Wolfie (2 page)

Dad had bought a dog basket too. But it was much too small for the wolf.

“Funny that,” said Dad, scratching his head. “It was the biggest they had. It will just have to sleep on the floor.”

After tea, Uncle Joe went home. Then it was time for Lucie’s bath. Then bed. Lucie’s Dad walked the wolf up and down the street. Then her parents went to bed too.

Lucie lay still in bed, but she did not sleep.

All was dark.

The house grew quieter. And quieter. Eventually it was so quiet you would have been able to hear a pin drop.

Or a wolf, breathing.

T
he moonlight lay in bars across the floor as Lucie slid her feet from under the covers. Through the gap in the curtains she could see a full moon.
The church clock showed midnight.

Gently, ever so gently, she eased open her bedroom door and slipped out onto the landing.

For a moment she stood listening. She could hear nothing at all: no cars on the street, no wind in the leaves. She could not even hear the fridge humming from the kitchen. It was as if the house
were under a spell.

Then she heard it again. The gentle pant of a wolf’s breathing.

Lucie set off down the stairs. Her feet were bare and made no sound. As she went, she could not help thinking that it was probably not a very sensible thing to do, to go all by herself to see a
wolf. But you cannot always be sensible in life. This was something Lucie had already discovered.

She reached the hall, and crossed the cold, red tiles. Slowly, ever so slowly, she pushed open the kitchen door. Then she stepped inside.

The wolf was sitting there, still as a statue, its eyes glittering like marbles in the moonlight.

“Hello, Wolf,” whispered Lucie.

For a moment they just watched each other, the red-haired girl in her blue pyjamas, and the great, wild creature, silver in the moonlight.

Then the wolf yawned. Its top lip curled back and its sharp teeth were on display. They were really very sharp indeed.

“Greetings, She-Child,” it said.

Lucie felt surprised and not surprised, both at the same time.

“Are you going to eat me?” she asked. It was the first thing that came into her head and she found she very much wanted to know the answer.

“Why do you think I want to eat you?”

“That’s what all wolves do. In storybooks, I mean. And you didn’t eat any of your dog food.”

The wolf looked at her consideringly. “I
could
eat you, I suppose. If it’s what you want.”

“Oh, it isn’t,” said Lucie quickly. “Really. What’s your name?”

“My name is Fang-That-Bites-Sharp-In-The-Forest,” said the wolf. She curled back her lips, and Lucie saw that her name suited her very well.

“Can I call you Fang for short?” she asked. “Your full name is rather a mouthful.”

“Nonsense,” said the wolf. “It’s not a mouthful. How would
you
like to be shortened?” It glared at Lucie, and she thought it best to change the subject.

“You’re a girl wolf, aren’t you?” asked Lucie. “A female, I mean.”

“Of course. Does that surprise you?”

“Well, it’s always a He-Wolf in the storybooks.”

“If you think about it,” said Fang, “you will realise that it cannot
always
be a He-Wolf. Why they should choose them for the storybooks, I cannot say. There are
certainly plenty of us She-Wolves in the world — in so far as there are many of our kind left at all.” Suddenly she looked sad.

“But what are you doing in our kitchen?” asked Lucie.

Fang stood up. Lucie was a little alarmed, but it seemed she only wanted to pace back and forth across the kitchen floor. As she did, her shoulders rippled under her great pelt of silvery fur,
and her tail swept when she turned, like a great plume feather.

“There are not many places where we wolves are welcome, She-Child,” she said. “Think. Where are the woods and the wild mountains, where the deer run and the wolves can chase
them? Where are the caves for the wolves to lodge in the long winter nights? Where are the deep forests, where wolves can gather and howl to the moon?”

“Err, I don’t know,” said Lucie doubtfully. “There aren’t many round here.”

“No,” agreed the wolf. “There aren’t.” She sat down next to the dishwasher and began to scratch her hind leg. “So we wolves have to take what we can
get.” She looked around. “This will have to do.”

