This Is Not a Werewolf Story (26 page)

I watch the steam coming off my plate next to his hand. I swallow my spit.

“So I know it and you know it. I don't want anyone else here to know it. Especially not Mary Anne.” He whispers her name.

I get a mean little feeling. Because it's true—Mary Anne is looking for a hero.

But I say it nicely. “I won't tell.”

“But you might.”

“I won't.”

“How can I be sure?”

“I won't tell.” From here the gravy is looking less like gravy and more like jelly.

“It's hard to keep a secret,” he says. “Are you sure you won't tell Sparrow?”

Starvation makes me desperate. He's not going to let me eat until I make him believe me. And I want to tell him anyway, don't I? I want him to help me make all the pieces of the puzzle into a picture.

“I have a secret too,” I say. “What if I tell you my secret? Then you'll know something about me that nobody knows.”

Vincent looks relieved. “Yeah, okay. But it better be bad.”

What can I say, it seems like a good idea to a kid with a bruised brain and an empty stomach.

I tell him my secret. You know it already.

While I'm talking, I get up, go over to my plate, and devour my dinner standing up.

I tell him about the lighthouse and leaving the clothes in the old oven on Friday night and getting them on Sunday morning. I tell him that on the
weekends in the woods I live in the skin of an animal. I don't tell him about White Wolf or Tuffman. Those aren't my secrets to tell.

I leave something else out. My melon isn't
that
cracked. I don't say “wolf.”

Because he already met wolf me, and I don't think he liked me much.

When I'm done, he looks at me. “Do you think that's what the talking deer wanted?” he asks. “Do you think it was telling me I have a second skin too?”

I nod.

“A raven? Isn't that just a crow? I don't want to be a garbage-eating bird.” He shakes his head.
No no no no,
like his body has to say the words even when his mouth doesn't.

He tucks his hands into his sweatshirt pocket to hide the trembling.

“I don't wanna change. And I don't want
you
to change either.”

His eyes get big, like he just thought of something. “What animal are you?”

I look away. I don't want to lie to him.

Luckily, the more upset he is, the more he talks. “The woods are scary. Some cougar would snap me up in one bite. Look what it did to dumb old Bobo.”

Bobo's not dumb.

“I'm not supposed to tell anyone, but something
happened to me in the woods this weekend. That scene with the cougar in the tunnel was
nothing
compared to it,” he says.

This little talk is taking a turn for the worse.

“On Sunday I was helping Tuffman mark out the 5K race.” He pauses. “You're
nothing
like him, I don't care what Mary Anne says. When I told her you were his nephew, she acted like it made sense because you're both antisocial or something. But you're nothing like Tuffman.”

I think he thinks he's giving me a compliment, but it feels like a kick to the gut. Why'd he tell her in the first place? Didn't he know that was a secret?

I get a heavy, scared feeling. I think the word for it is doom. Because that secret really didn't matter much. But the one I just told him does.

I bet he knows the difference, right?

Vincent keeps talking.

“When we were down at the lake, a pack of wolves came out of nowhere. Twenty of them circled us, barking and snarling. I pulled out my slingshot. Pow. I hit one. Killed him cold.” Vincent's moving around, acting the scene out. He doesn't look nervous anymore.

“Tuffman was useless. They chased us clean out of the woods and all the way up to the school. I've got bite marks on my calves.” He lifts his pant leg up half an inch like he's gonna show me and then drops it
again before I can see so much as a pimple.

“I barely managed to slam the door shut on them. They would've killed us if they caught us.
They're
the ones that got Bobo, bet you ten to one.”

“Why didn't you tell Dean Swift?” I ask.

Vincent shrugs. “Tuffman. He said it was my fault for teasing them, but they just attacked me when I was totally minding my own business. He said the dean will always take nature's side in any argument—whatever that means—and that I'd get in big trouble with him. Plus he said they'd make him cancel the 5K run, and
that
would get me in trouble with Tuffman.

