Growing Up Werewolf

by Girl, Breukelen

  “Aww come on!” Yells a blonde haired girl behind Charlie. “Just take the Cheetos, I want the Cheetos.” My grip tightens on my supply.

  “Okay, let’s trade. The Cheetos for…” Charlie looks around at his friends, seeing what everyone else has on them.

  “The Cheetos are not on the table.” I state.

  Charlie looks back at me seriously. Like he can’t believe what I’ve just said to him, a teenager, who could clearly take everything I’m carrying just by pushing me over in an instant.

  “No way.”

  “Yes way.” I reply.. “You already took our cola.”

  “It goes with whiskey!” One of the male teenage boys yells from further back. He is quickly shushed by his fellow teenage revelers.

  “You’re a tough little thing aren’t you Sommers?” Charlie says with a half smile back at me.

  “What good would I be if I wasn’t?” I throw back at him definitely. Jeanie looks on, wide eyed and in utter surprise at our banter.

  “Touché pup, touché.”

  “Bg?” A female voice calls out.

  Everyone calls me this nickname. Even my sisters friends. Which is weird, considering the rest of my siblings, Aksel, Bodil, Markus and Joss, don’t have nicknames of any kind. They’re all just known by their names.

  The sound of grass and shrubbery moving gives way to another teenager coming our way. Both Charlie and I look towards the female . Christa my sister’s friend.

  “You alright?” Christa asked getting closer. Her eyes go from me to Charlie and back to me again.

  “Halloway is trying to rob us of our food and drink supply.” I state plainly. Causing Charlie to laugh.

  “I wasn’t robbing them.”

  “What’d he take?” Christa face becomes deathly serious as she looks at Charlie and down at the cola bottle in his hands.

  Snatching it out of his hands quickly before he can protest any further. Christa is fast. Faster than fast. She shape shifted awhile ago. Back when she was my age. Now at seventeen she is all werewolf speed. Not that Charlie or any of the other teens wouldn’t be the same. But I didn’t think Charlie would fight Christa.

  “Here. We don’t need it, we got plenty.” Christa hands the bottle back to Jeanie. “We’re done here.” She looks to Charlie putting her hands on her hips, waiting for him to defy her.

  Charlie sighs. “We’re in the middle of negotiations here. Trading for the Cheetos.”

  “Told you the Cheetos are not up for sale.” Charlie looks at me like I am annoying pest. Which I probably am.

  “But that was before when we had the cola, now you have the cola ergo the Cheetos come into play again.”

  I look over at Jeanie for her thoughts on the matter. She shakes her head from side to side. Negatively. I smile and turned back to Charlie. Serves him right for trying to rip off his own sister.

  “Okay then, we want the corn chips and salsa.”

  “Ok show me what you got to offer me in return for those.” I said expertly.

  Charlie waves over his fellow teenagers and we look at what they each pulled out of a backpack.

  “The butterfingers and the snowballs.”. Charlie’s eyes narrow on me and he jerks his head back at his friends.

  The blonde girl steps forward with our bounty. Charlie snatches up the corn chips and salsa from me just as the blonde girl throws the chocolate bars and twin pack of snowballs at us. Jeanie and I duck, the teens laugh and continue on their way.

  “Here.” Christa picks up our new bounty and hands them to me. “Just yell out if they give you any more trouble. I’ll sort them out for you.” She winks at me and heads off after them.

  “Yes!” Jeanie hissed sharply as we continue on to the playgrounds new territory to share our wealth with our fellow pups.

  The playground is already filled with other Breukelen pups. There is around ten of us. Our fire is already in action. All eyes land on me and Janie as we enter the camp ground. Well, their eyes actually landed on all the junk food we’re carrying. Janie and I look around, trying to figure out where to put our stash.

  “Where’s the rest of it?” I ask my fellow pups.

  “We stashed it in a secret place.” Joel says smiling back up at me.

  “Why?”

  “So if the older kids raid our camp they won’t find it.” I roll my eyes back at him.

  “If we get raided, they’ll take whatever they want. Just because you hid it, doesn’t mean they can’t find it Joel. At any time.” I put my armful of treats down on the ground. “They’ve all shape shifted remember? Which means they have a better sense of smell then we’ll ever have until we shift.”

  “They can just sniff it out. I tried to tell you that.” Vince another pup says back at Joel as he pokes a stick in the fire and watches embers spark upwards.

  Joel looks from Vince to me. “Oh. Right.”

