Midnight Howl (2 page)

The first thing I noticed about Montana was how
cold
it was. My mom and I stepped out of the tiny Glacier National Park International Airport, and suddenly the cute purple tank top and jeans, which had been perfect for a mid-September day in Austin, were
definitely
not enough.

I was exhausted. Turns out Glacier National Park Airport is impossible to fly to directly from Texas, so we’d spent a long,
long
time getting there.

Outside, the sky was a bright, clear blue, and I could see huge white-capped mountains not far in the distance.

“Wow!” I said, admiring the view. “Mom, check it out.”

But my mom wasn’t looking at the scenery. She had a big smile on her face and was waving wildly to a blond woman with long, frizzy hair and freckles. The woman was getting out of a red pickup truck near us and waving back with even more enthusiasm.

“Molly!” my mom practically screamed. “Molly!”

“Mom,”
I whispered, embarrassed. “She’s about three feet away. You do not have to
yell.”

“ANA!” the woman — now only a foot away — shrieked back. She and my mom grabbed each other in a great big bear hug.

When they let go, Molly grabbed me and squeezed tight. She smelled like soap and just a little like horse. “Marisol!” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe this is the first time I’m meeting you. You’re so grown up!” She let go and turned to my mom. “Ana, she looks just like you did when we met.”

They were off on a big round of remember-that-time when I noticed a girl about my age getting out of the truck. Her mom had leaped out and run over to us, looking delighted, but this girl was taking her time and wasn’t smiling. She had long, frizzy blond hair, too, and freckles, and her pale blue eyes looked at me warily.

“Hi!” I said, stepping toward her. “I’m Marisol. Are you Molly’s daughter?”

“Hailey,” she mumbled, and hunched her shoulders, staring down at her shoes.

O …
kay.
Did she hate me already, or was she just shy?

I tried again. I gave her a big smile. “I can’t believe my mom didn’t tell me you were my age,” I said. “All she said was ‘Molly and her family.’ You’d think she might have said, ‘By the way, her daughter’s the same age as you,’ right?”

Hailey gave me a very small smile and then looked away.

My mom flushed. “I’m sorry, Molly, I hate to admit it, but I lost track of how old your twins are — I thought they were younger than Marisol, but they must be about the same age.”

Molly nodded. “Hailey and Jack are twelve.” She didn’t seem offended that my mom hadn’t known.

Wait a second. Twins?
Jack?

My mother had also forgotten to tell me I was going to spend the next three months living with a
boy.

To a lot of girls this would not be a big deal at all.
A lot of girls have brothers. Or guy friends they know really, really well and hang out with all the time, so they’re like family.

But me? I’m a girl who lives with her mom and has close
girl
friends. I don’t have any boy cousins, and I don’t have any real guy friends. The last genuine friendship I had with a boy ended when Toby Collington stole my sparkly pencil in second grade and wouldn’t give it back. I
knew
boys, of course, from school and stuff, but not super close-up. And definitely not
living together
close.

I try to be levelheaded in general. But that doesn’t mean I’m fearless about extreme social weirdness, like sharing a bathroom with a boy. I started to panic. My first thought was: I’d need to stop wearing my pj’s to breakfast. And I’d have to start brushing my hair before leaving my room in the morning.

I must have had a funny expression on my face, because Molly gave me a worried frown. “Marisol? Are you okay? Are you hungry?”

I smiled at her, relieved at an excuse to stop thinking about boys. “Actually, I’m starving!”

“Well, we’d better get going, then,” she said cheerily, and led the way.

I made an awkward entrance into the backseat of the big pickup cab; it was hard to step up high enough, and I sort of scrambled my way onto the seat.

“Whoops,” I said, laughing. “I don’t have enough practice getting into pickups. We’ve got a hybrid back in Texas.”

Hailey shrugged and looked away, out the window.
Hmmm,
I thought.
Really not friendly.

Molly turned around from the front seat. “We’ve got about an hour and a half drive to our place. If you’re starving, we should hit a drive-through before we leave town.”

