Hiroko burst into the bathroom faster than the poor victims of the cafeteria’s much hated “hamburger day.” Which, she realized with a shudder, was a very ironic thing to think. Not that she had any time to dwell on awkward comparisons.

She zipped from stall to stall to make sure no one was in there with her. It was the middle of class, so it was unlikely, but she wasn’t about to take any chances.

It was only once she made absolutely sure she was alone that she took her hand out of her shirt to inspect the damage. It was as she suspected: where there should’ve been five fingers, there were instead a pair of quickly graying blocky nubs. She tapped them against the sink, and barely felt the solid tink of bones hitting tile. It had only been pure luck that she noticed her hands starting to change color in class, if in the time it took to get to the bathroom it had already gone this far.

It seemed this was going to come on fast. As if it happening at all wasn’t bad enough.

“I can’t believe this,” she groused out loud to nobody in particular. “It wasn’t supposed to happen so soon! I was actually looking forward to graduation, thank you very much!”

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her ears were already getting longer, and there were little tufts of hair popping up around her nose. It almost looked cute. Not that that helped.

Luckily she caught it right as it stated, so she still had one good hand. It had all its fingers at least, but her nails were starting to turn black. She had to do this quick. She pulled out her phone with her solid hand, awkwardly balancing it in the groove between her “nails,” and started desperately dialing with her still good hand.

It was four anxious rings before Miriam picked up. She was whispering, and Hiroko could just visualize her leaning under her desk trying to hide the conversation. “Hey, where’d you run off t-“

“Get my folks NOW!” Hiroko whispered harshly. “It’s happening early!”

“What, already? But it’s the middle of study hall. I’ll get detention!”

“Seriously?! Take one for the team!”

“Why? Just let it happen and the rest of us can sort it out later.”

Hiroko blinked. She ignored the way her nose was inching its way into her vision. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope. So the school panics and calls control. So what?”

“And live with Amy Toller and Keisha Dumas telling stories about me being a fat cow until after graduation?” Hiroko growled, gritting her teeth. Why couldn’t this be happening to either of those two? Why did it have to be her, of all people? It really wasn’t fair. “No goddamn way!”

“Whoa, language!” Miriam laughed. Hiroko almost felt insulted - swearing wasn’t like her, true, but if there was any time worth cutting loose in… “Is that really going to matter once you’re-?”

“JUST DO IT!”

Miriam squeaked, and the line went dead. Hiroko immediately felt guilty, but honestly. Would it kill her closest friend to give her a little bit of slack in a situation like this?

It would take Miriam a while to get her family on the line, so until then there was no way Hiroko was letting anyone discover her like this. She rushed over to the door and pressed her back against it, bitterly aware that soon that wiry, unremarkable backside she was always complaining about would be too heavy for anyone to push around without a tractor. She didn’t know whether it was annoying, embarrassing or just ironic. She took a backwards glance to be sure, and regretted it right away. As she feared, her butt already looked twice as big as it should’ve been. Her hips and thighs had grown so big they were starting to rip through her jeans, and her waist was slowly following suit.

She looked at her reflection in the bathroom mirror. Her nose was getting bigger. It was huge. There were patches of black blotching her face and patches of white spreading into her hair, which was itself shrinking into her neck. Which was just perfect. It wasn’t as if she liked her hair the way it was or anything.

“Oh, thanks so much for this, Mom,” she said at her reflection, thinking off the bizarre events that left her dealing with this craziness in the first place. She could’ve peeled paint with her tone, but it was just a shame the target of her irritation was nowhere nearby. “I don’t know how, but I’ll get back at you somehow. As if my life wasn’t difficult enough.”

It took a couple more minutes before Miriam called back. By the time the phone rang, her right hand was completely inoperable and her left was not far behind. Her feet had changed as well. She was stubbornly teetering back and forth on a pair of unwieldy hooves, which was not helped by her new bottom heavy proportions. It was clear that soon she wouldn’t be able to stand at all.

Miriam thankfully didn’t make any jokes as she barely kept the balance. “I did it. I got in some serious trouble, but your mom’s on the way to pick you up now. She’s bringing the trailer.”

Hiroko snorted, only to irritate herself further. That already sounded more like something off a barnyard than a noise a proper young lady like herself should make. Why her? “Swell. Can’t wait.”

“I still don’t know why we can’t just let the school take care of it for now, and then have your folks pick you up later.”

