She Named Me Wolf

by Tenkara Smart

  Carla was just a puppy when Wolf was born, and Wolf and the dog instantly bonded. Wolf remembered something his brother said to him when he was only two years old which stayed with him until this day.

  On that day, Wolf was laying on the grass next to Carla when Orville walked up. His brother stood so close to Wolf that his body cast a dark shadow over him and blocked out the sun. “She isn’t your dog, you know,” he stated.

  “I-i-is so,” Wolf replied, squeezing the dog more tightly.

  “Nope. You were supposed to be a girl when you were born, and Dad got Carla as a present for her, not you. He actually liked the dog before you came along, but when you showed up, he didn’t want either one of you,” Orville finished, a smirk on his face.

  Wolf’s chest felt tight as his brother walked away.

  “Is that true?” Carla asked, her mouth unmoving but her words clear in the boy’s mind.

  “Probably, but who cares. He’s dumb,” Wolf replied.

  Carla had never done anything to people other than try to lick them or play with them, so today for the ants pool party, Wolf had no idea why Aaron was describing his dog as a monster.

  “What does Carla have to do with swimming?” Wolf asked, pointing at Carla who lay under a tree just a few metres from her kennel.

  “That nasty thing drinks from our swimming pool, so we have to wait until it takes a nap or goes away before we can swim. Right now, it’s too risky that she’ll just drink us up.”

  “She won’t bother you,” Wolf said, his eyebrows pulled together above his nose. Moments later, he suddenly realized what Aaron meant. “Oh, so your swimming pool is the water bowl near Carla. No worries. I’ll get her a different bowl to drink from, and I’ll put it near her kennel and make her stay over there so you can swim.”

  “Okay, get on it, mate. It’s hot, and we have limited time before we have to get back to work.”

  Wolf went inside and grabbed a plastic bowl from the kitchen. He filled it with water and added a splash of grape juice, and went back outside, placing it at the entrance of Carla’s kennel. He knew Carla would like the taste of the sweetened water and that she would drink from that bowl instead of the one the ants wanted to use for swimming.

  “Carla, here girl,” he yelled.

  The blue heeler jumped up and ran to him, her tail wagging rapidly. She sniffed the water then lapped it with her tongue, lifting her head and looking up at Wolf with sparkling eyes as water dripped from the sides of her pinkish jowls.

  “Mmm, good,” she told Wolf as he rubbed her ash grey, black and dark-blue spotted head.

  When she finished drinking, she sauntered in the direction of the water bowl across the yard, the same bowl the ants wanted to use as a pool.

  “No Carla. In your house,” Wolf said, tapping the thin, wooden roof of her kennel with his index finger.

  “Aw, but I like the tree over there,” she told him.

  “Sorry, but you need to stay in here for a while.”

  Carla reluctantly walked to her kennel and stepped inside. She turned her body in circles before laying down with a thump, her snout sticking out of the entrance, and after blinking her amber eyes several times, she drifted off to sleep.

  Wolf returned to the thousands of ants waiting near the walkway. All the ants were wearing togs, sunnies, and giggle hats, and some held pink, red, yellow or white rose petals high above their heads, shading them from the sun. Wolf also noticed that many of the tiny bugs had clear, air-filled plastic wrapped around their arms, legs and midsection.

  When he spotted Aaron’s red cricket cap, he bent down and asked him, “What’s that clear stuff you and the others are wearing?”

  “Floaties and life rings for those of us who don’t swim so well,” Aaron replied. “We made them out of bubble wrap we found in the shed.”

  “Smart. Anyway, I’ve taken care of the dog, so you can all swim now. I was going to go change into my togs and swim, too, but I’m pretty sure I won’t fit in that pool,” he said amusedly.

  “Sorry, Wolf, I didn’t think about how big you were when I invited you. You can probably put your foot in if you want, or maybe a toe?”

  Wolf smiled. “No worries. I’ll just watch.”

