Disclaimer: The Animorphs and all related things belong to K.A. Applegate and Scholastic, not me. I just want to hang out in their world.

The cat's screaming again. Of course it waits until I'm settled into my chair before it starts yelling for food. Well, it can wait until I'm damn well ready to get up. Some animal is not gonna dictate what I do.

I don't even know why I keep the thing. It's been nothing but trouble ever since it came here. Sharon didn't even have the decency to tell me she let him have a cat. I go to pick up Tobe at the airport, and he's got a pet carrier in his arms. Tells me its name is Dude. Apparently one of Sharon's new hubbies got her the thing. But since she's a soulless harpy, she left that poor son of a bitch too, and foisted the cat off on Tobe, and by extension, me. Story of my life, having living things left on my doorstep. Things that in no way should be mine. But hey, I'm a reasonable guy, so I spend my hard-earned cash to buy food, and whatever else cats and children need.

It had to be a cat, too. I swear I got more bite marks on my ankles then I can count cause of the damn thing. It hisses at me every morning when I'm walking downstairs. When Tobe was still around, it made a point of curling up in his lap and glaring at me, like I was the intruder in my own house. Why couldn't he have gotten a dog, like a normal boy his age? When I was a kid, I always wanted to have a yellow lab, one of those big dogs that leaped around and chased birds and jumped into lakes. But no, the kid goes and gets way too attached to that bundle of fur and claws. Maybe I should have pushed the issue harder. I could have gotten him a Rottweiler, something big and tough. It says a lot about a man, what kind of animals he keeps around. When you're walking around with a big dog on a leash, no one's gonna mess with you. And Lord knows he needed all the help he could get on that front.

Children's Services came around again the other day. After all I did for him, the little bastard disappears and leaves me with this mess. Anyway, Children's Services stops by every now and then to see if I've heard from him; keeping their files straight, I guess. Their file on us is a foot thick by now, but I stand by what I've always said: I never hit the kid. He'd get to school with a bunch of bruises, and his teachers would start making phone calls to the authorities saying I beat the living daylights out of him. Of course, they should be checking the other boy's knuckles instead of mine. I had to duck out of work one day when he was in sixth grade, to pick him up at the ER after he got to his first class of the day with the third broken nose of the year. I get there, and he's sitting on a cot, with some lady in a suit in front of him asking if I ever "touch him in an inappropriate manner". Of course, the kid's nervous as hell, blushing and looking away, so by the time I arrive on the scene everyone thinks I'm some sort of monster. But that's just sick. Even hitting a kid is just messed up. I remember, whenever my dad rolled back into town, he'd beat the stuffing out of me. Of course, by the time I was about twelve, I was already starting to swing back.

Now, Tobe is the kind of kid who's never gonna swing back, no matter how much the other boys are wailing on him. I tried to teach him boxing once: he flinched too much to even keep his gloves in the right position. He just takes it, over and over, no matter how weak it makes him look. He goes up into his room, draws his pictures and writes his poetry and pets his goddamn cat. Boy doesn't even know how to throw a football right. Sharon and her man-of-the-week certainly aren't gonna do anything about it, so I figure it's my job to make sure he comes out alright. Of course, they're not the only ones making it hard to toughen the boy up.

Last parent-teacher conference, I'm wandering around, feeling uncomfortable as hell around all the suits, when this twenty something little twerp sees my stick-on name tag, comes up to me and says, all cheerfully, "Excuse me, are you Tobias Harper's uncle?"

I told him I was, and then this little shrimp smiles real big, and introduces himself as Dennis Feyroyan. Tobe was in his English class, and this guy starts gushing about how "Tobias is such a joy to have in class" and "while he doesn't speak up often, his contributions are always valuable and engaging". I'm wondering how to best get out, when he asks if I've read "any of Tobias' wonderful poetry".

"Excuse me?" I ask.

"Oh, the samples of writing he's turned in this year have been astounding. He says his last school had a poetry unit, so he's had a bit of practice already, but his natural writing voice shows a depth and level of sensitivity that you just don't see in many thirteen-year old boys."

I can only stare at this piece a shit, trying my hardest not to smash in that smiling face of his. "You sick son of a bitch."

That takes the smile off of his face pretty quick.

"Pardon?"

"Don't you pardon me, you twisted bastard. This is a kid that's regularly getting the crap beaten out of him by every other boy in this whole damn school. You really think being praised for having a 'level of sensitivity' is gonna do him any good? What's he supposed to do, quote Shakespeare at the next thug to kick him in the ribs? Compose sonnets about what it feels like to walk around with black eyes all the time? No, he needs to learn to man up and fight back, and some effing pansy like you is clearly not doing him any good." I turned away, leaving that smart-ass little college boy looking like someone had just shot his puppy.

Course, I didn't know at the time that was the last of those parent-teacher things I'd be going to. Tobe took off before the end of that semester. I got some bullshit note about how he was going to stay with Sharon; apparently the boy thinks I'm stupid. There's no way that bitch would foot the bill for the entire plane ticket, and where would he have gotten the money? It looks like he just hit the road, headed off to god knows where. Didn't even take his cat. But I guess I can't blame him. I ran away from home, although I at least waited until I was sixteen. Living on the road hardens a person, and maybe that kind of life will succeed where I failed.

I will be the first to admit that I never wanted a kid. By the time Sharon's sister got into her car crash, we were already heading towards divorce, although we hadn't said the big d word yet. The last thing we needed coming between us was a little blonde three year-old with a crazy mom. The first time we saw him, his arm was still in a cast from the crash and his face was all scratched up. I'd never dealt with kids, I had no idea what we were supposed to do. In little more than a few months, we go from being two fairly unhappy adults, trying to figure out our problems, to screaming at each other over the kitchen table while the toddler in the next room bawls his eyes out. Going out and getting a few beers with the guys after work was no longer an option, because I had to come home and take care of a kid that I was in no way related to.

At first, I thought the divorce would give me a clean break. But apparently since we got him when we were still married, that meant we were both responsible for what happened to him. So Sharon packs up, takes off for the East coast with my money, and tells me to send the boy along in a while when she's "settled in". Of course, I'm still working my ass off all day, and now I gotta take care of the kid alone, the kid who still cries for his mama at night. Is it too much to want to come home from a long day and have some peace and quiet, have a few drinks and cut loose? Yeah, I yelled at him a fair bit, but like I said, I never hit him. And no matter what, I never turned him out. For six out of the last eleven years, I gave him food, clothing, and shelter, and for the other five I was paying child support. I went to all the parent-teacher conferences, I paid for all the stitches, and I put up with the goddamn cat. And the kid leaves without saying goodbye.

I do wonder if I'm ever gonna see him again. He might come wandering back into town, hopefully all in one piece. Maybe he'll finally have learned to push back, instead of just breaking down when anything too hard comes along. Maybe some of what I tried to teach him will come in handy. Maybe next time I see him he'll have grown into a man. I did what I could; it probably wasn't enough, but no going back now. It's on him now to figure out where he's going.

All I gotta do is feed his cat till he comes home.