This Is Not a Werewolf Story (21 page)

Dean Swift stops talking. The bed creaks as he stands.

“More,” I say. The word is thick on my tongue.

The dean sighs and sits back down. “What happened next, nobody could have predicted. When the lens was moved to the school, it never worked properly again. Every experiment failed. It looked as though my
great-great-grandfather had been losing his mind for quite some time. He became a joke—literally. Whenever a scientist formulated a particularly unlikely theory, others would tease,
Go measure your lens again, Admiral Swift
. He died a broken man. I never knew him. I wish I had. I don't think he was crazy. In fact, I know he was
not
. Because one day when I was a young man, I was in the woods and something happened. It made me wonder if Admiral Swift's first experiments had as much to do with White Deer Woods and its light phenomena as they did with Fresnel's special lens. I devoted my life to the study of bioluminescence, never quite knowing exactly what I was looking for. And then, not long ago, I was in the kitchen with Cook Patsy, selecting items to donate to charity. And do you know what I found folded up among the cookbooks?”

Sleep smothers me. I answer, but the words don't make sense. “A cougar?”

He stands up softly, his knees popping. He whispers, “Fresnel's secret formula.”

The last thing I see before sleep crushes me is Dean Swift stretching his spine, his elbows pushed back. In profile he looks like a hawk launching himself from a branch.

I spend the night trying to wake up. I need to read the cards. My hand won't listen. It won't turn on the
light, it won't open the box. My body is weighed down, stuck in the bed, but my mind wanders everywhere. Dean Swift has fixed the lens. Remember? He found Fresnel's measurements. The lens has a secret power. It has to do with the cougar. The cougar has to do with White Wolf.

The light behind my window shade is gray. Morning. My mouth is dry. My skin burns. The first thing I see when my eyes finally agree to open is the recipe box sticking out from under my pillow. I reach for it, but push it off the bed instead.

Dean Swift must hear the clang of the box as it hits the floor. He comes in and touches my forehead. His hand is ice cold.

“The cards,” I whisper to him. “The whole story of my mom is written on them. She knows a secret, and I do too.”

A drop of water falls on my cheek.

I look up. The dean's face is wet with tears.

“I'm going to put this in a safe place,” he says, picking up the box. “I'm sorry. But we have to keep you calm.”

“Please, please turn off the light,” I beg. “For my mom.”

He flips the switch as he leaves. But that's not the light I meant.

I fall asleep again. When I wake up the doctor is back. The doctor never comes twice. He says I have a
fever. He says the wound in my head is infected and gives me pills. I have to take two of them three times a day. Each pill is the size of the rock that Vincent hit me with.

At the door I hear the doctor whisper to Dean Swift, “Don't be surprised by his fever talk. Children often say very strange things with a temperature running that high.”

“He misses his mother,” says Dean Swift, and the words sound full of tears.

“Don't we all?” the doctor says kindly. “Keep him hydrated.”

The door closes.

Where are my cards?

All day people come in and check on me. Ms. Tern reads to me. Her voice is so sweet and she smells so nice that I can't tell her that her stories are like big boots stomping on my heart. She puts her hand on my forehead and smiles at me softly. “We'll have you sorted out in no time,” she says. Dean Swift comes in and checks my pulse a lot. Really he's just holding my hand, but we both pretend he's checking my pulse.

The next morning I feel better, but they won't let me get up.

Cook Patsy brings me a diary. When she sees me look
worried because a diary is such a girl thing, she says, “You can live by those boy-girl rules everyone makes up for you, or you can make up your own. Your choice.”

I put the diary under my pillow.

Mary Anne is in charge of bringing me soup and hot chocolate. I drink so much, I have to pee every half hour. But it keeps her coming back all day long.

Once I think I hear Sparrow breathing outside my door.

Later that night Mary Anne brings Vincent.

I'm afraid to look at him at first. Has he figured out that I'm the wolf he hit with a rock in the woods? Remembering what he did makes me want to lunge at him and take him to the floor. My chin juts forward. My muscles clench.

But Vincent just perches on the edge of my bed and shakes my hand.

“Are you better?” he asks. “Are you going crazy in here all by yourself?” He looks so worried for me.

I nod,
Yes
to both questions. I'm better and I'm crazier.

A shiver runs over me. It scares me, how angry I just got. A door in my mind opens. The thought behind it terrifies me. What would have happened if Vincent had tripped when wolf me was chasing him?

I shut that door quick.

I realize Mary Anne is talking to Vincent about me.
“No, he's not like
us
, Vincent. He's happiest alone. He's an artist. A scientist. An observer.”

I can tell by the expression on her face that she thinks she's complimenting me. But the way she says “us” makes me feel like something scientists found in the deepest trench of the Atlantic ocean—pale, squishy, and one of a kind.