  Aaron told the ants at the front of the line that it was safe to swim. Each ant whispered to the ant behind, and within minutes, the word spread and all the ants lined up, single file, and began marching through blades of grass towards the blue plastic water bowl. When they arrived, they advanced up the side in orderly, single file, and many ants set up twigs on the edge of the water bowl, using them as sun loungers, while others took mud from small nutshell bags and rubbed it on their bodies, the wet dirt turning crusty white and shielding their exoskeletons from the sun’s rays.

  Ants began jumping, diving, and tumbling into Carla’s water bowl. More experienced swimmers performed swan dives, while others grabbed all six legs and cannon-balled, causing the water’s surface to ripple. The less experienced swimmers tumbled over the edge and bobbed on the surface, the bubble wrap keeping them afloat.

  An hour later, Wolf said, “Aaron, the dog’s getting up. Time to get out of the pool.”

  Kicking his feet underneath the surface of the water, Aaron put his antennae between his lips and whistled a high-frequency sound, and all of the swimming and splashing stopped, and the surface of the pool calmed.

  “The monster is awake! Time to go,” Aaron announced.

  The ants in the pool started swimming to the side of the bowl, and in a uniform and organised manner, made their way out of the water, taking with them all the items they had brought. They poured over the rim of the water bowl and onto the ground and began marching back to their house below Wolf’s room.

  While the ants were exiting the pool, Carla stood up and yawned, arching her back as she stretched. When she saw Wolf across the grass, she rambled towards him, wagging her tail.

  Wolf held up his palm in her direction. “Carla, sit,” he said sternly.

  She stopped and sat, her grey-spotted ears tilting back on her head. “What did I do?” she whined, her tail going still.

  “Nothing, Carla. You didn’t do anything wrong. Just stay.”

  Her tail wagged frantically again, chopping at the surface of the grass as Wolf repeated the words, “Good girl” and “Stay”. When Wolf saw the water in the blue bowl was clear of all ants, he clapped his hands, lowered himself onto one knee and said, “Okay, girl, come.”

  Carla bolted at him and jumped up, planting her front paws on his shoulders as she licked his cheek.

  Wolf held the sides of her muzzle lightly in his fists. “You’re a good girl,” he told his dog.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Around midnight, when the rest of the family was asleep, Wolf lay in his bed with his brown eyes wide open. Even though he couldn’t see Polly, he could smell her, and he felt a poking sensation on his temple before she became visible, gliding to the end of his bed and sitting weightlessly on his feet.

  “I knew you were here,” Wolf said. “I could smell you.”

  “Oh really. And what do I smell like?” she asked.

  “Like sunshine and morning dew.”

  She smiled sweetly, smoothing the barely visible, v-shaped neckline of her simple, cotton dress.

  “Anyway, where have you been all day?” he asked.

  “I went to the Cherry Blossom festival and sat on a tree branch to watch all the people. Did you know the word for cherry blossom in Japanese is sakura? Did I ever tell you my parents met at a Sakura Festival in Tokyo? Tokyo was actually called Edo back then.”

  “Yeah, I know. And, no, you never told me that. Anyway, did you see Junsaku?”

  “Yes, and my mother.”

  “Oh.”

  “My mother was only seventeen when she met my father, and she was so pretty,” she replied dreamily. “At the festival, she wore a brilliant red kimono with a purple collar and white cranes embroidered down the front, and she stared at my father
every chance she got. And when they’d make eye contact, my father would wink, making her face turn bright pink,” Polly giggled. “My parents were so in love. I miss seeing them together.”

  “You can have my parents if you want,” Wolf joked.

  “That’s not funny,” she said, sucking in her bottom lip.

  “Sorry.”

  “Anyway, let's change the subject. So, I noticed we’re going to ride Biscuit. Good thing it’s Friday and you don’t have school tomorrow.”

  “Yep,” he mumbled as he stretched out on his bed. As he was beginning to doze off, he realised what she said and popped up from his bunk. “What do you mean ‘riding Biscuit tomorrow’? I’m not stupid, Polly. Biscuit’s gone, and I’m not getting in trouble again.”

