‘That was you?’ Mum interrupted. ‘You made that call?’
‘Yes. I had to.’
‘And you wrote that letter? The one about Toby?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Well, you shouldn’t have!’ Mum exclaimed. She kept trying to push me back into the house, but I wouldn’t let her. I had a firm grip on the doorknob. ‘You shouldn’t be leaving notes on teenagers’ beds! If there’s something you want to say about my son’s health, you should go through the official channels!’
‘What official channels?’ Reuben asked. He’d been watching me intently, his green eyes raking me up and down like a pair of laser beams. All at once they swivelled towards my mother. ‘You want us to go to the police?’
Mum didn’t answer him. She was still talking to Father Ramon.
‘If you’re a hospital chaplain,’ she said, ‘you should have spoken to Dr Passlow.’
Reuben gave a snort. The priest winced.
‘I’m not a hospital chaplain,’ he confessed. ‘I’m just a wellwisher. A concerned party. I’m genuinely worried about your son, Mrs Vandevelde.’
‘And so am I,’ Reuben cut in. ‘Because I think he’s got the same thing as me. I’m sure he’s got the same thing as me.’
But Mum wasn’t interested in Reuben. She was still trying to absorb what the priest had said.
‘You’re not from the hospital at all?’ she demanded.
‘No.’ By now Father Ramon’s hands were folded meekly in front of him. ‘I have a friend who works there as a volunteer, and she found out Toby’s name.’
‘Then you can leave right now,’ said Mum, her soft voice trembling with anger. ‘Get out of here or I’ll call the police.’
‘Please, Mrs Vandevelde—’
‘I’m not listening. How dare you? You’re just stickybeaks! I’m not interested in what you have to say!’
‘You will be,’ Reuben warned. He wasn’t looking at Mum, though. His hard stare had shifted back to me – and something about it was deeply disconcerting. ‘There are things you have to be told. For your own safety.’
‘Is that a threat?’ Mum cried.
‘No, no.’ Father Ramon unlocked his hands, flapping them about in a beseeching gesture. ‘We have information, that’s all.’
‘Well, I don’t want to hear it!’
Suddenly I glimpsed a small, bright object whizzing towards me. I caught it without thinking; my muscles moved automatically to intercept it.
It was a bunch of keys that Reuben had thrown.
‘That’s one of my symptoms,’ he pointed out. ‘Quick reflexes. Like you.’
There was a brief, stunned silence. Then Reuben added, ‘Does your hair grow really fast? Do you need a lot of haircuts?’
I don’t know if I can describe the peculiar, sinking sensation that I felt when he said this. Because the thing is, my hair does grow fast. Mum’s always complaining about it. If I don’t have a haircut every two weeks, I look like a hippie.
‘My hair grows fast,’ Reuben continued. ‘I mean, you’d never believe I shaved this morning, would you?’ His fingers scraped across his scrubby jaw.
I was so shaken, I couldn’t even nod. It was Mum who spoke.
‘Get out!’ she snapped. Reuben promptly rounded on her, all bared teeth and flashing eyes.
‘Your son needs to hear this!’ he barked.
‘Nonsense.’ She wasn’t even listening. She was in too much of a state. ‘I’ll count to three, and if you haven’t left by then, I’m calling the police.’
‘Mrs Vandevelde—’
‘One.’
‘You’ll regret it!’ said Reuben.
‘Two . . .’
‘Mum.’ I grabbed her arm. ‘He’s right.’
Talk about a bombshell. Even Reuben blinked. Poor Mum was so shocked that she just stood there with her mouth open, staring at me.
‘Don’t you think we should at least listen?’ I mumbled. ‘It might be important.’
‘It is important.’ Reuben was butting in again. ‘It’s genetic. Hormonal. How many brothers do you have?’
This time it was my turn to blink. ‘What?’
‘You’ve got six brothers, right? Six older brothers?’
I glanced at Mum, totally confounded. And she stepped up to the plate for me, declaring in a frigid tone, ‘My son is adopted, if that’s any of your business.’
Father Ramon clicked his tongue. ‘Ah,’ he said with a nod.
Reuben grimaced. ‘So you don’t even know how many brothers you have?’ he asked.
