The Winter Wolf

by Holly Webb

  The same coat Amelia could see now, draped over the old armchair in the attic.

  She was back.

  “Hello…” she whispered to Freddie, and his massive tail wagged so hard it bumped against the side of the chair. He had his front paws up on the seat next to her, and his head on one side, as though he was asking something.

  “How did you get up here, hey? I suppose I didn’t shut the door properly. Did you sniff me out? And what do you want? Oh! Are you not supposed to sit on chairs? Well, this is only an old scruffy one…” Amelia shifted herself sideways a bit, leaving a space for Freddie to leap up.

  He snuggled delightedly into the gap, and sat there next to her, looking pleased with himself and panting. His tongue was huge, and it stuck out a little bit, giving him a foolish, friendly look. Amelia wondered why she had been so scared of him. His fur was browner than Frost’s, but he had the same dark eyes and pointed, velvety ears.

  “I suppose you’re related to wolves,” Amelia told him sleepily. “But I bet you’ve never hunted anything in your life. Except maybe squirrels in the park.”

  Freddie whined hopefully at the mention of squirrels, and Amelia giggled. “No, I didn’t mean I’ve spotted one, sorry.”

  The big dog sighed and flopped down half in her lap, just as Frost had that night in the hollow tree. Was that last night? Amelia frowned, trying to work it out. Last night – or hundreds and thousands of nights ago. She didn’t know. Maybe it didn’t matter.

  Freddie sniffed curiously at her hands, and Amelia gently pulled the diary away. He’d probably chew it, if she let him.

  “No, we’re going to read it,” she whispered, rubbing the soft fur round his ears. “I have to know the rest of the story.”

  “Open this one, Amelia,” Mum said, handing her a small, square parcel, and smiling hopefully.

  Amelia giggled as Freddie stuck his great nose over her arm to sniff at the parcel. He had several presents of his own, but he still insisted on checking out hers and Tom’s, just in case they might taste good. He was sitting in between them, to make sure he didn’t miss anything. And occasionally he’d pick his way through the litter of wrapping paper to keep an eye on Bella and Lara and Anya.

  “Is it chocolate?” Tom asked, eyeing the present. “Don’t open the box in front of Freddie if it is. He thinks chocolate is the best thing in the world, just because it’s really bad for dogs and he isn’t allowed it. He nicked a Mars bar out of my hand once, and it was gone in one gulp. Mum rang the vet’s and they said there wasn’t really that much chocolate in a Mars, so it was OK. But since then he’s got a taste for it…”

  “I think it’s too heavy to be chocolate,” Amelia said, feeling the edges of the parcel. “It’s quite hard, too.”

  “Open it!” Tom said. “Honestly, you’re so slow! I’d have ripped the paper off ages ago!”

  Amelia grinned. Now that she wasn’t scared of Freddie, it seemed that she wasn’t scared of Tom’s sharp tongue any more, either. And his dark, floppy hair reminded her of Noah. He was even quite funny sometimes. He’d pulled her and Freddie all the way back up the lane on the sledge the day before. He said Freddie didn’t like having cold paws. Amelia had made Tom a cup of hot chocolate afterwards to say thank you.

  Amelia peeled the paper off extra slowly, just to annoy him, and Tom slumped back on the sofa, and stared at the ceiling as if he couldn’t stand it.

  “Oh!” Amelia gasped and nearly dropped the parcel.

  “What is it?” Tom sat up suddenly, not wanting to miss anything.

  “It’s a picture…”

  “I thought it was something really exciting!” Tom muttered.

  “It is…” Amelia whispered. But she couldn’t tell him why.

  “Do you like it?” Mum smiled at her. “I thought she looked a little bit like you. I wasn’t sure if you’d want it, because of the wolf, but it’s so beautiful. When I saw the framed print on the gallery website, and I knew we were coming here, to Noah Allan’s house, it just seemed perfect… We could go and see the real painting some time, if you like, Amelia.”

  “It does look like you, actually,” Tom agreed, glancing between Amelia and the painting in her hands. “If you were wearing funny clothes. That bonnet thing is hilarious!”

  Amelia ran her finger over the dress in the picture. Grace’s brown print dress. And Frost, staring out at them, his ears pricked up as if he wanted Noah to come and play with them in the snow.

  “Noah remembered us,” she whispered.

  Read an extract from

  Sara’s snowy adventure…

  The garden looked like an illustration from a fairy tale. Sara had seen snow before, of course, but this was so deep, and so clean and new, that everything shimmered and sparkled in the thin, clear sunlight.

  “I hope it doesn’t melt,” Sara said to herself, glancing up at the sky. But it didn’t feel like it would. The sunshine hardly had any warmth in it, and she was cold, even wrapped up in her coat and long scarf. She stepped out on to the grass. At least, she thought it was the grass. She had to step carefully – she could have been standing on anything. Sara held out her hands to steady herself. She was glad that Grandad didn’t have a pond – she might walk out into the middle of it in this.

  “This is definitely the bit of grass between the roses and the wall,” Sara muttered to herself, frowning and trying to remember the layout of the garden. She knew exactly what it looked like, almost as well as she knew her garden at home! But she’d never tried to walk round it blindfolded, and that was what it felt like.