  Wolf’s horse, Biscuit, first appeared more than one year earlier when he was five years old. The horse stood fourteen hands high, more than twice Wolf’s height, and Wolf had to stand on the top rail of the fence and grab a fistful of his course mane to mount him. The horse’s pale yellow fur was dotted with cocoa-coloured freckles, and he had a chestnut-coloured line that swept the ridge of his nose, and because the horse’s colours reminded him of the cookies inside a box of Arnott’s Assorted Creams, Wolf decided to name him Biscuit.

  The first year that Wolf rode Biscuit, he rode him bareback and with no reins, pulling on his mane to steer him while his inner thighs gripped the horse’s abdomen. After a year of riding bareback, Wolf’s riding changed forever when he discovered something in his father’s secret room at the back of the shed.

  On the surface, the shed was like any typical garage. Inside was a long, workbench that spanned the length of the sidewall, its entire surface covered with tools, gadgets, and parts, and his father kept everything on or near the wall to allow for extra space to park a car, of which his father had two: A metallic gold Holden Kingswood that he drove most days which he either parked in the driveway or inside the shed, and a Ford GT351 that he kept under a canvas cover at the side of the shed, only driving that car a few times a year.

  On a Wednesday afternoon, just days after Wolf had turned six, he was playing in his room while his mum was in the front yard gardening, and when Wolf decided to go and play in the yard instead, he noticed his mother had left the roller door to the shed wide open so Wolf and Polly decided to go inside and have a look around.

  At the back of the shed, behind a metal, rolling cart, Wolf and Polly discovered a short door. The door was half the height of a regular doorway and locked with a stainless steel, barrel bolt latch, and tied to the latch was fishline that had been pulled tightly across the doorway, the end connected to a nail on the wall.

  “Wolf,” Polly said, “your dad’s rigged it so that if someone moves the latch, it will break the fishline and he’ll know someone was inside.”

  “Oh, yeah, you’re right,” Wolf replied. “What do you think is inside there?”

  “I’m not sure, but let’s not go through this door because he’ll know someone was inside. Let’s try to find another way in.”

  Before they could search for another entrance, Wolf’s mother called for him, telling him to come into the house and clean up for dinner.

  A week later, when Wolf was home again with just his mum who was sewing in her room, he and Polly went back to the shed, this time staying on the outside and going around to the back, hoping to find an alternate way to get inside the secret room.

  At the back of the shed, on the exterior wall, they yanked on dry, wooden boards until they found one that was loose, barely held in place by two, rusty nails in the top corners. Wolf yanked on the board with his fingers until the nails came out and the wood slat fell to the dirt, exposing a rectangular opening big enough for him to climb through. He crawled through the hole and found himself sitting on a cool, concrete floor as Polly passed through the wooden wall, joining him inside.

  The room was small and rectangular, with light-coloured walls and several wooden bookshelves. There was an armchair upholstered in a brick red fabric that Wolf remembered his father claiming to have taken to the tip, as well as an old wooden desk with a bench vice bolted down on a corner.

  On that first visit to his father’s secret room, Wolf and Polly kept their visit short. After only five minutes, they exited through the opening in the wall, and when they were back outside, Wolf used a rock to nail the board back in place, hiding their entrance from view.

  Now that they had found a way to sneak inside the room without being seen, they went inside as often as they could. When they first entered, they would always start their adventure by pretending a ferocious giant lurked in the shadows, guarding a treasure, and if he caught them, he would season them with spices and toss them in a frying pan for lunch. When they got bored pretending, they’d start snooping through his father’s stuff. They looked at everything: Books and magazines ranging from gardening to topless women; a variety of transistor radios; rusty old lanterns and animal traps, and glass jars partially filled with tarnished, dingy coins. They looked in the drawers of his desk and found pencil drawings of lakes and mountains, as well as a box with a revolver inside it. And, when Wolf and Polly finished poking through his father’s things, they always made sure to put everything back exactly as they had found it because they knew that his father would notice even the most minuscule changes.