I looked out my window. There was a gorgeous view and not much else — just a few houses and a little strip mall with some stores and a McDonald’s. “Where’s town?” I asked.

Hailey stared at me but didn’t say anything.

Molly laughed. “This is it!” she said, throwing her arms wide. “It doesn’t look like much, but this is where we come to do our shopping. Out where we live is the real country.”

“Wow,” I said nervously. “That’s … great. But I can’t eat at McDonald’s, I’m a vegetarian.”

“What a coincidence!” said Molly cheerfully. “So is Hailey! You can just eat whatever she eats, and you’ll be fine.”

Hailey spoke for the first time since we’d gotten in the truck. “It
is
pretty tough to find something to eat in town,” she said quietly. “I’m a vegan, so I don’t even eat cheese. Most places, all I can get is a salad or maybe some fries.”

“What about Chinese food?” I asked. “Or Indian? Veggie sushi? Tex-Mex?”

Hailey shook her head.

“Okay,” I said weakly. If all I had for three months was salad and fries, then Tasha was right, I was definitely going to die — of malnutrition.

I shifted closer to Hailey and whispered. “We might have to starve here, but someday you’ll come to Austin, and we’ll get
real
food. Austin has the best Mexican food on the planet — well, the best outside of Mexico.”

She gave me a startled look and flushed, turning to look out her window again. I sighed and leaned my head against my own window. Apparently,
not eating meat hadn’t been enough to break the ice.

Sure, I’d be fine — fine with a girl I had to live with and go to school with who would barely speak to me, fine living with a strange boy, fine with a diet consisting entirely of fried potatoes and iceberg lettuce. We had hardly left the airport, and I felt like my stay in Montana was doomed.

I had to admit, the bed-and-breakfast was adorable. It was a giant log cabin, with little log cabins scattered around it in the woods.
Like the little cabins are the main house’s babies,
I thought, grinning.

“Guest cabins,” Molly said to my mom, waving one hand at them. “I’d put you and Marisol in one of those, Ana, but they get chilly in the off-season. And there’s plenty of room in the house.”

Beside the big log cabin, a cleared space surrounded a stable and riding ring. I could smell the faint scent of horses on the breeze. An immense green forest stood between the ranch and a mountain rising high against the horizon. The sky was wide and blue and cloudless.

I took a deep breath of fresh country air (and horses) and decided I was going to have a good time, no matter what. I put a smile on my face and headed for the house behind Molly and my mom. While I had been looking around, Hailey had taken off ahead of them.

A few steps from the front door, I stopped. Molly and my mom had gone inside, and I was alone. It was awfully quiet. In the distance, I heard a horse whinny.

I turned in a slow circle. Leaves rustled in the breeze, and everything was peaceful. But I had a strange feeling, like I was being watched. I held very still.
I’m imagining this,
I thought.
I’m tired, and the dream last night is making me nervous.

A twig cracked in the tangled underbrush beside the road.

I hurried into the house, my heart racing.

The door opened into a cozy, warm kitchen, full of the smell of cooking food. As soon as I was inside, I had to laugh at myself. The boy chopping vegetables at the counter met my smile with a grin.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he said. “I’m Jack.”

Jack was pretty cute. His very short blond hair, pale blue eyes, and freckles made it clear he was Hailey’s brother, but his friendly smile made those features look totally different than they looked on Hailey’s wary face.

“Hi,” I said, feeling a little shy. “I like your house.” It was really Western looking: log walls, paintings of horses, big cushy couches and chairs. It looked like a good place to curl up in front of a crackling fire after a long day riding the trails.

His dad came over and shook my mom’s hand and smiled at me. “I’m Mike,” he said. “We’re real happy to have you visit. Molly’s been so excited.” He was a big, sweet-faced man. This family was all so friendly, except for Hailey. I couldn’t figure her out.

“Can I help?” I asked Jack, who seemed to be cooking all by himself.

