in the bathroom with Ryan, who was struggling stubbornly with his pants, except that someone rapped on the door. “I have to go potty!” said a shrill girl’s voice. “Get OUT.”

That was all the excuse that Alan needed. “I’ll just button your pants so we can let her in,” he said.

When Alan turned, Ryan had somehow gotten one of his pant legs off over his shoes and was trying to button them before pulling them up. “NO!” he protested, when Alan swooped in to help.

He was much less cooperative than a CPR dummy, but Alan managed to get his pants on, up over his butt, and buttoned, before the little girl flung the door open, hollering, “I HAVE TO GO!”

“You didn’t wash your hands,” an older girl waiting by the door pointed out. “You’re supposed to wash your hands.”

Ryan gave a shriek of protest and started to run the other direction, but Alan’s adult shifter reflexes outstripped youthful clumsiness, and he managed to catch the boy and frog march him to the playroom sink.

For all the protest he made about washing his hands, it then took Ryan about thirty minutes to stop playing in the water and dry his hands. Alan was pretty sure he would have climbed into the sink if he wasn’t there to stop the boy.

Cherry led a very freeform craft that was supposed to be tissue paper art that looked like stained glass, but really ended up being a mess of glue and colored paper. After cleaning up from that, it was time for lunch, and Alan forgot to eat the meal he’d brought because he was so busy peeling oranges and opening yogurt containers and wiping up spills and feeding fussy babies who had opinions about every bite. Every time he started to sit down, someone was waving a container that they needed opened, or trying to pour a pitcher of water on their friend.

“Do you mind taking the kids who are finished eating outside?” Addison asked. She was patiently helping the younger kids stay focused on their food.

“Of course,” Alan agreed. The oldest kids were already putting their lunchboxes away and finding their boots and mittens.

“You need a hat,” the same girl who had reminded him to wash his hands told him solemnly, pulling on a pink knit hat of her own.

“I…” Alan realized he should probably be setting an example. “I didn’t bring one.”

The little girl looked at him with pity. “There’s a lots and pounds.”

She led him to the lost and found and selected him the largest hat, which still had to stretch to fit over Alan’s head. She didn’t look impressed. “Don’t forget yours tomorrow,” she scolded him.

“THAT’S MY HAT!” Gil greeted him in the back yard.

Alan started to take it off and give it to him, but Gil had already transformed into a rolling armadillo.

The little girl who had given him grief about a hat shifted seamlessly into a long-legged deer like Alan had never seen. She had a rippling iridescent mane and a tail with a tuft at the end. Whiskers drifted weightlessly around her face and she seemed to float above the dead grass in the fenced yard. A very normal cream-colored filly followed her, tossing her head as they frolicked.

Alan tried to teach them all a shifting game he’d played as a child, but swiftly realized that it was too complicated for their attention spans, and settled for running and chasing around the yard, sometimes as a man, sometimes as a raven, until Cherry appeared in the door and called them all inside again. Addison had a book and was starting to read as the kids put away their coats and boots and ran to sit down. Alan chased a reluctant Gil in after them and went to see how he could help.

After he’d tidied up the disaster of boots and gear, Alan lowered himself to a seat at the fringes of the reading circle and was immediately sat upon by Ryan, who appeared to have forgiven him from whatever tortures he’d inflicted earlier. There was a touch at his elbow and he made room on his lap for Amy, who crawled up and cuddled into him with unexpected immediate trust.

Alan found himself stroking her curly head as she burrowed her face into his stomach. His grandmother had theorized that young kids had a stronger connection with instinct. “Because otherwise, the fool-hearted idiots wouldn’t survive to adulthood,” she liked to say.

Did Amy trust him already? Was it nothing more than childish innocence that nothing in the world was dangerous or bad? Or did she somehow know that Alan would be important in her life? At least, Alan certainly hoped he would, remembering Kendra’s slow smile and easy chuckle. He had never been so sure that someone was meant for him.

The kids in his lap felt like a warm glow, like they were all connected. This was where Alan was meant to be, even if he was starting to have some idea of how far he was in over his head.