This Is Not a Werewolf Story (19 page)

If I ever
. I suck my breath in. It
is
a code.

I pull out the recipe after Tuna Surprise. It's Frog Eye Salad.

1 tsp pepper

1 cup pearl pasta

5 frog eyes

1 apple

2 grapes

By the time I get halfway through Frog Eye Salad my hand is shaking.

I was wrong when I thought the cards weren't in order. They are. They're in the order of my mom's story. I keep going. It's five o' clock. I hear Dean Swift walking the halls, turning off lights. He jiggles the handle of the utility closet to make sure it's locked.

I stop taking the time to write out the ingredients and just copy over the letters. My mouth is dry like dust. After Crock Pot Spaghetti and Jim's Lasagna I put the pencil down.

If I ever disappear: I know his secret. T wants to kill me.

I look at my clock. It'll be sunset soon. I put the cards back in the box. My head feels full, like an overpacked suitcase. There's such a big mystery raining down all around me, and I can't see my way through it. I push the recipe card box far back under the bed. I throw the window open and scramble down the madrona tree.

I don't mind the rain or the cedars whipping in my face as I run.

I think about the questions Tuffman asked me. I
think about how he kept trying to find out where I go when I go into the woods. He's looking for her.

Maybe she didn't lose the recipe to turn back. Maybe she stopped using it. Maybe she turned into a wolf to escape him.

The rain stops. I slow down. Is he following me? Am I leading him straight to her?

What will he do if he finds her? Does he want to help her? Or does he want to kill her?

I stand real quiet and listen. I don't hear anything. I lift my face and sniff. The woods are wet and silent, and the little wind that rises tells me that they are all mine.

Of course. I exhale slowly. I tricked him today, without even trying. Usually I take the road down to the highway. He's waiting for me there. I get a sick feeling in my stomach when I remember how just last week he was hiding in the ash tree, waiting to pounce on me.

As I get closer to the lighthouse I move more slowly. The rain stops, but the cedar fronds bob and drip. In the clearing at the edge of the cliff the sun has dropped right out of the clouds.

Worry tugs at me. I turn around and look at the path darkening behind me.

Through the trees I see something spark in the distance, back near the school. I freeze.

Is it Tuffman with a flashlight? Is it a cougar with glowing eyes? I take a breath and stare hard. The flashes are coming from the north-wing turret. Of course. Dean Swift has lit the Fresnel lens again. I squint, one hand shading my eyes, and the light swings at me, pouring through the tiny windows in the turret. Even the bricks of the building are glowing, like the light is coming through them, too, somehow.

The beam drenches me.

The light flickers in me like flames. It flows through me like waves. Fear and wonder quiver up my spine. That
light makes me feel as if I'm wolf and boy at the same time. I'm wearing my two skins at once. The blood in my veins is thick and hot. Strength radiates from inside me.

The trunk of an alder tree is on the ground in front of me, fifteen feet long and maybe six feet around. The storm must have brought it down. I tap it with the tip of my toe. It flies thirty feet away into the horizon, off the edge of the cliff.

My strength is superhuman. It is superwolf. It's the light. Its power pulses in me.

It's magic,
I whisper to the shuddering leaves.

The sun has wedged itself between the water and the clouds. Between the dark ocean and the dark sky is a thick slice of white and yellow. And I'm like that lemon-meringue pie of a sky. In my heart, hope jams itself between my fear of Tuffman and my worry about my mother. Because if I'm that strong, then how can Tuffman hurt anyone, or any wolf, that I love?

I run across the grass to the lighthouse.

I wait in my wolf skin on the doorstep of the lighthouse. The darkness of the woods deepens and spreads its shadows over the edge of the cliff and down into the blue-black water below. My hope disappears with the coming of the night.

White Wolf is late. And then she is later. And then she is very, very, very late.

What if the cougar found her?

I whimper. It's a sound that crumbles out of me.

At last I hear a whimper in return. Low and soft, the sound creeps toward me under the cover of dark and above the bed of quiet grass and bleeding hearts.

The moon comes up suddenly from below the line of treetops. I see a flash of white from the edge of the woods. In my wolf shape I lope from the lighthouse doorway to where she waits for me.
Thank you,
I say.
Thank you.

She's weak and gets slowly to her feet. Her nose is dry.

Has she been waiting as long as I have? Waiting, but too sick to come to me?

I sniff her side. The wound has almost healed. But my nose tells me she is hungry and thirsty and tired. Was the rabbit I left for her on Sunday her last meal? It makes me ache inside to think of White Wolf alone and suffering without me.

Why isn't she eating? The woods are full of deer.

As I lead her to the lake, I catch the smell of the cougar here and there, coming at me on different currents of air. The cougar hasn't come into our territory, but he's roaming its edges. The scent of cougar gets stronger the closer we get to the lake.

I stand guard as she drinks. We're at the edge of the fishing area and White Deer Woods. We've never come
this close to the school, but I need to find food for her and I know there are plenty of deer here. I sniff the ground. I smell Sparrow and Vincent. I smell human me. We've come so often to the lake that it would take more than a little rain to wash us away. I follow the whiffs and puffs of cougar scent that I pick up in the air. A pair of footprints in the mud near the picnic table makes my nose twitch. The prints are fresh and from not long ago. Expensive running shoes. Tuffman's the only one with feet that big wearing Pumas around here. The prints are his, but the smell is cougar.

My nose and mind work together.

