This Is Not a Werewolf Story

by Sandra Evans

  “It’s time we organize ourselves, Oliver,” Ms. Tern says so softly I almost can’t hear her. “It’s time we make new ways. We must defend the wild.”

  “Silence is our only defense. The old way is the only way,” Dean Swift says.

  They’re both quiet for so long my feet fall asleep.

  “Turn off the light,” Ms. Tern finally says. “Until we know what it does.”

  “How can I know, if I turn it off? Show me more than an old photo and a cold trail. Until then, I’ll believe the most rational version of events. Ferrier is a very old man or a dead one. His days of destruction have ended. And Coach Tuffman is an Olympian who has boxed up his medals in order to forge a relationship with his long-lost nephew.”

  “There’s no talking sense to you.” Ms. Tern stomps down the stairs.

  Dean Swift tinkers around at his desk for a while.

  “Gollum,” he whispers. The snake slithers across the floor, and he lifts her onto his desk. “Guard the light,” he says with a little smile in his voice.

  Then he takes the stairs slowly, his knees creaking as loudly as the steps. At the door I hear him mutter, “Now I must find that key.”

  Chapter 22

  WHERE VINCENT WORRIES AND RAUL SAYS TOO MUCH

  I take the stairs quick, two at a time. I want out of there before the dean decides to come back and look for the key. The second after I slip under my covers, I hear a tap at the door.

  Vincent walks in with my dinner. I smile like I’m happy to see him, but I’m not.

  I want to be alone, so I can think about every crazy thing I just overheard. I want the story and all its pieces out in front of me.

  And I kind of want to cry, because I just realized that I left the recipe card box in the turret.

  Vincent sets the tray on my desk under the window. It smells good. Fried chicken and mashed potatoes. Gravy—the good kind, homemade. And green beans with salt and basil. My stomach grumbles and moans and shouts and screams.

  It’s funny how good food can make you feel better.

  Vincent sits down. He seems to have forgotten my dinner.

  “Please promise you won’t tell anyone what a loser I was.”

  “I won’t tell,” I say. Didn’t we go over this already? I look at the food.

  “Promise? I don’t want them to call me chicken like they did at my last school.”

  Would it be rude to get my tray? Since Vincent is sitting between me and it, I’d have to climb all the way down the length of my bed. Or leap over Vincent.

  I eyeball it. I could probably almost clear his head.

  He blurts out, “Everyone likes me here. At my old school nobody would even sit next to me at lunch.”

  “I promise.” I understand now. Vincent got typecast. That’s when you get a reputation for being bad, or stupid, or a crybaby. You get stuck with that word and you can’t get anyone to drop it. And when you come to a new school, you think you’ll finally change that word.

  There’s nothing worse than finding out the word for you is always the same.

  After a minute he walks over to my window. It’s dark out, so all he can see is his own reflection.

  I watch the steam coming off my plate next to his hand. I swallow my spit.

  “So I know it and you know it. I don’t want anyone else here to know it. Especially not Mary Anne.” He whispers her name.

  I get a mean little feeling. Because it’s true—Mary Anne is looking for a hero.

  But I say it nicely. “I won’t tell.”

  “But you might.”

  “I won’t.”

  “How can I be sure?”

  “I won’t tell.” From here the gravy is looking less like gravy and more like jelly.

  “It’s hard to keep a secret,” he says. “Are you sure you won’t tell Sparrow?”

  Starvation makes me desperate. He’s not going to let me eat until I make him believe me. And I want to tell him anyway, don’t I? I want him to help me make all the pieces of the puzzle into a picture.

  “I have a secret too,” I say. “What if I tell you my secret? Then you’ll know something about me that nobody knows.”

  Vincent looks relieved. “Yeah, okay. But it better be bad.”

  What can I say, it seems like a good idea to a kid with a bruised brain and an empty stomach.

  I tell him my secret. You know it already.

  While I’m talking, I get up, go over to my plate, and devour my dinner standing up.

  I tell him about the lighthouse and leaving the clothes in the old oven on Friday night and getting them on Sunday morning. I tell him that on the weekends in the woods I live in the skin of an animal. I don’t tell him about White Wolf or Tuffman. Those aren’t my secrets to tell.

