A Werewolf Valentine's

by C. M. Stunich

  I'm no good at poems,

  And I totally suck at rhymes,

  But when I think about you,

  I start to pine.

  (okay, that line was completely lame!)

  But I promise I'm not to blame,

  It's just hard to ruminate,

  With a girl as pretty as you as my mate.

  Thank god your teeth were sharp as knives,

  Because you brought me over to your side,

  So, Sylvia Noel Noe, will you be mine,

  Until the very end of time?

  Completely lame. And honestly, really bad. Like, the most terrible poem ever written.

  I totally swooned when I read it. And I think I already had it memorized. And I was pretty sure that my love for Josiah had just tripled. No, quadrupled.

  “I can't believe Josiah's not here today,” Deb said, her newest anti-Valentine's Day shirt featuring a heart with the words Love Sucks. I mean, it was a cute shirt with black and white stripes, the big red heart floating in the middle, but it was kind of sad, too. Last year, she'd worn more positive phrases, stuff like My Soul Mate Bought Me This Shirt and Valentine's Day is for Lovers. “He promised he'd set me up with one of the guys.”

  “I'm sure he … has his reasons,” I said, hating that I couldn't tell Deb the truth about the whole situation. “And anyway, you know you can still go to the dance, even if you don't have a date. Heck, why don't you come with me and Josiah?”

  Deb sighed and smiled tightly up at me, her unruly curls teased into perfect ringlets, her makeup dark, her glasses ditched for contacts. She'd really dressed up today—lipstick, jewelry, new jeans, new black flats. I felt bad about Josiah not being here, like it was somehow partially my fault.

  “Thanks, Sylv, but I don't want to intrude. If this were homecoming or something, I totally would, but Valentine's Day? It's the most romantic day of the year. I don't want to go by myself, and everybody I know has a date.” She sighed and glanced away, toward a picnic table across the quad where Lincoln was sitting with his football buddies. Sometimes Josiah sat with them and sometimes he sat with the art crowd or hung with the skaters. Basically, everyone liked Josiah. What wasn't to like about him?

  “Are you sure you don't want to talk about what happened with Lincoln?” I asked again, trying not to be nosey when I was dying to know what had happened between them. I mean, Deb was blushing from her chin to the tops of her ears. Clearly, there was a story here that she just didn't feel like telling.

  While she hemmed and hawed about it for a minute, I pulled my phone from my bag and checked for messages from Josiah. As far as I knew, he still had Lincoln's phone on him. But there was nothing.

  “Maybe we could talk after school?” Deb asked tentatively, and I watched as Lincoln looked up, his blue eyes locking onto hers from across the pavement. They stared at each other for several long moments before she glanced away. Whoa. Totally loaded stare.

  “Yeah, of course,” I said as she turned and pretended to smile at me. It was tight and lopsided and looked a bit more like a grimace than a grin, but I'd take it. “To be honest, I still don't have a dress. I was going to ask if you wanted to go shopping today?”

  Deb nodded briskly as the bell rang, and rose to her feet.

  “I have to talk to my sixth period teacher about something after class, but I could meet you down here after? It shouldn't take me more than a few minutes.”

  “Sounds good,” I said as I grabbed my bag, checked my messages one more time, and then headed off to biology for another riveting educational video on amoeba. How very exciting.

  After school, I parked my butt on the cement half-wall surrounding the quad to wait for Deb, bumping my heels against the rocky surface and enjoying the brief reprieve from the rain. It was warm today, with a brisk breeze that smelled like spring and fresh growing things. I wish Josiah were here to enjoy it with me.

  Usually, he picked me up and dropped me off from school in his pickup. And almost always, he had a white chocolate mocha or some other goodie waiting for me. I appreciated Deb giving me rides and all, but her car reeked of perfume and body spray (she kind of had an addiction and kept a whole bag of different scents in the back seat). With my new werewolf senses, I had to roll the front window down and breathe through it as I tried not to gag on wild honeysuckle body beauty or strawberry cream skin spray. And I used to think that stuff smelled good. Bleh.