  The snow crunched and squeaked under her boots as she tracked across the lawn, admiring her footprints. It was about twenty centimetres deep, she thought. Not quite high enough to go over the top of her boots. But not far off.

  Sara turned and looked back at her trail. The prints were really crisp, as though she’d shaped them with a knife. The snow was calling for her to build something in it. But not just a snowman. Somehow that wasn’t right for the magical feel of the morning. Sara moulded a snowball thoughtfully, pressing it together between her gloved hands, and enjoying the feel of the snow under her fingers.

  Then she smiled. Of course. Grandad’s story last night. She was going to make a snow bear.

  Once she had the idea, it came easily. The snow was a little powdery, but it held together well enough, and the shape she had in mind wasn’t very complicated. Sara loved polar bears and she had lots of toy ones at home, of all sizes, and a little notebook with a polar bear photo on the cover.

  The bear was sitting up, almost like a boy slouching against a wall, with his hind paws stuck out in front of him. So it was easy enough to heap up a mound of snow to be his back, stretching it out into two fat back paws. The head was harder – when she tried to build the snow out into a pointed bear face, it just fell off. In the end she rolled a sort of triangular snowball, and balanced it on the top, with little snowballs for ears. Then she shaped some of the body into front paws, hanging down at the sides.

  Sara stood back, admiring her bear. He was almost finished, but there was something missing. She pursed her lips thoughtfully, and then sighed. The eyes. She needed some little stones, or something like that – but everything was buried under the snow. She glanced around, and managed to find a couple of dark, withered rose leaves, still just about visible under the snow covering the bushes. She pushed them into place on either side of the long white muzzle, but they didn’t look quite right.

  Someone laughed behind her, and she turned to see Grandad standing in the doorway.

  “He’s fantastic, Sara!”

  She grinned at him. “He is nice,” she agreed. “But he isn’t finished, Grandad. His face looks wrong. It’s mostly the eyes. I can’t find anything to make them out of.”

  Grandad nodded, and then rubbed his hands together. “I know. Give me just a minute.” He hurried indoors, and came back, smiling, holding out a hand to her.

  Sara tramped to the door, feeling the cold
now that she’d stopped building. “Oh, they’re perfect,” she said delightedly, picking the bits of green sea glass from Grandad’s hand. “I should have thought of that. Can I really borrow them? Won’t they get lost in the snow?”

  Grandad had a jar of sea glass on the kitchen windowsill, all shades of green, and even a couple of tiny blue pieces. He picked it up when he went walking on the beach, and now, when the sun shone through it on the windowsill, it looked like a tiny jarful of the sea inside the house.

  “Of course you can. You’ll just have to go hunting on the beach for some more if they disappear when your bear melts. I’m sure we’ll spot them in the grass, though.”

  Sara ran back to the bear, taking out the leaves and pressing the green glass into the snow. She smiled at the difference they made to the long white face. He was suddenly real, a snow bear sitting in the garden.

  She couldn’t help glancing back at him, as she hurried in to eat breakfast. She had the strangest feeling that he was waiting for her to return.

  Read an extract from

  Lotta’s magical journey…

  Lotta stood watching as the reindeer herd set off. Her father’s dog, a beautiful creature with a golden-orange coat, leaped down off the sledge where he’d been sitting and began to howl. Pappa was telling him to, Lotta could see now. He must have been trained to howl on command, to keep the reindeer bunched together. It made sense. If they straggled out in a long line, it would be harder to make sure they were all keeping up. There were other dogs hurrying round the herd, too – each of her uncles and cousins seemed to have their own herding dog.

  She could hardly see the herd now. The final few reindeer were vanishing over the rise in the snowy ground, and one of her uncles was turning back to wave one last time, before following on his skis. All that was left was the churned-up snow, marked by hundreds of hoofprints and the sledge runners.

  “Come on, Lotta. Let’s go and check on that little calf.” Erika grabbed her hand and pulled her away. “Aunt Inge, we’re going to see the new baby reindeer!” she called to Lotta’s mamma.

  Lotta followed Erika past the lavvus to a quiet space among the scrubby trees where a reindeer was grazing, digging through the snow with her front hoof and looking for lichen. She kept glancing around restlessly, but when the two girls came close, she backed away, towards a small brown bundle curled up in the snow.

  “Isn’t he tiny?” Lotta whispered. The calf was so small and soft-looking, its fur a golden brown, darker round his nose and his eyes, almost as though he was wearing sunglasses. She longed to stroke him, or pick him up, but she didn’t think his mother would like it.

  “Well, he is only a couple of days old,” Erika pointed out. “I wonder why he came so early. It’s nice to see one so young – because we stay here and the mothers go off to the calving grounds, we hardly ever see such a baby.”

  “I don’t think she wants us to go near him,” Lotta said anxiously. The mother reindeer was eyeing them, as though she wasn’t sure who to trust. “It must be strange for her, being left behind when all the others have gone to the calving grounds. She probably doesn’t understand what’s happening.”

  “I’ve got some grain for her. If we give her some food, she might let us get closer to the calf.” Erika dug into her coat pocket and the reindeer snuffled eagerly, stepping towards the girls.