  I leave something else out. My melon isn’t that cracked. I don’t say “wolf.”

  Because he already met wolf me, and I don’t think he liked me much.

  When I’m done, he looks at me. “Do you think that’s what the talking deer wanted?” he asks. “Do you think it was telling me I have a second skin too?”

  I nod.

  “A raven? Isn’t that just a crow? I don’t want to be a garbage-eating bird.” He shakes his head. No no no no, like his body has to say the words even when his mouth doesn’t.

  He tucks his hands into his sweatshirt pocket to hide the trembling.

  “I don’t wanna change. And I don’t want you to change either.”

  His eyes get big, like he just thought of something. “What animal are you?”

  I look away. I don’t want to lie to him.

  Luckily, the more upset he is, the more he talks. “The woods are scary. Some cougar would snap me up in one bite. Look what it did to dumb old Bobo.”

  Bobo’s not dumb.

  “I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but something happened to me in the woods this weekend. That scene with the cougar in the tunnel was nothing compared to it,” he says.

  This little talk is taking a turn for the worse.

  “On Sunday I was helping Tuffman mark out the 5K race.” He pauses. “You’re nothing like him, I don’t care what Mary Anne says. When I told her you were his nephew, she acted like it made sense because you’re both antisocial or something. But you’re nothing like Tuffman.”

  I think he thinks he’s giving me a compliment, but it feels like a kick to the gut. Why’d he tell her in the first place? Didn’t he know that was a secret?

  I get a heavy, scared feeling. I think the word for it is doom. Because that secret really didn’t matter much. But the one I just told him does.

  I bet he knows the difference, right?

  Vincent keeps talking.

  “When we were down at the lake, a pack of wolves came out of nowhere. Twenty of them circled us, barking and snarling. I pulled out my slingshot. Pow. I hit one. Killed him cold.” Vincent’s moving around, acting the scene out. He doesn’t look nervous anymore.

  “Tuffman was useless. They chased us clean out of the woods and all the way up to the school. I’ve got bite marks on my calves.” He lifts his pant leg up half an inch like he’s gonna show me and then drops it again before I can see so much as a pimple.

  “I barely managed to slam the door shut on them. They would’ve killed us if they caught us. They’re the ones that got Bobo, bet you ten to one.”

  “Why didn’t you tell Dean Swift?” I ask.

  Vincent shrugs. “Tuffman. He said it was my fault for teasing them, but they just attacked me when I was totally minding my own business. He said the dean will always take nature’s side in any argument—whatever that means—and that I’d get in big trouble with him. Plus he said they’d make him cancel the 5K run, and that would get me in trouble with Tuffman.

  “So what kind of animal are you?” he asks again. “A chickadee? A squirrel?” he teases. Then he laughs. “Are you a werewolf?”

  Man, I hate that question. “No, I’m not a werewolf.”

  I didn’t mean to say the w
ord the way I did.

  Understanding ripples across his face like a wave at the tide line. He backs toward the door.

  “Wait,” I say. I try to make my eyes not so scary. “Listen. I think it’s something genetic—you know, like coded in my DNA. My mitochondrial DNA. And it’s White Deer Woods, too. It’s a special place. It has something to do with bioluminescent fungi and the power of the light in the woods. I’m not sure how it all works, but it probably has to do with the wave theory of light and the measurements of the lens.”

  I’m mixing it all up and sticking it all together, everything I’ve heard and thought over the last few weeks.

  He’s staring at me like I’m a mad scientist who’s been sniffing his test tubes.

  “I don’t hurt anyone,” I say. “I don’t care about humans at all when I’m in the woods.”

  He gets a look like he just figured something out. “What about dogs?” he asks.

  I keep talking. I talk for a long time. I never admit to being a wolf. He doesn’t ask again. But deep down, he knows I’m a wolf, and I know he’s a liar.

  After a while he starts to nod like he’s convinced, but I can tell he just wants to get away from me. He’s inching toward the door. He’s careful not to turn his back on me as he steps into the hallway.

