Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior

by Jackie French

  ‘It’s an old Hero saying. “Old Heroes never die. They just rest in pieces”.’ The Werewolf General tapped his wooden paw against the floor. ‘When you know you’ve fought your last bogey you retire to Rest in Pieces. Oh, you can go home, of course. But there’ll be no one to share the memories with. How can folks at home know what it’s like to face a valley full of bogeys, with only a teaspoon and your wits?’

  Boo’s jaw dropped open. ‘You mean you can?’

  ‘Ha! I did it once. Just make sure it’s a sharp teaspoon — and even sharper wits. But that’s another story. Most retired Heroes are content to play Biff! Bam! Bingo!, while they yarn about old times, or race their wheelchairs down the mountainside. But some of them have set up a school — the School for Heroes — to teach young Heroes how to do it.

  ‘Not just anyone can go to the School for Heroes. You have to be recommended by a practising Hero. And you have to have done something heroic to be accepted, too. Like you did.’

  ‘But I just widdled in some ice cream!’

  The Werewolf General smiled. ‘And when I defeated the Woozlelump in the universe of Pingle I just bashed a teaspoon with a lump of granite till it was as sharp as a dagger. It’s not just what you do, Boo. It’s having the presence of mind to do it, and the courage to do your best, no matter what you’re facing. That’s what makes a Hero.’

  ‘So if I go to the School for Heroes,’ said Boo slowly, ‘I’ll learn how to use things like teaspoons to defeat bogeys too? And I’ll meet other Heroes — lots of Heroes — who might help me rescue Mum?’

  ‘No! Stop wagging your tail like that, boy. I’m serious. You have to give up any idea of rescuing your mother! No one — repeat, no one — can get into the Ghastly Otherwhen and survive. But yes, you’ll learn Hero skills. And I hope you make other Hero friends. Heroes need friends. Look, boy, our universe needs another Hero. We’ve had two bogey attacks already and the Greedle came here in person in the last one. I hope you go to Hero School because I’m getting old, not for the faint hope you might be able to rescue your mother.’

  Boo hardly heard him. ‘Of course I’ll go!’ he barked. For the first time since he’d seen the Greedle, Boo’s tail felt like it could wag forever. ‘When do I start?’

  8

  Underpants, Toilets and Weird Humans

  It turned out going to Hero School wasn’t quite as easy as all that.

  ‘First of all,’ growled the Werewolf General, as the two of them went for a walk and a sniff along the creek bank, ‘you have to learn to Change.’

  Boo stared at him. ‘Change! Changing’s okay for girls — they get to wear pink dresses and stuff like that. You can’t get your teeth into anything when you’ve Changed!’

  The Werewolf General sniffed a tree stump, then raised a shaggy eyebrow. ‘Can you Change yet?’

  ‘Of course!’ said Boo. The Werewolf General stared at him. ‘Well, sort of,’ he added. ‘Why do I have to?’ He was growing more confident with the Werewolf General now.

  The Werewolf General lifted his leg on the stump, then grinned. ‘Partly because it’s hard to hold a pen with paws, even when you’re a Hero. But there’s another reason, too. Come on. Let’s see how good you really are.’

  Boo bit his lip. He hated Changing. But if that’s what he had to do to learn how to rescue Mum, then he’d do it.

  ‘Okay,’ he said shortly. He badly wanted a widdle, but it would be bad manners to widdle where the Werewolf General had. He compromised with a few drops on a small stone nearby.

  The Werewolf General casually lifted his leg on the stone, too. ‘Go on then. Change.’

  Boo took a deep breath. He’d done it a couple of times, he told himself. He could do it again.

  One … two … three … PLUNG!

  It felt like a backwards sneeze, like climbing into a box that was too big, then expanding to fit it. It felt like …

  ‘Bluurk,’ said Boo, as he fell over.

  ‘Hmmm. You need a bit of practice.’

  Boo scrambled to his feet again — his two much too big feet — and tried to keep his balance. ‘Can I Change back now?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘But, sir, why?’

  The Werewolf General grinned. ‘What do you see when you look in the mirror, boy?’

  ‘A wolf!’ said Boo promptly.

  The Werewolf General said nothing.

  Boo sighed. ‘A puppy.’

  ‘What sort of puppy?’

  ‘A cute little puppy with a curly tail,’ admitted Boo. ‘But I won’t always be like that!’ he added hopefully.

