This Is Not a Werewolf Story (17 page)

“Your grandma was a lot older than me. Before she died I promised her I'd take care of your mom. I was barely twenty. She was around your age. I did the best I could by her, Raul.”

Tuffman taps my knee to get me to look at him. He says my name again.
Raul.
He wants me to talk, but I can feel the sting of his nails in my back.

“I'm your great-uncle. What else can I say to convince you, Raul?” he asks. His voice has a hard edge to it.

I can feel how desperate he is. The more he wants my words, the less I want to give them to him.

He gets to his feet. His left hand reaches back. I think he's touching his scar.

“I loved her like a little sister,” he whispers.

The words send a jolt through me. I've heard them before. Didn't he tell me that it was family who injured him? Someone he had loved
like a little sister
?

I shiver. My
mom
gave him that scar.

I smell it. Something wrong. Something bad. Story time's over, Tuffman.

But I can't look away from him. My neck won't let me. It's tight and stretched and forces my face in his direction.

He lowers himself into the chair by the lamp. His back must hurt from crouching in front of me for so long. Shadow leaves from the lamp flutter across his face. He looks tired out. He looks how I feel when I'm deep in the woods and I've spent an hour chasing a bunny and at the last second the bunny darts into a hole just big enough for my nose but too small for me to get my mouth open.

Dean Swift honks into his pocket handkerchief. “For the love of St. Jude, I never foresaw such a turn of events,” he says damply. “Never in all my years. To witness such a reunion. Happy day. Happy day.”

The bell rings.

I back out of the room.

Tuffman watches me through half-closed eyes. “We'll talk later,” he says. He smiles softly at me. “There's more to the story, Raul.”

I race upstairs. I'm out of breath, but I can finally breathe.

Tuffman was suffocating me. It's that feeling you get when someone stands too close or looks over your shoulder while you're reading or tries to get you to
give them things you want to keep for yourself—like your dessert or your mom's soul. It's not just that he was in my space. It's like he was trying to climb inside of me.

I almost told him everything.

Vincent is standing at my bedroom door. He looks worried. “What happened, man? Did you get in trouble? I saw you running down the hall, and then Tuffman grabbed you and marched you into the dean's office.”

“Later,” I say. I'm done talking for the day. I push past him to open the door. I'm about to shut it, but Vincent has already stepped in behind me.

“Friends tell each other stuff,” he says.

For a split-second I want to push him out of my room. But there's a look on his face that stops me. He wants to listen to me because I listened to him last night. He thinks he owes me. It's like sharing stuff, only it's not your baseball mitt or a book. It's words.

“Tuffman says he's my great-uncle,” I say it quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid.

Vincent blinks. “No way. Tuffman?”

“Tuffman,” I say. Then I say more. It just pops out. “It's so embarrassing. I'd rather have Mean Jack for a twin. Or Gollum for an aunt.”

Vincent cracks up like the whole thing is just some crazy, random joke. It makes me smile too.

“My mom says you can't pick family, you just take what you get and lump it,” Vincent says after he stops laughing. “But if I could, I'd pick you to be my brother.”

He stretches out his hand. “Brother,” he says.

“Brother,” I say back.

We shake.

People always tell you talking will make you feel better. But it's not the talking that makes you feel better. It's the person listening.

Vincent picks up my code book and flips through it for a while. Then all of a sudden he sets it down. “So why's he being such a jerk to you, then?” he asks.

I shrug. “Maybe it's because he's a jerk.”

“You know what? He's just like my stepfather. All he wants is to boss me around. It's like he's trying to get his claws into me, so I do what he says the second he says it.”

I grin. I pull up my shirt. I can see the reflection of my back in the mirror when I turn to show him. Just above each shoulder blade are four red half-moons.

“He did that to you?” Vincent asks.

“Yeah, this is the side effect of a hug from Tuffman.”

Vincent's eyes glint. “I'm gonna get him for you, just like I got my stepdad.”

“Don't bother,” I say. I'm happy he cares enough to want to. But I've got bigger fish to fry, if you know what I mean. I've got a cougar to hunt and a girl to win.

