This Is Not a Werewolf Story

by Sandra Evans

  She laughs. “Well, that’s one way of looking at it. But I always think it’s because a circle never ends. It goes on and on, around and around, no matter what. Nothing can stop it, because it never ends once it begins.”

  I look down. She’s a sneaky one. She’s talking about my mom.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  Right after breakfast a motorcycle roars up. A lot of us are in the upstairs bathroom, and we rush over to look out the window.

  I lift Sparrow up to see. He weighs as little as a feather to me this morning. Bobo’s not the only one the light fixed up last night. I’m wearing my bandages, but there aren’t any bumps or bruises under them anymore.

  We see Vincent tearing down the front steps, yelling, “Mom!”

  I squeeze Sparrow a little tighter. Sometimes that’s a hard word to hear.

  Pretty Lady hops off and unstraps something tied to the side of the bike. She lifts it up and waves it at Vincent. “You forgot something, kiddo!” she says with a huge smile.

  Even from up here, we can tell it’s not just any fishing pole.

  It’s the one I made for Sparrow.

  Vincent stops and glances up at us. Then he hurries toward her, his hands spread out in front of him like he’s afraid of falling or like he’s telling her to put that pole away.

  On the last step Vincent trips and stumbles into his mom. She drops the pole to catch him and it falls in a long line going up the steps. We can all see it’s about to happen before it does. He steps back to get his balance. The wood splinters as his foot comes down on it.

  We all let out a big breath.

  His mom bends down and starts picking up the pieces.

  Vincent stands over her. “Why did you come so early today? Why would you bring that?” He chews her out. Like it’s all her fault.

  “I was vacuuming and found it under your bed,” she says. Her voice is thin and confused. “I thought you go fishing on Fridays. I didn’t want you to get left out. Vinnie, I took the whole day off work to bring it to you.”

  “You never get anything right,” Vincent shouts. He kicks the Harley’s tire and runs to the zigzag path, just like he did on the first day.

  Only this time, no one is cheering about it.

  No wonder his mom dumped him here.

  I set Sparrow down. I rest my hand on the back of his thin little neck.

  Vincent let me yell at Sparrow. My jaw crunches my teeth together. How low is that?

  “That rat stole the pole and made the bambino take the fall for it?” Mean Jack can’t believe it either. “What a cafone.”

  Mean Jack’s got a way with words sometimes.

  My chest hurts like I got punched. And I did—I got punched with the truth.

  The truth is, Vincent’s worse than Mean Jack. His dumb prank almost got Mary Anne blown to smithereens. He’s the kind of kid who throws rocks at animals. And he’s a liar. He lies even when it doesn’t really matter. He lies until he thinks his lie is the truth. I never knew someone so low down.

  And he broke my pole.

  The other boys leave for class. I hear them calling Vincent a sneak and a cheater.

  From the window I watch Vincent run.

  Chicken. That’s what they called him at his old school. That’s what he is. Always doing the wrong thing and too chicken to admit it.

  Since Dean Swift had to cancel fishing and outdoor time again, he decided to make it up to us by giving us an extra hour of PE. I like Dean Swift, but I don’t think we have the same idea of a good time.

  When I get into the gym, Mean Jack is on the bleachers with the Pack. “Me and Tuffman just had a little sit-down. I was telling him how Vinnie told us about clipping the cougar. Coach said forget about it. Coach says the second our boy heard that cougar, he hit the turf bawling. Coach says there’s no way our friend so much as looked that cat in the eye, let alone whacked it.”

  Jason comes up, and Mean Jack tells him, too.

  Jason makes little wings with his arms. “What a chicken, yeah?”

  For some reason, I don’t like it. I don’t want them ganging up on Vincent. He’s a jerk, but he was a jerk to Sparrow, not to any of them.

  The gym gets quiet. I look up and see Vincent walking in through the side door that leads down to the beach. I don’t think he was expecting us to all be in here. His eyes are red like he’s been crying. His face is all scraped up like he got tackled again down on the beach. When is he gonna learn that when you run, they chase? It’s called Consequences, Vincent.

