Children of the Wolf

by Rodman Philbrick

  “Stop, Gruff, stop!” Miss Possum pulled on my arm. “You’re knocking these boxes everywhere. I only hope there’s nothing breakable in them.”

  Boxes? I put my hand out and felt the corner of one. So that’s what hit me in the stomach. I must have jumped right on it, fooled by the shadows.

  “You not hurt?” I asked Miss Possum.

  She laughed nervously. “A mouse ran over my foot and I screamed,” she said. “When I jumped away, I hit this stack of boxes. I was trying to keep it from falling over.”

  I was too relieved to feel foolish. Now maybe Miss Possum would agree to get out of here. “Cat not starve,” I said, grinning. “Eat mouse.”

  “Right,” she said, with a nervous giggle. “Let’s just get these boxes straightened up and get out of here. I’ll tell Mr. Clawson about the cat and explain that I sent you home.

  Outside the air was fresh and clean and sunlight sparkled in the trees. It felt so good I was ready to forget every single bad thing that had happened today.

  Then Miss Possum said something that stopped me in my tracks.

  My stomach churned with dread as again my world came crashing down around me.

  Chapter 16

  “We need to talk about your schooling, Gruff,” said nice Miss Possum with a sad little frown. “It’s not your fault you’ve never been to school, but I know you can’t do the sixth-grade work.”

  I opened my mouth and shut it again. I was gasping like a fish.

  Paul had told me that kids who couldn’t read went to first grade. I’d seen the first graders. They were little kids. None of them stood any higher than my waist. If I had to go to first grade I couldn’t bear it. How could I hold my head up around the kids my own age?

  Miss Possum cocked her head and looked at me worriedly. “Well, never mind,” she said, patting my shoulder. “I think the stress of your first day is enough for now. We’ll wait and see how you’re doing next week.”

  My heart leaped. Could I learn to read and write and talk in a week? I had to or else Miss Possum would send me to first grade.

  I shuddered to think what that bully Rick would say if I was a first grader. And all the sixth graders would laugh like crazy.

  I trudged toward the Parkers’ house, head down.

  “Hey, Gruff. Hey!” I looked up to see Paul running toward me across a field. He had a big glove on his hand. A bunch of other kids stood around the field, looking at a kid with a wooden club on his shoulder.

  “Come play baseball with us,” said Paul. “It’ll be a good way to meet everybody.”

  Just then one of the kids threw something white at the boy with the club. He swung the club and WHACK! the white thing sailed high into the air.

  Wow! My spirits seemed to fly up with it. I wondered if I could do that. It sure would be fun to try. I started running across the field with Paul and then I remembered that I had something more important to do.

  “No,” I said, thinking of Miss Possum. “I learn read.”

  Paul didn’t understand. “School’s over,” he said. “Forget about it.”

  I was tempted. But I pictured myself standing in line with all the little first graders and Rick and all of Paul’s friends jeering at me. I left Paul and ran the rest of the way to his family’s house.

  My head was spinning with all the alphabet sounds Kim was teaching me.

  “Why have c?” I asked her. “Already have k sound and s sound. Not need c.”

  Kim sighed and scratched her head. “For one thing, you need it for words like ‘church.’” She wrote down the word.

  “What is church?” I asked.

  Kim’s shoulders slumped. “This teaching stuff is much harder than I expected,” she said. “Anyway we’re supposed to be doing letter sounds. We’ll discuss church later. Now try and sound out this word.”

  But before she could write it, a voice called from downstairs. “Dinner,” Mrs. Parker announced. “Kim, Paul, Gruff!”

  My stomach growled. All this brain work had made me hungry. And the smells from the kitchen were wonderful. I jumped up instantly and bounded downstairs.

  But where was everybody? I was the only one at the table.

  Mrs. Parker came out of the kitchen carrying a steaming bowl. She looked surprised to see me. “Sit down, Gruff,” she said, smiling. “It’s nice to see one person in this house comes when I call. This family is very slow getting to the dinner table. Anyone would think they didn’t like my cooking.”

