100% Wolf

• Title Page
  
• Copyright Page
  
• Dedication
  
• CHAPTER ONE Freddy Lupin
  
• CHAPTER TWO The Slide of Doom
  
• CHAPTER THREE The High Howling
  
• CHAPTER FOUR Dripsy-Wimpsy
  
• CHAPTER FIVE Moonstone
  
• CHAPTER SIX The Blood-Red Hunt
  
• CHAPTER SEVEN Pammy's Parlour
  
• CHAPTER EIGHT Batty
  
• CHAPTER NINE Operation Sausages
  
• CHAPTER TEN Dr Foxwell Cripp
  
• CHAPTER ELEVEN Captured Again
  
• CHAPTER TWELVE Coldfax Fort
  
• CHAPTER THIRTEEN Cell Mates
  
• CHAPTER FOURTEEN A Visitor
  
• CHAPTER FIFTEEN Escape Plans
  
• CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Dungeon
  
• CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Plan Master
  
• CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Break Out
  
• CHAPTER NINETEEN The Key
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY Old Enemies
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Victory?
  
• CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO The Prophecy
  
• Postscript
  
• About the Author
  

JAYNE LYONS

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet search engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including printing, photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the
Australian Copyright Act 1968
), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of Random House Australia. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

100% Wolf
ePub ISBN 9781864715507
Kindle ISBN 9781864716429

Random House Australia Pty Ltd
Level 3, 100 Pacific Highway, North Sydney NSW 2060
www.randomhouse.com.au

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First published by Random House Australia in 2008

Copyright © Jayne Lyons 2008

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without
the prior written permission of the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication Entry

Lyons, Jayne.
100% wolf.

For primary school age.
ISBN 978 1 74166 272 6.

1. Werewolves – Juvenile fiction. I. Title. II. Title: One hundred percent wolf.

A823.4

Cover design by Astred Hicks, Wideopen Media
Cover and internal illustrations by The People's Republic of Animation, except
'Key' illustration ©iStockphoto.com/claudelle
Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia
Printed and bound by Griffin Press, South Australia

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Googie

A werewolf is only actually a
wolf
for one night each
month, when the moon is full. Anyone can tell when a
wolf is a wolf, but how exactly do you spot a
boy
who
is a wolf? That is the challenge for a wolf hunter, as
Dr Foxwell Cripp would tell anyone who would listen
to him (which wasn't many people).

One clue is to look for hairs growing in the palm of
the hand. Frederick Poncenby Lupin had them. Right
there, a little black tuft in the middle of each palm.
Frederick was called Freddy by most people, but not
by his uncle. He called him 'that foolster Frederick!'

His uncle was the terrifying (and
very
hairy) Sir
Hotspur Lupin, Lord Mayor of Milford. He was also
the Grand Growler and High Howler of the Hidden
Moonlight Gathering of Werefolk. In other words, he
was the most pompous and powerful werewolf in
Britain, and he couldn't look at Freddy without becoming
purple with anger.

Sir Hotspur liked everything to be just so. Freddy
was always doing and saying the wrong thing whenever
his uncle was around. And just as often when
he wasn't. Only last month he had accidentally put
superglue on his uncle's hairbrush. It was a mistake
anybody could have made.

'It wasn't me anyway,' Freddy had tried to lie.
Sir Hotspur wasn't fooled. Nor did he see the funny
side of walking around for a week with a hairbrush
stuck to his head. Freddy, on the other hand, had seen
the funny side so much that he had lain down on the
floor, banged his fist and cried with laughter. He had
of course been banished to his room for the rest of
the day. Again.

'You, sir, are a foolster!' Uncle Hotspur bellowed.
'You will bring shame upon the Werepack of Lupin. If
you don't transform into the world's most ridiculous
werewolf one day, I'll eat my trousers. Eat 'em, sir!'

Relations with Uncle Hotspur had never been
good.

They were about to become much, much worse.

'Where are you, little pink piggies? Wolfie is coming,'
Freddy called as he ran.

It was a Saturday and the morning of his 121st
birthday. (In Wolfen time, each month is counted. It
makes ten years and one month for a human pup.)
He had already run around the house three times,
shouting triumphantly.

