PART l

Ch1: A bad day.

I feel as if the clouds departed for me today, for the sun is shining all over Akron even though I don’t like the sun. I think today is going to be the perfect day, mostly because tonight is going to be a full moon.

It’s my favorite subject in school, social studies. We are learning about wildlife. I am doing wolves.

“LISA! Are you paying attention?” My teacher Mrs. Moogs says pretty loud.

“I am, I am,” I reply even though I wasn’t.

”Well show us what your speech is about,” Mrs. Moogs says sounding annoyed.

 “Wolves, that’s what I am writing about,” I mumble walking up to the front of my classroom. 

“Well are you going to start?” Mrs. Moogs asks rudely. 

“I am, I am,“ I mumble once again. “I am writing about wolves. Wolves hunt mice, bunnies…”

”Wolves are DUMB,” a student yells out. I look down and see Bratt smirking at me. Bratt is the biggest and meanest bully in my school, P.S.37. He is so mean that he scares his own mom and dad. He is “like” a legend in school. Once Bratt was sent to the principal’s office when he came back the principal was following him, the principal had a black eye on his left eye. “Wolves are high predators and are related to dogs and coyotes,” I say raising my voice a little.

 “Still boring and BOO,” Bratt yells out again in mean voice.

Soon everyone starts yelling BOO at the top of their lungs. 

“SHUSH UP!” Mrs. Moogs screams at all the kids but that just made them louder.

 Mrs. Moogs looks at the kid that was yelling BOO the loudest. “Jack go to the office.” Everyone becomes silent watching Jack leave. “Anyone else that wants to join Jack?” Mrs. Moogs asks everyone in the classroom waiting for an answer. “Good. You may start over Lisa.”

”Most wolves hunt in packs. A pack means -” 

“I can’t hear you all, I can hear is your sassy, little voice,” he tells me.

This time I am so mad at Bratt for interrupting me again. I stare Bratt right across his face making him smile his horrible smile. Bratt stands up staring into my eyes as if he is winning a staring contest. Seeing that he stood up I do the same. Now I am standing up I am five inches taller than Bratt. This makes Bratt mad. He always brags about how he is the tallest in the whole school.

”Oh wow,” Nelson whispers even though I hear him. I look a little past Bratt, looking at my classmates which are Nelson, Max, and Ryla. 

“Hey guys stop starin’ and fight,” says Max with his English accent. Bratt looks at me devilishly as if he is agreeing with Max. But before I can do anything Mrs. Moogs calls me.

 “Lisa go to the principal.”

 I go downstairs without putting up a fight with Mrs. Moogs. 

When I get to Principal Cunningham’s office, he’s on the ground shivering to death. In front of him are two vikings that are arguing about whether they should take the principal first, and not take the students, or take the kids first and not take the principal. After a few minutes, they walk out of the room and decide to take the kids. I try to be silent as possible but they spot me and say,

“Why not start with this one?”

The viking with a red beard tries to hold me still but I bite him and run away to warn my best friends Kayla and Shawn. They are both in the same classroom, which is 3-208. I run upstairs. They can see me through the crack of the door. They both ask the teacher, which is their English teacher Mrs. Tiffany, if they can go to the bathroom, which she replies yes. They run out the door as fast as they can. They know all my secrets. 

“What’s the problem?” They ask at the same time.

“There are these viking dudes that are planning to capture all the students here,” I say in an excited voice. 

“Let’s go and beat them up!” says Shawn. “Give them a lesson.” We swiftly run down the stairs to see that there are seven hundred vikings with axes and spears caging kids. Shawn slows down and says, “I’m not sure I want to beat them up anymore.” 

Kayla bravely walks outside and says, “I demand you to stop!” To which they surprisingly do stop, and they all bow down to her. She thinks it’s a trick, so she takes one of their axes and starts hacking all the cages trying to get the kids out. Shawn takes a spear and starts swiftly cutting a viking’s helmet and starts attacking everybody he can see. After one hour of battling the vikings, we all huddle up together, knowing that there is no hope in defeating them, and we say that we will go home and hide. The vikings keep capturing the kids, but don’t hurt any of them. Kayla swiftly says that she is going to stay here and follow them to wherever they go. 

