On several occasions, one or the other had started to say something, only to clam up and continue eating in silence. Hal guessed they had been trying to ask him about physical changes, but seemed unable to phrase the question. It was strange that they didn’t just come out and ask, Are you turning into a monster? But on the other hand, what if they believed he was telling the truth and was not undergoing odd transformations? How would an ordinary twelve-year-old boy take to a question like that, if he really knew nothing of dragons, manticores, ogres and faeries? As he headed to school, deep in thought, Hal realized that Miss Simone’s project had a great deal of uncertainty attached to it. It had taken longer than expected for most of them, excluding Thomas, to start changing, and perhaps this had led Miss Simone and all the parents to believe that the project was not going well. If Fenton’s physical change was considered a “successful result,” and Miss Simone was to take him away somewhere, then what would happen to the rest of them if they never changed?
