Midnight Howl

by Clare Hutton

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Because I’m like everyone else. People love to be scared. And they love telling scary stories. And that’s all the werewolves they talk about around here are — stories.” She paused. “Maybe you’re feeling a bit vulnerable and jittery because you’re still getting used to a new place?” I leaned against her and nodded a little. It was true that I was still getting used to living here. But my worries about Hailey being a werewolf had evidence to back them up. Sort of. I didn’t think my evidence would convince my mother, though.

  She reached out and stroked my hair, pushing it out of my face. “Does that make sense to you? Does it help?”

  “Sure,” I lied, and smiled at her.

  Really, though? Really, I didn’t feel better at all.

  CHAPTFR THIRTEEN

  The next week flew by with normal school stuff — homework, gym, quizzes, lunch. And then it was the week of the camping trip. We were leaving after school on Friday, and there was a lot to do. At home, Jack had roped Hailey and me into being his kitchen assistants (Hailey had decided to come on the trip: yay!). And at school, Lily wanted me to go over the millions of details of organizing the trip with her.

  Here’s what the week looked like.

  Monday. During lunch, I met Lily in the science classroom to help her check over the arrangements for the trip. She had checks from everyone who was going, notes on supplies, reservations, and numbers to call. She was going over everyhing so fiercely that her normally smooth hair had escaped from its headband, little strands standing up in the air and giving her a wild look.

  “Tents,” she said to me with a strained intensity. “Sleeping bags. The teachers are driving most people in minivans, and parents are bringing pickups with more kids and all the stuff to drop off. We have to remind everyone to bring extra-warm sleep clothes.”

  “Definitely,” I said. It was still light jacket weather during the day, but it was starting to dip down toward freezing at night. “Do you have to plan this all yourself? What about Mr. Samuels?”

  Lily shrugged. “He’ll check up on what I decide, but I want to get everything right.” She tapped a pencil against her desk and went on. “Water. Toilet paper. How much water do thirty people need for a two-night stay?”

  “Back up,” I said, alarmed. “I thought there were bathrooms and showers and a camp store and things. Isn’t this a regular public campsite?”

  “Sure,” said Lily. “But not in October. After the summer, there’s only primitive camping. Everything’s closed up. There are pit toilets, but that’s it.”

  I didn’t know what a pit toilet was, but I could make a pretty good guess. Yuck.

  Lily jumped to her feet. “No!” she said. “Don’t look like that! It’s going to be awesome!”

  “Awesome?” I said doubtfully.

  “Absolutely,” she said, spreading her arms wide and giving me a joyful smile. “Picture it,” she went on dreamily, “a starry night, the campfire burning, the smell of wood smoke in the air, the quiet movements of tiny animals, and us, surrounded by the universe.”

  “Wow,” I said, “I never thought about it that way before.” I hadn’t realized Lily was the type to get poetic about the outdoors. She’d always struck me as very down-to-earth.

  “Anyway,” she said, and shrugged, “I just want everyone to have a good time.”

  “We will,” I said firmly. It’s only two nights, I thought. Who needs running water? I smiled encouragingly at Lily.

  “I’ll get online and see if I can figure out how much water the average person needs to use every day,” I offered. “Piece of cake.”

  Tuesday. “Taste this,” Jack demanded.

  Something smelled good, like roasting nuts. Hailey looked up, keeping her finger in her book to mark her place. “Jack,” she said, “we’ve got a math quiz tomorrow. We don’t have time to taste test for you.”

  “Taste it,” Jack said again, frowning at his sister. He thrust a spoonful of what looked like grains and nuts at her, and she tried it.

  “Not bad,” she admitted. “I like the honey.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “My special granola,” Jack said proudly. “I’m getting ready for the trip. Taste!”

  I tried some. It was good. Warm and sweet and chewy. Still … “Wouldn’t it be easier just to take boxes of cereal?” I asked.

  “Cereal from a box is horrible!” Jack said, and then he bared his teeth and actually growled at me. For a moment, his face was really scary. His eyes were slits and his hair was bristling.