  So there I was, sitting there and minding my own business when I heard the distinct sound of my phone pinging at me from inside my bag.

  I pulled it out quickly and read the text.

  Ur dad's here & mom has crossbow, hurry!

  My heart froze in my chest, my mouth popping open in shock as I rose to my feet and tried not to have a panic attack.

  “Ready to shop?” Deb asked when she appeared by my right side. One look at my white face and she was blanching, too. “What's wrong?”

  “Can you take me to Josiah's?” I asked, feeling breathless and light-headed. “Now.”

  Fortunately, Deb didn't argue, taking us over to Josiah's parents' place as fast as was reasonably possible given the wet roads from last night's rain. She even ran two stop signs to get me there, my door swinging open before we'd even come to a complete stop.

  The Wakeham house was almost completely unrecognizable now that Christmas was over and the snow had gone. If Josiah hadn't thought to text me the address, I might not have been able to find it again. Without the giant Frosty the Snowman inflatables, it looked pretty much like every other house on the block.

  “Dad!” I screamed as I stumbled in the front door and found my father, Josiah's mom, and Aunt Lizzie in the living room. Josiah was waiting for me in the archway, his eyes flicking my direction and flashing with relief.

  “Sylv,” he whispered as I paused next to him and looked at Mrs. Wakeham and her sister, dressed in … matching white and red striped sweaters with angel winged cats on the front. They said, in gold glittery cursive, To Me, You're the Purrfect Valentine! Heh. The world's ugliest sweater award just called—they want their design back.

  “Sylvia?” Dad asked, glancing over at me with surprise. “What are you doing here?”

  “What am I doing?” I asked as I whipped a glare over to the Wakeham women and noticed Corine standing beside them, sniffling, tears dripping black mascara down her cheeks.

  Just as Josiah had promised, there were silver weapons involved. Elsie was wielding a crossbow with silver tipped bolts and Aunt Lizzie … had an axe? An axe? A FREAKING AXE?! Who does that?

  “I won't have some monster in my house, telling me how to raise my kids,” Elsie snapped, flicking shiny dark hair over her shoulder and cocking the crossbow. “Now, get your spawn and get out.” With each word she spat out, glitter drifted from her sweater and fell to the floor.

  I stared at her for a long, quiet moment and then closed my eyes, listening to the silent murmur of my magic, that odd, almost unsettling whisper that traveled straight from my heart and out, encompassing the room and all of the people in it. When I opened my eyes, I was the only one moving in normal speed—except for Josiah.

  “Sylv?” he asked as I glanced over at him and our eyes met. Whoa. Somehow, I'd used my power to slow down everyone in the room but him. Maybe it was, like, our mate power or something? I didn't have time to analyze it.

  “Grab the weapons,” I told him, and although he looked about as freaked out as I was, we both moved over to Elsie and Lizzie, disentangling their hands from the silver weapons, being very careful not to touch the actual metal.

  “We can stash them in here,” Josiah whispered because with the whole room frozen like that, it just sort of felt like a whispering kind of environment. We sneaked past the dining room table—which just happened to be laden with Valentine's day sweets of every shape, size, and color imaginable—and over to a nondescript door next to a china cabinet.

  Josiah yanked it open and we tossed the weapons inside what looked to be a den of so
me sort. He pushed the lock on the inside of the door and then closed it, so it would take at least some time to get it open again. As soon as he yanked it closed, the house exploded with sound.

  “JOSIAH EDRIC WAKEHAM!” Elsie roared from the living room as we jogged back, both of us breathing hard and exchanging a look as we passed by the hallway … and found Deb standing on the porch. She waved at me through the window and I bit my lip in nervousness.

  “Crap,” I whispered. In all of the excitement, I'd kind of, almost, sort of forgotten about her. Oops. I was a cruddy friend, wasn't I? “One sec,” I said as I sprinted down the hall and heard the angry rumbling of the adults in the living room go silent—naturally, this time, and not from magic. “Hello Deb!” I said, purposely loud and dramatic as I wrenched Josiah's front door open. “I'm so sorry, please come in.”

