The Protagonist Speaks

Dear readers, tonight with us is a young woman, scion of an ancient clan of werecats. She is here to tell us about the challenges of discovering your family’s dark secrets and battling lethal urges, while trying to finish high-school.

Tell us a little about where you grew up. What was it like there?

My brother Tommy and I lived in Norfolk, Virginia most of our time growing up. Our dad was a Navy SEAL, so we were your garden-variety Navy brats. Around major holidays while Dad was off on deployment, our mom would take us on a bus to D.C. and then a train to Chicago where our folks were both from. There we’d spend time together with our grandparents and aunts and uncles. At the time our extended family all lived together in the same building, so it was like a big family reunion whenever we’d show up. We’d been on ice skates from nearly the time we could walk, so we’d bring our hockey gear along and play pick-up games with the kids from a Chicago neighborhood league our aunt and uncle coached. The tricks we learned there made us high school hockey superstars back in Norfolk!

Did you have any favourite toys as a child? Any cherished memories?

Our great grandfather, a retired Coast Guard commandant, had bought a decommissioned light keeper’s cottage situated on a small, remote wooded island in Lake Michigan near Wisconsin’s Door Peninsula. He fixed it up for his family to use a summer cabin, and my brother and I continued that tradition for much of our summers. With our dad gone so much, Tommy and I spent far more time at the cabin every summer than we did in either Chicago or Norfolk. We’d wander around all day, every day, building forts and playing hide n’ seek and combing the beaches looking out for treasure washed up from centuries of shipwrecks.

What do you do now?

Tommy and I are both trying to finish out our senior year at a new high school. It’s been, well, a challenge…

What can you tell us about your latest adventure?

Let’s just say neither of us had any idea just what it meant to be Growing Up Werecat. Not until I first morphed last Halloween, the night before our big game at the invitationals last fall in Green Bay.