  “Maniac,” said Hailey affectionately. Then she turned to look at me.

  “Marisol?” she asked, a worried note in her voice. “You look freaked out. Are you okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. But it had suddenly hit me: If Hailey is a werewolf, then what is Jack?

  The werewolf book had said whole families were suspected of being werewolves, and that the families had disappeared together. They were thought to have retreated to the woods. Was it possible that if Hailey was a werewolf, the rest of her family were, too?

  It was hard to picture Molly and Mike as werewolves. And they had definitely been around downstairs, fully human, until late the night of the full moon. So they must be human. Plus I figured my mom would have noticed if Molly was a werewolf during the four years they lived together in college. But Molly had said her family was one of those driven from the town for being werewolves, hadn’t she?

  No, it was a ridiculous idea. Still, though … I remembered my friend Olivia back home. Both her parents had dark brown hair and dark eyes, but Olivia was blond and green-eyed. People asked sometimes if she was adopted, but she wasn’t — she had inherited her grandmother’s coloring. Could being a werewolf be a recessive gene that had skipped Molly?

  “Marisol?” Hailey asked again. She and Jack were both staring at me, and I gave them a shaky smile.

  “Oh, I’m fine,” I said as brightly as I could manage.

  Suddenly, I was very glad we’d be back from the camping trip before the full moon.

  Wednesday. After school, I stayed late at the library.

  “Can I help you get started?” the librarian asked when I took an unoccupied computer.

  “No thanks,” I said, “I know what I’m doing.” I didn’t want anyone to see what I was looking up.

  Once she left and I was sure no one was watching, I typed “genetic werewolf” into a search engine. Nothing useful came up.

  I typed “becoming a werewolf” and clicked through the most promising-looking links. One was clearly part of a role-playing game, a couple were movie reviews, but one was exactly what I was looking for.

  “Ways of Becoming a Werewolf,” it said, and it detailed different ways legends said people had become werewolves. It wasn’t just getting bitten. If you wanted to be a werewolf, you could drink dew from a wolf’s footprint (ew), eat a wolf’s brain (double ew!), make a magic lotion to rub on yourself (weird), or wear a special flower (lame). You could also become a werewolf by being bitten, or as the result of a family curse.

  I grinned as I pictured Jack and Hailey mixing up a magic lotion instead of Jack’s special granola. But a family curse fit in with Molly’s being descended from one of the original families of Wolf Valley. The site also confirmed my thoughts about the fact that becoming a werewolf could be a recessive trait. It said: Even if you are born into a werewolf family, only some children will inherit the gene, and it may skip multiple generations, only to pop up unexpectedly.

  So Jack and Hailey could be werewolves even if Molly wasn’t. She could have carried the gene and passed it down to them unknowingly.

  Or Jack didn’t have to be a werewolf even if Hailey was: They weren’t identical twins, after all. They had different genes. I had to admit to myself that, while I didn’t want Hailey to be a werewolf, I really didn’t want Jack to be one. I pictured his friendly blue eyes, his bright smile — he was just too sunny (in the nicest way) to be a creature of t
he night.

  Still, I thought I should probably keep an eye on both of them.

  Thursday. Thursday, Hailey and I helped Jack pack his food into coolers, and I was so busy getting ready for the trip I hardly thought about wolves or werewolves at all.

  But that night, I dreamed.

  I was outside the house in the dark. Everything was calm — I could hear the horses whinnying softly in their stalls, the leaves rustling in a gentle breeze. It was cold, and the stars shone brightly. I could see the wolf constellation, Lupus, right above me.

  Nothing was wrong, but I was terrified. I knew something was coming, and then, suddenly, I knew it was there. The normal night noises around me stopped, and there was silence.

  I could feel the wolf watching me.

  I turned, scanning the trees and bushes around the house, trying to find the animal whose gaze I could feel so clearly. Nothing.

  Suddenly, a twig snapped sharply, and I screamed.

