"Relax," I said, "I just want to check you out."
I slowly approached her, my arm outstretched. With every step I took, her shivering increased and she tried harder and harder to burrow into the corner and hide from me. At last, I rested my hand on the top of her head, and I felt her tension begin to wane. I ruffled her hair, the way I would Momo or Sonja, and she soon became calm, though she remained curled up in a ball.
"See? No one is gonna hurt you. Now let me see that pretty face of yours."
She looked up at me, her face like a doll's. She was beautiful, but something didn't quite look right. I then did a quick check of her body, finding dirt and signs of slight frostbite from after she transformed.
"Aren't you a little cutie? Come on, let's bring you inside, get you something to eat, and get you clean and warm."
I scooped her up in the princess hold, her small body even lighter than it looked. She didn't resist me picking her up, but she grabbed her tail and clung to it. I carried her outside, letting the sunlight shine on her. I could see Momo and Sonja in the windows, watching us like wolves eyeing a wounded deer. I opened the door and Sonja rushed over, sniffing her the way only a dog would. Suddenly swarmed by the blonde beauty, the new girl squealed in fear and buried her face in my chest. Momo, on the other hand, kept her distance, but the twitching of her ears and look on her face told me that she was very curious.
"Both of you get back! Scram!"
I kind of had to kick them a little to get them to back off, sending them scurrying back to the couch to watch us. I brought the girl into the kitchen and sat her down in one of the chairs. Now with proper lighting, I was able to get a better look at her and confirm the strangeness of her body (beyond her ears and tail of course). She wasn't a little girl; she was a woman, well, college student age, but just tiny. I don't mean that she was stocky and scrunched up like a midget (I know I should say little person, but there aren't any around, so fuck it, I'll say midget), I mean her body was perfectly proportionated, but it was as if all her atoms were closer together than they would be for normal people. The bone structure of her hips, face, shoulders and the rest of her body belonged to a girl on the tail-end of puberty. She was like the tiny woman that Moe dated in that episode of The Simpsons. Her flat chest and shy mannerisms just made her look like a child from a distance. Quite simply, she was "mousy", pun very much intended.
It made sense in a weird way, her appearance at least. Since she was such a small animal before, it would be strange if she wasn't also small in her human form. After all, Sonja, formerly a dog, was taller than Momo, formerly a cat. It certainly explained her flat chest. She was also at the same developmental stage as Momo and Sonja, comparable to a nineteen or twenty-year-old. Maybe the age of the human form was based on the lifespan of the animal form. If, as a golden doodle, Sonja could live to be fourteen, then were she seven years old when she transformed, she might have the body of a forty or fifty-year-old. Or maybe whatever weird magic was causing this simply transformed the girls into human bodies at peak sexiness.
Anyway, since she wasn't actually a kid, I seemed I might be able to play with her after all.
"Let me get you something to eat."
Considering what she had originally been, and the fact that she had just transformed, I went with something simple, a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of milk. As I worked, all three girls watched me, the mouse from her chair, now pulling her feet up and hugging her knees to her chin, and the cat and dog from the living room, their heads poking up from above the back of the couch. I set down the food and drink in front of her and took the nearby seat.
"Here you go. You eat the sandwich with your hands, and for the milk, you pick up the glass and bring it to your lips to drink."
Her eyes moved from me to the sandwich, the look of fear on her face still sharp. She snatched up the sandwich and sniffed it. Liking the smell, she started to nibble on it with rapid, tiny bites, the way a rodent would. As she ate, I pulled out my phone and called the office. As the manager, it was no big deal for me to be late, and as long as someone covered for me, there were even times when I could take the day off. It would be better not to skip the whole day, so I just called my assistant and told her I would be in later.
I turned off my phone as the girl began trying to pick up the cup. She clearly was still getting used to her new body. I helped her out and clasped her hands around the cup, her pale face turning red as my hands overlapped hers, and then I helped her bring it to her mouth. Both Momo and Sonja had seen me do things like this before they transformed, so it was easy for them to do it when they first turned.