‘No.’ I was aware that there must have been a few, because my junkie biological mother had been such a useless parent that her kids had been taken away from her. But I’d never bothered to learn all the details. Why go looking for trouble? ‘I don’t care about my brothers. Or my sisters.’
‘Well, you should.’ The way Reuben talked, he and I could have been alone on a desert island. He didn’t seem to notice that Mum was about to blow her top. ‘If you’re number seven, then that pretty much clinches it,’ he briskly decided. ‘I’m number seven. And I’ve also got a Portuguese background.’
‘Uh – Reuben?’ the priest interposed. Unlike his friend, he was stealing anxious looks at my mother’s flushed cheeks and compressed lips. ‘Perhaps we should hold off until we have more privacy. This is hardly the appropriate spot.’
He jerked his chin at the scene behind him: the dusky sky, the glowing windows, the nearby houses. A few Miscallefs were playing football down the other end of the road. Mr Savvides was walking his dog.
‘Could we please step inside, Mrs Vandevelde?’ Father Ramon pleaded. ‘Just for ten minutes? So I can explain?’
Mum didn’t know what to do. She dithered on the doorstep, unable to make up her mind. Perhaps she was afraid that the whole thing was a scam – that Reuben was going to rob her, or something.
But I was keen to hear more about these so-called ‘symptoms’. How could quick reflexes possibly be a ‘symptom’? And who could have told Reuben about my hair?
‘All right. You can come in,’ I announced, tossing the keys back at him. His hand shot out abruptly, catching them without the slightest effort. He didn’t even look at the bloody things. ‘Just don’t expect me to believe you, that’s all,’ I added, stepping aside like a good host.
Reuben gave me the hairy eyeball as he passed. Father Ramon smiled gently. They both proceeded into the living room, stopping when they reached our sectional sofa.
Bringing up the rear, Mum whisked a pair of dirty socks off the carpet.
The priest didn’t sit down. I think he was waiting for an invitation. Reuben also remained standing, though not out of politeness; he just couldn’t keep still. His restless gaze flitted from our tv to our sideboard to our rocking chair. He paced like a caged animal, stopping here and there to finger a souvenir or study a family photograph.
When he picked up one of her Japanese dolls, Mum said sharply, ‘Please don’t touch that!’
Reuben immediately put it down again, flushing. I suddenly realised that he was younger than I’d thought.
‘I fidget a lot,’ he had to admit, before turning to me. ‘Do you fidget a lot?’
‘Uh . . .’
‘I’m not sure if that’s a symptom,’ he allowed. ‘But a good sense of smell definitely is. I bet you have a good sense of smell.’
He was bang on. I couldn’t believe it. My sense of smell is so damn good, it’s annoying. Everywhere I go, I’m assailed by the stench of mouldy drains, or burnt food, or dog shit, or really rank body odour. Other people hardly notice the stink, but to me it’s like being gas-bombed. I hate it. I hate being able to tell if someone’s eaten garlic within the past forty-eight hours.
‘Yes,’ I said hoarsely, as I lowered myself into the rocking chair. ‘I can smell anything.’
‘Me too. I can smell your conditioner from here. Coconut, right?’ Reuben gave a satisfied grunt when I nodded. ‘Thought so.’
I think Mum saw how freaked I was, because she broke in harshly, glaring at Reuben. ‘Will you sit down, please? You’re making me nervous.’
Reuben sat down. So did Father Ramon. But Mum didn’t; she stood over them with her arms folded, looking quite fierce even though she was wearing fluffy slippers and a very old pink cardigan.
‘Well?’ she asked.
The two men exchanged glances. Then the priest took a deep breath. ‘Are you aware if Toby is of Spanish or Portuguese descent?’ he murmured.
There it was again. The Portuguese angle.
‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ Mum wanted to know.
‘I told you. It’s genetic.’ Reuben couldn’t seem to restrain himself. He seized control of the conversation, sitting on the edge of the sofa, his knees jiggling with suppressed impatience. ‘My mother had Portuguese blood, and I was her seventh son. This thing only happens to boys who are the seventh sons of women with Spanish or Portuguese backgrounds. So you tend to find it in South America.’
‘And the Philippines,’ Father Ramon interjected.
‘Yeah. That’s right. And Goa.’
‘What are you talking about?’ Mum was already lost. ‘What do you find in the Philippines? You’re not making sense.’
