Lessons for a Werewolf Warrior

by Jackie French

  Suddenly, Yesterday stopped and opened her eyes. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘This is the way it wants us to walk …’

  ‘What’s it?’

  ‘The nothingness.’

  Boo nodded. He felt calm suddenly, just as he had when he faced the Rabbits. This was what he had to do … ‘Let me try smelling again.’

  He sniffed. For a moment the danger smell seemed to ooze all around them. Then slowly he realised where the scent was greatest. ‘That way.’ He pointed with his nose down the black stone corridor to the gymnasium cave.

  Yesterday turned and shut her eyes again. She began to walk where he was pointing, stepping slowly and hesitantly across the hot rock. Her face was pale and sweat beaded on her forehead. Boo and Mug moved cautiously at her side.

  ‘Boo? Can you smell anything else?’ she said urgently, her eyes still closed.

  ‘No. Nothing else.’ Just bats, talcum powder and old school lunches, he thought. The ordinary school smells. But Yesterday didn’t mean those.

  ‘There’s something here,’ said Yesterday quietly. ‘Something that shouldn’t be here.’

  ‘A bogey?’ Boo felt his fur prickle again.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘How can a bogey invade the School for Heroes? Someone would have noticed! Are you all right?’ he added, looking at her pale face.

  ‘We’ve got to keep walking.’ Yesterday was struggling to speak now, her eyes were squeezed shut. ‘We have to keep on going!’

  Boo padded next to Yesterday now, his nose raised to capture the scent, while Yesterday stumbled beside him, forcing her body to follow whatever her mind could see. Mug thudded behind them. Boo was glad that Mug was there. No matter what was in front of them, he knew the zombie would guard their rear.

  They kept walking, Boo’s ears pricked, his jaws half open to grab his prey. Past the Finding lab, past the library (temporarily perched opposite the gymnasium cavern, the books doing sit-ups or sharpening their fangs), past the …

  Yesterday stopped by a thick wooden door, scorched by years of heat and ash. ‘Here,’ she whispered, opening her eyes. ‘Boo, Mug … it’s in here!’

  ‘But that’s the staffroom! There’s no one there at the weekend!’

  Yesterday shook her head stubbornly. ‘Yes there is. I know.’

  What should we do now? Boo thought. Try to burst in the door? Or find Jones the Janitor, with his deadly screwdrivers? But would Jones believe three students?

  The thick wooden door creaked open. Something lunged out towards them.

  ‘Ah, Boojum Bark. And Mug and Yesterday.’ It was Dr Mussells, hanging from the lintel by one paw and munching a banana in the other. Behind him the rest of the staff were gathering their papers and preparing to leave.

  Boo stared. He felt Yesterday shiver in shock beside him. Mug stood there speechless.

  ‘What brings you three here on the weekend?’ asked Dr Mussells pleasantly, still swinging from the lintel.

  ‘Mug’s birthday party, sir,’ said Boo quickly, to give Yesterday time to catch her breath.

  ‘Ah, the old transport swap,’ said Dr Mussells, as the other teachers came out behind him. Ms Snott was in black and gold lycra today. Miss Cassandra clucked past them, her grey feathers ruffled. ‘Used to do that when I was a student. We’ve been having a staff meeting. Just getting the class timetables sorted out. Here, have a banana.’ He handed them each one, patted Boo on the head, then knuckled along the corridor after the other teachers. Somehow he’d found another banana for himself too.

  ‘Yesterday?’ whispered Boo.

  ‘It’s still there,’ said Yesterday. ‘The feeling … it’s still there.’

  Boo shivered. For one horrible moment he’d been afraid that the Greedle had taken control of the teachers. But these are old Heroes, he told himself. If there was any way the Greedle could get control of one of them, it would have done it years ago.

  ‘What’s making the nothingness — there’s no sign of anything wrong here at all!’

  ‘I don’t know! It’s still there. But there’re more patches now, not just one here at the staffroom. Boo, we haven’t imagined it, have we? The feeling?’ said Yesterday desperately.

  ‘No,’ said Boo softly. ‘I’ve smelt that danger smell before. I’ve felt that kind of vibration, too. But it’s only when I’ve been in wolf form. I just didn’t realise what it meant till now. Everything about school’s been so different …’

  Yesterday gave him one of her rare smiles. ‘You didn’t believe in yourself, did you, Boo?’