  Debra gave me a look like I was clinically insane and stepped inside, right onto a mat that I hadn't noticed in my earlier frenzy. The image emblazoned on the mat was one of Little Red Riding Hood … holding a crossbow over the body of a dead wolf. That's How This Fairytale Ends, it read.

  Um.

  Morbid much?

  “What's going on?” Deb asked as she looked around my shoulder and saw Josiah standing in his socks in the living room archway. “Is everything okay, Sylvia?”

  “Yeah, um, it's just … my dad and …” No lie would come to me. So I just stood there staring at my friend's pink glittery eyeshadow and fumbling around for a decent excuse.

  “My mom doesn't want me to go out with Sylvia anymore,” Josiah said from behind me, pulling my bacon right from the fire. “She doesn't think Sylvia's good enough.” He spat the words out harshly enough that I knew, even without looking at his face, that we was frowning.

  Deb got this look on her face, one that I liked to refer to as her righteous indignation face, something she usually only donned for political, environmental, or religious discussions. She stormed right past me, into a stranger's house, and paused with her brown eyes locked onto Aunt Lizzie and Mrs. Wakeham.

  “Not good enough?!” she roared as my dad stood up straight and pushed his glasses up his nose, casting me a sideways glance and a small half-smile. Proud of you, kid. That's what that look said. Yay! Guess I did a good job using my powers to diffuse the situation. “How dare you! Sylvia's a lovely girl.”

  Lovely girl. Heh. From the mouth of Deb Piers, folks. Debra had this strange habit of speaking formally, like a Victorian lady or something, when she was angry. I'd literally heard her use shan't, thou, and begat in a debate about—oddly enough—the endangered species status of North American gray wolves.

  “Josiah,” Elsie began, a warning note clear in her voice. If she was surprised about the missing weapons, she didn't let on. “Now is not the time for company.”

  “It wouldn't be the time then, would it?” Deb snipped, giving me a slight nod. We've got this, the look said and I almost smiled as she turned back to Josiah's mom and aunt. Lizzie was giving me this look—it's hard to describe—but if I had to, I would say beaming with hatred maybe? Apparently she'd hated me from moment one because she hadn't exactly been all that nice to me on Christmas Day either. Or maybe she'd already figured out what I was by that point? I'm not sure. “If you're really standing around here debating my friend's merits, then maybe you should take a look at your own lives and see if there's something more positive for you to spend your energy on than harassing my friend. Deb paused and looked over at my dad, standing there in his jeans and his white and blue plaid overshirt. “Mr. Noe,” Deb said briskly and then reached down to take both my and Josiah's hands in hers. “We're leaving.”

  Surprisingly, Mrs. Wakeham didn't stop us as we headed for the front door, pausing only to grab Josiah's coat and boots—and a handful of pink frosted sugar cookies from the table.

  “That was great, Deb!” Josiah said, giving her a high five as soon as we were safely stationed out front. I walked slowly, trying to stall and make sure my dad got out of there alright before we left. No way was I leaving him here all by himself. Dad wasn't exactly the, uh, violent or confrontational type, and I didn't want to see him get hurt. “You seriously saved the day,” he told her with a comforting shoulder squeeze. She blushed and looked away.

  “I guess I just don't understand when people judge others like that. It just … bothers me.” Deb looked at Josiah and then over at me. “Why doesn't she like you anyway? Did something happen?” Josiah and I exchanged a small look that somehow Deb read completely wrong.

  “Oh. My. God. You guys did it,” she whispered, eyes widening, “and you got caught.”

  “Um,” I started, but it was too late and the damage had been done. Deb was staring at us with a really weird mixture of surprise and relief on her face and Josiah was just grinning because well, he was Josiah. And then my dad came out of the house and I really didn't want to bring up the subject of doing it at all because well, my dad really didn't need to hear about any of that, now did he?

  “Sylvia,” he said, and I moved over to talk to him. Josiah hooked an arm around Deb's shoulders and steered her over to her car to give us some privacy. “That was pretty impressive back there,” he said with a sly smile, making me desperately curious as to what his special werewolf power was. Neither Mom nor Dad had told me theirs, and it didn't seemed like they intended to just yet. Made me wonder if whatever their powers were, if they might be using them to spy on my brothers and me. Would not surprise me one bit.