  5

  The woods at night might seem scary to most kids my age, or smaller. But I’m not afraid. I’ve been brought up a werewolf. We’re taught to fear nothing, expect anything and to brace ourselves for the unexpected. There is no point to fear. It alerts your enemy to a vulnerability in you. It gives them an advantage over you.

  The whole werewolf race has a survival instinct based on strength. The stronger you are, mentally and physically, the better, smarter wolf you are. If someone can get into your head, then they’ve got all the ammunition they’ll ever need to beat you.

  Physicality is just life’s way of saying we’re all mortal. Yes, even werewolves bleed. We are not immortal but we’re not all together human either. We are essentially brought up in the strongest terms possible.

  So wandering around woods I’m familiar with from monthly trips out here, it’s no big deal to me, especially at night. I actually think I’d get more lost in the day time out here than at night. The human in me would be all rational and shit trying to figure out directions, relying on compasses and maps to figure out just how far back these woods go and in which direction I need to head.

  But at night time there is no panic. There is ’knowing’, that I was made to wander these woods in the darkness. My night vision is good. I’m told it’s better than most human kids my age. But when I shape shift, it will be even better. Everything will be better. I’ll be better. I’ll be a werewolf then, for real.

  To say I’m anxious for this to happen would be putting it mildly. All us pups are. We’ve all been brought up here for this thing to happen to us. It is long overdue.

  I’ve been taught all my life by my father, the Breukelen pack leader, to hone my skills. To use all of my senses, to hear things, to smell things, to see things. Or, to do without our senses. Like sight and wandering around in the dark.

  Yeah, sounds simple enough, but imagine focusing on your balance, the feel of stones under your sneakers.

  The importance of blocking with your night vision. That is, to make out certain shapes and recognize them for what they are, so you do not panic, if you are turned about. Stuff like that. It’s the pup’s basic training we’re drilled with in my household. I don’t know about the rest of my friends, but I’m pretty sure if I had to run some sort of werewolf gauntlet, I’d kick their asses in the werewolf pups Olympics. Pretty sure.

  And yet, there’s still more to expect, with the shape shift. The shape shift is like this big old mystery. Nobody really can predict when exactly it’s going to kick in. How bad or easy it’s going to be on the werewolf involved.

  It’s the whole unexpected and expected all at once. Does it live up to what we’ve built up in our minds. Does it matter? As long as we can get through it, survive it and know what to do for the next time.

  I used to ask a lot of questions about it, to everyone in my household and all I ever got in response was “it’s different for everyone.”

  Well duh, because you’re not me. You’re not waiting, you’re not expecting, you’re not keeping the anxiety at bay, you’re not feeling left behind, you’re not wondering
anymore.

  Still as well trained in my werewolf ways as I am, I still carry a torch. Just in case. I mean, I’d hate to twist an ankle.

  Once I’m shape shifted, that won’t bother me, because you can just heal yourself after a shape shift. From what I hear, it’s like being your own doctor. Your injuries just melt away or something. There isn’t much we can’t apparently heal from after the shape shift.

  But until then I have to suffer the normal human way if I hurt myself. There really isn’t much say in that. I might appear healthy or stronger than most kids my age, but I can still get hurt just as easily as them. Hence the torch. Not that I’ve actually got it switched on. I’m fairly confident I can navigate my way from the pups playground to the teenagers camp with ease.

  Whilst I haven’t seen where the teenagers have their camp yet this month, it’s not that hard to find. Just got to listen for the noise and look for the light of their fire. They’re bound to have ghetto blasters playing music all too loudly. The older kids like to party. That’s no secret. These trips usually end with a fair amount of them getting hauled off by their parents for some kind of trouble they’ve gotten themselves into. In some ways, they’re still typical teens.

  The woods at night are literally pitch black. I can see maybe one foot in front of me. I head deeper into the woods, remembering the way Jeanie and I had watched Charlie and his mates go, the last area I’d seen Christa in before she’d waved goodbye to me.

  I keep heading straight, fairly certain I’m going in the right direction. Fairly. These woods at night are quiet. It’s like everything is asleep, hiding from the werewolves who come to play here.

  It shouldn’t be so surprising. You’re talking about a creature, a paranormal being that technically shouldn’t exist right? I mean, evolution says we all evolved from apes right? But clearly some of us are more connected to the beasts of this world than we’re meant to be. Whatever. I don’t know how it works. I just know what I am. That can’t be denied and neither can our race or it’s proven to existence.

  I hear a noise off to the left of me and I freeze. My head swivels to the left quickly, as I listen and move the torch light into my hand, ready to flick it on, to surprise whatever beasty is out here with me.