  I woke up with my mouth dry with terror, my heart pounding. The dream had been pretty bland: Nothing had actually happened other than a twig snapping, but I had been so terrified, and in the dream I had known why. It was because the wolf was coming, and there was no way I could escape.

  Friday. Friday it seemed like hardly anyone could concentrate in class. When the final bell rang, we met in the science lab: twenty-five kids, chaperones, duffel bags, tents, backpacks, coolers of food, water, and sleeping bags.

  Anderson was practically vibrating with excitement. He pulled a Frisbee out of his backpack and flung it at random. Someone caught it, and soon it was flying all over the room. “We’re going to party in the woods!” he shouted.

  I glanced over at Mr. Samuels, who was so deep in conversation with Lily he didn’t even notice. But Hailey caught my eye. She was loaded down with a cooler with foil-wrapped packages sitting on top. I made my way through the crowded room to her and took some of the stuff off the top.

  “Thanks,” she said.

  “Should I ask?” I said, nodding to the packages.

  “Food, of course,” she said. “You should see what Jack left in the truck.” She looked around the room, which was now full of yelling, jumping, and a million different intense conversations. Someone had pulled out a tennis ball and was bouncing it off the wall. “Do you think we’ll be going anytime soon?” Hailey asked wistfully. “This stuff is getting awfully heavy.”

  Surely a werewolf would be super-strong, I thought. One point for Hailey being a regular person. I tried to shake off the thought. Dreams or no dreams, I wasn’t going to obsess about it this weekend — I was going to have fun.

  Lily hopped up on a chair, stuck two fingers in her mouth, and gave a loud whistle. She reached out and caught the Frisbee, then glared at the boy with the ball until he caught it and stuck it back in his backpack. “Okay,” she announced. “Let’s hit the road.” People cheered and she smiled. “Listen up for your van assignments,” she went on, and everyone settled down immediately. I looked at her admiringly. Lily could get a whole group of excited kids to do what she said, without yelling at them.

  Assignments were given out, we picked up our bags and tents and everything else, and at last we were off!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The Two Medicine campsite was pretty, on the edge of a lake, and surrounded by evergreen trees.

  We set up the tents and put the food in the storage lockers, which are big metal boxes to keep food safe from animals. Hailey, Lily, Bonnie, and I were sharing one of the four-person tents. It was going to be a tight squeeze: There was really only enough room for four people if everyone was in her sleeping bag. We took turns going in to unroll our sleeping bags and put our backpacks down. When it was my turn, I felt the bottom of the tent. Yikes. It was cold and hard, even with the tarp underneath. I was probably going to be tossing and turning and freezing all night. Clearly, I was just a soft city girl at heart.

  Once the tents were ready, it was starting to get dark, and Lily and I and the other kids who had brought telescopes began setting them up around the campsite. We weren’t going to stargaze until after dinner, when it would be really dark, but we wanted to get ready so we wouldn’t have to fiddle with them too much in full darkness.

  “Heads up!” came a call behind me, and I flinched as Anderson lurched into me. A second later, his Frisbee bounced off my telescope.

  “Hey!” I said indignantly. Bonnie came over and picked up the Frisbee.

  “You should be more careful,” she said, smiling at Anderson.

  “Sorry, ladies,” he said. “Sometimes I cannot be contained.”

  I rolled my eyes and readjusted my telescope as he walked off, but Bonnie smiled and ran her fingers through her red curls. “Do you think he’s kind of cute?” she whispered.

  I thought about it. There was nothing really wrong with Anderson’s looks, but he was so jittery and jokey that I couldn’t think of him as cute. “Not really,” I said. “Do you?”

  She blushed a little and shrugged. “I guess,” she said. “I like funny.”

  The teachers got a campfire going, and soon the smell of cooking hot dogs and burgers wafted over the campground. I wandered over to Lily, who was reading something in her notebook.

  “I’m starving,” she moaned. “Doesn’t it smell good?”

