Danny sniggered at the image on the door. The graffiti artist had stenciled two gargoyles jabbing their penises into Skeletor’s eye sockets. At the bottom, in crimson scrawl, one word: SKELEFUCKED.
Fortunately, Danny always managed to avoid encounters with Skeletor. He’d heard rumors about what the head security guard did to werewolves, and being turned into lycanthropic meatloaf by a megalomaniacal skeleton ranked very low on his list of things to do before he died.
The bell rang, startling Danny, forcing a hairball of worry out of his mouth. He scampered away, hiccupping and coughing up hairballs all the way to his next class.
Chapter Four
Fourth period meant English, Danny’s favorite subject.
Seniors spent their final year of English studying the complete works of Marquis de Sade, but Danny’s teacher had fallen sick the week before and they’d had the same substitute since Monday. The substitute was a G.G. Allin impersonator. Whenever a student asked a question about their readings, the substitute pulled at his reverse Hitler mustache and said, “The Marquis can bite it.”
Today, Danny arrived before any of his peers. The Allin impersonator was naked and slumped over the teacher’s desk, a syringe in his arm, a dead roman candle dangling from his asshole.
Danny sat as far from the substitute as possible and read the words on the blackboard. Write a ballad to honor the memory of Moose Elwood. Don’t turn it in. Nobody wants to read your crap.
Considering the substitute probably couldn’t spell his own name, Danny figured another teacher must have slipped in and written this on the board.
Most of the kids showed up a few minutes after the late bell. Being on time hardly mattered when the only authority figure was a junky.
Barbetta took the seat beside Danny. He glanced over.
Streaks of mascara ran down to her chin. His heart thudded. A girl as beautiful as Barbetta would never fall for a werewolf like Danny. The only other werewolves at Heavy Metal High took up space in the special education pro-gram, and although he only resembled them in physical appearance, everyone made the same cruel jokes about him. No, they made crueler jokes about Danny.
As she did in first period, Barbetta passed a note to Danny. He undid the pentagram-folded paper and flattened it against his desk. Need help with your accident?
Danny gulped. He looked over at Barbetta. She winked at him. He took out his pen. He didn’t know what to say.
She hardly acknowledged that he existed. Why suddenly offer to help him now? It’s all planned out. Nobody will believe what I’m gonna do, he lied.
When Barbetta returned the note, he looked around the room. Most of the students appeared to be absorbed in completing the assignment. Apparently, Moose’s death shook them so badly that they would do anything, even schoolwork, to honor the fallen hero.
Sexy!
Danny rubbed his eyes to ensure that he wasn’t seeing wrong, that Barbetta had really written s-e-x-y in her girly scrawl. He slipped on his headphones. Rainbow’s Run with the Wolf, from the ’76 album Rising, filled his fuzzy ears. He stared at the note until the lunch gong sounded.
Sexy!
Chapter Five
Danny was zipping up his backpack in the crowded hall, his brown lunch sack clenched between his teeth, when Barbetta approached.
He flung his backpack over his shoulders and squeezed the paper bag in his hands to prevent the nervous tremors running through him. He worried that his fur might look uncombed, but wasn’t it always uncombed? No one ever approached Danny with anything nice to say. He figured Barbetta wanted to tell him not to ruin the football season, at least for the sake of her dead boyfriend.
“Hi,” she said, flipping hair out of her face.
“How are you?” Danny said. “I mean, after Moose’s accident.”
Barbetta shrugged. “We all have to die sometime.”
“You seemed pretty upset earlier.”
“I never pass up an opportunity for a good cry. I like drama.”
“You mean you like acting?”
“You’re not very bright, are you?”
“I guess that’s what you wanted to tell me.”
“Not at all! I want to show you something. I’m sure the accident you’re planning is great, but I think this will help.”
Danny blushed. He wanted to confess that he had nothing planned, that he desperately needed Barbetta’s assistance. Alone, he was a hopeless cause. “Everything will work out fine without you. I have everything I need. It’s going to be awesome, thanks.”
He started to turn away, his stomach growling at the thought of the pork fries and sausage sandwich in his lunch sack.
“Don’t bullshit me,” Barbetta said. “If you fuck up tonight, the other kids will crucify you, and Skeletor will do something even worse. You need me.”
“Won’t the rest of the cheer squad miss you?”
Barbetta sighed and took him by the mane. She pulled him further from the yard where students ate lunch, away from the drone of a shitty black metal band.
She led him into an open classroom and locked the door behind them.
She pressed against Danny and puckered her lips for a kiss. Unfortunately for Danny, he reacted in the way all werewolves do when confronted with unexpected closeness: he bit.
He pulled away from her.
He spit Barbetta’s face onto the floor. She raised her hands to her bloody skull and moaned. Danny picked chunks of flesh and hair from between his fangs. He had never felt so humiliated in his life.
Something was lodged in the back of his throat. He coughed. Barbetta’s nose plopped to the ground. “I’m so sorry.” He reached for her but then withdrew, tucking his hands in his pockets, afraid to touch her. “Let me take you to the health center.”
“My face!”
Danny backed against the door. Surely the school would sentence him to death for mangling the lead cheerleader. “I’m sure they can put it back on.”
“I’ve always wanted to see my skull,” Barbetta said, still hiding her new face from Danny. “Reach into my purse and fetch my mirror. I want to know how I look.”
No girl had ever asked Danny to get something out of her purse. It seemed an intimate thing to do. Her purse lay beside her face flesh. He picked up the purse and pulled out a mirror studded with pink and black jewels. “Here you go,” he said.
Barbetta took the mirror. Danny grimaced as she removed her hands from her face to inspect herself. “I am finally beautiful,” she said.
“I always thought you were beautiful,” Danny said, although he liked her much better when flesh covered her skull. “What was it you wanted to show me?”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter anymore,” she tilted her head to inspect herself from a different angle, “I’m sure your accident will be wonderful. I never dreamed a man, er—werewolf, would bite my face off. It’s so fucking sexy.”
Danny swallowed back vomit. Whatever ointments or makeup had covered Barbetta’s face were making him sick.
He wanted to run out of the classroom but realized what a lifetime opportunity he’d been thrown.
Barbetta took her purse from Danny and scooped her face off the floor. She stuck her face and mirror in the purse and grinned fiendishly. “I’ll make you a deal.”
“W-what kind of deal?”
She ran a finger down the center of his jersey. “If you beat Old Time tonight, I’ll give you the time of your life after the game.”
“T-that’s very kind of you—” but Barbetta pushed around him and left him alone in the classroom, where he stayed for the remainder of lunch, eating his sausage sandwich and pork fries, contemplating the terrible fortune life had suddenly thrown his way.