  Boo shook his head. ‘I didn’t seem cut out to be a Hero.’

  ‘You Hero,’ said Mug gruffly. ‘Me seen you be Hero.’

  ‘So what do we do now?’ whispered Yesterday. ‘How can we possibly convince the teachers — and all the other old Heroes too — that there’s danger here?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Boo tried to keep the quiver from his voice. ‘But we have to try!’

  The three of them moved down to their favourite boulder by the skinning pool, almost without thinking about it. They sat in silence for a while, watching the water plop and bubble. Boo scratched his ear, trying to think. Suddenly he brightened, ‘Bum sniffing.’

  Yesterday blinked. ‘What do you mean, bum sniffing?’

  ‘Bum smells tell you everything,’ explained Boo. ‘Or they do if you’re a werewolf. If the teachers sniffed our bums they’d know we were telling the truth.’

  ‘Um, Boo,’ said Yesterday tactfully.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t you think there’s a faint chance you might be expelled if you tell any of the teachers to sniff our bums?’

  Boo’s furry forehead wrinkled. ‘You think so?’

  ‘I think there’s a good chance,’ said Yesterday gently.

  Boo sighed. Humans were strange.

  ‘Me could ask Graunt Doom to come here. She Find danger,’ rumbled Mug.

  ‘Of course!’ Yesterday gave another of her almost smiles. ‘Why didn’t I think of that? But we don’t need to go all the way back to your universe. We’ll ask Miss Cassandra!’

  ‘But why hasn’t Miss Cassandra Found the danger already?’ demanded Boo.

  Yesterday shook her head. ‘It doesn’t work like that. She may be looking everywhere else in the universes for danger, but not here! Why would she ever think to do a Finding on the school and Rest in Pieces? Come on! If there’s any danger around, Miss Cassandra’s sure to Find it once she starts looking!’

  Was she right? Boo waited for his tail to wag. It still stayed determinedly between his legs, even though what Yesterday said made sense. The giant chicken was the person to help them. There was only one small problem.

  ‘The teachers have all left,’ he pointed out. ‘And it’s against every school rule to go up to Rest in Pieces.’

  Yesterday raised her chin. ‘Then we’ll just have to break the rules,’ she said calmly. ‘Coming?’

  Mug nodded. Boo gave a small whine. But he stood up and padded after her.

  Down below them the lava frothed and bubbled. The path was narrow, and rutted by centuries of wheelchair tyres. There was no safety rail. Boo supposed that old Heroes didn’t do safety rails. Or safety anything.

  The path wound its way upwards. On either side were narrow terraces, on which ancient Heroes dozed on banana lounges or in their wheelchairs, or indulged in a little Zoom!ing in the dim reddish sunshine that found its way through the volcano smoke.

  Boo bit his lip. He hadn’t realised there were quite so many old Heroes on the mountain. There couldn’t be any danger here!

  Could there?

  ‘Miss Cassandra not snozing over there, is she?’ muttered Mug.

  ‘It’s snoozing,’ Yesterday whispered back. There was something intimidating about so many ancient Heroes, thought Boo, that made you want to whisper. ‘And no, she’s not over there.’

  ‘How you sure?’

  ‘Because it’s hard to miss a three-metre-tall chicken,’ hissed
Boo.

  The path twisted around a giant pile of boulders, shining black rock and glittering yellow crystals. A big sign hung from the top. ‘Rest in Pieces’, it said, and then in smaller letters: ‘Beware of the Heroes! They bite. And other things too’.

  And there it was.

  Boo wasn’t sure what he expected a retirement village for Heroes to look like. A palace, perhaps, built out of the hard volcanic rock, with craggy battlements. But instead, Rest in Pieces looked pretty much like the school below it — a wide, not-quite-level rock ledge ending in a sheer drop down to the volcano, and a giant cave mouth, yawning blackly in the cliff face, with smaller windows staring blankly out at the rising sparks. From deep in the cliff came the muffled sound of cackling laughter and Wham! Bam! chops.

  ‘Oi!’ yelled someone. Boo stared. It was the elderly Hero who had tied him up in her pink knitting on his first day at Hero School. She hobbled out of the cave, her knitting still in her hands. It was yellow wool today. It looked like it might be going to be a bootee, though Boo wasn’t quite sure what a baby with that shaped foot would look like.