Shawn says that he is going to go and spend some time making a machine to defeat them. 

I now know that I’m going to be alone in hiding.

In the meanwhile, I keep trying to bite as many hairy arms and hairy legs as I can. We all agree that in two weeks from now, we will do what we need to do. When the two weeks are up, we will meet by the heart-tree. This time, Shawn like he always does, asks, “Why is it called the heart tree?” just to annoy us.

But I should say so anyway. The heart-tree is a tree, a normal tree, but it is shaved into a heart. A cat once got stuck in there when it was a normal tree and it was so scared that it kept going up the tree and down the tree, making it into a heart shape because the cat, everywhere it went, brushed off some leaves. It’s not a very exciting story. But that is the story. Soon all the vikings leave, with Kayla following them and Shawn running as fast as he can to go home and build a machine to destroy them. I look around and make sure nobody’s looking, and then I turn around. And when I’m right about to take my step, Mrs. Tiffany goes up to me and says, “Where are you going?” 

I reply and say, “I am going home.”

“I should call your parents before you go home,” she says.

“They’re probably sleeping,” I quickly say. 

“Then I shall walk you home, for you are only in first grade.”

“No thank you,” I say as politely and calmly as I can. But she insists. So I walk with her until we reach the forest. 

“You live here?” She asks me a little weirdly. 

“Yeah, I do.”

So we walk inside the forest. We walk for five hours until we come upon a cave. I tell her that we should rest there, for it is almost sundown. I don’t tell her this is my home.

Too tired to talk, she nods in agreement. She brings out two blankets and a pillow, as if she needs that in every situation, from her bag, and lays it down inside the misty cave. We both fall asleep very quickly. 

I wake up because I realize that it is a full moon and I’ve turned into a wolf. 

It all happened seven years ago when I was born. I remembered it all too well because I have a wolf’s memory. My mom was there in the hospital with me. It was midnight when I was born, and there was a full moon out. So I was a wolf at that time. My mom, who was also a wolf at that time, for some reason thought I was in danger. A few days later another female wolf, Guard came and brought me to her den with her four pups. Their names are Fluff, Ruff, and the twins, Sapphire and Chocolate.

Mrs. Tiffany wakes up in the middle of the night and looks at my bed and sees that I’m not there anymore. She turns to see me in wolf form gently lapping water in the nearby river. 

“Ahhhhhhhhh!” She screams and faints. When she faints, I put my paw on her to make sure that she’s not faking it. When she doesn’t get up, I curl up into a ball and fall asleep. When I wake up again, I wake up Mrs. Tiffany, who screams again when she wakes up and then thinks that it is all just a bad dream. And then, she looks at me and I realize that I still have my black fluffy wolf tail and my fluffy ears. And then I tell her that it’s not a dream.

Ch2: the explanation

She looks at me in shock and pinches herself to make sure that it isn’t a dream. I tell her that on full moons, when it is night, I turn into a wolf, that explains why I still have a wolf tail and wolf ears. She pinches herself again on the leg and tells herself it isn’t real. But I respond and say,

“It is real.”

She faints again and I dig in her bag and find a bucket and fill it up with water and pour it on her face. When she wakes up again, I tell her that we have to start leaving because I smell poachers, their miles away. The poachers are the worst, they once came into spot’s den. Spot growled as loud as he could. The poachers didn’t go away. They stayed and took a knife and cut off Spot’s leg. Guard rushed over to Spot and put him in his bed made out of wolf hair that they shed in the winter. Spot slept for a week. In the middle of the week, Spot got up, and was whimpering so loudly that Fluff and Ruff, who were in Guard’s stomach, kicked Guard’s stomach really hard.

She complains, “We haven’t even eaten breakfast yet.” 

“Well I’ve made it,” I tell her.

 She looks at me and asks, “What is it?”

“Chicken.”

“Where’d you get this?” Mrs. Tiffany questions me.

“I ran over to a farm and kinda stole a chicken and killed it.”

“We’ll get sued!” 

“Well, probably not, nobody knows where I live.”

“That makes sense.” 

“Well, let’s start eating.” 

“We have to cook it first!”

“Oh, right. I usually eat it raw.” 