“Sure,” he said. “Would you rather mix up the corn bread, rub the marinade into the steaks, or finish the salad?”

“Um,” I hesitated. The idea of rubbing stuff into raw meat grossed me out. “I’ll mix up the corn bread.”

“Great!” He handed me a bowl. “Break an egg into this, and beat in a cup of milk and a quarter
cup of vegetable oil. Then we’ll mix it with the flour and stuff.”

“Wow,” I said, putting the bowl on the counter and getting out an egg. “You can really cook.” I had the idea that boys thought cooking was unmanly. But, like I said, I don’t actually know any boys.

“Yep,” Jack said. “I want to be a chef.” He was rubbing some oily stuff with dried leaves floating in it on the raw meat, and I had to look away.
Yuck!
I concentrated on beating the liquids together. “I’m in the cooking club at school — you should join! We practice recipes and go to restaurants, and we have a big party at the end of the semester.”

“I don’t know,” I said awkwardly. “I’m better at eating than cooking.”

“Marisol’s a vegetarian like your sister,” Molly told him. “Be sure to make extra salad.”

“No problem,” Jack said. “I’m making vegetable shish kebabs on the grill for Hailey, and we can make more for you. And there’ll be plenty of corn bread, salad, and baked beans.”

“That sounds great!” I said happily. I wasn’t going to starve for three months after all. “Thank you!”

Jack handed off the skewers of vegetables and the steaks to his dad to put on the grill and finished
mixing up the corn bread and stuck it in the oven. Salad was in the bowl and baked beans were heating on the stove top. Molly and my mom were talking at the kitchen table.

I was sitting at a tall stool at the kitchen counter, and Jack pulled up a stool next to me.

“Um,” he said, jiggling his knee. “So, if not cooking, what kind of stuff are you into? There’s, like” — he waved his hand vaguely — “a lot of different things at school. Sports and art club and stuff. The girls’ soccer team is pretty good.”

“Maybe not soccer,” I said. “I mean, I’m not that into team sports. I like lots of stuff, though. Hiking and biking, and animals, and being outdoors. And I’m interested in science, especially astronomy.”

I felt like a dork saying that, but Jack perked right up. “Astronomy!” he said. “Awesome! There’s an astronomy club at school. They have camping trips to look at the stars. Their fall trip is actually a big deal even for people who aren’t in the club. Like, practically everybody goes.”

“Really?!”
I exclaimed. There was a science club at my school back home, and sometimes we talked about astronomy. We’d gone on a trip to the
planetarium, but not enough kids were so interested in space that they’d want to join a club just for that.

“Sure,” Jack said. “There’s great stargazing around here. You can go out into Glacier National Park and take a telescope, or see a lot even just outside the house.”

“This is going to be amazing,” I told him.

“How’d you get into astronomy?” he asked curiously. “Like, is it a science thing, or an outdoorsy thing, or both?”

“Um, both, I guess,” I said. “My dad bought a telescope for us to share when I was six, and we used to go out with it a lot. He’d show me all the different constellations.”

“Neat,” Jack said.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling as I remembered stargazing with my dad. “Every year there’s a big meteor shower in the summer called the Perseid shower, and he’d wake me up in the middle of the night to see it. We’d take a thermos of hot chocolate and go sit on the roof to watch the shooting stars. We still do it now that he lives in Miami; we try to make sure I’m out there at the right time.”

“Sounds really nice,” Jack said.

“Yeah, it is,” I said again. I missed my dad now
that he lived in Miami. It was great to spend time with him on school breaks, but it wasn’t the same as seeing him every day.

Our conversation hit a little pause, and Jack started looking around and jiggling his leg again. “Can you ride a horse?” he asked suddenly.

I shook off the thoughts about my dad. “Not really,” I said apologetically. “The closest I got was a couple of rides on my friend’s pony when I was eight. But I’ve always wanted to learn.”

“You’d have a great time,” he said. “I love it. I take people riding the trails around here all the time when we have guests, so if you want, we could go riding sometime. If you like animals and hiking, you’ll be a natural. Our horses are really gentle.”

