Page 77 of Wicked Hungry

“Esme,” Enrique’s mother says again.

“Okay,” she says.

“We’ll see you downstairs,” Enrique says. “Shut the door.”

She nods, trying to keep from laughing, and then the door is shut again.

“Wow,” Jonathan says. “Our reputation is toast. Burnt toast.”

I bolt the door. “It could be worse.”

“Oh, really?” Jonathan asks. “How could it be worse?”

“Okay, it couldn’t be worse. So go ahead — change, Jonathan, let’s see.”

“Yeah,” Enrique says. “After all we went through.” He rubs his neck, but I’m glad to see the mark is already fading. “Let’s see more than whiskers.”

Jonathan shakes his head. “I still don’t think I can.”

“What?” I ask, getting dressed. “Why not?”

“It just feels funny,” Jonathan says.

“Don’t think about it,” Enrique says, pulling on his pants. “Just do it.”

“Try, at least,” I say.

“Okay. I’ll try. But dude, you have to promise not to laugh at me.”

I nod. “We promise.”

“Or bite me on the neck, either,” he says.

“As long as you don’t get out of line,” Enrique says, smiling.

Jonathan stands up really straight, and then something strange happens. His eyes start to glow, and his black skin turns red, covering itself with fur. His face stretches out, the room fills with fox musk, but that’s not all. He’s like three or four inches off the floor. He turns to me, a fox now, but no normal fox — kitsuné, a Japanese fox spirit, floating in the air. His glowing eyes twinkle, and for a moment there’s the same humor I’m used to, but also, something ancient, unknown, and a little...scared.

Then, in the blink of the eye, there is a naked Jonathan standing in front of us.

I turn away.

“Dude,” Jonathan says. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this embarrassed. Or this hungry, either.”

“Jonathan,” I say. “You were up in the air.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“No, really,” Enrique says. “You were flying.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m so hungry,” Jonathan says, getting dressed.

“My mother made a lot of food for the day of the dead,” Enrique says. “Some of it goes for my dead relatives — it is on the altar. But she made a lot of tamales that are extra.”

Not that I’m an expert on tamales, but Enrique’s mom makes some amazing ones. Bean, chicken, beef —you name it. She is a one-woman cooking army.

“You want to go down there and have everyone laugh at us?” Jonathan asks.

“No, I want to go down there and eat some tamales,” Enrique says. “Before we figure out what to do with the zombies outside.”