  He sits down on a pile of gym mats by the side door. He looks so sad that a weird thing happens. I start to feel sorry for him.

  The Pack stares at him from the bleachers. Mean Jack cracks his knuckles. Little John puts his fists to his eyes and pretends to be a bawling baby. Wah-wah.

  Anger flashes in me. I want to run over and shut them up. Vincent’s my problem, not theirs. Fresnel fury, that’s what I should call it. The light makes me strong for a while after I get hit with it, but it makes me angry, too.

  I’ve got to control myself.

  I start to walk over to Vincent. I’m still mad at him, but I understand about jealousy. He was jealous of that pole. Sparrow left it in the rain, Vincent went back to grab it. I bet Vincent meant to give it back. He just got in over his head. The lie went too far—like a bad joke. It’s not his fault if I lost my temper and scared Sparrow. I did that. Not Vincent.

  Friendship goes on and on like a circle, right? And Vincent’s the only person I’ve ever known who would save me a seat or hunt cougar with me or try to make me laugh when I was worried. He invited me to his house for spring break. He may have stolen Mary Anne, but he made her notice me too—he made her my friend.

  I’m halfway across the court when I hear it.

  “Bok, bok, bok bok BAWK!” I turn around, and Jason’s on the bleachers, doing his chicken dance. Everyone is pointing at Vincent, laughing.

  Vincent glances at them and then stares at me.

  “You said you wouldn’t tell,” he says.

  He jumps up and runs at me. He wraps his arms around me and tries to take me to the ground, but I won’t let him. He starts punching and kicking.

  Strength pulses in me. One punch and he’d be on his back on the mats again. But I’m not gonna do it. No matter what Tuffman says, I’m not like him.

  The Pack surrounds us, yelling, “Fight, fight, fight!”

  I bob and duck quick enough that his fists go flying most of the time. When I grab his wrists he head butts me, and a second later hooks his foot around the back of my knee.

  We fall to the floor. Twice he tags me on the head, right on my bandage like it’s a bull’s-eye. Like he’s trying to kill me.

  I roll and get up on my feet. “Listen,” I say. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t tell anyone.”

  Something feels loose in my mouth. I spit out blood and a tooth.

  The sight makes the Pack hoot and howl.

  He comes at me again, and this time I can’t stop myself.

  I pull my arm back. The shouting stops. Everyone stares as my fist connects with his chin. All anyone hears is the crack of my knuckles hitting his bone.

  Vincent staggers back, back, back three steps and then lands on his butt.

  Mean Jack starts counting.

  “One, two, three!” Everyone counts along. Little John is jumping up and down, holding his crotch like he’s trying not to pee. Jason’s eyes look red, and Mark starts to unzip the weighted vest.

  What if I broke his jaw? Will the police arrest me?

  “That’s enough,” Tuffman says, shoving everyone aside. He winks at me. “I knew you had it in you.”

  How long has he been watching? I hate myself. I am what he says I am.

  Tuffman drags Vincent up by the armpits. He inspects his chin. “You’re fine. Don’t start bawling. You had it coming.”

  Vincent stares at me like I’m less than dirt. “I know all about you,” he says.

  “I’m not t
he one who told,” I say, but Tuffman is carrying him out of the room. “I didn’t tell!” I shout after him.

  I can taste blood. My tongue finds the hole where my tooth was.

  “Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Mean Jack asks in a whisper. He pulls back like he’s scared of me when I look at him.

  Everyone is looking at me like I’m a monster.

  I didn’t want to hit Vincent. But I did. I’m turning into what I don’t want to be—a creature that’s half wolf and half boy.

  There’s a name for that.

  I spend the rest of the day sitting on the floor of the storeroom with Bobo.

  Ms. Tern tries to make me come out. “Do join us, Raul,” she begs.

  “Will you tell the dean I need my mom’s recipes?” I finally say to her.

  My eyes must look weird. Did I growl at her?

  She backs out of the room, nodding. “Certainly,” she says.

  Chapter 24

  WHERE RAUL FINDS THE TRUTH AND LOSES THE WORDS TO TELL IT

  Finally there’s nothing left to do but pack my bag to spend the weekend with my dad who never comes. I head up to the boys’ wing. I sense Tuffman as soon as I step in the hallway. The door to my room’s open. I smell burnt matches.