“It’s a lot nicer than our old place,” Lucie told her. “Anyway, if you don’t like it you could always try a zoo.”

A growling sound came from Fang’s chest. She turned and looked at Lucie, and her eyes glittered.

“But zoos are horrid,” said Lucie quickly. “I’d never want to live in a zoo!”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Fang. She looked hard at Lucie. She had very strange eyes. Sometimes they looked blue, at other times grey or green.

Suddenly Lucie felt very solemn.

“Fang,” she said, “I’m glad you came to us. I will take care of you. Every way I can. After all, you are meant to be my pet.” Even as she said it, she thought how
stupid it sounded. A creature like a wolf could never be a pet.

“Very well,” said Fang. “
I
will take care of
you
too. Even if you do cut short my name.”

“My name’s Lucie.”

“I know,” said Fang. “Ridiculous short names you humans have! But never mind that. Greetings, Lucie. Well met.”

Fang bowed her head, and Lucie bowed hers in return. Wolves were obviously very polite animals. Yet there was something wild and untamed about Fang all the same.

Suddenly Fang got up. She went quickly to the back door and sniffed at the bottom of it. Then she stood with her head on one side, listening hard.

“What are you doing?” asked Lucie curiously.

“I thought I heard something,” said Fang. “And I am always on my guard. We wolves have our enemies, you know.”

Lucie’s eyes grew big. “Who?” she whispered.

Fang shrugged, the fur rippling around her broad shoulders. “Humans mainly. They are always trying to lock us up, or kill us. Then there are bad wolves too. Or even The Wolf Catcher.
Although I think he is a story made up to frighten cubs.” Lucie shivered, suddenly feeling cold.

“Still,” she said quickly, “Mum and Dad always lock the doors and put the burglar alarm on at night. I don’t think anybody can get in. Or out.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Fang. “If I wanted to get out, I would. I have Magical Powers, you know.”

“Oh, right,” said Lucie. Fang could talk, and that was astonishing enough, but Lucie was not sure she believed in Magical Powers, or not the sort that could magic a wolf through a
locked door.

“You wait and see,” said Fang, who seemed to guess what she was thinking.

Soon after, Lucie went back to bed. The church clock was chiming one o’clock. Lucie’s whole body jumped suddenly, as sometimes happens when you are falling asleep. Her eyes opened
and she stared at the ceiling.

Did it really happen?
she wondered.
Did I really go downstairs and talk with a wolf? Or was it all a dream?

But she was too tired to think. And in a few minutes she was fast asleep.

“G
ood morning,” said Fang as Lucie entered the kitchen next morning.

“Oh good,” said Lucie. “You are real, after all.”

Fang yawned. “Of course I’m real. Where are your parents?”

“Oh, they always sleep late on Sundays. I hope you were comfortable? The floor is rather hard.”

“No matter,” said Fang. “A snow-covered forest is no feather bed, I can tell you. It does no good for a wolf to get soft. And now do you think you could find me something to
eat? I don’t mean to be rude, but that stuff your father gave me is quite inedible!” And she growled, to show just what she thought of the vegetarian dog food.

“I suppose you like meat?”

“I do,” said Fang. “Something like a haunch of venison would go down nicely.”

“I don’t think we have a haunch of venison,” said Lucie. “Dad doesn’t eat meat. Mum and me do, but we mainly eat things like sausages.”

She went to the fridge, and as luck would have it found a pack of sausages on a shelf. “It’s a good thing Mum isn’t very noticing,” said Lucie, fetching a plate.

But Fang did not think much of sausages. They were not what
she
called Fresh Meat, she said, even though Lucie pointed to the date on the packet that showed they were perfectly fresh. She
did not see, Fang went on, why human beings had to take perfectly good meat and then chop it up into tiny pieces and stuff it into tubes so that it did not even
look
like meat anymore.
“I like something that gives my teeth some exercise,” she said. “Something with bone and sinew. Something with
bite
. Wait until I catch you some
real
meat,
Lucie.”