“So what kind of animal are you?” he asks again. “A chickadee? A squirrel?” he teases. Then he laughs. “Are you a werewolf?”

Man, I hate that question. “No, I'm not a
were
wolf.”

I didn't mean to say the word the way I did.

Understanding ripples across his face like a wave at the tide line. He backs toward the door.

“Wait,” I say. I try to make my eyes not so scary. “Listen. I think it's something genetic—you know, like coded in my DNA. My
mitochondrial
DNA. And it's White Deer Woods, too. It's a special place. It has something to do with bioluminescent fungi and the power of the light in the woods. I'm not sure how it all works, but it probably has to do with the wave theory of light and the measurements of the lens.”

I'm mixing it all up and sticking it all together, everything I've heard and thought over the last few weeks.

He's staring at me like I'm a mad scientist who's been sniffing his test tubes.

“I don't hurt anyone,” I say. “I don't care about humans at all when I'm in the woods.”

He gets a look like he just figured something out. “What about dogs?” he asks.

I keep talking. I talk for a long time. I never admit to being a wolf. He doesn't ask again. But deep down, he knows I'm a wolf, and I know he's a liar.

After a while he starts to nod like he's convinced, but I can tell he just wants to get away from me. He's inching toward the door. He's careful not to turn his back on me as he steps into the hallway.

“The dean told us at dinner that Bobo won't make it through the night,” he says as he shuts the door. There's a mean look on his face.

That's when I realize that he thinks maybe
I'm
the animal that attacked Bobo.

And Bobo won't make it through the night.

I get into bed. I should never have gotten out of it this morning.

My parents have come and gone. Teachers have come and gone. Kids have come and gone. But Bobo's been here with me the whole time. She's run through the
woods with me and slept on the floor of my room. She's a tear licker, a heel nipper, a pillow, and a friend.

I never got to say good-bye to my mom. There are lots of things I would've said and done if I'd known the last time was the last time. I can't let Bobo leave without saying good-bye.

I get out of bed.

I can't let my best friend die alone in the middle of the night.

Maybe there's some leftover bacon in the kitchen. Dogs know love when you feed it to them.

I pick up my tray to take down with me. It bumps into my pajama pocket, and I feel the key. I take it out and stare at it for a second. I remember how the light made me feel when it pulsed through me. I remember how it made me so strong I could tap a tree trunk with the tip of my toe and send it flying across the meadow and over the cliff.

I grab the key and the tray and run out the door.

I run all the way down to the kitchen. I forgot to light the light. I smack my head, which hurts more than it would if I didn't have a smushed melon for a brain.

I run all the way back upstairs. Turn the light on first. Right? Doesn't that make sense? Turn the light on, get the dog, put the dog in the light.

Everyone's in the bathroom getting ready for bed.

Vincent opens the door and sees me run by. I see
myself in the big mirror. I look crazy. I've got a tray full of dirty dishes in one hand. I'm clenching the key in the other. My eyes are lit up and intense like Dean Swift's when he starts talking about fungi. There's a bandage wrapped around my head, and my hair is standing straight up around it. How many days since I washed it? Yikes. I'm one dirty dog.

Vincent just stands there and stares. Man, I could use his help. I don't know why, but I shove the tray at him. He takes it with a surprised look. The words are on the tip of my tongue, but he ducks back into the bathroom like he's afraid of getting stuck alone with me again. I hear the dishes clatter on the tray, and then the door slams shut.

I blink. I take a breath. My right eye twitches. This job I've got to do on my own. I wouldn't know where to begin explaining it to him, since I don't understand it all and I'm pretty sure the dean—the one who's in charge—doesn't either.

Ha! If the dean doesn't know, then nobody knows. If nobody knows, then anything's possible.

I race to my room. I stop and stand in front of it. I wait, quiet as a mouse. The hall is silent. I step one big step over and put my ear to the utility closet door. Silence.

It only takes me a minute. The matches are on the desk. The wick is ready.

Slash goes the match. Flicker goes the flame.

I don't even watch as the light fills the room.

