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All she’s gotta do is look at me to know whether it’s drama or comedy. Today, I guess the
Guide
told her I was tuned into a horror marathon. She pursed her lips, read me a bit further, and said, “All right, what’s wrong?”
    I sighed, and tried to figure out what I could get away with telling her. For a second split finer than a neck hair, I thought of telling her everything. That the gang that called themselves the Wolves really were, and they were feeding on innocent townsfolk every full moon. But my parents weren’t exactly the type of people I could talk to about this. My dad was a paramedic; he saw life and death every day, and nothing in between. To him there were neither curses nor miracles, only timing and triage. As for Mom, she was getting a degree in architecture. Her world was all lines and angles on a blueprint. Even in her religious beliefs she went straight by the book. For her there was no thinking outside of the lines. No, I couldn’t let them know, but I couldn’t lie either. I couldn’t tell her Saturday-morning cartoons, when the
TV Guide
on my face said
Creature Feature
.
    â€œMy Mustang got stolen,” I said. It was true, and it was horrific, at least to me.
    â€œOh, Red,” she said. “And you just finished working on it!”
    â€œI never should have left it parked on the street,” I said, my anger real. “I should have put it in Grandma’s garage.”
    â€œWe’ll go to the police,” she told me. “We’ll make a report.”
    â€œI already did,” I told her. “With Grandma.”
    I knew she’d call Grandma to talk about it, but I also knew that Grandma was quick enough to play along and not give away the truth.
    â€œYou’ll get it back,” Mom said. “I know you will.”
    â€œSo do I,” I told her. She hugged me, gave me some bus fare, then left. Once she was gone, I took a few sprigs of wolfsbane from my pocket, made myself a cup of tea just likeGrandma taught me, and drank it down to the bitter, weedy dregs. Then I went out looking for Cedric Soames.
    Cedric’s little sister was at her usual spot, jumping rope with her friends, doing it so well, you’d think double Dutch should be an Olympic sport. When she saw me signal to her, she hopped out of the spinning circle of ropes and skipped over to me.
    â€œCedric said you’d be coming by,” she said, flashing me her ugly smile. “He said to warn you not to look for him and his friends, or he might have to do something nasty.”
    â€œWhere is he?”
    â€œDriving around in our new car.” Tina popped a pink bubble that stuck to her face. “It’s nice. But I guess you already know how nice it is.”
    I huffed angrily, and she wrinkled her nose. “You got bad breath. Smells like you been chewing crabgrass.”
    I blew more air in her direction, wondering if Tina might be a werewolf, too.
    â€œEwww,” she said. “Go suck an Altoid.”
    Yes, I had to admit, wolfsbane breath was pretty gross—but the fact that she still stayed there after smelling it meant Cedric hadn’t given his little sister the bite.
    â€œYou tell your brother he’s gonna pay for that car with silver.”
    â€œWhat’s that supposed to mean?”
    â€œHe’ll know.”
    I walked off, and she returned to her friends, but when I looked back, it seemed to me that she couldn’t pick up the rhythm of the ropes no matter how hard she tried.

    For three days, rather than taking the bus, I rode my old red Schwinn around town, always imagining I’d see my Mustang just around the corner. I wasn’t quite sure what I’d do if I came across Cedric, so perhaps it was best I didn’t find it.
    Marissa and I worked day and night to track down the werewolf hunters. It was a dangerous business, because if word of what we were doing got back to Cedric, we’d be