She didn’t want to have this conversation again. Her voice was as high and frantic as she could go. “There’s a BUTCHER’S SHOP right around the corner. The school could just let them take care of it, and I’m not taking any chances.”

A very cheeky tone danced its way into Miriam voice. “Well… again, is that really going to matter to you? Plus you never know, sweet gal like you might improve the quality of the cafeteria f-“

Hiroko flinched wildly, causing her to finally fall onto all fours at last. The floor shook under the sudden weight, and there was a loud snap as her belt finally snapped off. Her friend couldn't see any of that, but either her feet clopped louder than she thought or Miriam had realized for once that her foot was in her mouth, because before Hiroko could say anything she had already cut herself off and was apologizing. “Oh God, I can’t believe I tried to make a joke about that, I’m so sorry! Don’t hate me!”

This was a bad time to start hating her best friend no matter how tasteless her jokes were, so Hiroko tried to let it go. Mostly. “Whatever. It’s not like us dumb animals will have to worry about how well fed their ex-classmates are.”

“I’m sorry! I’ll never eat a burger again!”

“Forget it.” There were better things to be angry about. Like the fact that she couldn’t seem to get back to two feet again. The size difference between her behind and front meant for now she was leaning forward slightly, which was uncomfortable. But she could feel that fixing itself fast. It wouldn’t be long until her fate was sealed. All she had to do was wait.

There was a loud WHUMP from behind her. As she predicted, someone had finally tried to get into the bathroom only for the door to smack into her behind like a brick wall. She barely even felt it. Already, she could hear people talking outside. “Hey, you okay?” “What’s going on with the door?” “I dunno, something’s blocking it.” “Someone must’ve dragged a shelf in there again. Won’t budge.” Hiroko didn’t know if she could blush under that all that white and black, but if she could she would be. She tried not to grunt or react at all as whoever it was pushed harder. Maybe if she didn’t budge, they would go away and nobody would find out about the mortifying situation she was in. The last thing she wanted was someone forcing their way in with her sporting a half-bovine body and her clothing in tatters everywhere.

“What happened?” Miriam asked. Hiroko wished she could punch her, since hooves would probably hurt more.

“Someone’s trying to shove their way in, but… um… I’m too heavy,” she said that last part quietly. She could at least save herself a little embarrassment.

Or not. Miriam was laughing.

“S-shut up!”

"Come on. We knew this was going to happen. Why are you so uptight about it?"

“I dunno-oooOOOO…” The outburst came out of nowhere. She couldn’t pretend it didn’t happen, either. The crowd outside was already reacting (“hey, are they playing that video about the livestock again?”). Simmering with embarrassment, Hiroko forced herself to be quiet. Miriam poorly “hiding” her laughter on the other side wasn’t helping. “Can we not?”

“This is actually funny! Why don’t you just mute me?”

“I can’t press on the phone. I don’t have hands any more. Plus I’m a little stuck on all fours.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause. Miriam stopped laughing. “So I guess that means you’re almost done, huh?”

Hiroko wanted to say “seems that way,” but it came out more like “Saaaah.”

Miriam paused. “Huh. Well, it’s been fun. Send me a bottle a week, would you? For old times?”

Hiroko snorted again. It wasn’t like she was going to be the one making those kinds of decisions. If Miriam wanted free groceries she should talk to her mother instead. But it was “nice” to be reminded of yet another annoying thing about her situation. Did she have an udder? She had been trying not think about it, but she probably had to by now. Her chest had long since barreled out to match the rest of her, which finished growing and settled on “titanic.” Her poor, inexperienced bust was probably the first to go, replaced before it really had a chance to live. And now that she wasn’t trying to ignore the increasing non-human feelings from her body, she could feel a big, squishy weight swelling out from between her legs. Though she supposed they were hind-legs, now.

Another thing to add to the list she really didn’t want anyone to see. Why did this have to happen at school? Why couldn't this happen when she was safe and alone at home?

Though this was really depressing, she had the urge to say something funny. She had to keep feeling normal while she had the chance somehow. She thought of a pretty good one about her being the only girl she knew to be a late bloomer twice, but to her own surprise instead of something snide she simply mooed.

It seemed that on top of all that, she wouldn’t be speaking any actual words from now on either. It would have been irritating, but she was beyond being bothered by any of this any more.

“Uh oh. Hiroko? Girlfriend? You still with me? One moo for yes, two for no. Hello?”

