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his wife jumped all over him.
    "Ronald, this fixation of hers about talking with animals has gone far enough. No, it's gone way too far. You simply have to put a stop to it, right this moment."
    He looked helplessly toward Samantha and shrugged his shoulders. He knew there was no way he could convince his wife Samantha actually did have such a talent. Elaine didn't want to have a daughter who was that abnormal and she had closed her mind to the very possibility that she could speak to animals and they to her.
    "Dad, you know I can, don't you? The animals don't really talk like us, but the sounds they make are like they're talking to me and I hear them like that. Mom, how do you think I got Tetmulic to let us play with her pups?"
    "And I suppose Tet... tetlu, well, whatever you call it, is that wolf's name isn't it?" her mother responded. Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
    "Elaine, she can communicate with animals. You know she can."
    The woman set her face firmly in its "no nonsense" expression. "She cannot talk to animals, Ronald. The most she is capable of is perhaps showing no fear so they don't attack her. But she has to get out of that or one day one of those dangerous creatures will wind up hurting her."
    "Mom, I don't play with animals that are dangerous. Besides, I could tell if they were. And they like me. They think it's wonderful that at least one person can talk to them when no one else can."
    Her mother threw up her hands in defeat and flounced from the room. But Samantha and her father knew they hadn't heard the last of it.
    ***
    Samantha endured the school days by anticipating the three o'clock bell when she could go home and talk with the chipmunk and little half grown rabbit while pretending to help in the garden. Both animals lived at the edge of the fence and had created tunnels to get into the rows of lettuce, carrots, and other vegetable they liked. However, talking to them was rather like conversing with a not too bright baby just learning to say da-da and ma-ma. Most of their thoughts were of food, avoiding the weasel that periodically came into the area seeking prey, and curiosity about the human cub who could miraculously speak their language, such as it was.
    Samantha never interfered with the food chain of the animals because she knew they accepted it as simply part of life. She also knew that all animals thought of humans as the top predator in the endless cycle of life. It was disheartening many times but she realized animals had to eat, just as humans did, and she had learned to accept it.
    After talking to the chipmunk named Buk and the rabbit named Per, she found herself longing for a brighter animal to converse with. There was no chance though, because Elaine watched her very closely to make sure she didn't sneak off into the woods.
    ***
    Curiously, it was an animal coming to Wikluk that capped the disparagement, scorn and ridicule Samantha was being subjected to. Ordinarily Alaska has little problem with rabies, but any time a creature came down with the disease it was naturally a cause for great alarm. Anyone who was bitten would have to wait while the anti-serum was flown in, then take the excruciatingly painful shots for a period of ten days.
    The wolverine was in the last stages of rabies when it wandered into the school grounds. Wolverines are bad tempered at best, and really evil when stirred up like this one was, from its unquenchable thirst and constant buzzing pain in its head. Samantha heard the screams from the bench she was sitting on, having lunch with two other girls, the only ones at school who were still speaking kindly to her. She looked up and saw the animal approaching a group of first and second graders. The small children were frozen by fear of the grunting, slavering, dirty and snarling wolverine, who wanted nothing so much as to have its sickness end. Animals have no concept of suicide however, or this one would certainly have done itself in somehow.
    Samantha immediately