  “Hey, kid,” he says before I step inside.

  He’s stretched out on my bed, wearing my stocking cap. In one hand he’s holding a silver lighter and in the other a recipe card. Tuna Surprise.

  “Dean Swift said to bring these back to you. After all the hullabaloo, he thought you could use some time with family. And I’m all you got.”

  He grins and the lighter clicks. The card curls black, a little line of orange flame eats it all down to a corner. When the flame hits his thumb, he blows it out.

  There’s a pile of charred corners at the bottom of the garbage can. He drops in what’s left of Tuna Surprise.

  He takes five or six more from the box and makes them into a fan. “I appreciate her effort, you know, with the code. But it’s a little obvious, isn’t it? She put sawdust in her biscuits, just because she needed that W.”

  I reach over and bat the lighter out of his hand. It skids across the floor.

  “Fine,” he says. “Let’s read them together.” He squints at the cards. “ ‘He killed a deer. Above the deer I saw the shadow of the head of a woman. I refused to eat. He was angry.’ ”

  He tosses the cards onto the floor.

  “I like her style. Good grammar. She gets right to the point, but there’s attention to detail. And I was angry.”

  I pick up the box. It’s empty.

  “Go ahead. I’m done with it now. You want to know why I was so angry when she wouldn’t eat?”

  I stare at him.

  “Have you ever tried to reason with someone who’s going crazy? You try to be patient. But it’s hard. Especially when you love that person the way I love your mom. I raised her, Raul. We were all we had.”

  He sighs and looks down. “So when she started to lose it, and I mean really lose it, it was hard for me. She always had a big imagination. When she was a little girl she thought she saw faces in trees.”

  I’m listening. He’s telling me about her again. Things only someone who loves her could know. I saw faces in the trees too, when I was little. I still do sometimes.

  He keeps talking. “You, me, and your mom—we change. Once the change happened to her, she went berserk. She didn’t know where her second skin ended and her imagination began. She thought she could see human faces in the animals we hunted. She wouldn’t eat. She’d get weak. Yeah, it made me angry. I couldn’t stand watching her starve.”

  He stares at me. “Has she ever done that to you, Raul?”

  It’s been hard to get White Wolf to eat this spring. Is he telling some part of the truth?

  “You don’t trust me because of what happened with Bobo and Sparrow. I won’t lie to you—when I’m an animal, I’m an animal. You go into my den, then that’s what’s gonna happen. I warned you, didn’t I? I tried to put some fear in you so you’d stay away.” His eyes hold me. “Raul, you and me are a lot alike. I had to run like the devil when you chased me and Vincent at the lake. And I saw you turn on Sparrow, I saw you knock Vincent across the room. Thing is, sometimes you act like a wolf when you’re a boy. That’s gonna get you in trouble.”

  I look down. He’s not lying.

  “Listen up. I’ve been tough. I’ve been nice. Now I’ll be honest. You’re younger than you should be. I’ve never known the change to happen so early. It wasn’t until you went to my den that day Sparrow found the bone. I smelled the wolf in you. And you’re stronger than you should be. Look what you did when you shook my hand.” He stretches it out. On the back of it are four fingertip-shaped bruises.

  He grins—like it’s funny, like he’s proud of me. “That’s not normal. You can reach all your wolf strength in your boy skin.”

  That’s true too.

  “It’s gonna take the two of us to talk some sense into her. You gotta lead me to her, Raul,” he says.

  My ears stretch at the sound of my name. I feel like I’m being called. “I need to think about it,” I say.

  “Raul,” he says.

  I look into his eyes. They’re gold. I see a raised red scar in each of his pupils. But it doesn’t scare me.

  “Raul, I’m the only one that can help her. I know what she lost and I know where she lost it. I can take her back to the place where she can change.”

  He can help me. He has her recipe.

  I feel light for a second. Like I’ve been carrying a backpack full of bricks and someone just reached down and lifted it off of me.