Hiroko sighed. If she was honest, it was starting to get hard to organize her thoughts. This cramped room was starting to scare her, like it would any big animal stuck in a small space. It was irrational, she knew. She had run in here for a reason, hadn’t she? But she wished she had gone outside instead, where the groundskeeper had just finished trimming the football field’s tasty new turf…

Great. And now she wanted to eat grass. Why her?

Miriam was still talking. “Great, she’s gone cattle drive on me. Now who am I supposed to gossip with? I can’t gush about Bobby Sanders’ cute new haircut with a heifer… can I? When the only alternative is Amy Toller-”

Hey! She wasn’t milked yet! Hiroko mooed once as insistently as possible, and stomped her foot. She could definitely hear the students reacting to that, but she was finding it less important to think about them now. She had to focus!

“Oh! There you are! Your mom just texted me. She’s almost there. Your Uncle already set up a space in the barn for you.”

Hiroko groaned, which sounded very weird with her new vocal cords. She would probably be spending the rest of her life in that damn barn.

The barn, with it’s huge sprawling clearings for grazing, the stable full of cute bulls her Uncle raised, and the nice stablehands with the gentle hands who she always used to see giving out treats to the livestock…

“Hiroko? You’re mooing kind of dreamily there. It’s creeping me out.”

The daydream’s spell broke for a second. Hiroko desperately shook her head, trying to wake up. She was losing herself! Damn it, why did the inevitable have to be so soon? She just wanted one last conversation with her best friend, was that so-

There was another WHUMP, this time much harder. Hiroko lost her train of thought and stepped forward. Her front hoof landed on her phone, crushing it. She wailed in dismay and confusion as a crowd of students, not all of them girls, pushed into the room to see what was going on.

“Hey, what’s all this junk doing on the floor?”

“You’re looking at the trash? Did you miss the big ol’ cow sitting in the middle of the room?”

“That’s some prank!”

“How did that thing even get in here?”

They were all staring right at her. From the beginning this was the last thing she wanted, and now that it was happening… it was just too much! All thoughts of friends and keeping focus and even nice stablehands left Hiroko’s mind.

She panicked.

——

The entire student body had to be dismissed while the faculty tried to coax the spooked cow out of the girls’ bathrooms. In its anxious state the poor thing destroyed half the stalls in an attempt to get free. It was just lucky that an "animal control expert" arrived on the scene so quickly. Almost suspiciously lucky, as if she were already on the way… but that was ridiculous. Who could have expected this?

Rumors took off with the students before they had even left the building, and by the next day everyone had a theory: the cow escaped from the butcher's, it wandered off a passing train, someone smuggled it in from the circus... The school board had a meeting over what to do with it, and they were considering making it a school mascot (they had always wanted one of those) when the expert insisted it be placed with someone with experience dealing with those kinds of animals. So it was moved to a farm outside of town.

Nobody ever found out how the supposed prankster got it in the building in the first place, let alone into the bathroom. Ever since, a school legend has formed around it.

In the excitement nobody seemed to notice either that one of the students - one Hiroko Ushiyama - mysteriously vanished from class after that day. It was some time before another student, named Amy Toller. realized she was absent and loudly complained about it. When asked Hiroko’s friend Miriam would explain she transferred to rural school in the country, but she didn’t like to talk about it. Nobody found out that story either, just as Hiroko wanted.

Hiroko’s mother has been working her butt off to find a way to return her daughter to normal - too little, too late. No luck yet. She's trying to find a loophole to give her back a few hours at least before the change asserts itself again, but she's not there yet. In the meantime is Uncle is happy to have her move in with his "family."

Hiroko is a lot happier than she expected, though that might be her altered mind talking. They renamed her Ushi for when people are listening, and she fit in blissfully well with the herd. There still does remain a small spark of humanity in her bovine brain, but its easier to let her instincts run the show so it’s not often obvious. There's at least enough human left in her to act as close to a proper young lady as cattle can. So far she's won a half dozen ribbons.
 
Whenever Miriam visits she happily follows her gossip, as if listening to the news. Miriam swears she can even moo sarcastically, and that she totally knocked her into the water trough once as payback for the “cafeteria” comment. The others think that any sign she's not just a simple animal now is wishful thinking, since Miriam has been lonely ever since Hiroko's transformation, but it's working out either way.

As for Hiroko's rival Amy Toller, she never did find out any of the stories Hiroko was worried about. But she and her friend Keisha Dumas did by chance end up at Hiroko’s Uncle’s farm for a while. Though that time may have been Miriam’s fault...