  ‘Now, look in the pool. Can you see your reflection now you’re in human shape?’

  Boo flapped his feet across the ground to the creek, and peered down.

  ‘Grfff!’

  ‘Exactly,’ said the Werewolf General with satisfaction. ‘No werewolf — or puppy either — looks cute when they’ve Changed! We’re big! We’re tough! And even at your age we’re very, very hairy!’

  ‘Y—y—y—yes,’ said Boo, starting to shiver. There was just so much bare skin when you’d Changed, in spite of the hairy bits! He stared at his reflection again. Was that really him? That water looked good too. He was thirsty! He bent down further …

  ‘Don’t try to lap!’

  Splosh! The warning came too late. Boo sat up in the pool and brushed dead leaves out of the furry bit on top of his head. ‘Lesson number two,’ said the Werewolf General. ‘Drink from cups when you’re in human shape — or make a cup out of your hands. They don’t lap from pools. Or doggie bowls either.’

  Boo pulled out a tadpole that was trying to swim up his nostrils. He stared at it. Normally he’d have chomped it down. But wriggling tadpoles just didn’t seem as tempting in human form. He began to struggle out of the pool. ‘Human shape is dumb!’ he complained.

  ‘True.’ The Werewolf General carelessly lifted his leg and left a few drops to mark the nearest tree. ‘Why do you think I stay in wolf form most of the time, too? No, trust me on this, young pup, er, boy. If you turn up at Hero School looking cute and fluffy no one will take you seriously. They’ll want to pat your head, not teach you to Wham! Bam! Pow! But you don’t have to stay in human shape there forever.’

  Boo brightened, then frowned. Even his lips felt weird in human shape. ‘I don’t?’

  ‘Of course not! Just for a day or two, till they get to know you. Then when you Change back to puppy form, they’ll still see the big hairy Hero you can be, if you want to be.’

  Boo flexed his muscles — but carefully, in case he fell down again.

  ‘By the way,’ added the Werewolf General, ‘you’ll need to wear clothes to school as well. At least while you’re in human form.’

  ‘Clothes! But I always wear my collar —’

  ‘Pants. Shirt. Shoes,’ barked the Werewolf General crisply. ‘Trust me, Boo. The other students at the School for Heroes will not be impressed with a kid who wanders round in just a collar.’

  ‘But I —’

  ‘Do you want to go to this school or not?’ barked the Werewolf General.

  ‘I …’ Boo subsided. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then you’ll learn to wear clothes. And Change. And eat with a knife and fork. And not lift your leg on doorposts either,’ he added. ‘Even in werewolf form.’

  ‘What?’ Boo tried to prick up his ears, then realised he couldn’t. ‘Where do humans widdle then?’

  The Werewolf General gave a big doggie grin. ‘They do their weeing in things called toilets, in rooms they call bathrooms. Then the toilets wash away the smell! You’ll have to practise using your hands to help you widdle, too. Humans can’t widdle without hands.’

  ‘Crazy!’ said Boo. He tried to scratch his ear with his foot and discovered he couldn’t. He picked himself up off the ground.

  ‘Just remember, young Boo, don’t under any circumstances lift your leg on a doorpost at school.’

  ‘I won’t.’ Boo shook his head. But even that didn’t fee
l right in human form. How did kids at the School for Heroes know what everyone else was thinking and feeling if they couldn’t smell each other’s wee? How could they tell who was Top Dog?

  The Werewolf General looked at him kindly. ‘I know it’s hard, young pup. It was hard for me too. But you’re a Hero. You’ll manage.’

  ‘Woof,’ said Boo sadly. ‘I mean, yes, sir.’

  ‘Right. Now let’s get you some “walking on two feet” practice.’

  So Boo practised. He jogged up and down the creek in human form every day. And even though the first few days he fell down more than he jogged, he kept on going.

  He practised holding a pen in his fingers and his teeth, for the time he’d be able to go back to wolf shape. (The secret, he discovered, was not to think about Rat Surprises or poodle pancakes so he didn’t dribble down the pen.)