I'm a loner, but that doesn't mean I like being alone.

I'd tell her that, but I'm not sure she notices I'm alive right now. The way he's sitting on the bed and she's standing just inside the door makes it so that they're facing each other. I'm lying here behind Vincent like some unrolled sleeping bag.

I thought they were here to visit me?

Jealousy, like a wet little worm, squiggles in me.

“I didn't tell Raul what happened this weekend yet,” Vincent says to her. “Should I?”

My jaw clenches. There's no way I can lie here like a lumpsucker and listen if he's found a way to turn those horrible fifteen minutes in the woods into a funny story.

The doctor said I should expect to have some trouble controlling my emotions for the next few weeks. It's part of bruising your brain. “You'll wear your heart on your sleeve. You'll be grumpy and sad,” he said.

So I make my face as blank as I can. But neither of them notices me anyway.

Mary Anne looks like she's about to clap her hands.
“Yes! It's the best story.” Then she does clap her hands. “You should write it down! It'd be a great first chapter.”

Doc's right about one thing. I'm grumpy.

Vincent smiles. His teeth are white and straight. His skin is tan and his black hair gleams under the lamp.

Charming. That's the word for Vincent. I swallow it down like a piece of meat you can't quite chew and don't know how else to get rid of.

“Okay,” he begins. “It's not really a story. It's more like a . . .” he pauses and looks at Mary Anne.

She mouths the word back to him.

“Right, it's more like a
development
.”

She nods.

“I spent the whole weekend fishing on the pier with my stepdad,” Vincent begins.

Mary Anne looks at him like it's a real cliffhanger of an opening line.

“All day long we sat there, shooting the breeze and hangin'. He let me bait the hooks. He showed me how to gut the fish
with his knife
. I mean it. He let me use his fishing knife. It's
that
big.” He measures out about two feet with his hands in front of my face. I notice a big white bandage on his thumb. “Look!” He shoves it at me. “Ten stitches.”

I try to smile, but my mouth feels stiff. I'm happy for him and his injury. I really am. So now he gets along with his stepdad. And Mary Anne loves him. And when
his mom comes next weekend she'll tell him to pack his bag, because he's going home. And Mary Anne loves him.

Vincent looks worried. He can tell I'm upset. He should know why.

“Don't sweat it,” he says. “I promise, next time we go to the lake I'll sneak into the kitchen and steal one of Patsy's knives. I'll show you how much quicker you can gut fish. You'll never want to use that Swiss Army knife again.”

He's being so nice, how can I hold a grudge? He's willing to resort to thievery for me.

He takes the bandage off his thumb and shows me the stitches.

“It hurt like you-know-what,” he says. “The doctor gave me a shot with a
huge
needle. I mean
huge
. Right in my thumb.”

Mary Anne nods. “A local anesthetic.”

“I'm telling you, it did
not
work. They started to stitch me up, and I could feel the needle going in and out. Do you know what it's like to have thread pulled
through
your skin?”

“Not good,” Mary Anne says.

He's charming. She's pretty. He's witty. She's smart. Why wouldn't they get along?

He knew how much I liked her. Everyone else likes him better than me. I don't mind that. It makes me proud to be the best friend of the most popular kid in school. But
couldn't he have let Mary Anne like me better?

My belly burns with the bad feeling. “Grumpy” is not the word for it.

“Won't Vincent make the best hero for my novel? He looks like a Nordic god, doesn't he?” she asks.

No, Mary Anne,
I think. He doesn't. He looks like a kid so dumb he split his own thumb open with a knife.

After they leave I pull the diary out from under my pillow.

Cook Patsy was telling the truth. I'm gonna need this.

I pick up my favorite pencil, a number-two Staedtler, and practice my cursive on the first page.
Tuffman was right. Your best friend is always the one who betrays you.
I stare at it for a while.

I erase it.

My brain must really be bruised to think Tuffman could be right about anything.

Have you ever been sick with a fever and stayed in bed all day? At night you never really fall asleep. You toss around a lot and wait for morning. You might think about your crush liking your best friend better than you, and how that's nobody's fault, really, not hers and not yours and not his, either. You might think about the cougar invading your wolf territory. You might wonder if your mom is safe without you. You might wonder if her uncle is out hunting for her, and which skin he's in.

But then I hear the cougar screech.

My ears stretch upward, my mouth feels wet, my legs tighten, and I can actually smell the thing. It's the smell you smell when you go to the zoo and you watch the lions or other big cats pace. A little like old meat, a little like wet fur, a little stale.

White Wolf is out there alone.

I need the recipe cards.

I swing my legs out of the bed. I stand up. My head aches and feels empty at the same time. I fall down. The door opens. Ms. Tern helps me back into bed.