  “I’m not really into burgers,” I reminded her, “but I am getting hungry. Do you think Jack remembered to bring veggie burgers?”

  “Sorry, I forgot,” she said. “And yes, I think Jack probably remembered.” She gave me a sly little smile.

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “I just think Jack likes you,” she said. “He’s always looking at you when you’re not watching.”

  Was he? It was a flattering thought, but I shook my head. “Jack likes everybody,” I said. “He’s just nice to me because I live in his house and our moms are best friends.”

  “O-kay,” Lily teased in a singsong voice. “Anything you say.”

  “Is there something in the water here?” I asked. “Bonnie was just telling me she thinks Anderson is cute.”

  “Really?” said Lily. “Huh. I can see them together, actually. Interesting choice. Now, Jack —”

  “Shh!” I said, and I could feel myself turning bright red. Jack was walking toward us holding a plate of food. Lily giggled.

  “Hey,” he said to us both. “Here, Marisol, I got them to fix yours and Hailey’s first so they wouldn’t be contaminated with meat grease.”

  “That was really nice of you,” Lily said, nudging me with her foot.

  “Thanks, Jack,” I said.

  “No problem,” he answered. “Mr. Samuels cooked the burger, but I brought you some of my secret-recipe coleslaw and potato salad.” He nodded encouragingly, waiting for me to take a bite. I took a spoonful of coleslaw and smiled at him. “Mmm,” I said. “Good.”

  “Thanks,” he said, looking proud, then turned to Lily. “The meat stuff should be ready now. Come on!” He headed back toward the food.

  Lily leaped to her feet and hurried after him. “So hungry,” she said, waving at me.

  I followed them slowly, looking around. Everyone was getting plates of food, settling into small groups, and talking quietly.

  I sat down next to Hailey, and she smiled at me. “Doesn’t the fire smell good?” she said. “I love campfires.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  Outside the circle of light made by the fire, the forest was dark around us. The light flickered over everyone’s faces, and the stars shone brightly overhead. As people finished eating, some of the kids got out their flashlights and left the fire, playing flashlight tag farther away in the clearing.

  “Stay out of the woods,” Mr. Samuels announced. “We don’t want to lose anyone. Remember there are wild animals out there. Put all your food trash and leftovers into the black plastic bags so we can secure them. We don’t want to attract bears.”

  “Or wolves, mountain lions, or coyotes,” added M
rs. Abrams, another of our teacher chaperones.

  “Yikes,” I said, and shivered. I didn’t want to think about wild animals roaming outside our tents.

  “Don’t worry,” said Hailey. “I doubt we’ll see any animals at all, as noisy as this group’s being.” She looked wistful.

  “Time for stargazing,” Lily announced when everyone was done eating.

  I hurried to my telescope. Bonnie, Amber, Hailey, and Jack joined me, and I showed them Venus, Jupiter, and Mars, and we were even able to see the rings of Saturn.

  “This is awesome,” said Jack.

  “What about the moon?” asked Bonnie. “Let’s look at the moon.” I focused the telescope on the moon and pointed out the craters. The moon was yellow and almost full, and it hung just above the treetops.

  “There’s sort of a ring around it,” said Hailey. “What is that?”

  “It’s from the moonlight refracting off ice crystals in the upper atmosphere,” I explained. “It’s like a rainbow, but from the moon.”

  “Wow,” Hailey said. I glanced over and saw that she was smiling.

  After everyone had a chance to look through the telescopes, Lily called us back to the fireside for dessert and storytelling. As I headed over, Jack grabbed my arm and pulled me back behind the others.

  “Can I talk to you for a second?” he asked.

  I felt a flutter in my stomach. No matter what I said about just being friends with Jack, he was just so cute. Was it true that he liked me? “Sure,” I said.

  “I’ve never been able to get Hailey to come along on anything like this before,” he said. “She’s shy, and people made fun of her last year because she’s more interested in animals than people.” He hesitated. “Anyway, it’s just good that you got her to come.”