  “She won’t come with me. She attacked me a few weeks ago—chewed up the back of my neck and forced me to take a swipe at her. You saw her that day at the picnic table. But she’ll trust you, Raul. See, I can’t track her. For some reason, I lose her scent in the woods. I need you to tell me how to find her.”

  It’s true, everything he says makes sense. The words gather in my throat.

  “Raul,” he says, “I got a question.”

  I nod.

  His face is strange. Not nice. Not mean. I can’t think of the word, exactly. “Your mom wasn’t white when I knew her. She was a gray wolf, like you. Are there any other white animals in the woods around here, Raul?”

  Hungry. That’s the word. His face is hungry.

  I take a step back. Stop saying my name.

  I know his secret. That’s what my mom wrote. I look at the ashes in the garbage can. He burned her words. What is he hiding?

  “Bobo’s going to live,” I say. I want him to go away. I don’t trust myself with him.

  He looks me up and down. He sighs. “Well, I guess some dogs never do learn,” he says. He stands up and brushes the ashes off his pants.

  “We’ll talk again later, Raul,” he says as he opens the door to leave. “I’ll give you a chance to pack for the weekend and change your clothes.”

  The last thing I see as he shuts the door are his eyes, laughing like it’s a joke. It sends shivers up my spine.

  I snarl at myself. What’s wrong with me? Did he almost get me to take him to White Wolf?

  I sit on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my knees and my head in my hands. I keep talking to the wrong people.

  At pick-up time I grab my duffel bag and join the rest of the kids on the front porch. The clouds are high and the sky is pale blue. Nobody comes near me. I don’t blame them. I’m scaring myself lately too. Mary Anne looks at me sideways.

  Did Vincent tell her? I swallow hard. Now that would be a rotten thing to do.

  Sparrow’s grandma is the first to show up. He jumps into her truck. At the bottom of the circle the truck lurches to a stop. Sparrow hops out and tears back to the porch.

  “Wait, Grandma,” he hollers.

  “Look, Raul,” he says when he gets to me. “I saved it.” He stretches his hands out to me.

  I smile at him even thoug
h I don’t feel like it. I look at his little treasure.

  It’s part of the busted-up fishing pole I made him. The best part. It’s the carving I did, of the wolves chasing each other around, tail to mouth. I trace the grooves with my finger. I was wrong. Vincent wasn’t my only friend. He wasn’t my best one either.

  “I’ll make you another one, but even better,” I promise.

  “No.” He shakes his head and runs to his grandma’s truck. “Not better. The same. The same is the best,” he calls as he climbs in.

  The bitter bad feeling goes away. Sparrow’s forgiven me.

  His grandma reaches over and hugs him like seeing him is the best thing that’s happened to her all week. Then she hits the gas and the brake at the same time. The truck jerks and peels away. Blue smoke pours from the tailpipe.

  I remember how Sparrow used to lie about the bruises his mom gave him. Back then I had a bad feeling about it all, but I never said anything to anyone. Sparrow’s mean mom hit him a lot more times before the dean figured it all out.

  I gotta use my brain here. Bobo almost died this week. Things could get even worse if I wait much longer to get help. I don’t know what Tuffman wants or who he really is, but I do know one thing—I’ve got a bad feeling about it all.

  I’ve got to tell Dean Swift.

  I don’t know why I’ve waited so long.

  The words won’t stay down anymore. I can tell they’re important, because I feel them in my throat like the sounds I make when I wear my wolf skin.

  Once all the other kids have gone, I’ll walk up to him. I’ll say, Dean Swift, I have a secret I’ve been keeping. Can you help me?

  While I’m waiting for everyone to leave, I keep Bobo company. The tip of her tail moves gently while I stroke her side. Forty-five minutes to sunset. I press my forehead against Bobo’s and tell her I’ll see her soon.

  I feel jumpy and nervous. I don’t know where I’m going to begin the story. Does it start with White Deer? Or Tuffman?

  But when I go into the living room, Mary Anne is sitting on the sofa, writing in her notebook. She doesn’t look up at me. My hands are sweating and I can’t sit still. Come on, Mary Anne’s dad, come get your kid.