Mrs. Tiffany starts pulling out footlong sticks and a packet of matches and lights the fire. I take two sticks and plant one on each side and plant one on top. She takes some string for her bag and ties the chicken to the top stick. I cut off the chicken breast and two chicken legs. She takes the chicken breast and wolfs it down. I take two chicken legs and wolf down all of them and spit out the bones. Mrs. Tiffany looks at me curiously and then remembers that I am a wolf, after all.

She asks, “Why do we have to leave?”

Ch3: run away with me.

“We have to leave because of poachers. They’ll probably kill me and then arrest you.”

“Kill you?” Mrs. Tiffany shouts. 

“And arrest you,” I add.

“Well, shouldn’t we pack some food?”

“Great idea. There are some walnuts that should be ripe by now and some shoots.”

“Walnuts and shoots?” Mrs. Tiffany exclaims. 

“Well, yeah. They’re mostly the only thing that won’t get rotten on our way there.” I should go warn Guard about the poachers, I think. We go over to the walnut tree. She picks some nuts and I pick some shoots. Mrs. Tiffany shoves them in her bag and I tell her to follow me. 

We run together over to Guard’s den. I tell her to wait outside because Guard doesn’t like strangers.

“Who’s Guard?” Mrs. Tiffany asks me. 

But I’ve already run inside. I go over to Guard and tell her in wolf language, “New poachers are in the area and we’re going to have to move until they leave.”

“Okay,” she says calmly. “I’ll go gather everyone up.”

I run back outside. Mrs. Tiffany asks me, “What happened in there?” She claims that she heard a lot of growling. 

“Oh, we were just speaking in wolf language,” I say while turning into a wolf from the moonlight I have been storing inside my body. It used to hurt me, it felt like sticks and stones breaking my bones but now I feel nothing. We run back inside the den and pick up Fluff and Ruff by the scruff of their necks. I set them down and tell them to get on my back.

“Yes, sissy,” they say at the same time. They jump on my back swiftly and I tell Sapphire to follow me and grab Chocolate by the scruff of his neck. I run outside and I see the whole pack of Sage and Stalk and their three pups, Rose, Cinnamon, and Grassy, also Splashy and Firy and their two pups, Rocky and Obsidian, and last but not least, Alpha’s husband, Spot.  It’s a big pack of fifteen, including the Alpha’s kids. 

It doesn’t take long to get to the other den. The whole time I walk next to Mrs. Tiffany for I think she was scared to be next to all the wolves. Most of the time Fluff and Ruff were yipping and yapping. Chocolate and Sapphire were arguing about whose eyes look better. We arrive at the tiny den, by then it is almost sundown. Sage and Stalk fall asleep first because they were carrying Rose, Cinnamon, and Grassy on their back the whole time. Then, Chocolate and Sapphire fall asleep next to Rocky and Obsidian. Splashy and Firy fall asleep next to Mrs. Tiffany. Guard and Spot fall asleep next to the single wolf that had been living there alone. His name was Spice. He is Sage’s dad. I fell asleep on top of Fluff and Ruff. 

I wake up to the sound of a gunshot. The poachers are only one foot away from the cave. I keep trying to wake up Spice, for he can howl the best and make everyone wake up. I realize the only way to wake everybody up was to wake Fluff and Ruff. So I jumped on Fluff and Ruff and they woke up. Immediately, they ran all the way over to Spice and started jumping on his stomach saying, “Wake up! Wake up!” very loudly in his ears. Finally, he is awake, and I tell him that the poachers are here and he is going to have to howl to wake everyone up. He nods in agreement and howls really loudly. Everybody wakes up, but now the poacher is right outside the cave. He comes in with a pistol. Everybody is awake, ready to attack. He blows the whistle and three more poachers come. Fluff and Ruff run to the back of the cave and start digging a little hole. Spice runs over to the hole and sat right on top of it. Guard and Spot jump on the first poacher and steal his pistol and start trying to break it. The second poacher shoots Spot on the stump of the leg that he doesn’t have, which doesn’t hurt at all because every morning he takes a pill to make his leg numb, that Stalk made so he doesn’t feel anything. Chocolate runs over to the second poacher and starts running circles around his leg as fast as he can, which was the whole circle around in five seconds. He is making the poacher dizzy, so dizzy the poacher just sees a flying chocolate bar around his legs. When he tries to grab Chocolate, Chocolate is on the other side of his legs. Soon, the poacher falls down in dizziness and Sapphire comes and started punching him in the face with her paws. Now his nose is bleeding. I jump on the second poacher’s stomach, who is now laying down. I grab his pistol and I throw it over to Mrs. Tiffany, who somehow catches it and starts shooting it at the first poacher’s toes. Sage and Stalk and Rose and Grassy and Cinnamon and Obsidian go over, run outside of the cave when nobody’s looking and start collecting bendable twigs to make a cage with some metal that they have found from recent adventures. The third poacher, who is just standing there in awe, does not notice when Sage and Stalk put the cage above him, and he does not notice it fall. Soon, he is trapped in a cage. The fourth poacher comes out of nowhere and seems to be the chief, takes a rifle and shoots at me at the same moment that I turn back into human. I try not to pay much attention to my pain, which is throbbing. I roll on my back. Mrs. Tiffany stops shooting the guy’s feet and picks me up and takes me to the back of the cave so no harm can be done to me anymore. Everything feels strange. When I try to talk or scream, no noise comes out. The world goes bonkers. Stars and rainbows are everywhere. I finally close my eyes and the pain goes away.