“I don’t think it’s a great idea for Marisol to go out on a horse without an adult when she doesn’t know how to ride,” my mom broke in. I hadn’t even realized she and Molly were listening to our conversation. “Maybe we could all go together sometime.”

“Oh, Jack’s a great teacher,” Molly said dismissively. “She’ll be fine.”

My mom’s lips tightened, but she didn’t say anything. She gave me a look that meant
We’ll discuss
this later,
but I pretended not to see it. If Jack really took tourists out on horseback all the time, I didn’t think my mother had anything to worry about.

The buzzer rang to let us know the corn bread was done just as Mike came in from outside carrying a platter. “Steaks and veggies are ready,” he said. “Marisol, would you ask Hailey to come to the table?”

I glanced around. My mom was setting the table while Molly poured milk and water into big glasses. “Hailey’s so moody these days,” Molly said to my mom. “She’s very self-conscious. Getting to be a teenager, right? I try to give her some space.” My mom
mmmmed
in agreement.

Jack was getting the corn bread out of the oven, but he rolled his eyes at me. “I like how parents blame everything they don’t like on our age,” he said pointedly. “Hailey’s room is upstairs. Just look for the wolf doorknocker.”

“Thanks,” I said, and headed upstairs.

The hall was dark, and a line of light shone around the edges of Hailey’s door. I hesitated, then knocked.

There was no sound from behind the door. Was
she there? Should I knock again? I would feel stupid standing in the dark outside her door if she had headphones on or was in the bathroom or something. I waited and waited and then finally raised my hand to knock again.

Suddenly, the door flew open.

“What?” Hailey asked.

I looked past her and my mouth dropped open. I couldn’t tell what color her walls were because everywhere, from floor to ceiling, there were images of animals: pictures printed off websites, cut out of magazines, and on posters. Lion cubs wrestled playfully. A raccoon clung to a tree branch. Horses galloped over dunes. A hundred different animals were playing, hunting, eating, and basking in the sun. The largest poster of all showed a line of wolves coming over the crest of a hill, their cool amber gazes watchful and calm. Looking in from the dark hall, it was as if Hailey’s door had opened into the wild.

“What?” Hailey asked again. “Please, my room is
private
.” She stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind her.

I realized I had been staring, which was pretty rude. “Oh, sorry … wow, it’s like a zoo in there!”

Hailey ducked her head. “I really like animals,” she said softly. “I don’t like zoos, though. Wild animals should be free.”

“Um, I can understand how you feel,” I said. I paused, but neither of us seemed to have anything more to say. “Anyway, dinner’s ready.”

She followed me down the hall toward the kitchen so quietly I almost turned around to make sure she was still behind me. I just wanted her to
say
something. Hailey seemed kind of intense, and she made me a little uncomfortable.

I was starving when I sat down at the table. Jack set a plate in front of me with a flourish.

“Hey, this looks really good,” I said, digging in. The veggies from the shish kebab were tasty: juicy and warm and flavored with different herbs.

“This steak is perfect, Mike and Jack!” my mom exclaimed from the other end of the table. “Absolutely delicious.”

“The corn bread didn’t turn out so well,” Jack said, gazing at a bread basket full of blackened slices. “It got kind of scorched.”

He looked sad. I reached out and grabbed a piece of corn bread. “I’m sure it’ll be fine with a little butter,” I said cheerfully. I slathered on some butter and
took a big bite. It was surprisingly edible. “The unburned parts are delicious,” I said, chewing. Jack laughed.

Later that night, Hailey led me up to show me my room, which was down the hall from hers.

I smiled at her. “Dinner was great. Jack’s a good cook.”

She shrugged. “Sure.”

“I guess I won’t starve out here after all,” I joked. “Maybe I can even get Jack to learn how to make vegetarian sushi.” Hailey made a strange noise and turned away from me into her own room.

I stared after her. Had she just
growled
at me?