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The little girl was quite sweet, actually. She had the blue eyes and golden curls of a Wonder Bread advertisement, and she’d greeted Charles with a big wet kiss on the cheek. Though supernaturally adorable, she was no mutant.
“But she is!” her mother insisted. By the frantic look in her eyes, Charles would have thought that her daughter was running around murdering people, not crawling under his desk searching for a kitty cat. “She can control people’s minds!”
Charles smiled at her in a way that was meant to be reassuring, but came off as patronizing. “I can assure you, ma’am, your daughter is no mutant. I have looked into her mind, and she has no more power to control people than any other charming little girl.”
For proof, Charles pointed over at Erik, who was crouched next to the girl saying, “Liebling, I promise there is no kitty here! Look, come on, let’s look under the chair. Is there a kitty here?” The girl shook her head and pouted and again asked for the kitty. “No, schatzi, there is no kitty cat.”
Her mother pleaded with Charles. “You just looked at her? That’s all you did? Can’t you do some kind of test on her? Test for the gene?”
“There’s no need, ma’am,” Charles told her. “She is not a mutant.”
Behind them, the little girl squealed “Kitty!” and pointed at Erik, who gamely meowed and dropped to his hands and knees. The little girl was delighted, and so was Charles.
“That’s it, then?” her mother asked. “You’re just saying no and sending me home with her? You’re not even going to help? God knows what will become of us!”
Charles sighed and led her towards the door. “If you would like, I would be happy to send you the names of some preschools in your area. Other than that, I’m afraid there isn’t any more I can do for you.”
The girl’s mother shook her head in disappointment. “Come on, sweetie, let’s go home.” The little girl skipped across the office to her mother’s side, and they left hand in hand.
When they’d gone, Charles turned back to Erik. “She was cute, though, wasn’t she? She looked like she’d walked right off a box of cookies.”
Erik stood and walked over to Charles. He didn’t say a word, just nuzzled against Charles’ shoulder, rubbed his cheek against Charles’ wool sweater.
Charles laughed and ran his hand across Erik’s hair. “Might I remind you that you’re the one who said he didn’t want children.” Erik seemed to be enjoying having his hair stroked. When Charles’s fingers drifted behind his ears, Erik pressed into the touch, tilted his head for more. “You’re a very strange man sometimes, Erik.”
At that, Erik removed his cheek from Charles’ shoulder, walked over to the couch, curled up, and instantly fell asleep.
“Very strange man.” Charles shook his head and returned to the paperwork at his desk.
About an hour into his nap, Erik stood, walked around the couch, curled back onto it in a different position, and went right back to sleep.
Another two hours went by before Erik finally woke up with an epic stretch, throwing his arms straight up and his feet out. His whole body curved backwards, arching as deeply as possible, until he reached the limit and shook it out. He then got up from the couch and sat in a chair in front of Charles’ desk.
Charles was seated across from him in his own heavy desk chair scribbling at a notepad. “I had no idea that training had tired you out so much,” he said and looked up at Erik. Erik, however, did not make eye contact. He was fixated on the pen in Charles’ hand. When Charles noticed, he explained, “I’m just making some notes,” and resumed writing.
Erik smacked at the pen.
“Stop that.”
Erik smacked at the pen again and glared at Charles, daring him to continue. Charles just kept on writing.
Erik batted at it again. Bat. Bat bat bat. When Charles moved the pen, Erik’s eyes darted to follow it. He hunched down, glaring at the pen, his eyes bright and unblinking. Charles threw the pen across the room and on to the floor and Erik leaped out of his seat and pounced.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Charles muttered as Erik lay on the floor, curled around the pen as he chewed on the cap. “You just stay here,” he told Erik, who watched him leave, blue ink dripping down his chin.
Charles closed his office door and went to fetch Hank. When they returned, they found Erik bent over himself with one leg straight up in the air.
Hank frowned. “What is he doing?”