“Guard the light, Gollum!” I whisper like a maniac as I fly down the stairs.

Everyone's awake, but I know where they are. The dean is in the basement, locking the gym doors. Cook Patsy is in the dining hall, wiping down tables and setting up for breakfast. Ms. Tern is monitoring the girls. Tuffman is monitoring the boys.

And I'm alone in the kitchen.

By the delivery door there's a low cart for moving big boxes. It's like a huge metal tray on wheels. I pile all the kitchen towels I can find onto it. Quick as I can, I wheel it over to the storage room.

The room is so quiet that it's only my wolf sense that tells me Bobo's alive, because she doesn't move.

I lift her. It's not easy. I know I hurt her. She whimpers, and I put my hand just above her eyes.
I'm sorry,
I say, but I don't have to say it out loud because she knows it already.

I push her back into the kitchen and out the delivery door.

I walk slowly along the edges of the driveway so that the noise of the cart wheels is muffled by the grass. The back left wheel creaks. I head toward the trees. I look up. Wings rustle in the oak. The crows are huddled there, each with one eye open.

Suddenly the driveway is flooded with light. I stop dead in my tracks. Someone must have seen me. Someone has turned on the lights. If I run with Bobo, she'll get tossed around. If I stay, I'll get caught. I shrink back as much as I can into the shadow of the great oak tree.

A second later and the crows have swooped down, silent.

At first it feels like I'm in the middle of a black feather storm, like there's no order or meaning to what they're doing. Then they settle. They surround Bobo and the cart, like a great dark shadow. They hover next to me, one above the other, sheltering me from the lights and the eyes that might be watching from the school.

Did Vincent call them garbage eaters? They're guardians, that's what they are.

Slowly I move on behind my shield of black feathers. I know that the woods love me.

As I push Bobo away from the school, I realize that must be why nobody ever sees White Wolf. It's why the cougar can't find her unless she leaves the woods. As long as she stays in White Deer Woods, the woods magic shelters her.

The crows wheel off, one by one, as we reach the lake. Bobo is so quiet. The path is rough. I wince every time the cart bounces. I can feel how it must hurt her.

As I get closer to the lighthouse, I catch flashes of
the light off to my left. I'm taking her to the meadow between the edge of the woods and the edge of the cliff, where the light struck me last week.

But it begins before we get there. Every time the beam catches my eye I feel it. It's so powerful that I flinch a little when I see it coming, the way you do before you touch something that you know will give you a little shock.

In the meadow I pull the kitchen towels off Bobo. I get down beside her and try to make her open her eyes. I don't know if the power happens when it hits your skin or your eyes.

The light swings at us. It drowns me. My skin hums. I look down at Bobo. Her fur is standing on end. Her eyes are half open. A tremor runs across her nose.

We stay there until the light goes out.

I imagine Dean Swift standing up there, scratching his head. “I do not recall lighting the lens,” he must be saying to himself.

I cover Bobo back up. She looks awful. The light has made me even stronger. Pushing the cart is like pushing one of those toy lawnmowers with the popping balls.

When we reach the lake, I hear it. She whimpers. It's a sound of pain, but it brings tingles all over my skin. I stop pushing and run up to her. Bobo lifts her nose and sets it in my hand. Her eyes are open. I see the sketch of a tail wag.

Friday. I sleep late. At breakfast there are only weirdos at the counter. Mary Anne is with the Wolverines, whispering sadly about Bobo. Vincent perches on Mean Jack's table, telling them how he saw the cougar coming out of the tunnel and tagged it in the face with a rock. He says it so convincingly, I'd believe him too, except that I was there.

Vincent and Mary Anne don't look at me when I sit down at the counter, but I can tell they notice me. I have a heavy feeling inside. Are we still friends?

The dean walks into the dining hall. We can tell by the look on his face that he's here to tell us about Bobo. Even Vincent stops talking.

Dean Swift stands there for a minute. “Bobo,” he says finally. His mouth is crooked and his voice is full of tears. He shakes his head and raises a finger.