‘I’m sorry,’ said the priest. And he really did sound sorry. ‘It’s confusing, I know. What we’re referring to is a very rare condition that begins to affect certain boys at puberty. That’s not to say they don’t share a number of characteristics from birth—’
‘Like the hair and the reflexes,’ Reuben piped up.
‘Exactly. But acute symptoms only appear from the age of fourteen or so.’ Before Mum could even open her mouth, Father Ramon proceeded to describe these ‘acute symptoms’ in a careful and hesitant sort of way. ‘It’s basically a transformation,’ he murmured. ‘Once a month, for a single night, there’s a huge metabolic change that causes . . . um . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘I suppose you could call them behavioural problems.’
‘Behavioural problems?’ Mum echoed, all at sea. By this time Reuben was shifting about like someone sitting on a hotplate.
‘I turn into a wild animal,’ he said roughly. ‘No one can stop it.’ He wiped his hand across his mouth as he stared at the floor. A muscle in his cheek was twitching. ‘It’s dangerous,’ he finally concluded. ‘If you don’t take precautions, things can get . . .’ He trailed off.
After a moment’s silence, Father Ramon finished the sentence for him. ‘Things can get out of control. People can get hurt.’ The priest placed his palms together, leaning forward, brow furrowed. ‘That’s why we had to warn you. If Toby is affected, then his condition will have to be managed properly. Otherwise he might attack someone.’
Attack someone? I couldn’t believe my ears.
Neither could Mum.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she scoffed. ‘Toby wouldn’t hurt a fly.’
‘Not in his normal state. Of course he wouldn’t.’ The priest smiled at me. ‘But when he’s symptomatic, he’s not himself.’
‘He’s a wild animal,’ Reuben elaborated. ‘We all are. I told you. We can’t help it.’
By this stage I was as tense as a cornered chihuahua, all quivering limbs and popping eyes. Though Mum made a gallant attempt to reassure me, it didn’t do much good. Her voice was about an octave higher than usual.
‘This is nonsense,’ she said. ‘You’re not psychotic, Toby. Remember what Dr Passlow said? Psychosis and epilepsy are completely unrelated.’
‘Epilepsy?’ Reuben was flummoxed. ‘Who said anything about epilepsy?’
Father Ramon sighed. When he rubbed his face, the loose pouches of skin were pulled about like folds of fabric. He looked exhausted. ‘This isn’t just a psychological problem, Mrs Vandevelde,’ he pointed out. ‘You can’t treat it with therapy or anti-psychotic drugs.’
‘I’ve tried. It didn’t work,’ said Reuben, butting in again.
‘This is physical. It’s very much a physical phenomenon.’
All at once Reuben sprang to his feet – so unexpectedly that my mother stumbled backwards. But he wasn’t trying to pounce on her. He was pulling a digital camera out of his pocket.
‘We took some photos,’ he revealed, pushing various buttons on the device. ‘They’re not of me. No one’s ever managed to get any shots of me, because I smash everything when I’m on a rampage.’ He thrust the camera in my direction. ‘You can see the scratches I’ve left, though. And the tooth marks. That’s a concrete wall. Reinforced concrete. It’s the wall of a bank vault, it’s not some plasterboard thing.’
Obediently, I studied the camera’s display screen. On it I could vaguely identify a pattern of shapes – some lighter, some darker – although I couldn’t really see what these shapes were. The picture wasn’t clear enough.
‘That bank vault is one of our precautions,’ Father Ramon ventured. ‘Every full moon, Reuben has to be restrained for a night. It’s what Toby will have to do. We’ll have to find him a secure facility—’
‘Restrained?’ Mum interrupted, latching onto that word the way a tick latches onto a dog. Apparently she hadn’t noticed the two words that had caught my attention.
Full moon?
‘I lock myself up,’ Reuben assured her. ‘I have to. It’s voluntary.’
‘You want Toby to be locked up?’
‘It’s only one night a month,’ he said, as if this made all the difference. Mum, however, wasn’t persuaded.
‘Why on earth would I even consider doing something like that?’ was her very reasonable question. To which Father Ramon replied, ‘For your own safety.’
‘Otherwise Toby will rip your head off and eat it,’ Reuben insisted. ‘You’re lucky he didn’t do it on Monday night.’