  “Not like cooking!” I was shocked. “Smell is delicious.”

  Mrs. Parker beamed at me. “Thank you, Gruff.”

  She set the bowl down and turned away to go back into the kitchen. “I’ll be right back. And everyone else should be down in a minute.”

  Meat smells rose into the air. My stomach growled again. I was starved. I knew I was expected to wait until the whole family sat down but it was very hard.

  Finally Mr. Parker arrived and Mrs. Parker came back from the kitchen with a loaf of bread.

  “What’s for dinner, Carol?” asked Mr. Parker, sitting in his chair at the end of the table.

  “Beef stew,” said Mrs. Parker, sitting down at the other end.

  She started ladling the food into bowls. The wonderful smell made my head swim with hunger. I was practically drooling.

  I had to sit on my hands to keep from snatching up the bowl she put in front of me. But I still had to wait for Kim and Paul.

  At last they showed up. “Smells good, Mom,” said Paul, sliding into his seat.

  “Not stew again,” complained Kim. “Yuck!”

  I stared at her in amazement and then looked at my bowl. Big chunks of meat and earthy-smelling vegetables. What could be better? My stomach growled. I didn’t think I could stand to wait another second.

  “We can’t have spaghetti every night, Kim,” said her mother. “Just eat what you can.”

  I watched Mrs. Parker for the signal to start eating. When she started eating, the rest of us could, too. At least that’s how it always was with Wolfmother.

  Finally Mrs. Parker finished dishing out the food. Then she took her napkin and spread it carefully in her lap.

  Quickly I did the same. The meat smell was making me dizzy with hunger. I eyed the juicy chunks longingly.

  Then Mrs. Parker looked around the table. “Everyone have what they need? Good.”

  At long last she broke off a piece of bread and dipped it in her stew. The signal! We could eat!

  I buried my face in the bowl, filling my nose with the scent. Growling with pleasure, I grabbed the first chunk of meat with my teeth, feeling the juices spurt as I bit down. Mmmmm, good!

  I lapped up the rich gravy and wolfed down the vegetables, chomping them together with the tender meat. It was so delicious I hardly remembered to chew.

  Too soon, it was all gone. I looked up, wondering if there was more.

  A shock of alarm jolted through me. The whole family was staring at me.

  “Wow,” said Paul. “Cool!”

  But no one else seemed to think so.

  I wanted to crawl under the table in embarrassment. I’d been so overcome by the delicious smell and all the waiting, I’d completely forgotten about forks. Humans had such complicated eating habits and they were very particular about them.

  “Gross,” said Kim, looking disgusted. “No offense, Gruff, but only dogs eat like that. And wolves, I guess. People use forks.”

  Suddenly I was aware of the grease glistening on my face. I wiped at it with my fingers, wondering what would happen to me now.

  “Use your napkin to wipe your face, Gruff,” said Mrs. Parker gently. “And don’t mind Kim. It’s true that’s not the way we eat but we don’t expect you to learn all our ways all at once.” She broke into a wide grin. “Besides, I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone enjoy a bowl of my stew quite so much.”

  It was so hard learning all the rules of being a human.

  Would I ever get it right?

  Wha
t horrible mistake would I make next?

  Chapter 17

  That night I woke to moonlight in my face. Startled, I sat up quickly, my heart racing. Something had woken me from a sound sleep.

  The moonlight? But the moonlight was faint. It was only a quarter moon and the light was barely enough to outline the shapes of furniture in my room. Surely that hadn’t awakened me. And everything was quiet. Even the breeze barely stirred the curtains at my window.

  So what had snapped me out of a deep sleep? What was it that made my heart race with fright?

  My eye kept going to the dark outline of the window. Something was out there.

  I didn’t want to get up and look but I had to. A strange urgency told me to hurry. I pushed off the bedclothes and ran to the window.

  At first I didn’t see anything. The street was quiet. The backyard was in deep shadow, the moonlight showing only in dim patches through the trees.

  Then a figure moved. Dressed in white, it looked like a ghost flitting from shadow to shadow. I stared harder, trying to make out who—or what—it was.