  He did fifty push ups, then a hundred, then two hundred every day, to make his muscles more heroic. And every night he ran for hours across the hills. Okay, he was in wolf form then, but it still made him fitter. And somehow the darkness and the solitude made things easier. He missed Mum most when other people were there, but she wasn’t. And every time he pushed his body up another hill he could think, I’m doing this for Mum! Everyone was kind. None of the Bigpaws family snickered as he tottered about on two legs, gradually getting surer on his feet. Even the puppies didn’t giggle when he came to dinner wearing a shirt and pants, or tried to eat his rat casserole or poodle pasta with a knife and fork while they slobbered from their bowls.

  At least, thought Boo, as he sat in his room, trying to work out how to turn then push a door handle (the Werewolf General had given him one to practise on) I’ll be able to come home at night.

  Home. The Bigpaws’s home. Would it ever seem like his?

  Only one more day to go …

  Someone gave a short bark outside the door. ‘Woof!’ called Boo. Mr Bigpaws pushed the door open with his nose. (Why do humans make doors so complicated? wondered Boo.)

  Mr Bigpaws dropped the package from his mouth. ‘For you,’ he said.

  At least hands are useful for unwrapping things, Boo decided, pulling off the fancy cat-perfumed pink wrapping paper.

  ‘It’s … it’s a shirt!’ he said, staring.

  It was the most wonderful shirt he’d ever seen, totally unlike the plain blue T-shirt that the Werewolf General had given him. It was a deep blue silk with purple embroidery. Someone must have spent days making this, thought Boo.

  ‘Thank you —’ he began, but Mr Bigpaws shook his head. ‘It’s from the Rover family,’ he said. ‘When you saved the town you saved them too.’

  ‘But, but …’ began Boo. How could he explain that he hadn’t meant to save the Rovers especially? But he would have tried to save the Rovers if he’d thought about them, he realised suddenly. So maybe …

  ‘Another present!’ Spot bounded up the stairs and dropped the parcel at his feet. ‘From Mr and Mrs Backscratcher!’

  It was a pair of silk pants, as gorgeous as the shirt. ‘Red, so they don’t show the blood,’ said Spot helpfully, sitting on her haunches and watching him with her tongue hanging out. ‘I bet Heroes bleed all over the place.’

  ‘Spot!’ barked Mr Bigpaws. ‘That is not a tactful thing to say!’

  Boo stared at the trousers. ‘Grrr-eat.’

  ‘Well, Heroes do Biff! Bam!ming! don’t they? So they have to get a bit bloody sometimes.’ Spot sniffed the wrapping paper. ‘Hey, want to play Tear the Paper with me?’

  ‘No thanks,’ said Boo politely. He wasn’t sure he could chase paper in human shape yet.

  The presents came all day after that. More human clothes: boots from Bandy Sam the collarmaker, socks, underpants …

  Boo frowned at the underpants. Underpants made it impossible to sniff someone’s bum properly. Even werewolves in human form never wore underpants; just a skirt or a leather kilt that could be pushed out of the way easily. Why wear clothes where no one could see them?

  How could you know if someone was friendly if you couldn’t sniff their bum? Especially if you only had human nostrils, which could hardly smell a dead cat right under their noses. Humans must push their clothes down when they want to smell each other’s bums, Boo decided. Humans would have to push their pants down before they widdled or did that, too. Crazy! Humans must be pushing their clothes up and down all the time!

  Nah, there had to be some way to sniff a human’s bum, even with clothes on. Maybe if you pushed your nose up their leg … He’d just need to practise human-type bum-sniffing when he got to the School for Heroes.

  The packages kept on coming. A wear-on-the-back-type school bag, not one for carrying in the mouth. Exercise books, notebooks, pens … Boo gulped. It had been ages since he’d written anything. He hoped there wouldn’t be too much writing stuff at school.

  Lunch box, hat …

  ‘Everyone is so proud of you,’ explained Mrs Bigpaws, as she padded up the stairs with the next present (a big box of dried rats, so he could have one every morning tea). ‘They’re proud of the way you chased away the Greedle. They’re proud you’re going to the School for Heroes, too. Our very own Hero, here in Sleepy Whiskers! Mr Bigpaws and I are so proud to have you here, Boo,’ she added.

  ‘Me too,’ said Spot, poking her nose around the door. ‘Hey,’ she added, casually scratching her ear, ‘if you see any hunks at school — werewolf-type hunks, I mean, could you sort of ask them home?’

  ‘I’m probably going to be the only werewolf there,’ growled Boo gloomily. ‘That’s why I have to practise Changing.’

