“I told you. He’s not one yet. Shhh.”
A young woman spoke.
Even a man who is pure in heart
And says his prayers by night
May become a wolf when the wolfbane blooms
And the autumn moon is bright.
“What’s wolfbane?” whispered Emery when the woman in the movie finished reciting her poem.
“If it blooms I guess it’s a flower,” Philip whispered back. “At least it’s the winter moon that’s bright tonight.” He pointed toward the window.
“Wrong. Winter doesn’t start till December 21. It’s still only autumn.”
Sometimes Emery was too smart, Philip thought.
“You think we grow wolfbane around here?” Emery asked.
“How do I know? We have to know what it is before we know if we have any or not. Besides, it’s cold. No flowers are growing around here. Shhh. They’re going to have their fortune told. Watch. Watch.”
Larry Talbot and two young women step into the gypsy camp. Larry takes the woman he likes for a walk while the other one goes inside the gypsy wagon to see Bela and his crystal ball. Bela studies what’s inside the crystal ball then puts his head in his hands as if he’s going to cry. When he looks up at the woman again, he sees a star on the back of her hand. It shimmers a moment, then disappears. He tells her to get out.
“What’s the star on her hand mean?” Emery asked in a worried voice. “That guy’s seeing things.”
“They already said what it means. Pay attention.”
“I can’t pay attention, it’s so boring.”
“It’s called a pentagram. It means Bela’s already a werewolf, and she’s going to be his next victim.”
“Bela’s already a werewolf?” Emery’s interesting rose.
“Yeah.”
“And the star’s a pentagram?”
“Yes, be quiet and listen, will you?”
The woman runs away very frightened. A wolf howls.
“Sounds just like Mrs. Wenner’s dog did before,” Emery whispered.
Philip shushed him.
The wolf attacks the woman. Larry hears the attack and rushes to the rescue. Using his new walking stick with the silver image of a wolf on the top, he kills the wolf, but before he does, the wolf bites him.
“There. That’s how he becomes one,” Philip whispered. “An old werewolf bit him.”
“Philip . . .” said Emery.
“Shhh. Watch.”
“But, Philip . . .”
“Shhh!”
There is no wolf body when the police arrive, though, only the body of Bela the gypsy.
A few nights later, the old gypsy woman, Bela’s mother, gives Larry a warning as he walks toward home through the gypsy camp.
“You’ve been a long time coming,” she says.
“I’m not buying anything,” he says impatiently.
“And I am not selling anything. I expected you sooner.”
Larry walks up to the old gypsy woman and says, “Oh, I remember you. That night.” He’s thinking of the night he fought the wolf.
“Go inside,” the woman orders Larry.
He does and she follows.
“You killed a wolf.”
“Well, there’s no crime in that is there?”
“The wolf was Bela.”
“You think I don’t know the difference between a wolf and a man?”
“Bela became a wolf, and you killed him. A werewolf can be killed only with a silver bullet or a silver knife or a walking stick with a silver handle.”
“You’re insane. I tell you I killed a wolf; a plain, ordinary wolf.”
“Take this chain, the pentagram. The sign of the wolf. It can break the evil spell.”
“Evil spell. Pentagrams. Wolfbane. Ah, I’m sick of the whole thing. I’m gonna get out of here.”
The gypsy woman speaks again and Larry stops. She says, “Whoever is bitten by a werewolf and lives becomes a werewolf himself.”
“Aw, quit handing me that. You’re just wasting your time.”
“The wolf bit you, didn’t he?”
“Yeah. Yeah, he did.”
“Wear this charm over your heart always.”
“All right. All right. I’ll take it. What’s it worth to you?”
“Do you dare to show me the wound?”
“I . . .”
“Do you dare to show me the wound?”
Larry opens his shirt and shows her.
She says, “Go now and heaven help you.”
Philip and Emery moved closer to each other.
Larry meets his girlfriend again.
“Aw, it’s only another love scene,” Emery moaned.
Larry looks around and says, “Wait listen. Look at the gypsies.” The gypsies are scurrying around madly, breaking up their camp.
Finally, Larry asks why. A gypsy says, “There’s a werewolf in camp.”
Larry’s girlfriend runs off and Larry runs home.
“I’m glad his girlfriend ran away,” says Emery. “I hope I don’t ever see her again. Why do they put love stories in these movies, anyway?”
Larry looks into the mirror in his bedroom. He seems relieved. He takes off his shirt and checks his arms.
“See,” said Emery. “He’s okay. He’s not changing.”
“Will you be quiet and watch?”
The two boys moved nearer one another until their elbows touched.
Larry’s smile fades. His legs! He feels something funny happening. He falls into a chair and takes off his sock.
“Oh,” yelped Emery. “He’s all fuzzy. He’s got fuzzy legs.”
“He’s turning. He’s turning,” spluttered Philip.
Larry takes off his other sock.
“Oh, more fuzz. He’s a fuzzy man. He’s got fuzz all over. His toes! Look at his toes! Now he’s got fuzzy toes!”
The two boys watched in fascination as Larry’s feet turned into monstrous, long-toed, hairy claws.
When Larry stands up, both boys see his horrible werewolf face.