“Trying to lick his own asshole, I suppose.”
“Can he do that?”
Charles shrugged. “I don’t know. He usually just asks if he wants… nevermind.” He walked over and pushed Erik out of his position, and Erik hissed.
Hank sighed. “I guess you weren’t kidding when you said he was acting like a cat. But can’t you just use your telepathy to fix it?”
“No, unfortunately my powers don’t work on animals, and at the moment his brain is entirely feline.”
“So what do you expect me to do about it? Do you think that because I’m furry I must know how to fix this?”
“No, of course not, Hank. I was just hoping that I could trust you to be a bit academic about this while I try to get a hold of the little girl from this morning.”
Hank agreed to help, although he wasn’t quite sure what that would entail. For the moment, it was keeping Erik occupied while Charles tried to get in touch with the little girl’s mother, which he did by pulling the lace out of one of his shoes and dangling it in front of Erik. Erik pounced and chased and chewed on it, but eventually he got bored and ended up just standing in the corner of the room staring at Charles.
“They’ve already checked out of the hotel,” Charles said when he hung up the phone, “which means that they’re already on their way back to Philadelphia. Which means that by the time they get home and I reach them and they’ve had a chance to turn around and come back here, we may not see them again until tomorrow, at the earliest.”
At that, Erik slumped to the ground and curled up into a ball.
“Well, what should we do?” Hank asked. “Usually when you bring home a cat, the first thing you do is set up a litter box.”
“Oh, come now, Hank! I’m sure he’s human enough to use a toilet!” He looked over at Erik, who was licking the back of his hand and then smoothing it through his hair.
“I don’t know. Just a few minutes ago he was trying to lick his own butt and he didn’t have enough sense to take his pants off first.”
Charles frowned. “Fair point. Maybe we can just let him outside.”
Charles opened the door to let Erik outside. He stood halfway in and halfway out and sniffed at the air for a few seconds first before Charles pushed him the rest of the way out. He slammed the door shut before Erik could run back in.
“I don’t care who you were this morning,” Charles said, “If you pee on my rug I’ll send you to the pound.”
So Erik trotted off to do his business, Hank returned to the lab, and Charles went to the phone to call Moira for help.
“Moira, you used to have a cat, didn’t you?” Charles asked.
“Yes, why?”
“We seem to have picked up a stray. Could you come over here and help? And maybe bring whatever cat things you may still have?”
Moira sighed. “I’ll be over there in a few,” she said, and hung up the phone.
Charles walked over to the window to check on Erik. He was sitting on the ground chewing on some grass. Better grass than furniture, Charles thought, and went back to his work.
A little while later, Charles heard a scratching sound and realized it was Erik trying to get back in. He opened the door and Erik ran inside, bolted straight for the corner of the room and dropped something on the ground. It was a mouse.
“Oh my god, Erik! Did you have that in your mouth?”
Erik stood next to the dead mouse and looked, smiling, from it to Charles and back again.
“That is disgusting!” Erik walked over to Charles like he was going to nuzzle his shoulder again, but Charles pushed him away. “Don’t even think about it. That is foul. Ugh.”
The doorbell rang and Charles shut Erik in his office to go answer it. It was Moira, bearing a box of cat goodies.
“I’ve got treats, a scratching post, some squeaky toys, a couple of cans of wet food, and a spray bottle. Where’s the cat?”
Charles led her into his office, where Erik was sitting on the couch, gnawing on the armrest.
Moira frowned. “Where’s the cat? What’s Erik doing?”
“We had a little run-in and Erik is temporarily a cat.” He walked over, grabbed a magazine, and swatted Erik with it. “Stop that!” he said. “You’re ruining the couch!”
Moira walked up behind him and sprayed Erik with water. Erik flinched and squirmed and jumped off the couch.
“Oh,” Charles said, “I was wondering what that was for. Excellent.”