“Err, actually I
like
sausages,” Lucie said. “Do you want these or don’t you?”

“No, thank you. We wolves can go for days at a time with no food, you know. I can wait a little longer. Besides, even if your mother is as unnoticing as you say, I don’t think we
should rouse her suspicions.”

“You’re probably right,” said Lucie, putting the sausages back in the fridge. “Also I think —”

At that moment, the door opened, and Mum came into the room. She was wearing a dressing-gown and still looked half-asleep. “Goodness, Lucie,” she said, “who are you talking
to?”

“I’m just talking to the wol — I mean Wolfie,” said Lucie hastily. “People do talk to their pets you know.”

Mum flopped into a chair. “
Wolfie?
You mean the dog? Is that what you’ve called it?”

She looked at Fang, as if she were noticing her properly for the first time. Fang stared back, looking more wolf-like than ever. Mum fidgeted. “Goodness, it is
big
, isn’t
it?” she said after a moment.

“Not really,” said Lucie. “No bigger than yesterday.”

“Well, it looks big to me.”

“I like big dogs.”

“But they need a lot of exercise.”

“Well, we do have the garden — and the park.”

“Hmm,” said Mum.

“And I’m not sure about the name yet. I might call her Snowy.”

Fang gave her a Look which showed just what she thought of Snowy.

“So you’ve found out it’s a she, have you?” said Mum.

“Yes. Err — I could see when I was tickling her tummy.”

Fang gave Lucie
another
Look.

Mum sighed. “I don’t know, Lucie. I have to say I’m wondering now why Uncle Joe didn’t give us something a bit smaller —”

“But you hate little yappy dogs!” said Lucie quickly.

“It wouldn’t have to be
little
. Just about any dog would be smaller than — than Wolfie.”

“But I like her!”

“And Wolfie might be better off living with someone else, someone who could take her for long walks, maybe someone who lived in the country.”

Lucie thought about Fang living in the country. She imagined Fang in a field of nice, plump sheep. But in any case, there was no way she was ever giving up her wolf.

“No!”

“We could get a poodle. We could call it Fifi or Minette —”

“NO!” yelled Lucie. “She’s mine!”

“But yesterday you kept saying she was a wolf.”

“I know,” said Lucie. She made herself laugh. “What a silly! As if Uncle Joe would ever give me a wolf! Hee hee!”

She kept laughing in this silly way, until Mum joined in and laughed in a silly way too. After that Mum made herself some coffee and managed to drink it without glancing all the time at Fang
— or not more than once every two minutes. But when they heard Dad’s feet coming down the stairs, Mum nipped out of the kitchen and went to meet him in the hall.

Lucie sneaked over to the kitchen door. It was open just a crack and she put her ear right against the gap. She could hear Mum rattling on, and the words “un chien énorme!”
and then Dad said, “You know I never understand a word you say when you rattle on in French.”

After that they whispered in English. Lucie could only catch the odd phrase.

“…seems to have her heart set on it…know what I think…
far
too big…what will it
eat
…doesn’t like that dog food…way it stares at
you…quite peculiar”

“Nonsense, Louise,” said Dad in a much louder voice. “You didn’t feel like this yesterday.
I
think it’s a fine animal. And it will make a splendid guard
dog.”

“I suppose so.” Mum sounded doubtful.

“Anyway, it was a present.”

“True…and she likes it now. Oh dear. Well. We’ll have to keep an eye on things, that’s all.”

Lucie scooted away from the door. Fang gave her another Look, as if to say she didn’t think much of eavesdropping. “It’s all very well looking down your nose,” Lucie
hissed. “But it’s about
you
, you know.”

She sat down quickly and was eating her cornflakes when her parents came into the room.

“Well, well, here you are with your new pet,” said Dad heartily, as if he hadn’t just been talking about them in the hall. “Sleep well? I must say it was very good in the
night. I didn’t hear a bark or a whine.”