“Turn it off,” Emery cried. “Turn it off.”
Philip rolled off the sofa. “Ow. My arm. Let go of my arm.”
“I’m not holding your arm.”
“You are, too. I can’t turn it off if you won’t let me go.” Philip peeled Emery’s fingers off of his arm and threw himself on his knees in front of the TV set. He pushed buttons until the room got dark and quiet. The blue numerals of the clock on the front of the video player read 9:00.
Chapter Six
Emery peeked into the living room. “Mrs. Moriarty’s asleep,” he whispered. Mrs. Moriarty, her head back and mouth open, snoozed in front of the television. A toothpaste commercial played as the light from the television danced spookily across her face.
“Maybe we can be back before she even wakes up. Hey, I’m feeling really scared,” Emery went on. “This is great. I’ll put it in my report. I’ve got to remember exactly how I feel now.”
Philip half hoped Emery would suggest they forget their investigation. It didn’t look as if Emery would since he seemed determined to ace his report and actually liked being scared. What was there really to be scared of, though? Philip asked himself. A werewolf in the neighborhood. Pssh! Not very likely, but scared or not scared, he knew he couldn’t be the one to suggest they not go. Emery would never let him forget it.
Emery kept on. “Go get your math book, just in case. I’m going to make something for us here.”
“Make what?” Philip asked.
Mrs. Moriarty made a funny noise. The boys looked into the living room, but she slept on. Emery put his fingers to his lips and shooed Philip.
Philip got his coat from the other room, snuck out the back door, and rushed to his house. He explained his mission to his mother, who complimented him for his and Emery’s attention to schoolwork, and rushed back to Mrs. Moriarty’s. When he closed the kitchen door behind him, Emery handed him a yardstick with aluminum foil wrapped a
round the top of it. He had a second one for himself.
Philip took the stick from Emery. “What is this?”
“You heard the movie say a werewolf can only be killed by a silver bullet, a silver dagger, or a silver-headed walking stick. We don’t have any bullets or daggers so I made us these walking sticks.”
“We’re going to beat off a werewolf with Mrs. M’s yardsticks and some aluminum foil?” Philip said doubtfully.
“I’m taking mine. Leave yours here if you want.” Emery pointed to a note he left on the table for Mrs. Moriarty if she woke up, saying they’d gone for Philip’s math book.
Philip examined the stick. This is stupid, he thought. Oh well, it’s better than nothing. He followed Emery, closed the door quietly behind him, and hid the math book behind a chair on the back porch.
“Stay out of the new snow,” Emery whispered. “We don’t want anyone to know where we went.”
Emery amazed Philip with how bossy he acted and how bravely he faced this adventure. Together they stepped into the places where something had already messed up the snow so much it wouldn’t show their footprints and made their way to the house around the corner.
“We better stay in the backyards,” Emery suggested.
They went across the back of one house then another and another and finally hid themselves in bushes next door to the Moster/Talbot house.
“Think anybody saw us?” Philip whispered.
“I don’t think so. We’re pretty small, and we stayed in the dark all the way. Even if we left a footprint or two, no one will know who the prints belong to.”
The two boys studied the house in front of them. They could see the left side of it from where they hid. Emery grabbed Philip’s wrist and pointed to the lighted upstairs window. A familiar shadow fluttered repeatedly across the drawn shade.
“The bat again!” Philip cried.
“Maybe it’s trying to get out.”
“Suppose it gets out and comes down where we are,” Philip said fearfully, finding it harder and harder to breathe. “Aluminum foil yardsticks don’t keep Dracula away.”
“Oh, look. It’s still trying to get out. If he comes down here we’ll have to use the yardsticks,” said Emery, keeping his eyes on the upper window. “We don’t have anything else.”
“What good are the yardsticks?” Philip whispered angrily. “What will we do? Measure him to death?”
“I know! A cross. We can make a cross with them. Dracula won’t go near a cross.”
Before Philip could answer, the light blinked out, and darkness swallowed up the shadow of the bat.
“Is it out? Is it coming?”
“Where is it? I don’t see it.” Both boys spun their heads frantically.
Philip finally announced. “There’s nothing.”
“Let’s go around back,” Emery suggested. “I don’t like it here.”
Philip followed, but bumped into Emery, who stopped abruptly. Emery pointed. In the bright moonlight they saw a line of footprints across the otherwise undisturbed snow on the wide back lawn.
“Are they . . . ?” Philip started.
Emery nodded. “The footprints of a giant . . . dog, and there aren’t any people footprints next to them.”
“Maybe not a giant dog, Emery,” Philip said with a slow realization.
Emery understood. “You think they’re werewolf tracks?” he asked in a helpless voice. He leaned forward to get a better look at the prints. “Awfully small feet for a werewolf.”
“Look there,” cried Philip, pointing.
“The box! The baby Frankenstein box!” Sitting on the back porch, its lid crookedly lying across the top, was the box they’d seen delivered to the house. At the same moment, a howl came from somewhere behind them.
“Mrs. Wenner’s dog?” said Emery. “Philip, Mrs. Wenner’s dog, right? You look. Tell me it’s Mrs. Wenner’s dog.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Did you look?”