  But it disappeared behind a tree and I saw nothing. Had I imagined it? It was so dark and so late. Perhaps all I’d seen was a piece of paper blowing in the breeze.

  No—there it was again! Moving slowly, almost floating, the white figure came out of the shadows. Moonlight touched its head and it looked up.

  It wasn’t a ghost! It was Kim!

  I opened my mouth to shout her name out the window but a worried feeling stopped me. It seemed important to be quiet, although I didn’t know why.

  Kim vanished into another dark pool of shadow and then reappeared, farther away. There was a strange, jerky motion to the way she was moving.

  And she was heading for the woods!

  Again I started to call out and again I stopped myself.

  Something might hear me.

  And it wouldn’t be Kim.

  Kim was walking into the swamp. And she looked like the living dead.

  Chapter 18

  I had to stop Kim from disappearing into the woods!

  Without even pausing to put on my sneakers I flew out of my room and down the stairs.

  I had a bad moment when I got to the kitchen and saw the back door standing partway open. Anything could have gotten in. But there was no time to worry about that now. I slipped out the door and shut it behind me.

  But where was Kim? I dashed across the yard and down toward the woods where I had last seen her. There was no sign of her.

  Could she have reached the woods already? Was she heading for the swamp?

  Uncertain which way to go, afraid to cry out, I looked around, my eyes darting every which way. But it was so dark I couldn’t see two feet in front of me. Dread curled in a cold ball in my stomach as the seconds ticked by. What if I couldn’t find Kim?

  I hurried toward the next clump of trees. She wasn’t there. I was getting very close to the woods and the trees were getting thicker. No moonlight pierced the thick leaves above me.

  The night was so black I stubbed my toe on a rock sticking up out of the ground. I stifled a cry, wishing I had my werewolf powers now.

  During the three nights of the full moon I had been a hideous monster. But I had learned how powerful and superior it felt to be a werewolf. As a monster I could see in the dark clear as day. I could smell living creatures wherever they hid from me, whether it was deep in the ground or high in a tree.

  A werewolf could find Kim in a second.

  The thought made my skin crawl. And then I heard a sound that turned me to stone. Something rustling in the dead leaves on the ground. It was the furtive noise of a big creature prowling the woods.

  My heart hammered against my ribs. It was coming closer. A whiff of something foul and dead filled my nostrils. Whatever was out there, it wasn’t human.

  A twig cracked behind me. I jumped, my skin tingling all over, and whipped around. But all I could see was darkness everywhere.

  I whipped around again as I heard a growl at my back. My eyes strained to see. A black shape moved. The growl came again, low and rumbling, sounding amused.

  “Grrrrrrrrrrrr.”

  I knew that sound. The werewolf growl! I felt its eyes on me, watching me. My neck prickled as I sensed it staring, coming almost silently closer.

  It was coming to get me.

  My muscles tensed.

  “Hehehehegrrrrrrrr.”

  It was growling and laughing and smacking its jaws together in a frenzy of anticipation.

  I ran.

  But not quick enough. Its grip was strong enough to pull my shoulder out of its socket. Claws raked my arm.

  I was caught.

  Chapter 19

  I flailed around, struggling to free myself from the creature. My hand grabbed something hard and rough.

  A tree branch!

  It was only a tree branch that had snagged me. Quickly I wrenched my pajama top free and raced toward the Parkers’ backyard. Twigs whipped across my face as I fled blindly out of the trees.

  I heard heavy breathing over my shoulder.

  But where was Kim? If the creature didn’t catch me, it would take out its rage on Kim. I had to do something to save her, but what?

  The only thing I could do was scream once I got close enough to the house. If I could wake the family, maybe they could save Kim. Maybe they could even save me.

  Blindly I ran, my face stinging. I felt the creature gaining on me but I couldn’t hear it over the ragged sound of my own harsh breathing. Ahead of me, lawn swept up to the house and faint moonlight glinted off the windows.

  I looked longingly at the house.

