Red Rider's Hood

10 "The way of the wild is our way, too"

I got to know all of the Wolves by name―or at least by the nicknames Cedric had given them. There was Warhead, who was always ready for a fight. There was the kid with a head shaped kind of like an alien's, called Roswell. There was El Toro, Moxie, and the kid named Sherman, who everyone called "the Tank"―twenty-two in all. By the end of my first week, I knew where most of them lived, and they knew where I spent my time, too, because there was always someone tailing me. Cedric wasn't about to trust me entirely―not considering my family tree―so lessons with Grandma on the craft of wolf hunting had to be in short sessions so as to not arouse suspicion.

"Twenty-two Wolves are gonna be hard to put down for a boy, a girl, and an old woman," Grandma said one afternoon. "Especially if we got no master plan."

Grandma was big on "master plans." Me, my plans kind of came to me in spurts. I liked it that way. It kept me on my feet, able to move with the flow of things. But lately that flow was taking some strange new directions.

"It's a dangerous game you're playing, Red," she was always telling me. But at the same time I could see a glimmer of admi­ration in her eyes. Like tricking Cedric made me worthy of being her grandson.

By the end of the second week, I was the Wolves' official errand boy. They laughed and called me "the Wolverine," like I was a werewolf Cub Scout. I guess they didn't know that a wolverine could be fiercer than a wolf.

All that time I was learning things I couldn't have learned any other way. Like which famous citizens from history had been werewolves (like Frank Sinatra), and how that crazy old woman with the golf-ball eyes managed to get a lock of his hair (you don't want to know).

On the night when the moon had slimmed to a dying cres­cent in the sky, Cedric took the gang up to the roof of his apart­ment building, to get away from the heat and humidity that fell on the city like a hot, sopping rag. There was something the others didn't like about going up there. I could tell from the moment Cedric kicked open the door to the roof.

There were a bunch of chairs thrown around up there, still wet from an afternoon rain. In a corner was an old, rusty weight set, and I almost laughed at the thought that werewolves needed to pump iron. Rather than moving into standard hang poses, the Wolves just waited at the door. Loogie coughed up a wad and spat it, hitting Klutz's shoe. They fought about it until Cedric shouted at them, and they stopped.

I didn't like this. I didn't like the way they were all acting, like they were scared of something up here. Just then Cedric came up behind me and kicked me to the ground.

"Ow!" I scraped my arm on the gritty tar paper of the roof.

"The Wolverine's gotta toughen himself up," Cedric said. I tried to get up, and he put a foot on my chest, pushing me down again.

"You want my help, stop treating me like an animal."

"We're the animals," he said. "But you haven't earned your fangs yet."

I got up and readied myself for the next blow. "So I gotta let you beat me up? That's how I earn my fangs?"

A/C came forward. "The pack leader's gotta show his dom­inance," he said. "The way of the wild is our way, too."

"He fought us all up here," said Marvin, smiling like he couldn't wait to see me beaten to a pulp.

Cedric spun and did a roundhouse kick, smashing me in the side of the head. It would have been more lethal if he actually knew karate, but even so, it was pretty painful. It knocked me to my knees, but I got right back up. He tried it again, but this time I caught his leg and pushed him back.

The other Wolves backed away. The Wolf everyone called El Toro came up to me and whispered, "Don't fight back. Just take it."

Sorry, but that just wasn't the way I was made.

Cedric lunged at me. I stepped aside and threw my fist into his gut. It hurt him, because he wasn't ready, but he tried not to show it. He punched me in the stomach twice as hard, then grabbed me before I could double over from the pain. He lifted me off the ground, and before I knew it, I couldn't see ground beneath me at all―just air. He was holding me by the front of my shirt out over the edge of the fifteen-story roof. I couldn't see his eyes in the dim rooftop light, but I could hear his fury. It came in snarling breaths.

"You hit me!" he growled. "After all I've done for you, you hit me!"

"Self-defense," I said. I tried to squirm out of his grip, and then I realized how stupid that would be―if he lost his grip, I'd fall to my death. The panic was welling up inside of me like a bad school lunch. I tried to speak again, but only a pitiful squeak came out.

"Cedric, don't!" yelled A/C. "He's not a Wolf yet! He'll die!"

A sneaker slipped from my foot, but I never heard it hit the ground, because the ground was so far away. I could still hear the wild snarl in Cedric's voice. "Do you know what happens when one of us falls from this roof?"

"What?" I squeaked out, figuring that if he keeps talking, he's not dropping.

"I knocked Loogie off a few weeks ago," Cedric said. "Accident."

Yeah, right, I thought. Like Hiroshima was an accident. It seemed to me Cedric liked to use Loogie for experiments, like seeing what would happen if a werewolf fell off a roof.

"He landed flat on his back, got broken up real bad."

"Yeah," said Klutz. "It turned him into a sidewalk Loogie."

That started Klutz and Loogie fighting again.

"It sure did hurt, but he healed in a few days," Cedric said. "Werewolves do. But you won't."