Vincent shrugs like it doesn't matter anyway. He holds up the code book and heads to the door. “Can I borrow this?”

“What's mine is yours,” I say as he leaves. That's what my dad always said to anyone who wanted anything. And he meant it too. He's the kind of guy who would give you the shirt off his back. You ask for it, it's yours.

Tuffman's the kind of guy who will
take
the shirt off your back. Then he'll put it on and take a nap in your bed.

It makes me think.

Tuffman didn't lie about everything. But he twisted the truth like a wolf twists a bunny's neck.

My dad's not selfish. He'd give you everything even if it meant he'd end up with nothing. Maybe that's what happened when my dad lost my mom. He had nothing left.

I can't sleep. I wake up early. My plate is full of bacon and eggs and sausage and they're so hot the steam is coming off them. It cheers me up a little. Protein will do that for you.

Today I'm gonna ask Ms. Tern to help me hunt the cougar. She has skills, there's no denying it. And she's got a little more crazy in her than your average teacher. That's a plus in my book.

Mary Anne sits down next to me. “Vincent said to give this to you.”

It's a plastic Easter egg. I crack it open. A paper clip and a strip of paper fall out.

I smooth the paper. Mary Anne leans over. Her eyebrows are pinched together.

“Paper clip code,” she says after a second.

She takes the paper clip out of my hand. My hand buzzes when her fingers brush my palm.

I glance up and catch her staring at me. Right away she looks down. Her cheeks are a little pink. I get a
fluttery feeling. Does Mary Anne like me, too?

“Now,” she says in her teacher voice, “you lay the paper clip flat over the line of letters, with the double loop end to the right and the other end around the first letter. Whatever letter is in that double loop is the one you want. Then you slide the paper clip right, like this, so that the end loop goes around the letter the double loop was around. See?”

Together we spell it out.
LAKE. NOW. ALONE.

We look at each other. I get off my stool and grab my tray.

“I'm coming,” Mary Anne says. She sets her tray on top of mine, puts everything back in the Easter egg, and shoves it into her pocket.

Vincent said
alone
. But am I ever gonna tell Mary Anne she can't do something she wants?

As we run out the front door and down the steps, Bobo joins us.

The sun has just risen. It's very cold. The sky is filled with crows. I run hard.

We hear it before we get off the main road.
Crack
. The crows caw and croak. They swoop and tumble. Someone's shooting a gun in the woods.

I'm ahead of Mary Anne. I stop running and wave my hand at her to stop. We're not going into the woods if there's a hunter in there. But she races by me. Bobo is at her heels, and she looks back at me too, her tongue flopping out of her mouth.

“Come on,” Mary Anne shouts as she turns off the road and onto the path to the lake. “That gunshot came from miles away.”

For once Mary Anne is dead wrong. But they get to the oak tree with my bike stuck in it before I catch up. I sprint in front of her and block her way on the narrow path. Bobo sits and pants. Mary Anne puts her hands on her hips and looks at me, breathing hard.

“Stop,” I say. Then the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. We're not alone in the woods. Is it the hunter?

My blood freezes.

The
cougar
? I reach toward my back pocket, but I already know there's no sling there. How could I be so stupid? Dean Swift said to stay close to the school.

When I turn to look behind me, toward the lake, Mary Anne darts ahead. “You worry too much. Last one there is a rotten egg.”

Bobo streaks after her.

The early light is loose and filtered, falling through the fog and cedars. The lake is straight ahead. I look into the distance, just to the left of the path. I feel it. Something alive is in there. It's hard to see. The morning sunlight glares down from above, while the night still sits in the cold shade below.

I squint. Whatever it is, it's not moving. It's a man. The man's lifting something. It's a rifle. It's Tuffman. He's aiming at something on the other side of the path.
I'm trying to see what he's shooting at when I realize that Mary Anne is running straight toward the lake. My feet pound on the path before my brain screams
Run!
In a second Tuffman will be on her left. His target will be on her right. She's heading straight into the line of fire.

