This Is Not a Werewolf Story (16 page)

Orcas and wolves? Is that what she said?

But then my spine lights up. Gollum has returned. I turn, and she stops with the tip of her tail under the door. The gold ring around her body gleams under the fluorescent lights.

Mean Jack hollers, “I got a beef with you, snake!”

I remember Gollum's tail flicking out of Mean Jack's duffel bag last week. What did that snake do to that mobster over the weekend?

Mean Jack lunges at Gollum and lands flat on his belly. Half the kids are shouting, and the other half are standing on their chairs.

“Do
not
harm her!” Ms. Tern says in her popped-soap-bubble voice.

Cook Patsy and Mary Anne are right. Choices. You gotta make 'em. Ms. Tern needs a hand here. I pick up
a big bin, dump out the crayons, and toss it to Mean Jack. He slams it onto the floor right on top of Gollum and shouts in a Cuban accent, “Say hello to my little friend!”

His aim is perfect. Almost. All I see is a flash of black and a glint of gold streak across the floor, over Ms. Tern's shoe, along the long wall, and back out under the door.

Mean Jack shakes his head at himself. “Man's gotta know his limitations.”

Ms. Tern starts reading out loud again, but nobody's listening.

The classroom sounds like an F5 tornado. Paul, who gets to sit on an exercise ball instead of a chair, is bouncing across the classroom on it, smacking it and yelling “Yippee-kie-ay” and a bad word. Mark takes off the weighted vest they make him wear to keep him calm and starts swinging it above his head like a shot-put. Jason is making animal calls. He's good, and my pulse runs wild when he howls.

I put my hands over my ears, but then I can't draw.

Only the back corner of the room is quiet. A group of boys have pulled their desks around Mean Jack. They sit and watch carefully as he teaches them how to make a weapon out of a paper clip and a ruler.

“It's called a shiv,” he says.

When the bell rings, Ms. Tern puts the book down.
The floor is covered with paper and broken pencil tips and Kleenex and paper clips, and each of Mean Jack's students has fashioned a perfect shiv.

“Beastly boys,” I hear Ms. Tern whisper.

I'm halfway to lunch when I notice I forgot my drawing. Let's just say it's a dangerous document. I don't want it to end up in the wrong hands. It's a picture of a man getting chased by a hungry lion. The man's toupee is hanging from the lion's fangs. I kept the blood to the absolute minimum, considering the mortal injuries the victim has sustained.

Did I mention that the man looks a lot like Mr. Tuffman?

I run back to the classroom, but I'm too late.

Ms. Tern has taped my drawing to the blackboard.

My hands start to sweat. I'm going to be in big trouble. I don't get in trouble very often. I don't like it. Plus, Ms. Tern is my favorite teacher. I don't want her to be mad at me. I know she'd probably just give me sad eyes and whisper, “Raul. You know better than that.” But is there anything worse than a teacher who never gets mad at anyone getting mad at
you
?

I step back into the hallway.

I peek in to watch as Ms. Tern picks up one of the shivs Mean Jack's crew was making. She walks to the back of the room. She glances at the door.

I don't move.

And then she sends that shiv flying. It slices the air. I hear a little pop and then another as the blade drives into the blackboard.

I push the door open a little wider and put my head in farther. I can't help it. It's what my dad would call professional curiosity. I'm a pretty good shot myself, but her form is phenomenal.

“Did you forget something?” she calls. She's standing at the blackboard, untaping my drawing.

I stare at the back of her head, frozen. My thoughts are frozen, my mouth is frozen. Should I ask her for the drawing? Does she hate Tuffman or just enjoy target practice? Will she rat me out, or does she believe in solidarity?

When she turns and looks at me, her eyes are sharp and intense like I've never seen them before. I'm used to Ms. Tern looking Defeated and In Despair. Right now she looks Tough as Nails.

“Would you like your drawing?” she asks.

My eyeballs feel dry. I've forgotten how to blink.

“It's a very good likeness,” she says. “You're quite a gifted artist.”

She walks over and hands it to me.

I don't look at the drawing until I'm out in the hall. It's not just her form that's phenomenal. It's her aim. There are two slits—one where the shiv hit Tuffman's
heart and another where it tagged him in the head.

How did she make the blade
bounce
with such accuracy?

I turn back and stand in her open doorway for a second. It flashes through my mind that maybe Ms. Tern isn't delusional. Maybe she really is some kind of secret agent.

She's sitting at her desk. She looks up at me.

“Have we both got a little secret, then?” she asks. “Right. It looks to me like we'll just have to trust each other, eh?”

Can you be in love with two women at the same time? That's a question I'd like to ask my dad. Could I love Ms. Tern and Mary Anne both? Is it legal? Is it wrong?

I stop in the middle of the hall.

Could she do that to a cougar?

After classes are over I head back toward my room. I have a lot on my mind. I want Vincent to like me enough to do fifty push-ups for me. I want Mary Anne to call me heroic. I want Ms. Tern to grab her shiv and help me get the cougar.

“Raul!”

The dean's voice makes me jump. I step into his office. Maybe he found out more about the cougar.

Dean Swift is at his desk. My nose twitches. Then I notice Tuffman sitting behind him, in the corner by the window. On the table next to Mr. Tuffman there's a lamp with a stained glass shade. It throws a blotchy pattern of light onto his face. Like he's wearing a coat of many colors.

“Mr. Tuffman and I were just having a little chat,” Dean Swift says.

The drawing. Ms. Tern ratted on me. How could she?

“Someone gave the dean here the impression that
I've been picking on you,” says Tuffman. “You got any idea who that might be?”

I almost smile, I'm so relieved. Cook Patsy must have got wind of the dodgeball disaster.

