Summer snow [117] (261words)

         Derek ground his teeth. He had one hour to complete the assignment or go back to being Beau. He had checked out the DNA links a million times. The new Neanderthal genes were still trying to rebel. They were the moody ones.
         But Derek wanted to be moody! Everyone else in his family had a certain moodiness. When they felt happy or sad, Beau had just sat there smiling not feeling a thing.
         Sure, his school teachers had all praised how normal and nice he was and girls loved to tousle his ginger hair but he knew he was missing something. And he had found out what that was! He was 0.00% Neanderthal.
         He'd spent five years at Montana State University studying biochemistry, microbiology, genetics, even phenotypes, hoping that maybe a gene just needed a switch turned on.
         To no avail. He was convinced it was his lack of a Neanderthal bloodline that was holding him back. He studied how to splice genes to change that. He craved a new identity, a better "he". Like a caterpillar he was going to leave Beau-the-Bobkitty behind to transform into a real-life Derek-the-Bobcat at last.
         Once he had read about the butterfly effect, how changing one small detail could bring about change. He laughed about those who said global warming was due to one messed up experiment. Now on this first day of Summer it was time.
         Derek did the transplant of modified stem cells into his marrow and laid down to sleep. The hour was up. Outside of Bozeman, it began to snow.