The
house
was in fact a castle, Farfang Castle, the
home of the Lupin Pack. It was an ancient building,
three storeys high and complete with battlements,
a tower and a moat. Across the moat was a wooden
bridge where a drawbridge had once stood. It was
very grand, but to Freddy it was just home. The castle
was surrounded by perfect lawns and rose gardens,
beyond which was a dense wood. A high stone wall
and gates protected the grounds from unwanted eyes,
eyes that might see things to make their owner's hair
stand on end.

Sometimes a visitor (who of course knew the
Lupins only as a respectable family and not as
wolves
)
was invited to visit the Mayor. After entering the large
front door, they found themselves in the Great Hall,
whose walls were covered with spears, swords, stags'
heads and tapestries. On their tour they found that
the castle was a square shape, with an open courtyard
and an ornamental fountain at the centre. On the
far side of the castle was the kitchen and next to it a
narrow stone corridor that led to the tower. At the top
of this tower, as far from the grandest rooms as it was
possible to be, was Freddy's bedroom, to which Uncle
Hotspur never took anyone at all. It was the very room
to which he regularly banished his annoying nephew.

'I'm going to find you, piggies. I know you took
my chocolate!' Freddy yelled again.

He charged up the servants' staircase that led from
the kitchen to the main bedrooms but couldn't find
the Pukesome Twosome anywhere.

The Pukesome Twosome were Uncle Hotspur's twin
nine-year-old children: Harriet, a girl, and Chariot,
a boy. The Disgusting Duo, the Putrid Pair. Freddy
couldn't stand them. They were always sneaking and
snitching around. They couldn't resist playing snidey
tricks on him and
he
was the one who always ended up
being grounded by Sir Hotspur. But Freddy had one
advantage over them: one day he would transform into
a werewolf but they never would. (It will be explained
soon why that was so.) It was a fact that made Sir
Hotspur fume. It made the twins' eyes go narrow with
envy. And it was making Freddy grin with delight, for
the day that would become his Great Night was here
at last.

As any werepup can tell you, the full moon on
your 121st birthday is the most exciting night of your
life. It is the Night of the Grand Growling, the High
Howling. The night of the Moonlight Gathering of
Werefolk and the Blood-Red Hunt. Most importantly
for Freddy, it was the night of his Transwolfation,
when he would become a wolf for the first time. He
was going to show his uncle and the Putrid Pair that
he was a wolf to be feared and admired.

Right at this moment, however, all he wanted was
his chocolate back.

Freddy ran past his cousins' bedrooms on the first
floor, towards the front of the castle, and arrived at
the Red Stairs to take his usual shortcut. This was the
grand main staircase, which swept down in a curve
to the centre of the Great Hall. The stairs earned their
name hundreds of years ago, when they had run red
with blood during the Battle of Farfang Castle in 1396.
The feats of Freddy's ancestor Sir Rathbone de Lupinne
as he fought off his enemies were famous among
werefolk. In human form, he had defeated twenty
men in order to save his pack. His bloody victory was
recorded in a tapestry that hung from the Great Hall's
main wall. The actual suit of armour Sir Rathbone had
worn on that brave day stood at the top of the stairs.
His heavy sword was still held by the hollow metal
glove. Legend said that one day that sword would
once again save werefolk from destruction. But Freddy
wasn't thinking about legends at that moment, only
chocolate – he almost knocked the armour over as he
barged past. He sat on the banister and slid down at
high speed.

'Freddy the Fearless flies again,' he bellowed as he
shot down the rail. At the bottom he took off through
the air and landed smack in the centre of Sir Hotspur's
large stomach, which, with its owner, happened to be
passing. The stomach gave a mighty belch and Sir
Hotspur fell backwards.

'Groof!' cried his uncle, as he landed heavily on his
backside. The sheets of his morning newspaper flew
around his head.

'It wasn't me!' Freddy immediately cried out, looking
around for an excuse. He couldn't see anything or
anybody else to blame. 'Farts!' he whispered to himself
with a nervous giggle. Uncle Hotspur was still searching
for breath. 'Sorry,' Freddy added unconvincingly when
he saw there was no escape.