  Spot scratched her neck with her hind leg. ‘The only werewolf! That’s going to be so weird!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Boo.

  It was hard to sleep that night, even in his favourite position, with his nose pressed to his bum and his tail tucked round the other side. It wasn’t that he hadn’t got used to his new basket at the Bigpaws’.

  It wasn’t even the thought of a strange school tomorrow either. Much, anyway.

  It was just … everything. Wondering.

  Wondering about Mum, and what had happened, and where she was.

  Every time someone came to the door he pricked up his ears, hoping it might be Mum, if somehow she’d managed to escape.

  Every time he trotted through the marketplace he wondered if he might see her face in the crowd.

  And every time he looked over at the Best Ice-Cream Shop in the Universes he hoped there’d be a light in the window.

  Mum, come back through the wormhole … But there never was.

  Suddenly Boo scrambled out of his basket. There was something he had to do!

  He slipped out of his bedroom and padded down the stairs. At least he was in werewolf form now, and could go quietly. Out the front door, and down the street, then up the mountain behind the town … his claws clicked against the rocky slopes. The scrubby trees stood like strange guardians outlined against the starry sky.

  There was a rock on top of the mountain. It was big and flat. A hundred werewolves could sit there in the moonlight. But tonight there was only Boo.

  Boo lifted up his head, and howled.

  It was a howl for Mum. It wasn’t a funeral howl, where everyone who had known a dead wolf all howled together. Mum wasn’t dead. She wasn’t!

  But it still felt right to howl for her.

  The sound flew across the valley. Maybe, just maybe, thought Boo, Mum might somehow hear its echoes, far off in the Ghastly Otherwhen, where the Greedle had her prisoner.

  The moon floated across the sky, like a big scoop of orange ice cream. But Boo kept on howling. It was only as it began to slide down to the horizon that he stopped.

  His throat felt hoarse. He was tireder than he’d ever felt in his life before. But he’d done what he had to do.

  Boo padded slowly down the mountain.

  What was tomorrow going to bring? What sort of strange creatures would he find at the School for Heroes? Okay, there’d be human
s. But humans were a bit like werewolves, except that they had never learnt to Change. The Werewolf General had said there’d be other creatures, too. Students came from all the universes — well, all but the Ghastly Otherwhen — to go to the School for Heroes.

  What if one looked like a rat, and he ate it accidentally?

  What if one came from a universe where they ate werewolves, and they ate him accidentally?

  It was terrifying, he thought, as he crept wearily into his basket. But it was exciting, too. One day he’d be a real Hero like the Werewolf General. People would write books about him! Wolves would howl songs about him. Puppies would stare at him in the street. Maybe he’d even be head of the Council of Werewolves when he grew up, just like the Werewolf General …

  No one would ever think he was cute again!

  Boo fell asleep at last. And when he dreamt, he dreamt of Heroes.

  Boo woke early, despite his late night. He padded out of his basket and poked his nose out the window.

  Dawn was a pink glow on the horizon. The sky was turning blue instead of grey. Sleepy Whiskers was just waking up. Mr Brownear was hanging up spiced kittens to dry in his backyard. A tortoise train trudged down the street in the slush from the melted snow, bringing in a load of rugs from one of the mountain villages. A tiny pig flew from flower to flower in Mrs Bigpaws’s garden, sticking its snout down to lick out the cold winter nectar, then it flapped lazily up to the old spaghetti tree.

  It must have a nest up there, thought Boo. Maybe there’d be piglets in spring, too. Maybe Mrs Bigpaws would make piglet jam, just like Mum used to do.

  Yum.

  Boo blinked. He’d just thought about Mum, and it hadn’t hurt! Well, it had hurt — but not the fang-wrenching pain of the last weeks. Somehow now he was sure he would rescue her. Somehow Mum was going to be safe!

  It was time to Change. Boo took a deep breath and concentrated.

  PLUNG!

  The floor dropped down and the ceiling grew closer. The world lost most of its smell, too. Woof! thought Boo. He’d even kept his balance this time!

  He reached for his clothes. Underpants first. That always took a while. You had to be an athletic genius to manage underpants at first go, Boo decided. It was bad enough having to balance on two feet, without having to stand on only one leg and put the other in a hole at the same time. Humans probably had a ‘getting into your underpants race’ at their Olympic Games.