Ch 4: Don’t Lie To Me, I Can Eat You Alive

I’m in a room. Next to me is a donkey with a top hat and a sticker on his fur saying, “Hello, my name is Donkey Kong.” Next to me is a familiar face, one that I haven’t seen in a very long, long time…

The first poacher and the second poacher run away screaming, and the chief poacher runs away saying, 

“I want my mommy!” The third poacher is still stuck inside of his cage, sitting down, chewing on his nails, thinking of how to get out. 

“Hey you!” Mrs. Tiffany shouts at his face, running from the back of the cave. 

“What about me? Are you going to let me go or not?” says the third poacher.

“Well, first you have to answer some questions.”
“Okay, whatever.” 

“The person that your chief just killed name was Lisa. Do you know her?”

“What’s her last name?”

“Moonfire.”

“Oh yeah, I do know the Moonfires. We’re neighbors. And they have two kids, I didn’t know one of them ran away.”

“Where do they live?”

“Cleveland, Shawn Road. But they just recently moved.”

“Where did they move to?” Mrs. Tiffany asks, in suspense.

“I don’t know, they said they moved to somewhere in the forest, five hours away from Akron. They were nice neighbors.”

“Who do you work for?” 

“I work for the military,” he answers while smiling. 

Sapphire, who is usually very quiet, goes over to the third poacher and stands on her hind legs to make her one foot taller.

She grins and says, “Don’t lie to me. I can eat you alive,” in her best human voice.
The third poacher, clearly shaken, says, “Uh, yeah. I work for Queen Setorga. She has like a million viking dudes, they’re so weird. So basically I kinda work for the viking dudes.” Sweat trickles down his neck, scared by little Sapphire. 

“What is your name?” Mrs. Tiffany wonders out loud. 

“Oh, my name. My name. What is it again? Oh, right. It’s, umm… it’s, uhh… uhhh… I’ve clearly forgotten my name. Did you brainwash me or something?”

“No, we didn’t,” Mrs. Tiffany says, a little louder than she expected to say. “Just tell us your name!”

“Oh, yeah, that thing. My name… what does name mean again? So, my name, uh… Let’s see, what is my name again? Oh, right, it’s umm, umm, yeah, it’s Jeff. Yeah, that’s it.”

“Jeff what?” says Mrs. Tiffany, in curiosity. Sapphire takes one step forward and “Jeff” spills the beans.

“Ahh! Please don’t kill me! My name is Kevin Moonfire.”

I look down at my fingers. The tips are bone. You could see where the bullet hit my heart. Am I dead? Why am I still here?

“Hello, I’ve been waiting for you for a few minutes,” says the familiar person.

“Um, not to be rude, but WHO ARE YOU?” I say in a “soft voice.”

“My name is Emily, but you can call me Mrs. Moonfire.”

“Mom?” I’m looking around. There’s a big light above me, in a very big ceiling. There’s grass on the ground and the walls. 

“Yeah, it’s me, honey.” 