  One day in the secret room, Wolf noticed something he hadn't seen before; a thick, scratchy green blanket covering something on the floor. Wolf peeked underneath the blanket and saw a smooth, shiny black saddle. “Polly, look at this,” he said, tossing the blanket to the side. “It’s a saddle.” He lifted it off the ground and held it in front of his hips, the metal stirrups dangling from each side, touching his kneecaps, and with both hands, he carried it to the hole in the wooden wall and pushed it through to the outside. “Oh good, it fits. Let’s use it to take Biscuit for a ride.”

  From that day forward, they borrowed the saddle as often as they could, returning it after each ride and hiding it back under the blanket in the same position as they found it.

  One day, after school, Wolf and Polly sneaked inside and grabbed the saddle, unafraid of being caught because his mother was sewing in her room, and his dad and Orville weren’t home. They took the saddle to the fence, put it on Biscuit’s back, and left the yard. After a short ride in the hills, they returned the saddle to the shed and covered it again with the scratchy blanket, neither one noticing that a small part of the metal stirrup was sticking out from the edge of the blanket, different from when they first arrived.

  Later that evening, Wolf had dinner at the breakfast bar with just his mother as his dad and Orville still weren’t home. After Wolf finished, he said, “I’m going to say goodnight to Carla.”

  “Okay, and then take your bath,” his mother responded, clearing their plates.

  Wolf went outside and whistled for his dog. She walked quickly towards him, wagging her tail so hard that it caused her behind to wobble. As she approached, Wolf noticed Buford, the blue tongue skink, tucked below a shrub, his brown and gold stripes camouflaging him as he tried to hide. Wolf ignored the skink and found a weed in the middle of some brownish-green grass, tugged it out of the ground, and stuffed it into his pant pocket, fulfilling the promise he had made to Master Kelly to pull a weed every day. Next, he removed a chunk of ham from his right pocket and held it out for the dog, saying, “This is for you.”

  Carla smacked the meat and looked at Wolf lovingly as he rubbed her head. “Thanks. I like that,” she told Wolf, her amber eyes glistening.

  “Good night,” he said before turning to go back to the house.

  “Good night,” the dog replied, barking at him several times as he walked towards the kitchen.

  Back inside, Wolf bathed, put on his pyjamas, and returned to the loungeroom to watch his favorite show, Skippy, The Bush Kangaroo. Just as Skippy was bouncing towards town to warn the ranger that someone was in trouble, his father burst into the kitchen, a mist of dark grey hug
ging his body.

  “Get me dinner,” he slurred, his words ripe with liquor as he took a seat at the breakfast bar.

  Lifelessly, his mum got up from the couch, went to the kitchen and removed a warm plate from the oven. “I wish you wouldn’t drink so much,” she stated, dropping the plate in front of him on the counter.

  Before she could blink, his hand shot across the countertop and he grabbed her wrist, gripping it firmly. “Lizzie, you watch yourself,” he growled, his brown eyes floating in a sea of bloodshot red.

  When he let go of her wrist, Wolf’s mother disappeared into her bedroom, leaving his father alone in the kitchen to eat his food. Wolf decided this was a good time for him to leave, too, so he slinked to his bedroom, trying to be invisible.

  Polly was already waiting for him in his bunk, holding a book in her lap. He climbed over her, sat with his back against the headboard and let his upper arm touch hers. She began to read to him from one of his favorite books about American Indians, and while telling him about Geronimo, a famous Apache Indian known for his supernatural powers, they froze at the sound of his dad’s boots stomping down the hallway.

  His father walked into his room and stood next to his bunk, eye level with Wolf. “How was your ride today?” he asked, his tone menacingly calm.

  “Wha-what?” Wolf replied, his chest tightening.

  Through the moonlit window, on the other side of the yard, Wolf could see the silhouette of Korey the koala clinging to a high branch in a gum tree, sleeping peacefully, and Wolf wished he was there instead of in his room.

  “Don’t play dumb with me. Your pretend horse ride…with my real saddle?”

  “Oh,” Wolf whispered, his throat so dry he could barely speak. “It was o-o-okay, I-I-I- gu-gu-guess.”

  “Come down,” his father said, pointing at the bottom rung of the bunk bed ladder.