  “She’s really hungry.” Lotta peered round the reindeer to look at the calf, and he looked back at her shyly, his eyes huge and dark.

  Erika laughed as the mother reindeer gobbled eagerly at the grain, and then snuffled against her affectionately. “Do you like us now, hmmm?”

  The reindeer calf struggled up on to his long, fragile-looking legs and stumbled over to his mother. He tried to suckle, nuzzling at the fur underneath her, and she peered down at him worriedly.

  “Pappa said he wasn’t suckling very well,” Lotta remembered. “Maybe she isn’t making enough milk for him.”

  Erika nodded. “Well, she should be in the calving grounds, shouldn’t she, where the food’s better.”

  The part of the forest they were in now was quite open, without too many trees, and that meant the snow was thick and heavily frozen. Lotta frowned, trying to remember what Oldeforeldre had told her about the reindeer migration. In a week or so, the rest of the herd would follow the mother reindeer to the calving grounds, where the snow would be melting and the grasses showing through. Then, a little later, when all the calves were big enough to make the journey, the two herds would go on together to the summer pastures.

  “There isn’t a lot of grain to spare for feeding her,” Erika murmured. “We have to trade for it, with reindeer hides and dried meat. Grain’s expensive.” She chewed her lip and dug at the snow with her boot. “She really ought to be feeding herself, but the ice crust over the snow’s so hard here. It’s taking her ages to dig through it to find the lichen to eat.”

  Lotta picked up a piece of branch and dug under the snow. It was frozen solid, and she had to work at it. But the reindeer sniffed interestedly as Lotta scraped back the snow, revealing the lichen on the ground. She took a couple of steps forward and began to nibble at it gratefully. Her calf stumbled after her and went on trying to suckle.

  “Maybe we could keep helping her dig?” Lotta suggested to Erika, rather uncertainly. Perhaps it was something they weren’t supposed to do. She didn’t know, after all.

  But Erika nodded. “Uncle Peter did say to look after her. That must be the best way to help her, I think.” She fetched another branch, and began to scratch in the deep snow. “Ah, look, here you are! A big clump!”

  The reindeer pushed Erika out of the way eagerly as she smelled the feathery, greyish-green lichen clump buried in the snow, and both girls giggled.

  “We should name them,” Lotta said, as she went on digging. “Her and the calf.”

  Erika looked rather surprised. “I suppose we could. What shall we call her?” She grinned. “Pushy? Greedyguts?”

  “No! Something nice.” Lotta looked thoughtfully at the reindeer, trying to think of a good name. She still had her antlers, and her coat was beautifully thick. The reindeer stared sideways at Lotta, watching her with one dark eye while she munched on the lichen.

  “She’s got a mark on her side, here, look.” Lotta pointed to a darker patch of fur. “It’s almost like a flower. If we call her Flower, then we’ll remember, and we’ll always be able to pick her out, even when she’s back with the others.”

  She gave a little gulp then, wondering if she would still be with Erika and Flower when they got to the summer pastures. That was weeks away. Would she be back home by then, with her real family?

  With Flower nuzzling against her gratefully as she gobbled the lichen, and the baby reindeer giving her shy looks as he suckled, Lotta wasn’t sure if she wanted to go back. Not just yet. She had loved the stories about the reindeer girl so much, and now it seemed she was living them.

  And she liked her matter-of-fact cousin, too. Erika seemed to have a silly sense of humour, even though she was a bit bossy. She definitely had a cheeky grin.

  “Flower.” Erika nodded. “I like it! What shall we call the baby?”

  “I don’t know.” Lotta shook her head. “He hasn’t got any marks. He’s just really sweet. We could call him Sweetie, maybe.”

  “I’m not calling him Sweetie!” Erika snorted. “Imagine shouting that out in front of everybody! My brothers would laugh their heads off. Besides, what about when he’s nearly as tall as you? We won’t want to call him Sweetie then.”

  “All right. What’s your favourite name?” Lotta said. “Lars? Johan?”

  “He doesn’t look like a Lars… And Johan would be too confusing, with Cousin Johan as well.” Erika stared at the little calf thoughtfully. “He does look like a Karl, though! Let’s call him Karl!”

  Copyright

  www.hollywebbanimalstories.com

  STRIPES PUBLISHING

  An imprint of Little Tiger Pres
s

  1 The Coda Centre, 189 Munster Road,

  London SW6 6AW

  Text copyright © Holly Webb, 2014

  Illustrations copyright © Artful Doodlers, 2014

  Cover illustration copyright © Simon Mendez, 2014

  Author photograph copyright © Nigel Bird

  Puppy and kitten illustrations copyright © Sophy Williams

  My Naughty Little Puppy illustration copyright © Kate Pankhurst

  First published as an ebook by Stripes Publishing in 2014

  eISBN: 978–1–84715–559–7

  The right of Holly Webb and Artful Doodlers to be identified as the author and illustrator of this work respectively has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, this publication may only be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any forms, or by any means, with prior permission in writing of the publishers or, in the case of reprographic production, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  www.stripespublishing.co.uk