This calls me back to my senses. “Wait, what?” I say. “Why are you here?” I ask in confusion. “Why weren’t you there all those years ago? When I was born, why did you just leave me on the patio on the steps?”
“Because you were in danger.”
“How? What kind of danger? So much danger to you that you left me there?” 

“No, I meant danger to you. The person that made me into a wolf and the twins a wolf. He was a werewolf. He realized that when you were created, he could steal you and put you in his army, and then he’d just throw you away, like a piece of garbage.”

“Oh. Well, now that I’m dead, what else is there to do? And how did you die with me?” I wonder.  

“Well, every time a wolf dies that’s half human, I am drawn to it. You are free to leave, you can leave. You probably don’t want to be with me anymore. I’m a terrible mother.”

“I believe in second chances. But how do I leave?” 

“Do you see that tiny hole in the air, the dot in the air?”
“Yes, I do,” I reply.

“That is the way back. It is traveling through space and time. You have to be careful when you go back. If you don’t come back in the right place, then you could lose your wolf life. You would still be human but you need a lot of moonlight  to turn back. There is two sides of you. When you died, you were human. You don’t have that human life anymore. However, your wolf life is asking you for a second chance in life. You do not have to take this chance. But if you want to you can. If you go into the wrong time, and you see yourself as a wolf, it’s over.”

“Okay, okay. Now come with me and let’s get this over with.”
“I hope you have a wolf memory,” she holds my hand and we jump in together. 

I first see the first thing that I can see in the black hole, which is my mom. We move over to her putting me down on the steps. Then Guard finding me. Me playing Duck Duck Wolf, a hunting game, with Chocolate and Sapphire. Poachers coming and taking Spot’s leg. Fluff and Ruff being born. Me turning one year old with my birthday bear. It was delicious. Fluff and Ruff learning to talk. Chocolate turning three. Me turning five. Sapphire running away, and finding her. Me going to school. Me graduating into first grade. The vikings. Me, and Kayla and Shawn huddled together. Me and Mrs. Tiffany. The poachers. And me, dead in the back of the cave. I jump into that picture, my hands still tightly holding my mom’s. 

“Hi guys!” I say very casually in my human voice. 

“Who-what!!” Mrs. Tiffany says confuzzled.

“Yip!” yelps Fluff, poking her head out from the hole she’s in. 

“Yap!” yelps Ruff, also poking his head out from the hole.

Sapphire turns around and says, “Is that another you? A taller you? In human form?” 

“That’s my mom!” I say in an excited tone. Kevin turns around.

“Emily?” he says as if his dream came true.

“Yes?” My mom says. 

“Who is that talking wolf next to you?”

“Oh, that’s Lisa.”

“Who?”

“I’ll tell you later, but she’s our daughter.”

“Should we take her home?”

“Sure, but what about her wolves and that middle aged person?”

“Well, I guess they’ll fit in our seven-floored house.”

“Don’t lie to me, I can eat you alive.” Sapphire says the only words that she can say in human language. 

“Tell me now why you didn’t tell me about her before!” Kevin yells, inside of a cage.

“Why are you yelling at me now? You usually never yell,” Emily shouts at him. 

“Well, this is a reason to yell about!”

“I can’t agree with you.”

“Well.”

“Well, you’re the one that joined the poachers!”

“I guess I should tell you my story.”
“Yes, you should!” Emily shouts. Everybody stares at Emily, including the wolves. 

“One day, I was just cleaning the house ten years after we had gotten married and the viking dudes knocked down my door. Of course, I didn’t know who this was, so I answered, and they said ‘You have to come with us now.’ I said, ‘Well, I’m just doing my spring cleaning. Do you mind coming back maybe in the summer?’ They said no, and I asked them again. ‘No, I will not tolerate this!’ said the viking with the red beard–”

“Oh, I’ve met a viking with a red beard. He’s the one that captured a lot of students,” I interrupt.

“Let me continue with my story!” Kevin says in an angry voice. “They handcuffed my hands behind my back and blindfolded me. They spun me around until I barfed on the red beard viking’s face.”

“Hee Hee Hee Hee Haha,” Chocolate laughs. 