"Drop me, and you lose your edge on the hunters," I told him.

"Beg," he demanded. "Beg me not to kill you."

I flashed to the time he had choked me, and I gave up Grandma's money to save myself. Money's one thing, but self-respect is another. I don't beg. Not even for my life. So I whis­pered so only Cedric could hear, "I think you showed enough dominance."

I thought he'd either drop me or throw me back onto the roof. Instead, he set me gently back on my feet. His rage had passed like a summer thunderhead, all rained out before you could find an umbrella.

"Good for you, Wolverine," he said. "You're one step closer."

"He didn't bleed! He didn't bruise!" Marvin complained. "Not even a black eye!"

"You got a problem?" yelled Cedric. "Maybe you want to take a flying leap today?"

That shut Marvin up. The other Wolves came up around me, to congratulate me for passing Cedric's test―I guess the only rule for passing is that you survive. They patted me on the back, they gave me the secret handshake. It took the edge off the anger I felt toward Cedric. In fact, in spite of what I had just been through, I felt an odd sense of accomplishment. A sense of pride.

But I'm just pretending to be one of them, aren't I? Aren't I?

Still, I didn't tell Grandma or Marissa about what happened on that roof.

I didn't see much of Marissa during my first two weeks as a Wolf pledge because Cedric kept me so busy. I went to the antique shop when I could, but the owner was there most of the time, or there were customers, so Marissa and I couldn't really talk. We did get to sit and eat hot dogs one evening on the end of a pier. We had to meet there because it was the only place I knew I could go where a spying Wolf couldn't get close enough to listen.

"Your grandma is teaching me all the stuff you're not getting to learn," Marissa told me. She took another bite of her dog and spoke with her mouth full. I can respect a girl who talks with her mouth full. "Even if you don't know something, I will, so by the time the moon gets full again, we'll be ready."

"Like what stuff is she teaching you?" I was a bit jealous that she got to spend more time with Grandma than me.

"You know," she said, like it was nothing. "How to track supernatural beasts with an ectoplasmic lens, how to slow their transformations with eye of newt and baking soda. Those kinds of things."

"Oh."

"Tell me everything you've learned!" Marissa said. But I shook my head. "Nothing important. Nothing we'll need." She now knew ancient secrets from mysterious werewolf hunters of the past. So I would have some secrets, too.

"Enough of that," I said. "Let's talk about something else."

"What else is there to talk about?"

"Anything but werewolves," I said. And so we talked about the upcoming year at school, movies we wanted to see, music that made you want to dance, and anything that came to mind.

Spending time with Marissa, even though it was only half an hour or so, made everything feel normal just for a while. The fresh river air seemed to blow away all thoughts of dark and unnatural things. But when we left the pier, she went one way, I went another, and there I was again, in the shadows of build­ings, facing the hard concrete reality of Wolves that hid within human flesh.

Tonight would be the new moon, the darkest night of July. Only the stars would peer down from the sky above, so hard to see in the city. It was less than two weeks until the moon would be full again, but I was wasting my time with Marissa, talking about silly things instead of plotting werewolf doom.

I took a shortcut, leaving the relative safety of the busy streets, and turned down an alley full of Dumpsters and deep shadows. It was the kind of place where you find police chalk outlines in the morning. It wasn't too smart of me to walk down that way, but I've always been a little too bold for my own good. My mom would call it foolhardy. Grandma would call it just plain dumb.

Maybe it was just that I felt kind of safe now, being a pledge to the Wolves. Lately, when I got the feeling I was being stalked, I knew it was one of them, tailing me on Cedric's orders. Oddly enough, it gave me a feeling of security, because I was in with them now, and if some thugs ever did actually jump me, I had the distinct feeling that one of my Wolf brothers would be right there to help me fight them off.

Wolf brothers.

It kind of tweaked my spine to think of them as brothers . . . but then, being a brother didn't always mean that you meant one another well. My mom, who was an all-occasion Bible quoter, often told of poor Abel, who was killed by his brother Cain in a field. So if the Wolves were my brothers now, did that make me Cain or Abel? I knew I shouldn't think too much on it, but lately I couldn't help it.

With so much on my mind, I wasn't as observant as I should have been. I was ambushed halfway down the alley. My attacker fell on me, big and broad, cutting across my vision like the moon eclipsing the sun. He smashed into me, and I bounced against a big green Dumpster, my head making the metal ring like I was a bell clapper. I turned and swung, but I was so dis­oriented, I caught nothing but air. The momentum of my own punch spun me around, I slipped in a puddle of alley scum, and hit the ground. When I looked up, I saw that it was none other than Marvin Flowers.

My brain was still too scrambled to speak, but that was just fine with Marvin.

"There's something you had better get straight," he growled. "You wanna be a Wolf, I got no problem with that. But you stay away from my sister." There was a fury in his eyes, and it was nothing like the fury of a wolf. It was human through and through, but that didn't make it any less dangerous.

