TF (Multi)

It wasn’t much past nine in the morning and already the waiting room was pretty much full. Burden cast his eyes over the people occupying the chairs dotted around the walls. There were a few people sitting by themselves, but mostly they had some object with them.

Next to him was a woman with a pet carrier. Inside a cat was loudly complaining.

“I can’t believe you tricked me into getting into this thing, mom!”

“I told you, Cody, if you weren’t going to come voluntarily I’d drag you here.”

“At least give me my iPhone!”

“Don’t be silly, Cody. How are you going to use your phone with paws?”

Next to them was a pinched-looking woman carrying a bucket filled with bright green jelly. Disconcertingly, the jelly appeared to be giggling.

Across from her was a bored-looking goth girl, who just happened to be an anaconda from the waist down. She caught his eye, grinned and blew a pink bubble of gum.

It was, in short, one of those days. It seemed like these days 80 per cent of his patients were transformers.

His receptionist, Isabella, cleared her throat. “Ms Darley is next, doctor.”

A middle-aged woman with a brown bob stood up. “Ms Darley?”

“Oh no, I’m her mother. This” - and she held up a toaster - “is Felicity.”

Definitely one of those days.

*

Back in his office, Mrs Darley took a seat on the sofa and placed the toaster next to her.

“She’s been like this for four days now, doctor. She won’t change back. We’re at our wit’s end.”

Burden addressed the toaster in a friendly voice. “Hi, Felicity. I’m Dr Burden. How are you today?”

There was no reaction from the toaster.

“Please talk to the doctor, honey,” Mrs Darley said.

Two eyes and a mouth appeared on the side of the object. “I’m a toaster. Toasters don’t talk.”

“I wonder why?” Burden asked cheerfully.

The toaster eyed him suspiciously. “I guess we don’t have much to say.”

“Yeah, that’s probably it. How many slices can you do?”

“Huh?”

“How many slices of bread can you toast at once? I’m thinking … four?”

“Yup!” the toaster said proudly. “And muffins.”

“I bet you can handle bagels, too, no problem.”

“Well, no one’s ever put a bagel in me, but if I can do muffins, I’m pretty sure I can do bagels.”

“I’m sure you can. And I bet you toast everything really evenly.”

“That’s me! I’m a really good toaster.”

“You look like a really good toaster. What’s it like, being one?”

The toaster thought a second. “It’s really great. I’m shiny, and I have doors, and inside I’m all wires and coils. If you plug me in, I get hot inside real quickly. I’m very, very useful.”

“Boy, I can’t imagine what it’s like to have wires instead of veins.”

A giggle from the toaster. “It’s really cool! Do you know I don’t breathe? I don’t need to eat either. I just sit around when I’m not toasting.”

“What do you think about when you’re not in use?”

If the toaster could have shrugged, it would have. “Just stuff, I guess. A lot of the time I don’t even think. I just am a toaster.”

Burden exchanged a look with the toaster’s worried mother.

“Must be pretty restful, not thinking about anything. Maybe I’ll try that some day.”

“Yeah, it’s fun. You don’t need to cry. You can’t cry, because you don’t have eyes unless you want to.”

“Any of your friends like to turn into other stuff like you?”

The toaster was silent and the eyes and mouth began to fade away.

“I’ll bet they’re not as useful as you, though.”

The eyes and mouth came back. “No they’re not, even if they think they are.”

“Yeah, I hate it when appliances get big-headed too. I bet they were … a hairdryer?”

It was an offhand remark, intended to just keep the toaster talking, but by the way it was staring at him, he knew he’d scored a bullseye.

“How did you know?”

“Just a guess. But hairdryers can be pretty stuck up.”

“You said it,” the toaster said bitterly.

“They’re even worse than electric toothbrushes.”

More giggles. “I don’t know, I’ve never met a toothbrush.”

“You’ve met a hairdryer, though.”

“Yeah, she’s such a bitch. You know what she said? She said I was … useless!”

“Where was this, Felicity?” Burden said softly.

“At Meghan’s sleepover.”

“Who’s Meghan?”

“My bestie. At least, she used to be.”

“You had a fight?”

“Kind of. It was Penelope’s fault.”

“How?”

“We were at the sleepover, and she was showing us photos of her as a hairdryer. She’s allowed to transform, did you know that? And we were talking about what we’d change into, and Meghan said a car, and I said a toaster because they’re really useful. And Penelope started making fun of me, and said it would make a change if I was useful, because I was the most useless person she knew. And I’ve never done anything to her! Nothing!”

“She had no right to say that, did she?”

“And that wasn’t even the worst part … the worst part was that Meghan started making fun of me too! She was supposed to be my bestie! And instead they ganged up on me! And I pretended to be asleep so they wouldn’t make fun of me, and the next morning Meghan told me I’d really ruined her sleepover, and I should just go home so she could hang out with Penelope. And … and I ran home … and I knew where mom and dad kept their transformation potions … sorry mom … and … I was useful as a toaster …”

The toaster’s voice cracked.

“Felicity? I know you can’t cry when you’re a toaster … but you sound like maybe you need to cry. Maybe you could change back? I’m sure your mother has some tissues there.”

“I sure do,” said Mrs Darley.

A shimmer, and the toaster became a brown-haired girl, her face crumpled up. “I’m not useless! I’m not!”

“Of course you’re not, honey,” her mother said soothingly. She gathered her daughter in her arms and stroked her hair. “Don’t worry about a thing, honey. I’ll have a talk with Meghan’s mother.”

“You’re a good person, Felicity, whether you’re a girl or a toaster,” Dr Burden said.

“Meghan’s been calling us for the past couple of days. I think she’s really sorry,” said Mrs Darley.

“I’m sorry, mom. I must have made you so worried.”

“Oh honey, I’m sorry too. You can talk to us about anything, you know that? How about we go talk about things over ice-cream?”

As the couple stood, Mrs Darley mouthed “thank you” at Burden. Once they’d gone, he made a note to arrange a follow-up consultation.

He felt good. He’d helped someone. He was pretty useful himself.

He went to the waiting-room to see who his next patient would be.

“Regina?”

The anaconda girl put her hand up.

“Just slither on in.”

She did a nice line in eye-rolling, he’d have to give her that.

He exchanged another look with Isabella.

Okay, that jelly was now definitely chuckling.