Mum regarded him for a moment with a mixture of scorn and disbelief. At last she said, ‘You’re mad.’
Reuben flushed again. His brows snapped together.
‘Rip my head off and eat it?’ Mum pulled a face. ‘You’ve been watching too many horror movies.’
‘Mrs Vandevelde—’
‘And if someone’s been locking you up in a bank vault, Mr Schneider, you should go to the police,’ she finished. ‘There’s no excuse for doing that to a person.’
‘But I’m not a person!’ Reuben snarled. ‘Not on those nights!’
Mum shook her head in disgust. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m an animal! I told you! I turn into an animal!’
‘You’re behaving like an animal now – which doesn’t mean you are one,’ she scolded. I don’t know what else she might have said, given the chance; it seemed to me that she was only just warming up. Before she could really get stuck into Reuben, though, I finally found my voice again.
‘If you turn into an animal when it’s a full moon,’ I croaked, ‘doesn’t that make you a werewolf?’
I was being sarcastic. At least, I think I was being sarcastic. Maybe I was hoping for an outraged response, which would have laid my niggling fears to rest once and for all.
If so, I was disappointed. Because Reuben swung his head around, looked me straight in the eye, and said with a kind of shamefaced defiance, ‘That’s right. I’m a werewolf. Just like you.’
As soon as werewolves were mentioned, everything changed. Mum hit the roof. I mean, werewolves? Puh-lease.
‘Get outta here,’ I said with disgust. ‘You guys are so full of it.’
‘Toby, go and call the police,’ Mum ordered. ‘The number’s on the fridge. Tell them two intruders are on our property and are refusing to leave!’
It didn’t take me long to find the number of our local police station. But by the time I’d started punching digits into our kitchen phone, Father Ramon and his friend were already on their way out. I heard footsteps. The front door slammed. Then Mum appear
ed at my elbow.
‘It’s okay,’ she announced. ‘They’re gone.’
I hung up, hugely relieved.
‘Oh, man.’ My heart was still racing. ‘They nearly had me fooled, for a second.’
‘He gave me his card! Can you believe it?’ Mum tossed a little white rectangle of cardboard into the bin. ‘I bet it’s not even his real name. And I bet the other one’s not even a real priest!’
‘Do you reckon it was a joke?’ I asked. But Mum didn’t answer. She was following her own train of thought.
‘I got their numberplate,’ was all she said.
‘Werewolves,’ I muttered. ‘Did they really think we’d fall for a dumb stunt like that?’
It’s funny how one word can hit you like a train. Reuben had been making good progress until he’d mentioned werewolves. That was when I’d stopped listening. That was when all his arguments about quick reflexes and fast-growing hair had been blown to atoms.
Werewolves, I thought, as I climbed into bed that night. What kind of losers would believe in werewolves?
I can’t tell you what a relief it was to know that Father Ramon was either lying or deluded. It meant that I didn’t have to worry about a ‘rare disease’ anymore. The only thing I had to worry about was epilepsy – and that wasn’t the end of the world. Especially if it gave me a foolproof excuse for just about everything.
So I went to sleep feeling pretty calm, all things considered, and woke up the next morning eager to tell Fergus my weirdo-invasion story. Amin and Fergus always have lots of weirdo-invasion stories (‘Eeep! Eeep! Eeep! Weirdo Invasion!’), because Amin’s enormous extended family is full of drama queens and psycho in-laws, and because Fergus’s brother has friends who get very drunk. But at last I had a story as good as anyone’s.
That’s why I was happy to be spending the day at Amin’s place. That’s also why I secretly fished Reuben’s card out of the bin. I wanted proof, see. I didn’t want anyone thinking I’d made the whole thing up.
By ten to eight I was in the car, pumped and ready to roll. I wasn’t fretting about my blackout anymore – not after two full nights of undisturbed sleep. You could almost say that the whole amnesia episode had slipped my mind. (Ha ha.) Mum was the same. Rather than dwelling on gloomy things like grand mal seizures, she preferred to bitch about unprincipled priests who preyed on the fears of vulnerable families. ‘They were obviously trying to sell something,’ she said of our two recent visitors, as she navigated the sunbaked streets of Doonside. ‘They must have had some treatment they wanted to flog. No one would go to that much trouble if there wasn’t money involved.’
The Abused Werewolf Rescue Group Page 5