“No, you look.”
“No, you look.”
“It has to be Mrs. Wenner’s dog.”
“It doesn’t have to be Mrs. Wenner’s dog.”
“We better go back to Mrs. M’s,” Philip said shakily.
The howl sounded again, this time closer.
“He’s coming. He’s coming,” Emery cried and grabbed Philip’s arm.
“We have to hide. Quick. Where?” Philip looked around for a safe haven.
“Oh, I don’t want to be werewolf food,” Emery cried, leaping up and running toward the Talbot house.
Philip followed Emery, agreeing that with a werewolf right behind them, the only safe direction was toward the house. As soon as they got near the back porch, though, the kitchen light came on and covered them with its glare.
“It’ll see us,” cried Emery.
“Now what!”
“In the box. Let’s get in the box. It’s the only place we can hide,” said Emery. He didn’t wait for Philip, but leaped up the steps to the porch and threw himself inside the baby Frankenstein box.
Philip threw himself on top of Emery. “Move over,” he cried. “You’re hogging the whole thing.”
“I am not.”
The boys wiggled into the best positions they could manage.
“The top,” said Philip. Emery reached up and slid the top of the box into position.
“Ow! Watch your stupid knee,” Philip cried softly. “That hurt!”
Suddenly, they heard the kitchen door open and a horrible snarling noise exploded right above them. They grabbed each other and held on. A howl sounded, but from much farther away than before.
Suddenly, the box moved, and they heard a door close. They’d been rolled inside the Talbot house, the home of Dracula, the Wolfman, and baby Frankenstein!
Chapter Seven
The two boys, crushed together in their heavy coats in the cramped box, scarcely drew a breath. They heard a snuffling sound outside the box; then a whistle; then a weird click-clack across the kitchen floor; then silence.
“I think it followed us inside the house,” whispered Philip.
“Move your foot,” Emery demanded.
“I can’t. You’re lying on it. Did you hear me? The werewolf’s in the house.”
“I know. I smelled it right outside the box. It smelled like a dog.” Emery paused. “I can’t smell it now; or even hear it. Can you see through a hole?”
Philip twisted his neck, but could only glance through an air hole at an angle.
“I see a chair. A kitchen chair.”
“That’s a lot of help,” said Emery. “Do you see anybody? Any . . . thing?”
“Nobody’s sitting in the chair. Can’t you see out of a hole?”
Emery twisted his body. “Ooofff,” Philip grunted. “You’re mooshing my face with your elbow.”
“So move your face. I can almost see . . .”
“Ooofff,” grunted Philip again as Emery’s elbow pushed hard against his nose.
“Get your stupid elbow . . .” whispered Philip.
“I can see pretty good now,” Emery interrupted. “Nothing’s in sight. Come on. We can’t stay here.”
“What are you . . . ?” Before Philip could finish his question, Emery lifted the top from the box. The boys untangled themselves from each other and slowly lifted their eyes above the sides of the box. They saw an empty kitchen, but they heard sounds coming from somewhere higher up in the house.
“Don’t make any noise,” Philip whispered, throwing his leg over the side and dropping to the kitchen floor.
“It must have gone upstairs,” Emery responded softly, setting himself down next to Philip. After he replaced the top, Emery stuttered, “Come . . . come . . .”
“What’s the matter?”
“I have to . . . to . . .”
“Not sneeze! Emery, don’t. You’ll sneeze us into werewolf snacks! Hold it. Don’t let it out.” Philip looked the kitchen over and saw a towel hanging on the handle of the refrige
rator door. He grabbed it and tossed it to Emery. Emery, his eyes wide and his cheeks puffed up in his battle with the sneeze, balled the towel up, pushed it hard against his face, and sneezed into it. Philip heard a tiny boop—a boop he hoped didn’t reach the werewolf’s ears.
“Make sure you’re sneezed out,” Philip warned.
Emery wriggled his nose trying to find another sneeze. He shook his head. “Only one.” He threw the towel back to Philip, who caught it with two fingers and a look of disgust and replaced it on the refrigerator door.
“See any werewolf stuff?” Emery asked as they tiptoed to the back door.
“Like what? People’s bones? Let’s get out of here.”
“Look, a letter addressed to Mr. Lawrence Talbot. It might be evidence. I’m taking it.” He grabbed the envelope off the kitchen counter and stuffed it into his back pocket. A growl and a roar came from upstairs.
That was all the boys needed. Philip opened the back door, jumped down the steps to the lawn, found his silver-headed walking stick, and ran across the neighborhood backyards. When he squashed himself against the wall of Mrs. Moriarty’s house, Emery stood next to him panting.
“Did you remember to close the door?”
Emery nodded, catching his breath. Between huffing and puffing Emery said, “I can’t believe we were in the werewolf’s house with it right upstairs.”
“Where’s your walking stick?”
“My . . . oh, I left it. I didn’t even think about it.”
“Didn’t you see me pick up mine?”
“No. I just ran.”
“I don’t guess you want to go back for it?”
Emery’s eyes grew big and round. He shook his head quickly. “It doesn’t have anybody’s name on it or anything.”
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