Tuffman is the cougar. Tuffman, my uncle. Tuffman, the one my mom calls “T,” the one who gave White Wolf that vicious scrape, the one my mom hurt in the woods long ago.

When wolves get scared, they get mad. My blood pops hot and slow, like boiling tar. That cougar's asking for trouble. He's gonna get it.

Once she's had enough to drink, I lead White Wolf back to the ledge. The cougar scent disappears inside White Deer Woods. He hasn't come into our territory. She's safe in here, for now.

All Saturday I hunt. I make sure White Wolf eats her fill. I kill everything I can and cache what she can't eat now so that she will have something during the week. The beam of light keeps pulsing in me. Nothing I chase
outruns me. Nothing I lunge for slips past my teeth.

By Sunday morning White Wolf looks strong. Her eyes sparkle and her nose is damp and her fur glows white in the sunlight. I follow as she roams to the edge of our territory.

And then it happens.

One minute I'm looking off into the underbrush for a bunny snack and the next White Wolf is backing up. For a second I'm filled with her fear. Then I get a whiff of cougar.

When I'm in my boy skin, the cougar scares me. In my wolf skin it infuriates me. No litter-scratching cat is going to tell my mom where she can go, when she can eat, or what skin she can wear.

I push past her. She whimpers and stands still, her head tilted. She wants to go back and she wants me to come with her. But I'm not leaving her like this. Not for a whole week. If that cougar is up ahead, then I'm going to find him and finish him. I'll run him off the edge of the cliff.

I messed up during the week. Boy me spent his time eating candy and looking sideways at Mary Anne. But wolf me is going to take care of the problem.

I run harder as the cougar scent gets stronger. I head directly toward it, and a second later I feel her behind me. My wolf mouth smiles. Our feet beat in time against the hard dry dirt under the cedars.

Two against one. This is how wolves chase off a cougar.

We're so close to the lake I can smell the pollywogs Little John hasn't eaten yet. The cougar scent is so strong I almost choke on it.

Then I hear a whistle, and a split second later I'm lying on the path, a searing pain in my right shoulder. I can hardly breathe, it hurts so bad. White Wolf sniffs me. She whimpers. A second later she growls like a wild animal and dashes past me.

I struggle to my feet and follow her.

White Wolf's growl rumbles in the quiet woods ahead.

“I didn't know there were two of them!” a boy's voice screams out.

Humans.

I race through the pine trees. The lake is just ahead. I want White Wolf to turn around and come back. We hunt cougar, not humans.

What if they have a gun?

“Get up here on the table,” a man's voice says.

I hear a boy sobbing.

“No!” the man shouts. “Get off the ground!”

As I come into the clearing, I skid to a stop, stunned.

White Wolf has brought Tuffman and Vincent to bay on the picnic table. They're wearing running shoes and shorts. There's a little stack of pink flags on the ground.
They are staking out the 5K practice run for PE. When did those two get to be such good buddies?

I look at her. My mother is a magnificent beast. Her teeth are sharp and gleaming. Her fur is standing on end so that she looks twice her usual size. And her usual size is about twice the size of any wolf you've ever seen.

“Stand up,” Tuffman yells.

Vincent is on his hands and knees on top of the table, shaking with fear. Tuffman grabs him by the back of the neck and yanks him upright. He shakes Vincent hard.

“Pull it together,” he says angrily. “I'm not about to lose her after all these years just because you're chicken.”

Vincent has the slingshot I gave him. That must be how the rock hit me so hard. He's bawling his eyes out and shaking and trying to put another rock into the strap.

Rock or no rock, White Wolf is going to kill Vincent.

No,
I want to shout.
Stop. He didn't know what he was doing.
My mother is going to kill my best friend. She's going to jump on him, pin him down, and do to him what we do to weasels and rabbits and deer.

I rush between them, barking and dancing around in front of White Wolf, trying to get her to calm down.

You can't reason with a wolf. Nose nudges and nips aren't going to stop her. Never—and I mean
never
—mess with a wolf mother's baby.

Whiz. Whack
. Another rock hits me, this time in the back of the head.

White Wolf lunges to protect me, positioning her body between me and the table. She's barking so hard now she's like a machine gun.

I whimper but stay on my feet. I've got to get between her and them again. I'm the only one who knows everything. And one thing I know is that a wolf that attacks a human will be hunted down by the park rangers and killed within the week.

But when I look up at the table again, I see it's Tuffman who has the slingshot now. That last shot came from him. The smell and sight of him remind me of what he is. He's the cougar. He wants to hurt White Wolf. He asked me questions so that I would lead him to her.

Listen up, feline. Did you ever hear the saying: Curiosity killed the cat?

My fur goes electric. Every muscle in my body tightens. I turn to stand side by side with my wolf mother. Together we advance, growling fiercely. White Wolf shifts her weight, and I see she's about to jump. I gather up my strength.

Sorry, Vincent. This can't be helped. You're too close to my territory. I'm going to do whatever a wolf has to do to get you out.

Tuffman makes a little scream. Apparently, we are two really scary wolves. He drops the slingshot. He
leaps off the table and is running before his feet hit the ground. Vincent follows.

White Wolf and I give chase. Vincent is still bawling, but he runs so hard he catches up with Tuffman. If I had a stopwatch and opposable thumbs, I bet I'd clock them at forty mph.

Before they even reach the road, White Wolf and I stop. We flop, panting, in the shade of the oak tree that is growing around my bike. As the thrill of the chase fades, I realize how bad my head hurts where Tuffman hit me with the rock.