Animal Nature

Chapter 16

Normally when Shy walked to the animal shelter from school, her thoughts enveloped her and she barely noticed her surroundings. Not today. Today the fall foliage jumped out at her with shades of orange, yellow, and red. She kicked up fluffs of leaves with each step. The florist's shop had cornstalks tied to each fence post and an array of pumpkins and autumn flowers in the window.

Shy slowed to a stop and stared at the sign to The Flower Box. After consulting her watch, she went inside.

The scent of flowers overpowered her as soon as the door squeezed shut. She'd never been inside a florist's shop before. There were refrigerator cases containing boxes of corsages and other flower arrangements. Nothing was labeled. Shy sighed. She would have to ask the saleslady.

Shy approached the cash register. A middle-age woman with short brown hair and a pleasant smile sat behind the counter. "Excuse me, do you have any wolfsbane?" Shy asked, already blushing.

"Wolfsbane? Hmm, that's an unusual request, but I do believe we have some. Let me check."

The woman bustled over to the corner and checked several containers of dried flowers. "Yes, right here. This is wolfsbane." She held up a stalk of green leaves with small yellow flowers. "Is this all you want? Not exactly what you'd want for a bouquet."

"Uh, it's for something else. Some craft thing for my mom," Shy lied.

Over the next week, Shy used the last page of her science notebook to record her experiment. One day, she placed small pieces of the wolfsbane in her pockets and bookbag. David's first reaction when he saw her was to wrinkle his nose and say, "What is that smell? Are you wearing perfume?"

"Yes," she lied. "Do you like it?"

It became obvious that he didn't, because he didn't maul her with kisses between classes, and even sat one chair away from her at lunch instead of in the seat next to her.

On Tuesday, she left the wolfsbane at home. David could barely keep his hands off of her.

On Wednesday, she crushed up a bit of the wolfsbane and sprinkled it into David's hair when he wasn't looking. He spent all day scratching.

On Thursday, she put the crushed up wolfsbane in her own hair. When he put his face closed to hers, he started sneezing, and didn't go near her after that.

She and David had a date to the movies Friday night. In the bathroom Shy rubbed the wolfsbane flower against the skin on her neck, at the risk of getting a rash. But her point was proven when David started kissing her neck during the movie and immediately recoiled. "Are you wearing that perfume again?" he asked.

"Sorry," she said.

That night she lay in bed scratching her neck and staring at the moon. It was getting full, three-quarters. She wondered if her wolfsbane experiment had proven anything. She didn't have a control subject, someone she didn't suspect of being a werewolf. Unless...

On Saturday Shy repeated her Monday experiment, but instead of approaching David, she went into the garage, where Billy was cleaning. He'd returned from his trip last weekend with three rabbits and a deer, and the garage was still covered in blood from when he gutted them.

"Hi, Billy."

"Come to whine about my icy cold heart, beg for the lives of those poor wittle bunnies in the freezer?"

"No," Shy said. She walked up to Billy until she was as close as David usually stood to her. "I wanted to ask you something."

Billy glanced up and jumped when he saw her next him. "Uh, sure. What?"

"Do I smell weird?"

"Weird?" Billy leaned over and sniffed. "Naw. You smell like deodorant."

"Oh, okay. Because I'm trying out this new perfume."

"Well, your new perfume smells like deodorant."

Shy walked away satisfied that David had somehow smelled the wolfsbane when no one else could have, although the deodorant thing was a confounding factor. It seemed impossible but true: David was a werewolf.

* * *

David rummaged through the freezer. Where was that steak he'd bought the other day? He needed it much more than the rumblings in his stomach could let on. If he could just rip into a juicy raw steak, he'd be all set. But where was it?

"What are you looking for?"

He glanced at his mother. "Where's that T-bone I had in here?"

"Oh, I cooked it the other night for dinner. If you were ever here, you'd know—"

"You cooked it?"

All his muscles had tensed. He saw that fleeting fear across his mother's face, but instead of feeling guilty, he only got more angry.

"I bought that with my own money! That was for me, not for him!"

"Richard is your stepfather. You can talk about him with a little respect," Mrs. Lupien said. "And I buy steaks all the time. I thought it was one I'd bought."

"This is just great." David slammed the freezer door shut. "Just great."

The phone rang. Mrs. Lupien answered it while glaring at him. "Hello? Shyanne, hi. Sure, he's right here." She silently held the phone out.

He snatched it and turned his back to his mother. "Hey, Shy, what's up?"

"Can you come over?"

"Why?"

"I want to spend some time with you, that's all."

Thoughts raced through his head: Shy's body through all those layers of jeans and sweatshirts she wore, the taste of her skin, that thick brown hair of hers, ripping off her clothes, blood, great gashes in her sides—

"Shy, I can't... Not tonight."

"Why not?"

"I just can't! Leave me alone!"

"What?"

He slammed the phone down.

"David! Call her back. You can't—"

David towered over his mother. "I can, and I will. Now move, I'm outta here."

"You can't speak to me like this. I am your mother! And I forbid you to leave the house. You're being completely rude—"

But David didn't even hear her. He was already out the back door and running toward the forest. It was the one place where he felt like himself these days.