  Suddenly, out of the shadows, a floating shape darted right in front of me. I tried to swerve but it was too close.

  “Ooomph!”

  I smacked into something smaller and slighter than me, knocking it to the ground.

  “Kim!”

  It was Kim I had smashed into. She sat up slowly, shaking her head as if to clear it.

  “Where am I?” she asked dreamily, looking around the backyard with a puzzled look on her face. “How did I get here?”

  “Outside. You sleepw-walk,” I said, glancing nervously over my shoulder. But I no longer sensed the werewolf behind me. It had moved off, not willing to attack both of us for some reason.

  Kim nodded, getting slowly to her feet. “That’s right,” she said. “I remember now, I was sleeping.” She looked into my face and laughed, crinkling her eyes. “What a way to wake up! You spoiled a perfectly wonderful dream.”

  As happy and peaceful as she looked, her words made me shiver. “What dream?” I asked.

  “I was dreaming about the wolves. Your wolves I guess.” She looked at me again, her face filled with wonder. “They were silvery and beautiful. They were dancing around a clearing and calling me to come and play with them. That’s where I was going in my dream. I was going to play with the wolves and learn their ways.”

  A bad chill settled over me as she described her dream. It wasn’t the real wolves who sent dreams like that. It was the evil werewolves. They had tried to lure Kim out of her room and into the swamp where they waited for her with dripping fangs.

  And they had almost succeeded.

  But I couldn’t explain all this to her. She wouldn’t believe me. Or, even worse, if I told her about the werewolves, she would guess that I was one of them. How else would I know about their evil ways?

  I couldn’t let Kim find out I was a monster.

  “Come, Kim,” I said miserably. “We go inside now.”

  She nodded, already looking sleepy again. “Funny,” she said. “I never sleepwalked before.”

  I shivered. Would I have to stay awake every night to make sure she didn’t sleepwalk into the werewolves’ trap?

  We headed back to the house, Kim yawning and me worrying and feeling awful.

  “Good night, Gruff,” she said once we were inside the kitchen. “Thank you for waking me. I might have gotten
lost in the woods if you hadn’t.” She smiled at me again and started upstairs.

  “Good night, Kim,” I said, turning back to lock the back door.

  But as I clicked the lock I happened to look out the kitchen window. A black figure darted out of the shadows and slithered along the shrubbery toward the front of the house.

  I gasped. The werewolf must have followed us! And I never even heard it or felt it.

  Without thinking I yanked open the door again and ran out into the night.

  Chapter 20

  I ran to the front of the house, after the werewolf.

  But it had disappeared. I paused uncertainly, wondering which way to go.

  A breeze sprang up and I tensed fearfully as the bushes alongside the house rustled as if something was moving around under them. Could the monster be hiding in the shrubbery, waiting to jump out at me as I passed?

  Moving slowly, I peered into the bushes. I couldn’t see anything but spreading patches of darkness. In order to make sure nothing was lurking there, I would have to crawl under the bushes.

  I shuddered. I would be completely helpless crawling around blindly among all those branches. All the werewolf had to do was stay still and wait for me to come within its reach. Then it could grab me before I had a chance to cry out. And that would be the end of me.

  And if the monster wasn’t hiding in the bushes, if it had gone out to the street, it would get away while I was poking around in the shrubs. I decided to check the street first.

  And there it was! A hunched figure was lurching up the road, swinging its shaggy head. It was looking for prey, I was sure! If I didn’t chase the creature, it might lure another child out of a house or reach through a window and snatch a sleeping baby.

  My bare feet slapped the pavement as I ran after it. But the werewolf never looked back to see me.

  As I gained on it, I started to feel nervous. What would I do when I caught up to it? I had no claws, no sharp fangs, no super strength. I couldn’t attack it. I couldn’t even stop it or scare it. Basically, I was monster food.

  Slowing a little, I reconsidered. I needed a plan. Maybe I should just follow it. Then, when the werewolf tried to grab a child I could shout an alarm and wake everyone up. Yes, that’s exactly what I’d do. Just keep the werewolf in sight and wait.