  ‘What do you three think you’re doing?’ she demanded, puffing up to them.

  ‘Woof!’ began Boo politely. ‘I’m Boojum Bark.’

  ‘And I’m Dahlia the Dazzler!’ snapped the old woman.

  Mug snickered. ‘Good joke.’

  Dahlia the Dazzler glared at him. ‘That was no joke, sonny. I was the most dazzling Heroine in fifty universes. Bogeys just had to get a look at me and they stopped in their tracks.’

  ‘Like Gloria the Gorgeous?’ asked Boo incautiously.

  Dahlia the Dazzler snorted. ‘I was a hundred times more dazzling than Gloria! Of course the lasso helped,’ she added. ‘And I had my own hair and teeth in those days too. Now what do you three want? You know it’s against school rules for you to be up here.’

  Boo tried to stop his tail melting between his legs. This woman was ferocious! ‘We need to speak to Miss Cassandra.’

  ‘Old Chookie? What about?’

  Boo gulped. There was no point lying. ‘I can smell something — something new and dangerous. And Yesterday here is a Finder and she thinks something is wrong too.’

  Dahlia the Dazzler cackled. ‘What about you, sonny?’ she said to Mug. ‘You think you have some Hero sense that says there’s danger?’

  ‘Me come because me their friend,’ said Mug.

  Dahlia the Dazzler snorted again. It sounded a bit like an elderly pig grunting. ‘Sounds like you’re the only one with a good reason to be here. Look,’ she added to Boo and Mug. ‘Do you know how old I am?’

  Boo shook his head.

  ‘I’m 156. I’m a very old Hero. And you know how I got to be a very old Hero?’

  ‘By being very, very good at it,’ said Yesterday softly.

  Dahlia the Dazzler looked at her sharply. ‘Maybe you’re not so dumb after all. Look, kids, I like a bit of adventure as much as anyone. Give me a Vampire Viper and I’ll rip its fangs out any day, and crochet a border around them too. But if you want to find your own adventures you’re just going to have to wait till you’re Level 4 Heroes. Understood?’

  ‘But —’ began Boo desperately.

  Dahlia the Dazzler fixed him with a stony gaze. ‘Son, I don’t think you understand. I’m on look-out duty today. Which means I’m up here with my binoculars watching for anything — anything — that might endanger the school. Mutant octopus. Eruption. Kids who don’t obey school rules. And if you think I might have missed something — well, that means you think I can’t do my job. And you know what that means?’

  ‘What?’ whispered Boo.

  ‘I get very, very angry,’ said Dahlia the Dazzler softly. ‘And you don’t want to make me angry.’

  They had to go, thought Boo. It would just make Dahlia the Dazzler even angrier if they stood their ground. She was right. They were young and silly and imagining things and …

  ‘No,’ he heard himself growling.

  ‘No?’ growled Dahlia, baring a fine set of false teeth. They’d been shaved to points, Boo realised, and gleamed red in the light of the volcano.

  ‘No! We want to see Miss Cassandra.’

  ‘That’s right,’ rumbled Mug.

  Yesterday nodded.

  Suddenly Dahlia the Dazzler let out another cackle of laughter. ‘Good for you!’ she roared. ‘A true Hero never gives in! Come on! I’ll take you to Chookie. Of course, she might try to peck your eyes out for disturbing her on a Saturday night. But hey, a bit of risk is what heroing is all about!’

  ‘What she do Saturday night?’ rumbled Mug. ‘Her practise Wham! Bam! Pow!?’

  ‘No. There’s this cop show she likes. Come on. You’ll find her in the TV room.’

  Dahlia the Dazzler began to hobble into the cavern.

  25

  Rest in Pieces

  ‘Wait for my Go, people. Steady … okay! Go! Go! Go! Go! Go!’

  ‘Reeeeeeeeekkkkkkk!!!!’ Police sirens sounded in the distance as a brave-looking human in police uniform commando-rolled across the screen.

  The Rest in Pieces TV room was the biggest cavern Boo had ever seen. Its ceiling stretched up into darkness. It was hard to make out the rough stone walls at all. The only light was blue and flickering, and came from the giant TV set bolted high on one of the walls.

  ‘Oi, Chookie, some kids to see you.’ Dahlia the Dazzler paused. ‘Well, not kids as such,’ she amended. ‘No goats at all, in fact. One human in a tatty tunic, one puppy dog, and a zombie.’