  “The dean told us at dinner that Bobo won’t make it through the night,” he says as he shuts the door. There’s a mean look on his face.

  That’s when I realize that he thinks maybe I’m the animal that attacked Bobo.

  And Bobo won’t make it through the night.

  I get into bed. I should never have gotten out of it this morning.

  My parents have come and gone. Teachers have come and gone. Kids have come and gone. But Bobo’s been here with me the whole time. She’s run through the woods with me and slept on the floor of my room. She’s a tear licker, a heel nipper, a pillow, and a friend.

  I never got to say good-bye to my mom. There are lots of things I would’ve said and done if I’d known the last time was the last time. I can’t let Bobo leave without saying good-bye.

  I get out of bed.

  I can’t let my best friend die alone in the middle of the night.

  Maybe there’s some leftover bacon in the kitchen. Dogs know love when you feed it to them.

  I pick up my tray to take down with me. It bumps into my pajama pocket, and I feel the key. I take it out and stare at it for a second. I remember how the light made me feel when it pulsed through me. I remember how it made me so strong I could tap a tree trunk with the tip of my toe and send it flying across the meadow and over the cliff.

  I grab the key and the tray and run out the door.

  I run all the way down to the kitchen. I forgot to light the light. I smack my head, which hurts more than it would if I didn’t have a smushed melon for a brain.

  I run all the way back upstairs. Turn the light on first. Right? Doesn’t that make sense? Turn the light on, get the dog, put the dog in the light.

  Everyone’s in the bathroom getting ready for bed.

  Vincent opens the door and sees me run by. I see myself in the big mirror. I look crazy. I’ve got a tray full of dirty dishes in one hand. I’m clenching the key in the other. My eyes are lit up and intense like Dean Swift’s when he starts talking about fungi. There’s a bandage wrapped around my head, and my hair is standing straight up around it. How many days since I washed it? Yikes. I’m one dirty dog.

  Vincent just stands there and stares. Man, I could use his help. I don’t know why, but I shove the tray at him. He takes it with a surprised look. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but he ducks back into the bathroom like he’s afraid of getting stuck alone with me again. I hear the dishes clatter on the tray, and then the door slams shut.

  I blink. I take a breath. My right eye twitches. This job I’ve got to do on my own. I wouldn’t know where to begin explaining it to him, since I don’t understand it all and I’m pretty sure the dean—the one who’s in charge—doesn’t either.

  Ha! If the dean doesn’t know, then nobody knows. If nobody knows, then anything’s possible.

  I race to my room. I stop and stand in front of it. I wait, quiet as a mouse. The hall is silent. I step one big step over and put my ear to the utility closet door. Silence.

  It only takes me a minute. The matches are on the desk. The wick is ready.

  Slash goes the match. Flicker goes the flame.

  I don’t even watch as the light fills the room.

  “Guard the light, Gollum!” I whisper like a maniac as I fly down the stairs.

  Everyone’s awake, but I know where they are. The dean is in the basement, locking the gym doors. Cook Patsy is in the dining hall, wiping down tables and setting up for breakfast. Ms. Tern is monitoring the girls. Tuffman is monitoring the boys.

  And I’m alone in the kitchen.

  By the delivery door there’s a low cart for moving big boxes. It’s like a huge metal tray on wheels. I pile all the kitchen towels I can find onto it. Quick as I can, I wheel it over to the storage room.

  The room is so quiet that it’s only my wolf sense that tells me Bobo’s alive, because she doesn’t move.

  I lift her. It’s not easy. I know I hurt her. She whimpers, and I put my hand just above her eyes. I’m sorry, I say, but I don’t have to say it out loud because she knows it already.

  I push her back into the kitchen and out the delivery door.

  I walk slowly along the edges of the driveway so that the noise of the cart wheels is muffled by the grass. The back left wheel creaks. I head toward the trees. I look up. Wings rustle in the oak. The crows are huddled there, each with one eye open.