He tried to help by pulling on the sleeve of his
uncle's jacket. Sir Hotspur bashed him away with a
rolled-up section of newspaper.

'Step away, sir! Meddlesome menace,' cried Sir Hotspur.
'I'll be a pickled fish if you have any of Sir
Rathbone's blood in your veins, sir. Pickled, I say!'

Freddy sighed. He was sick of hearing about Sir
Rathbone and how little he resembled him. He tried
to collect the sheets of newspaper that lay all over the
floor, but he picked them up just as his uncle stood on
them and they tore into shreds. He handed the mess
over with what he hoped was a charming smile.

The hairs on Sir Hotspur's palms shivered with
annoyance as he clambered to his feet. He snatched
the pieces of paper and his nostrils flared. His long
red moustache trembled as he pointed at Freddy.

'I'll have no flying through the air in this castle,' he
gasped angrily. 'No sliding, running or leaping!'

'And no fun,' Freddy said under his breath.

'What's that?' his uncle roared.

'Nothing.' Freddy tried to look innocent.

'You'd better pull up your socks, boy, if you ever
mean to be a wolf,' Sir Hotspur growled, shaking his
head.

Freddy bent down and pulled up his socks.

'How's that?' he beamed.

His uncle snarled. Before he could reply there was
a loud bang on the oak front door.

'Lord and Lady Whitehorn!' Sir Hotspur cried,
instantly forgetting his irritating nephew. He was
delighted that so many important werefolk would
be attending the High Howling in Farfang Castle.
He thrust the tattered paper at Freddy and went to
welcome his guests.

'Clear off to your room and stay out of my way!'
he called back over his shoulder. 'I'll have no foolster
ruining my Great Night.'

'It's
my Great
Night, actually,' Freddy muttered
under his breath, puffing out his belly and doing a
rather good impersonation of his uncle's fat stomach.
He was quite happy to race upstairs, however. He had
no intention of wasting the day meeting dull old bores
who did nothing more than sit around being amazed
at how much he had grown.

Freddy was banished to his room in the old tower
on most days. Alone in his room, he would often look
at a photograph of his father Flasheart, who had died
when Freddy was a small pup not quite four years old
(in human time). Flasheart, who had been most unlike
his brother Hotspur, looked back from the photograph
with a smile. Freddy could only remember him a little
and his mother not at all, for she had died when he
was a baby.

Flasheart's fate was a warning. Werewolves have
a nasty and terrifying reputation and though this is
unfair they must live in secret, for humans can be
ignorant and suspicious. Some, like the dreaded Dr
Foxwell Cripp, can be downright dangerous. It was
he who had discovered and shot Freddy's father with a
silver bullet. Every werepup listened in terror to tales
of the evil Cripp.

Freddy stood in front of his mirror and held up
the photograph. He looked at his father and then at
himself. They both had green eyes and strangely spiky,
totally uncontrollable black hair. Their ears stuck out
a little. Freddy flexed his non-existent muscles and
posed like a great warrior.

'I'm going to be a great werewolf too, Dad, just
like you,' Freddy told the photograph. 'And you'll be
proud of me because ... because ...'

He couldn't think of a good reason and for a
moment he began to worry. Perhaps Uncle Hotspur
was right about him. He wished his father was with
him on his Great Night; he was a little frightened of
his Transwolfation. He gathered his courage again,
leapt onto his bed and cried defiantly:

'You
will
be proud, Dad, because tonight Freddy
the invincible, the fearsome, the heroic ... will
transform!'

It was going to be the greatest night of his life.

'The mighty blood of Sir Rathbone, Werewolf Hero,
runs through my veins,' he declared. 'Well, it
does!'
he
added, as if trying to convince someone.

He looked at the photograph once again. He
could
be as brave as his father, he was sure of it.

'So, Uncle Hotspur get ready... to eat your
trousers! Eat 'em, sir!'

He laughed and flopped onto his back. Staring at
the ceiling, a great notion struck him.

'With ketchup on! Because I'm going to be a great
wolf, not ridiculous.'