  ‘I’m a werewolf,’ said Boo firmly.

  ‘And I’m the Queen of Wonderland,’ said Dahlia. She grinned at him. ‘Don’t snarl at me, sonny. I really am the Queen of Wonderland. They made me honorary queen when I saved them from a plague of bogey ants. The Greedle wanted their recipe for honeydew nectar. Lovely stuff, that nectar, but it always made me fart.’ She turned on the lights then pressed a remote control on the wall. The TV screen went blank. ‘Chookie! Are you awake?’

  ‘Clawk! Clawk! Clawk! Of course I’m awake.’ Miss Cassandra stood up, ruffling her feathers and blinking at them vaguely. ‘I was just closing my eyes there for a second till they got to the exciting bit.’

  ‘Excuse us, Miss Cassandra,’ said Yesterday politely from the doorway.

  Miss Cassandra swung round, flapping her wings. ‘I see lumps of rotten chicken meat! Maggots! Vile stenches!’

  ‘I think that my lunch,’ rumbled Mug. ‘We just had good party.’

  Miss Cassandra blinked her tiny chicken eyes. ‘Ah, yes, I knew they were there somewhere. How can I help you all?’

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ said Dahlia the Dazzler. ‘I’ll see you around, kids. Even if you don’t see me.’ She tottered off down the corridor.

  Boo gulped, trying to ignore the gooseflesh under his fur. ‘We think the school is in danger.’

  ‘What? Here? From what?’

  ‘From the Greedle.’

  ‘Clawk! Clawk! Clawk! Clawk! Are you crazy?!’ clucked Miss Cassandra. ‘Why would the Greedle come here?’

  It was a good question. Boo shook his head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘The Greedle is interested in only one thing.’ For once the big chicken seemed alert. Perhaps the nap had refreshed her, thought Boo. ‘That’s food. And I can’t see him going for our tentacle cheesecake.’

  ‘But the Greedle and his Zurms must have come here once,’ put in Yesterday. ‘Otherwise there wouldn’t be a wormhole here.’

  Miss Cassandra nodded her feathered head. ‘True. Once upon a time this whole world was covered in grass and thingummies. You know, the things that smell nice …’

  ‘Old chicken necks?’ offered Boo.

  ‘Flowers?’ said Yesterday.

  ‘Flowers, that was it. You’ve heard of the vanilla orchid?’

  Yesterday and Boo nodded. Mug just looked blank. ‘You get vanilla flavouring from the vanilla orchid. But this mountain grew the Fuffuf flower — even more delicious than va
nilla.’ Miss Cassandra sighed. It was a chickeny sound, but still a sigh. ‘There were Heroes in those days, too. But not here. There was no School for Heroes. And no Rest in Pieces. Heroes lived in our own universes and did the best we could. But then the Greedle invaded this world, killed the inhabitants, took the Fuffuf flowers and made the Zurms dig so deeply that molten rock burnt up from the centre of the world to make volcanoes erupt so no one else would ever get Fuffuf flowers again. The destruction of a whole world shocked the universes. At the next Conference of Heroes we decided to have a Hero centre here, on the world the Greedle had tried to destroy. Old Heroes could retire, and teach young Heroes. The universes need more Heroes. And here we are.’

  ‘So there’s no reason for the Greedle to come here,’ said Yesterday slowly.

  Miss Cassandra shook her feathered head. ‘No nice yum-yums any more. Nothing but a bunch of Heroes. Why would the Greedle want to waste its monsters fighting us? All of us have defeated its minions many many times.’

  ‘Could you still look again?’ asked Yesterday quietly. ‘Please? A proper Finding of the whole school. I know there are lots of Heroes on lookout. But a Finding uncovers hidden evil, too. You don’t do Findings of the school, do you?’

  Miss Cassandra stared down her beak at the three of them for a moment. Then she nodded. ‘Very well. I must admit I hardly ever bother to do a Find at the school. There’s already too much Finding work locating bogeys in the otherworlds. You did very well with those bunnies, by the way. I was having a Find yesterday and do you know what? Kids in one universe are actually keeping them as pets! Rabbits! That could never have happened before you tamed them.’ She shook her head thoughtfully, making her feathers fluff. ‘Come to think of it, it has been at least six months since I did a Find over the school … Well, we’ll see. Come on.’ She began to strut out of the TV room.