I hear the gun click.

“Don't shoot!” I yell. At the same time, I leap. The gun goes off. I grab Mary Anne and pull her down. She screams. We hit the path. The bullet whizzes over us. There's a sound like a bunch of little explosions, and we look to the right, where Tuffman was aiming.

Fireworks. Mary Anne and I sit up slowly and stare. Fireworks are popping and blazing out of something that looks like a busted-up piñata.

When I look the other way, I see Tuffman walking out of the trees toward us. He starts shouting. “I almost shot your head off!”

Mary Anne and I are sitting on the path side by side. She looks like she might cry. I put my arm around her shoulders. Bobo comes sniffing to see if we're alive.

“Who gave you permission to be out here at this time of day?”

We stare up at Tuffman. He's got two little spit balls, one in each corner of his mouth. He's frothing mad, but I can tell it's because he's scared pantsless about what he almost did.

A shadow falls across us. Tuffman wipes his mouth.

“What the dickens were you thinking, Mr. Tuffman?” comes Ms. Tern's clipped voice from behind us. We turn and see her standing over us in a jogging suit.

“I saw a cougar out on the road this morning,” Tuffman says. I hear the nervous shake in his voice. “I got my gun and followed it. It was right there.” He points to the thing with the fireworks popping out of it every so often. “I didn't see the kids until it was too late.”

Ms. Tern looks over at the fireworks. “Your cougar appears to be a piñata in the shape of a lion. Either you have a very strange idea of a good time, or someone has played a rather complicated trick on you.”

Mary Anne and I glance at each other. Vincent went a little too far this time.

Before we can blink, Ms. Tern snatches the rifle from Tuffman. He jerks his hand back and then holds it out and looks at it. There are four long scratches across Tuffman's skin where Ms. Tern's nails cut him as she took it.

Ms. Tern does something quick and clicky with the rifle to make sure it's not loaded. Then she puts her hand out and stares at Mr. Tuffman. “Don't make me go after them,” she says.

Tuffman gulps. He rubs his hand, reaches into his front jeans pocket, and gives her some bullets.

Ms. Tern is now armed. Something tells me that if Ms. Tern aimed that rifle at the cougar, she wouldn't miss.

“Have you been injured?” she asks us. She helps Mary Anne to her feet. She makes a
tsk
sound at Mary Anne's ripped jeans and bleeding knees.

She glares at Tuffman. “I've got my eye on you.”

“What about my gun?”

“That's the second time I've stopped you from trying to kill an animal. That cougar has as much right to be walking in these woods as you.”

Here's a problem. Ms. Tern has the right skills and the firepower but the wrong attitude. She's never going to hunt the cougar with me.

She herds us down the path in front of her. “I'm taking you two directly to the nurse,” she says.

I glance back at Tuffman. He looks angry and confused. He's made me feel that way often enough that it makes me a little happy. But he looks scared and sorry, too. He's a jerk, but even a jerk has his good side, I guess.

“You, young man,” Ms. Tern keeps saying over and over.

I'm afraid she knows about Vincent's prank and thinks I was in on it.

Finally she says more. “I am speechless. I've known courageous men in my time. Men who would sacrifice
their lives to make this world a better, safer place. But only rarely have I witnessed such bravery, such speed, such agility.”

I'm proud and embarrassed. I didn't know she saw what happened. I'm glad she thinks I'm so great, but I just did what my gut told me to do.

Mary Anne nods. Her mouth moves, but for once she doesn't have anything to say.

At the oak, Bobo stops to sniff. My eyes follow her nose up into the branches of the tree. My mouth pops open. Vincent is sitting up there on my bike. He puts a finger over his lips.

I stare at him. I don't know what to think. That was one heck of a prank.

When we reach the driveway, Mary Anne takes my hand. “Thank you,” she says. She gives me a hug. “I was wrong. There
is
a synonym for ‘heroic.' It's
Raul
.”

Her hug pins my arms to my sides. I lean my head down toward hers. My cheek touches her hair. It's soft, like cherry blossoms.