Erik meandered around the office for a minute and ended up sitting on Charles’ desk. He stretched out and draped himself belly up right over Charles’ work. Charles walked over and rubbed at Erik’s belly and he hummed with pleasure. Probably the closest he could get to purring, Charles assumed.
“How did this happen?” Moira asked. Charles explained about the little girl and how they had to wait and try to get a hold of her. “Well, call her again!” Moira said. “They’re probably home by now.”
Charles sighed and reached for the phone. As he dialed, Moira pulled out a squeaky toy and squeezed it for Erik, but Erik didn’t seem amused. He just glared at Moira with a look of arrogant disdain.
“No different from the way human Erik looks at me,” she muttered.
On the other end of the phone, someone answered. It was the little girl’s mother from earlier that day. “Thank god I was able to reach you!” Charles said. “I was wrong. I should have believed you. Your daughter does have a mutation. Quite a powerful one, actually. In fact, it seems that she has convinced my partner that he is a cat. I was hoping you could come back up here and she could fix it.”
“You want me to drive all the way back up there? Absolutely not. I tried to explain to you today about her abilities and you didn’t believe me. If you want her to fix it, you need to come to us.”
Charles sighed, but agreed to drive down there and recruited Moira to come with him. They looked over at Erik, who was still stretched out on his back across Charles’ desk. He was gently batting at the lamp without much interest and staring at the pair of them like he knew they were up to something.
“Do we need to crate him?” Moira asked.
“Do you have a crate that will fit him? He’s almost six feet long. Tall, I mean. Six feet tall.” He shook his head – he was starting to actually think of Erik as a cat.
They clearly didn’t have anything that could be used as a crate, so they ended up having to lure him into Moira’s car with a can of tuna. Once he was safely locked in the back seat, Charles spooned the tuna onto the plate and let Erik lap at it while Moira drove them down to Pennsylvania.
They arrived about three hours later and was greeted at the front door by the girl’s mother, who was looking very smug and was very much looking forward to hearing Charles beg for forgiveness.
“You were right,” Charles told her again. “I should have listened to you. I should have paid more attention and I should have seen the signs that your daughter had such an extraordinary mutation. I’m really very sorry.”
The woman crossed her arms over her chest. “And you’ll stop her from doing this to people?”
“We will teach her to control her mutation to the best of our abilities. I promise. Now, will you please get her out here and have her fix Mr. Lehnsherr?”
They both looked over at Erik, who was nonchalantly standing in the front yard licking his forearm.
“Yeah, okay,” the woman said, and went to get her daughter.
The little girl walked out the front door and yelled “Kitty!” and ran over to Erik. Erik glared at her and went rigid, but allowed the girl to not-so-gently scratch his leg.
“No, no, no,” her mother said, “You need to make him a man again. Go on, honey. Fix him.”
The little girl pouted, but let out a big dramatic sigh and said, “Fine.” She crossed her arms and nodded her head, and Erik blinked and looked around and said, “Charles? Where are we?”
Charles sighed with relief and turned to the girls’ mother. “What was that arm-nod thing she did?”
The woman shrugged. “She’s been watching I Dream of Jeanne. Before she used to wiggle her nose like Samantha on Bewitched. It’s not magic.”
Charles nodded. “I see. Well, thank you again. Really, thank you so much for your help and your cooperation, and we’ll be in touch regarding bringing her on as a student. Honestly, I’m looking forward to learning more about this. It’s quite fascinating.”
“No, thank you,” her mother said, and called her back into the house.
With the excitement over, Charles, Moira, and Erik piled back into the car for the three hour drive back to Westchester. When Erik got in the back seat, he sniffed the air and sneered. “Jesus, Moira,” he said, “Don’t you ever clean your car? It smells like rotten fish in here.”
Moira and Charles exchanged a look before Moira turned to Erik and said, “Just be glad you didn’t cough up a hairball back there.”
And with that they were on their way, and they agreed never to speak of this day ever again.