  “Do you think they were really going to …” I couldn't say kill you, but yeah, that's what I was thinking. I stared back at my dad with his dirty blond hair and blue eyes and total nerd glasses. “I mean, what would've happened if I hadn't showed up?”

  “Don't worry about it,” Dad said, making himself smile at me and then reaching out to pull me into a quick hug. “Why don't you go hang out with your friends and let Mom and me handle this?”

  I raised one eyebrow and then crossed my arms over my chest, giving him a look that was all suspicion.

  “What's going on? What did Josiah's mom say about … you know, the wolfsbane and stuff.” Dad's lips pursed but he just glanced over my shoulder as Deb's car engine roared to life. When he glanced down at me, he had this tightly pinched and worried look on his face that he tried to hide with another half-smile.

  “Are you going shopping?” he asked, and I realized suddenly that I had about five dollars left in my wallet. Like that was going to get me a dress for the Valentine's Day dance. Mom had promised me she'd take me to get one, but she'd been really busy with work lately and I hadn't wanted to bother her …

  “Any chance I could borrow some advance allowance money to get a dress?” I asked with the bright white flash of teeth. Mom and Dad weren't exactly Scrooges when it came to passing out spending money, but I felt bad taking advantage of them and tried to work off whatever I could by helping around the house and with my crazy cadre of little brothers.

  “Here, take this and get whatever you need for the dance,” Dad said, reaching into his back pocket and grabbing the brown leather fold of his wallet. When he handed over a serious wad of cold, hard cash, I knew something was wrong. “And keep the change,” he told me, still smiling slightly as he patted me on the shoulder and moved away to get into his car.

  I turned and watched him as he started up the engine and then sat there, blocked in by Deb. With a sigh, I made my way over to her beat up little Camry and climbed inside, a frown etched into my lips.

  “Everything okay?” Josiah asked as he peeked between the seats and put his chin on my shoulder. If I said the feel of his body against mine didn't make me shiver with pleasure, I'd be lying. But then I glanced over at Deb in the driver's seat and found her staring really hard at the two of us and things just got a bit uncomfortable.

  “Everything's fine,” I said with a false smile, knowing Josiah and I couldn't exactly talk about the incident right now. We'd have to wait until later I supposed. “Now, let's get out of here a
nd grab a milkshake.” I lifted up the wad of cash Dad had given me and tried to smile. “Courtesy of Mr. Noe.”

  There aren't a lot of places to shop around town, so Deb and I settled for this part of downtown that everyone just called The Square. There was a huge central plaza with a giant three dimension metal statue of boxes inside boxes inside boxes, all of them perfectly square, the whole of the thing perfectly ugly if you asked me. Deb said it was très chic and Josiah said it looked like a broken Rubik's cube. Today, it was all jazzed up for Valentine's Day with a giant metal heart hanging in the center of the boxes, and a ton of white lights strung around the outside. Paired with the faux flower garlands on the two white gazebos, the Valentine's Day chalk art from the art school students' last public installation, and the graffiti on one of the benches that read Love's Too Powerful to Ignore, the whole thing was pseudo romantic.

  Or at least it would've been if Deb hadn't kept trying to pull me aside and ask me really embarrassing questions that I was so not prepared for.

  “Tell me everything. When did it happen? Where did it happen? Did his mom catch you? Did your dad?”

  I stuck the straw of my milkshake in my mouth and tried to buy Josiah enough time to get back over to us to derail the conversation. He was busy trying to wipe milkshake off his shoes—Deb's fault this time. She'd tripped and sloshed strawberry pink all over his black winter boots. In the back of my mind, I kind of got the idea that maybe she did it on purpose.

  “Okay, all cleaned up,” Josiah said with another smile, one that didn't quite reach his eyes. Whatever had happened in that living room before I arrived must've been bad. Between Dad and Josiah and their fake everything's totally fine looks, I knew I needed to dig deeper. “Let's wait out here for a few though. Lincoln's meeting up with us.”