“Can I continue with my story?” Kevin hollers. Everyone nodded at him in agreement. “They brought me into their base a month ago. They said that if I didn’t become an army member they will kill me and my children and my wife. So immediately, I knew they were the bad guys. So I said sure, so I could become a snitch. One day, they told me that I needed to go on a mission to hunt some wolves that have been disturbing people in the wild. I came, but I did not do anything because the place looked familiar . So I didn’t fight any of the wolves. I didn’t do anything when you captured me. So here I am now. I thought it was pretty funny that the Chief, who was also the general of the army, was scared and was saying, ‘I want my mommy!’” 

“Oh, I‘m sorry, I didn’t know,” Emily said. 

“Guys, I just remembered something!” I say. 

“What?” Mrs. Tiffany exclaims. 

“You know how I’ve always been here for the wolves’ adventures. I think that now you should help me on my adventure.”

“Okay, Lisa. I don’t see where this is going,” says my mom.

“My friends said that we would meet together at the heart-shaped tree after two weeks. That’s up in two days. That’s exactly how long it’s going to take us. Do you want to join me?”

“Sure!” All the wolves say immediately, for they had been on all of her adventures.

“Well, Mom, Dad, and Mrs. Tiffany, would you like to come?”

“It would be fun,” Mrs. Tiffany admits. 

“I just met you. I don’t know if I can be with you,” says Kevin. 

“Just trust me, Dad.”

“If you’re going, Kevin, I’m going too,” my mom tells my dad. 

“Okay, then let’s start going!” 

“But wait!” My dad says. “We don’t have any rifles to hunt! The dried food you have isn’t going to last us two weeks!”

“You’re right, but we already have our weapons,” I say, pointing to the wolves. 

“Good point,” he says. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s get started!”

“Well, it is late at night,” Mrs. Tiffany says. “We should get some rest before we go.”

“Okay,” all the wolves agree. Mrs. Tiffany gets my Mom and Dad a blanket and a big pillow to share. She flops down with her head on my side. She smiles in her sleep. I think she’s probably happy that the pillow is a soft big wolf. 

I wake up to Spice howling really loudly. “It’s okay, Spice,” I tell him. “I’m awake. I can wake all the humans up.” He stops howling. I jump on top of my Mom, who says something that I can’t understand. She waits for me to respond, but I tell her that I have no idea what she’s saying.

She tells me, “Part of being in wolf form for most of your life is that you won’t be able to hear humans very well.” She says it as if all of this is normal. I jump on Dad and tell him to wake up, but of course all he hears is growling and he thinks that it is Sapphire. My Mom explains to him why he only heard growling. Then, I go and I wake up Mrs. Tiffany. I whisper in her ear, “Wake up!”

She strangely understands me, and says, “Okay, Lisa. I’ll wake up.” My mom, not knowing that Mrs. Tiffany can still hear me, explains to her what had just happened, and she says, “But I just heard her clearly!”

Mom says that it’s strange then I tell her she’s been with me the whole time. Mom says that it is a very rare possibility that Mrs. Tiffany can hear what I am saying. 

When all the wolves are awake, I tell Mom to get on Sage and for Mom to tell Dad to get on Stalk. Mom picks up Rose and Cinnamon and Dad picks up Grassy. I tell Mrs. Tiffany to ride Spot. I let Rocky and Obsidian get on my back and I hold Fluff and Ruff by the scruff of their necks. Guard, who’s next to Firy, puts Sapphire on her back and she picks up Chocolate. And we run for two weeks.

We stop a few times. It’s very exhausting. Finally, we get there and we’re one day early. That whole day, everybody falls asleep, but I stay awake, my eyes open, waiting for Kayla and Shawn. I notice Shawn is wearing tattered armour and Kayla is wearing a crown and armour that’s embroidered with jewels. 

When Kayla and Shawn come, they notice me when I’m in wolf form. They’re surprised to see Mrs. Tiffany, and two other humans. I tell them I’ll share my story later. I tell them they should share theirs first. They nod in agreement, very tired from their journey. Kayla translates to Shawn what I am saying, for I have taught her how to speak wolf language. Shawn asks if I’m hungry. Me and Kayla say yes at the exact same time. He pulls out a donut from his pocket and says, “Do you want to split this dessert together?”

We are very happy. They told me what they did and then went over our battle plans.

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