Нил Шустерман: Red Rider's Hood

"So, we've got a little trust and a little suspicion," I said, trying to referee before they got too angry at each other. "Maybe having both is a good thing." I turned to Marissa. "Marvin doesn't have to know everything you do, does he?"

Marissa sighed and shook her head. That seemed to settle Grandma a bit. "The only ones I'll trust are those hunters," Grandma said.

"Will you trust me, Grandma?" I asked.

I couldn't see her eyes behind her glasses, which had fogged up from the steam rising from her mug. "Of course, Red. Of course."

We stayed over at Grandma's that night, since the moon was still full. Marissa told her parents she was staying with a friend, and mine were thrilled when I called to tell them I was spend­ing some quality time with Grandma. When the sun rose, Marissa and I took the Avenue C bus, sitting silently together in the back. Only after she rang the bell for her stop did she turn to me. "Last night was the third night of the full moon, so we won't have to face any wolves until next month."

But I shook my head. "We'll still have to face wolves," I told her. "They'll just be human ones."

"True enough."

I pounded my fist into my hand with such force my palm stung. A sudden fury raged in me that I couldn't put down. "I could take on Cedric right now."

"You gotta be patient," Marissa said. "Being reckless right now will get you killed."

I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could, she closed her hand gently over my fist. Then she thought for a moment. "Live by your impulses, and you'll be just like them. You're bet­ter than that, aren't you, Red?"

I couldn't answer her. Partly because I couldn't stop staring at her hand on mine, but also because I didn't know.

When I got home, Dad was gone―he was on one of his twelve-hour shifts―but Mom was still getting ready to leave for the day.

"It was nice of you to stay over with Grandma last night," she said. "She gets lonely in that house all by herself. You're a good grandson, Red."

The biggest problem with my mom is she can read me like a TV Guide. 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.

"My Mustang got stolen," I said. It was true, and it was hor­rific, at least to me.

"Oh, Red," she said. "And you just finished working on it!"

"I never should have left it parked on the street," I said, my anger real. "I should have put it in Grandma's garage."

"We'll go to the police," she told me. "We'll make a report."

"I 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.

"You'll get it back," Mom said. "I know you will."

"So 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 like Grandma 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.

"Cedric 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."

"Where is he?"

"Driving 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.

"Ewww," 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.

"You tell your brother he's gonna pay for that car with silver."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"He'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 history.

Most of Marissa's time was spent at the library, scouring old newspapers and public records for clues. She discovered the dates and names of people who'd gone missing. She found out which homes were bought and sold during those dark times, and even found out where some of the sellers moved to―hop­ing that it would lead us to the hunters.

Me, I didn't have the patience for that sort of thing. I had to be on the prowl, so I took to the streets in Grandma's neigh­borhood. I started mowing lawns and doing other favors for some of Grandma's older neighbors, getting them to like me and trust me enough―and for me to trust them enough―to ask them questions.

"I've been in this very house for thirty-six years," one old-timer said as I helped him take his trash cans out to the curb.

"Wow, that's a long time to live in one place," I said... then I started meandering around to the real questions. "I hear rumors about weird things that went on way back then."

He looked down into his trash can like there was something interesting in there, but I knew he was just avoiding my gaze. "Depends on what you mean by weird."

"Weird like a couple of hunters."

"Nothing weird about hunters. Lots of folks hunt."

"Well, I hear these hunters didn't exactly hunt deer. Or so I heard."

He still stared into the trash can, so I pushed just a little further.

"It makes me wonder where they might be now."

"Dead, I expect," the old man said. "Hunters of that nature don't live very long."

"But if they are alive, I wonder where they might be . . . and how a person might be able to get them a message. ..."

The old man backed away from the trash can and waved his hand in front of his nose. "Whew, what a stench." He covered the can with the lid. "Good thing about bad rubbish is you can make the stench go away just by covering it up. It never comes back as long as you keep a tight lid on it."

"Maybe so," I told him. "But sometimes the really bad stenches come back."

He looked at me then. We both knew we weren't talking about trash. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of crumpled dollar bills, holding them out to me. "Thanks for your help."