  I pause long enough to figure out the noises. They’re not exactly animal noises I’m hearing. Unless you count the horny teenager as some kind of animal. There’s wet noises I can’t quite make out the figures of the moving image in the dark.

  I can hear the rustle of clothing, and small moans. I feel like I’ve stopped to long now and I look back up the path I was going to continue on.

  “Shit!” a distinctly male voice panicking. “Did you see that?” He must’ve spotted my head movement. Wow. I can only see block shapes of them, not even profiles in the dark.

  “What?” A female voice. More wet sounds.

  “Who’s there?” The voice yells out at me angrily as I switch on the torch and aim it at the couple making out against the tree.

  “Oh shit.” They both say as I swing the light onto Boden Jennings and some teenage female I don’t know.

  But Boden is my sister’s best friend. He’s forever hanging out at our house. He’s rather cute. But he doesn’t know I exist in that sense. I’m just Bodil’s little sister.

  Boden squints back into the beam of light and steps out of it to see around the beam and at me.

  “Bg?” He asks doing up the belt on his pants quickly and grabbing his t-shirt off a low laying bush. “That you?” He starts heading over to me.

  “Hey!” The female yells at him, pulling her top down, covering up her bra again. Boden puts up a hand at me, as if to silently say wait, while he slips his t-shirt on quickly and turns back to his girlfriend and he helps her walk over to me.

  “Bg what are you doing this far out?” Boden asks me a little breathlessly. I look from him to the unidentified female.

  I feel like we should do some introductions. So I stick out my hand to her.

  “Hi, I’m Bg.”

  The girl frowns and mumbles whatever at me and moves around Boden. “Shouldn’t you be like back with all the other good little pups at the playground?” She asks snidely suddenly sticking her head out from behind Boden. “Isn’t it like past little pup’s bed time already?”

  It’s my turn to frown back at her disrespectfulness. Boden laughs and smiles down at me. “Don’t mind Reece.” He says in his companion’s defense. “She’s not a Breukelen, so she doesn’t get uh, who you are. So she has no you know…respect.” He says half turning to look back at her pouting.

  She slaps him across the chest. Of course she doesn’t. Nobody outside of the Breukelen pack would get the reference to me. My nickname only took off because my family were so proud of me. It was my father who proclaimed it. Shouting it like it was bragging rights to be heard all over New York.

  “Oh, she’s not with us? What is she doing out here then?”

  Reece sticks her head out from behind Boden again “What does it look like pup? I’m a librarian and I’m reading him a bed time story.” Boden tries not to laugh at her answer and fails, coughing into his hand instead.

  “Are you lost?”

  “No idiot. I was heading to your camp.” I state, annoyed at them both now.

  “You going to get Bodil? Or one of the boys?”

  “Neither. I wanted to borrow something for your camp for the playground. I drew the short straw out of everyone and have to do the trek.”

  “Well you’re headed in the right direction. Keep going straight about a mile and then just off to the right, down near the stream. You should be able to see the fire light from this path if you stay on it long enough.”

  I nod my head at him in silent thanks and flick my torch light over his hiding girlfriend. “Bye!” I state before starting off again, continuing on my way as I hear Boden and Reece squabbling over something loudly.

  “Hey! Hey pup!” Reece calls out.

  “Bg!” They both call out at me and I sigh, stopping and turning around quickly.

  “What?”

  “Um, you didn’t happen to see any seniors coming this way did you? They doing their rounds early or anything yet?” Boden asks me.

  “No parents yet.” I state, turning back around and walking again.

  “Bg!” Boden calls out a final time.

  “Yeah,” I look back at him, swinging the torch of them again.

  “What happens at camp stays at camp. You hear me?” He says looking at me like he’s kind of holding his breath. Gross. Like I’d even know how to describe what I saw those two doing to each other. Or want to publicly.

  “Yeah, whatever.” I mutter and trek on.

  “That’s my girl!” Boden calls out cheerfully and I switch the torch off again. If the light is on too long, my human eyes will adjust to it and I’d rather strengthen my night vision and not have to relay on it. That’s the werewolf way. Don’t relay on anything if you can help it, just make yourself a better“version of yourself. By being self sufficient and capable.

  6

  Seems like the deeper into the woods I go, the more black out here there is. Like a curtain draped over the columns of tree trunks. Shrubbery that I know is here, because I occasionally get whacked in the arm by a branch in my path,. There is no moonlight in the density of these woods. Just the still blackness of nightfall. It’s actually quite calming. Serene even.