I could have fought with him, but it wouldn't have been too wise. I was a head shorter, he was still beefed up from his years of football, and his fury gave him even more of an advantage. No, it was unlikely that I'd win this fight with muscle, but maybe I could put a dent in him with words, before he dented the Dumpster with me.

"What's the matter, Marvin? Wolves aren't good enough for your sister? Maybe I should tell Cedric, and see what he thinks?" That gave him pause for thought. With my back against the Dumpster, I pushed myself back to my feet. "How long have you been waiting to get made, Marvin?" I asked. "How many months? Cedric must not be too happy with you if he's waited this long."

The anger didn't leave Marvin's face, but his eyebrows knot­ted with something between confusion and disgust. "What are your lips flapping about?"

"You might act like a werewolf, but you're not one! I saw you touch that silver candleholder. If you were a real werewolf, just touching it would make you swell up like one of those bal­loons in the Thanksgiving Day parade. You're just a pledge like me, and you're mad because you think I'll get 'made' before you do."

"You don't know what you're talking about," he grumbled, but I could tell I had my thumb on a nerve now. "You think you know things," Marvin said, "but you know absolutely nothing."

"You forget that my grandma's a werewolf hunter, and taught me all there is to know about it. So you could say I knew exactly what I was getting into when I decided to join the Wolves. Probably more than anyone else who's ever joined."

Marvin was quiet. I knew I was getting to him. "So tell me, how come Marvelous Marvin Flowers hasn't gotten the bite yet?"

Then Marvin's blank expression stretched into a smile, which was never a good thing. "Maybe Cedric wants it that way," he said. "Maybe Cedric needs a human lookout on the nights they go wolfing."

Well, it made sense, but there was something beneath Mar­vin's gold-toothed grin that was as slimy as a morning snail trail. It made everything he said suspect.

"So, are you gonna stay away from my sister, or not?"

"You were the one who sent me in her direction when you went to steal my grandma's money."

"That was then," he said. "This is now."

A truck turned down the alley. I suppose the sight of other activity in the alley made me feel a little bit bolder. "I make no promises as far as your sister is concerned."

Marvin pursed his lips and nodded. "We could have been friends, Red. But it looks like you just made yourself an enemy." And with that, he grabbed me, lifted me off the ground, and hurled me with his beefy, varsity-trained arms into the Dumpster.

I landed in the trash headfirst, and it was the worst kind of garbage. Rotten vegetables, greasy pasta dregs, and other awful restaurant trash. I righted myself, which was hard in the slip­pery grunge, and suddenly felt something brush across my leg. A pink tail slithered past, attached to a nasty-looking rat. I scrambled to get away, but it didn't matter. Rats were every­where.

"Marvin!" This was one of those high Dumpsters, and climbing out wasn't going to be easy. A rat eyed me with dead-eyed suspicion. "Marvin, I'm gonna kill you, you creep!"

The groan of the truck engine grew louder. Hopefully who­ever was in that truck had seen Marvin throw me in and would help me out. I tried to work my way to the side of the Dump­ster, but it was slow moving, and I kept slipping on the maggoty garbage. There was the sudden clang of metal against metal, followed by another clang, and the whole Dumpster shifted. The rats scrambled up the sides and escaped in a way I could not. That's when I realized what was going on―and what Mar­vin had intended when he tossed me in here.

The truck that had turned down the alley was a trash truck.

The Dumpster began to rise and the floor to tilt, garbage pouring all over me. My feet slid out from under me on the slippery rot. "Hey," I screamed, "stop!" But who was I kid­ding? No one could hear me over the drone of the trash truck. As the Dumpster tilted, I saw that the garbage wasn't just food crud. There were planks of wood, broken bricks, and iron rods from some nearby construction. In a few seconds it was all going to be on top of me, and I thought, What a stupid way to die, tossed out with the trash. I pulled my knees to my chest, gripping my head in crash position, like they do on doomed airplanes, and I said prayers I thought I had forgotten as the whole Dumpster was flipped upside down. I fell into the truck. Iron rods came down on me, missing most of my body, but scraping up my arms real bad. A brick nailed me on the forehead in spite of every attempt to shield my face.

When the trash had settled, and the Dumpster was banging its way back down to the ground, I ran a system check on my whole body. Once I was sure I wasn't dead, I struggled out from underneath the garbage. The trash truck was almost full. I never thought being in a full trash truck could ever be a good thing. But all that garbage beneath me allowed me to get a good grip on the truck's edge and pull myself up. The truck had already left the alley, and with my arm slung over the edge, I waited, hoping that the driver didn't get the bright idea of turning on the compactor while I was hanging there.

We stopped at a red light, and I leaped out, falling to the road. It must have been quite a sight to the other drivers, but that was the last thing I cared about right then. At a nearby cor­ner I snagged some ice from a street vendor's soda bin and pressed it to the knot on my forehead.

So Marvin wanted a war. That was fine by me, because I was more than ready to fight one.