  Suddenly the driveway is flooded with light. I stop dead in my tracks. Someone must have seen me. Someone has turned on the lights. If I run with Bobo, she’ll get tossed around. If I stay, I’ll get caught. I shrink back as much as I can into the shadow of the great oak tree.

  A second later and the crows have swooped down, silent.

  At first it feels like I’m in the middle of a black feather storm, like there’s no order or meaning to what they’re doing. Then they settle. They surround Bobo and the cart, like a great dark shadow. They hover next to me, one above the other, sheltering me from the lights and the eyes that might be watching from the school.

  Did Vincent call them garbage eaters? They’re guardians, that’s what they are.

  Slowly I move on behind my shield of black feathers. I know that the woods love me.

  As I push Bobo away from the school, I realize that must be why nobody ever sees White Wolf. It’s why the cougar can’t find her unless she leaves the woods. As long as she stays in White Deer Woods, the woods magic shelters her.

  The crows wheel off, one by one, as we reach the lake. Bobo is so quiet. The path is rough. I wince every time the cart bounces. I can feel how it must hurt her.

  As I get closer to the lighthouse, I catch flashes of the light off to my left. I’m taking her to the meadow between the edge of the woods and the edge of the cliff, where the light struck me last week.

  But it begins before we get there. Every time the beam catches my eye I feel it. It’s so powerful that I flinch a little when I see it coming, the way you do before you touch something that you know will give you a little shock.

  In the meadow I pull the kitchen towels off Bobo. I get down beside her and try to make her open her eyes. I don’t know if the power happens when it hits your skin or your eyes.

  The light swings at us. It drowns me. My skin hums. I look down at Bobo. Her fur is standing on end. Her eyes are half open. A tremor runs across her nose.

  We stay there until the light goes out.

  I imagine Dean Swift standing up there, scratching his head. “I do not recall lighting the lens,” he must be saying to himself.

  I cover Bobo back up. She looks awful. The light has made me even stronger. Pushing the cart is like pushing one of those toy lawnmowers with the popping balls.


  When we reach the lake, I hear it. She whimpers. It’s a sound of pain, but it brings tingles all over my skin. I stop pushing and run up to her. Bobo lifts her nose and sets it in my hand. Her eyes are open. I see the sketch of a tail wag.

  Chapter 23

  WHERE BEST FRIENDS FIGHT AND DON’T MAKE UP

  Friday. I sleep late. At breakfast there are only weirdos at the counter. Mary Anne is with the Wolverines, whispering sadly about Bobo. Vincent perches on Mean Jack’s table, telling them how he saw the cougar coming out of the tunnel and tagged it in the face with a rock. He says it so convincingly, I’d believe him too, except that I was there.

  Vincent and Mary Anne don’t look at me when I sit down at the counter, but I can tell they notice me. I have a heavy feeling inside. Are we still friends?

  The dean walks into the dining hall. We can tell by the look on his face that he’s here to tell us about Bobo. Even Vincent stops talking.

  Dean Swift stands there for a minute. “Bobo,” he says finally. His mouth is crooked and his voice is full of tears. He shakes his head and raises a finger.

  The girl next to me starts to cry. I stare at the counter. I really thought the light would save her. Sometimes a bad situation is just a bad situation, no matter how hard you try to fix it.

  Dean Swift clears his throat. “I’m sorry. I am overcome with emotion. The vet said Bobo will live. He said it is a miracle.”

  The room goes wild. Everyone starts to chant, Bobo, Bobo. The boys in the Pack and the Wolverines stand up, grab their chairs, and slam them up and down to the beat. The weirdos smack the counter with their open palms. The Cubs stamp their feet.

  Cook Patsy walks over to me with a plate full of bacon. “I saw you,” she says.

  I freeze. Maybe she was the one who turned on the driveway lights.

  “I saw you sleeping next to Bobo in the storage room,” she says. “You’re the reason why.” She nods. “Love heals all, that’s what they say.” She pulls something out of her apron pocket and hands it to me. It’s a friendship bracelet.

  “Do you know why rings and bracelets always stand for friendship and love?” she asks.

  I think about it. I want to give her a good answer. “Because they’re like chains that lock us together?” I ask.