“You think that's funny?” Tuffman asks.

“No, no, Mr. Tuffman,” says Dean Swift. “We're not here to accuse anyone, not Raul or you or
any
member of our staff. We are here to open the lines of communication.”

The dean beckons to me. Ready to listen. Tuffman half stands. Ready to pounce.

I don't know what comes over me.

I bolt like a bunny in the woods.

Tuffman's on me before I hit the stairs. He grabs me by the back of my shirt. With his fist he gathers the material in tight like a straitjacket and steers me to the office.

“Keep your clothes on,” he says in my ear. “Today you're gonna talk.”

I shudder. Like that bunny in the woods when my wolf breath hit its neck.

Tuffman lets go of me before we get to the office. As we walk in, he rests his hand on my shoulder. He goes back to his chair in the corner.

I squeegee his spit out of my ear with the cuff of my sleeve.

“Have a seat, my boy,” Dean Swift says. “I'm sure
we'll find that this is nothing more than a little misunderstanding.”

“I've been coming on too strong,” Tuffman says to me. “Let me tell you why.” He leans forward. The shadows from the lampshade flicker across his face. I see that they are shapes—a red butterfly on his forehead, a playful kitten on his mouth. “We got history, kid, you and me.”

Dean Swift looks back and forth between us, big-eyed.

“I didn't even know it until I got here and read your file. Then I thought it was best to keep quiet. I could see Raul was traumatized,” he says to the dean. “And I was recovering from my last surgery. I didn't have the strength to tackle the problem. You get that, right?”

“Indeed, serious injuries like yours can take a grave emotional toll,” Dean Swift says.

Tuffman clears his throat. “I knew your mother, Raul. I coached her at the university. When she went to Nationals she broke all the records. I bet she never told you, did she?”

His lies are getting personal again. I don't like it.

“I was the only one who could outrun her. Your dad couldn't come close to keeping up with her.”

My
dad
? Now he knows my dad? Liar.

“Your mom had a real shot at the Olympics. It was your dad who put an end to all that. He got a
job studying whales or something. She had to choose between him and the team. She chose him. Last I heard they were living in a one-man tent on Orcas Island.”

I sit up. That part's true. I was born on that island.

The lampshade shadows shift. Now a running dog rests on Tuffman's cheek. His voice is soft. “Your mom was an amazing woman.
Kind
. No ego. Always putting everyone else first.”

I stop hating Tuffman. I stop hating him because in his voice I can hear that he loved my mom too.

“Raul,” he says softly. He comes across the room. He reaches out like he's going to touch me. I flinch. But I want to hear what else he has to say.

“When I got here and found out who you were and what all had happened to you, I thought that maybe fate had sent me for a reason. Your mom gave up her dream for your dad. She had disappeared a long time before she disappeared, if you know what I mean. You're a lot like her, the way you hide yourself. I started thinking that maybe if I toughened you up, you'd learn to put yourself first. My heart's in the right place, Raul. I didn't mean to scare you.”

It makes sense, in a strange way. Maybe his heart
is
in the right place. “Thank you for telling me,” I say. “I never knew my mom could've been in the Olympics.”

It fills me up with pride. Since she left, my mom has become a shadow to me. A warm shape in a dark
room in my mind. The more time passes, the darker the room gets, the harder it is to see her. Tuffman just walked into that dark room and turned on a night-light. I can see her better now.

I see my dad better now too. I don't think he means to be selfish. And I guess it's good to know that I'm not the only one he was selfish with. Forgetting about me has more to do with him than me. It's not because I'm so easy to forget. It's just who he is.

“Your mom and I were so close. I miss her.” Tuffman's voice breaks. “See, I'm no good at all this.” He puts a hand over his eyes. His Adam's apple bobs up and down. When he takes his hand away again his eyes are damp.

I put my head down in my hands. I knew he'd make me cry.

“So you gotta tell me how I can help you,” Tuffman says. He kneels down in front of me. “You can't trust everybody you meet. Even best friends will betray you. But you can trust me, Raul.”

I think of White Wolf and the scrape in her side and the broken-necked bunny I left for her in the grass. The relief runs over me like rain on your face when you look up into the sky. He will help me help my mom.

“Tell me about the woods, Raul.” He opens his arms.

I slip from the chair.

“I know everything about your mom, Raul.”

I can't say the wrong thing to him. He knows everything already. The words rush up. The whole story of how she found me and I found her.

“It started last year,” I say. “I was so sad about my dad forgetting me.” My voice is very small. It's because the words are so true. The truer the word, the closer to silence.

“Oh, we all were,” Dean Swift says quickly and kindly. “We
all
were.”

“Just tell us what happened, Raul,” Tuffman says.

I lift my arms. I put them around him. He squeezes me to him. Warmth. Nobody has hugged me in a long time.

I don't mean to. But through his polo I feel a long raised river of skin. His scar. The second I touch it his fingernails plunge into my back. They bite into my skin through my thin shirt. My shoulders jump up, and, just as quick, he pulls away from me and pats me gently.

He looks down so I can't see his eyes.

I get a deep, bad, black feeling. The eight half-moons left by his fingernails on my back burn. This is the kind of guy who can hurt you when he hugs you. This is
Tuffman
.

I sit back in my chair. Far back. I almost told him everything! I watch him as he hangs his head. I forget to blink.

Finally he looks up. He's still sitting on his heels in front of me still. His eyes search the air above my head. He's looking for the words to make me forget those half-moons.

“Raul, I can't keep this secret anymore. Your grandma was my sister.”

“Oh!” Dean Swift gasps. “Oh goodness. You're his family!”

I look at Tuffman. I don't see the resemblance.