I dove for the door at the same time he lunged. My hand had wrapped around something small and cylindrical in my bag. The rest of the bag tore away from me as the wolf’s claws caught the strap, the contents of my little life leaking out onto the floor. I screamed as I tumbled through the doorway, and slammed the door behind me. I held it shut as I felt the full weight of the wolf charge into the door on the other side.
“Run!” I screamed at Nana.
Nana did just that, making it to the bottom of the stairs at record speed and heading for the front door. I felt the doorknob twitching in my hand as the wolf clawed at it clumsily. It was only a matter of time before he smashed his way through.
A claw punched through the bottom of the door and snagged my leg. I yelped in pain. I felt blood trickle down my leg. I heard a large snuffle from the other side of the door and I imagined the wolf fully taking in the scent of my O Positive.
I decided it was better not to wait around for him to break all the way through. I bolted for the stairs, hurling myself down them without a thought for my safety. Behind me, the door flung open and the wolf leaped out, landing right where I had been standing a heartbeat ago. I swallowed hard and spun to face the beast, almost losing my footing on the stairs. My mind was racing, and I suddenly remembered one last component-one last character-to the story.
“No reason I can’t be the huntsman too,” I said and ducked low as he charged at me. In my hand, I gripped the lone weapon I had managed to retrieve from my bag. I thrust it up, and only after I drove it into the beast’s chest, did I disappointingly realize was it was. A pen. What the hell good was a pen going to do?
The wolf cleared me and practically flew down the rest of the stairs, hitting the wall, spinning, landing on its back at the bottom. It writhed frantically, howling, clawing at its own chest, and smoke began to rise from the small wound I’d inflicted. The smell of acrid burning hair filled the room, and after what seemed like an eternity of screaming, the wolf stopped moving.
I stood slack-jawed, both horrified and pleased by what I had done.
Nana was crying, and my own breath was heaving in and out in great bursts. Outside, sirens went screaming by, and the two of us simply stood over the beast. Tears of relief started running down my face.
Nana stared. “How did you do that? How did you stop that monster?”
I shrugged, stepped over the wolf, and hugged her. I could feel her heart going a mile a minute.
“I have no idea,” I said. “All I did was stab it with a pen.”
I released her and leaned over the lifeless body. Holding back my own personal squick factor, I pulled the pen free, and lifted it up for examination. I began to laugh.
“What is it, dear?” Nana asked. I was sure I must have looked unhinged. And maybe I was. My mind was still reeling from the events of the past few hours.
“Well,” I said when I could finally speak, wiping the tears from my face, “What else does every college freshman have from their Nana but a nice graduation writing set? A silver writing set, to be exact.”
“And you said you’d get no use out of such a thing,” she tsk-tsked.
I hugged her even harder than before.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked.
Nana nodded. “That was a pretty fancy move you did on the stairs.”
“I guess watching reruns of Buffy must have paid off.”
“From what I hear,” Nana said disapprovingly, “that’s all that’s paying off. About those grades of yours…”
“Nana, please,” I said, “I just saved your life. Maybe you could call my mom and put in a good word for me?”
She thought for a minute, then smiled. “I suppose I could put in a good word or two for my favorite little Red Riding Hood.”
With the mention of that name, I tugged at the zipper on the hoodie once again. This time it came free. The brightness of the Technicolor world faded and things around me turned to normal. The wolf melted into the floor.
I held the hoodie at arm’s length.
It was a bittersweet parting; I had loved the way it looked on me, but what I had been through was definitely too high a price for fashion’s sake.
The following day I returned to the thrift store, and asked for my money back. Hey, three dollars was three dollars. That was like three meals off the dollar menu or three midnight movies! Besides, I secretly held the wicked desire that that old crone who frequented the place, Mrs. Punzelli, might come back for it.
As I left, I caught the latest breaking news on the thrift store’s one working television. The story concerned a pack of wolves that had reportedly leaped from the subway car at the end of the 7 line the previous night. No one had been hurt, luckily, and after dispersing they were all later found surrounding a brick high-rise, barely able to move, and exhausted-from prolonged huffing and puffing, I had no doubt.
ANOTHER EXCITING ADVENTURE OF LIGHTNING MERRIEMOUSE-JONES: A TOUCHING GHOST STORY by Belle and Nancy Holder[1][2]
Gentle Reader, You may recall that in our previous story, “The Further Adventures of Lightning Merriemouse-Jones,” Miss Merriemouse-Jones had fallen into the clutches of the evil Count Dracurat and his horrid Countess, who blamed dear Lightning for her husband’s extramarital misadventures. The lovely young rodentina was rescued by the dashing private detective Quincy Dormouse, a strapping Texan of large fortune. Once Lightning had been restored to her doting parents, Mr. Dormouse began to woo her with all the ardor of a young mammal who has stared death in its beady red eyes and known, down to the depths of his furry soul, that the bell tolls sooner than one can ever imagine and that one must seize the day-or in this case, clasp hands gently-for the impetuous American believed his singular chance of earthly happiness lay in persuading Miss Lightning to be his bride.
As you may also recall, Lightning was quite dashing herself, and no stranger to passion-for she had left her family home in the wall of the Summerfield estate when pressed by her well-meaning parents to select a husband and “be settled.” Our young heroine felt that the words “settled” and “Lightning” had nothing to do with each other. Therefore, to avoid such a fate mundane, she slipped into the pocket of Maria Luisa Summerfield, who was herself launching into matrimony via an elopement with her second cousin, Juan Eldorado Adelante-Paz.
It would be quite difficult to convey, in these more modern and, may one say, permissive times, what a serious breach of decorum an elopement was. But the two young misses were much of the same mind: Lightning herself was being sorely pressed to select a husband from the rats, mice, hamsters, and gerbils who came calling at her Papa’s door, and she truly fancied none of them, not even Gerhardt von Ratschloss, who traveled all the way from Prussia to dance attendance upon our young lady. In a similar state of vexation, Maria Luisa would have none other than Señor Adelante-Paz, declaring that she would rather die than be separated from him.
Thus, Lightning and Maria Luisa decamped, and after the wreck of the frigate El Queso, Lightning found herself thrust into the nightmarish world we described at length (four thousand, one hundred words including eeks) in our previous (and may we say, with all modesty, well-received) tale. And when all was resolved-with the death of Count Dracurat, and the restoration of Lightning to her parents-her mama made it quite clear that she thought Mr. Dormouse would make as spectacular a catch for her daughter as a fragrant chunk of Blue Castello perched upon the most devious of mousetraps. [3]