“ Hey, Carolina, wake up,” Arty whispered across the gulf between the two beds. “It’s five-thirty, time to go.” He watched her roll over, rub her eyes, then open them.
“ Already?” she yawned.
“ I could go by myself?”
“ No.” She sat up and stretched, hands reaching for the ceiling. “I told you last night, I want to go.”
Arty had his shoes on and tied by the time she finished with the bathroom. He was ready to go and she surprised him when she pulled her nightshirt over her head, and walked over to her dresser, wearing nothing, but her panties. He quickly turned his head the other way.
“ For gosh sakes, Arty, there’s nothing to see. I’m only eleven,” she giggled as she pulled a sweatshirt over her head. “You can turn around now. I’ve got my shirt on.”
He turned his head.
“ Jeez Marie, Carolina, put your pants on.” He turned away again as she went to her closet for her jeans.
“ Okay, I’m dressed, except for my shoes, so maybe you better not turn around yet,” she giggled.
“ It’s not funny, Carolina.”
“ Okay, I’m sorry. I was just having a little fun. Don’t be a big stick in the mud.”
“ This is serious stuff, Carolina.”
“ Sorry.”
“ If you’re gonna come, you gotta be quiet and careful or we both might get dead.”
“ What if it doesn’t work?” she asked again.
“ Then we’ll probably both get dead anyway, so we gotta try.” He was halfway out before she was finished with her shoes, but he was having trouble finding the plastic milk crate with his foot.
“ What’s the matter?”
“ The crate’s gone,” he said, letting go and jumping down.
“ Who could have moved it?” Carolina whispered as Arty helped her to the ground.
“ Who do you think?”
“ Anybody could have come in here and moved it,” she said.
“ Sure,” he said, because he knew who’d moved the crate.
He led the way on his hands and knees, scooting through the bushes. He wished he had a flashlight, because he wanted to explore all the dark places between the two houses and see if he could spot the milk crate. The hair on the back of his neck stood up when he thought that maybe the wolf was back there with them, hiding in the bushes back by the fence. Watching and waiting. He felt better when he cleared the bushes and was standing up on the dew damp front lawn.
“ Ouch,” Carolina said and Arty jumped.
“ What?”
“ I scratched my hand,” she said as he helped her up.
“ Is it bleeding?” he asked.
“ I don’t think so. I wish they’d fix that streetlight, then I’d be able to see.”
Arty looked up and down the block. “I didn’t notice before,” he said, “but the only two lights working on your street are the ones at the corners. The two in the middle are out.”
“ Yeah,” she said, “it’s kinda spooky. I wish they would hurry up and fix them.”
“ Streetlights are never out more than a day. And you never see more than one out on a street. I oughtta know. When a light blows they fix it the next day, or the day after at the very latest. They’re real good about that. These lights have been off for three days.”
“ What are you saying?”
“ They were off Monday night, so they would’ve fixed ’em Tuesday or yesterday.”
“ Maybe they didn’t fix them?”
“ They fixed ’em. They never miss.”
“ Then why aren’t they working?”
“ The wolf lady,” he said.
“ The wolf lady,” she repeated.
“ Yeah.”
Carolina shivered and took Arty’s hand, a gesture that only a few days ago would have set his young heart thumping, but now seemed natural as rain. They drew strength and courage from each other as they walked the early morning streets toward his house.
“ There it is,” Arty said, pointing to a white house with a detached garage.
“ My papers aren’t here yet, so we’ll make the shells first.” He led her into the garage and turned on the light.
“ Kinda cold,” she said.
“ I got an extra jacket you can wear when we finish here.”
“ That it?” She pointed to a machine that looked like a combination food processor and meat grinder.
“ Yeah.” He opened a drawer under the counter and took out various sized boxes.
She watched as his expression turned serious. His fingers were nimble and it was obvious he knew what he was doing.
“ You’re supposed to weigh the powder,” he said, “but I never do. I’ve done this so many times I could do it blindfolded and asleep.” He dipped a tablespoon into the bag and shook the black powder off, till it was level on the spoon. Then he poured the powder into a brass shotgun shell with hands still and steady.
Arty had lined up ten empty shells along a wooden workbench in his father’s garage, although technically it wasn’t his father’s anymore, he thought, wondering if his dad was in heaven or hell, and betting it was hell. Anybody that could beat his wife and kids belonged in hell, ’cuz that’s why God made it.
He also wondered about Carolina’s father, and why he was in town secretly. Why had he shot the gun off in her front yard? Was he shooting at the wolf lady? Is that why he was here? To protect her? Was he the man in the tent at the end of the clearing, or was it someone else?
Arty picked up the first shell and set it under the machine.
“ It looks like a drill press,” she said.
“ How do you know what a drill press looks like?”
“ We had one in the garage in Atlanta. It belonged to the landlord.” Her teeth chattered a little and Arty noticed the goosebumps on her arms.
“ Want me to get the jacket now?”
“ No, I’ll wait.”
“ This is the wad column,” he said, talking to take her mind off the cold, “It’s used to separate the buckshot from the powder.” He inserted the plastic wad into the shell. “You gotta get a tight seal or else the pellets don’t get maximum velocity. That means they don’t go out of the gun hard enough to kill anything.” He was talking like a TV doctor during an operation.
“ Next comes the dimes.” He squeezed ten dimes into the top of the twelve gauge shell. They barely fit and he was worried the shells would be too tight in the barrel and cause the gun to blow up in his face. But he’d gone this far, and he was convinced this was the only way to kill the wolf lady.
“ Okay, the final step,” he said as he pulled the handle down on the reloader, crimping and closing the shell. “Nine more to go.” He repeated the process nine more times, talking his way through each shell.
Once finished, he loaded the shotgun with five shells, then handed the rest to Carolina, who, without a word, put them in her backpack to keep Sheila company.
A squeal of brakes from outside told Arty his papers had arrived.
“ Can you ride a bike?” Arty asked.
“ Of course.”
“ Then you can ride my old one while I deliver the papers,” he said, as he put the boxes containing the buckshot and powder away. Then he looked for a place to hide the shells and decided on putting them in his dad’s tool kit, but he caught himself. His father was dead and he didn’t have to hide them or anything else ever again. He left them on the counter and said, “Let’s go fold some papers.”
“ Can you get me that jacket?”
“ Sure, follow me.” He thought about climbing in the window, but decided with his father gone, he didn’t have to. An eight-point-five earthquake couldn’t get his mother up before dawn. So he used his key and opened the front door, leading Carolina into the house.
Carolina tiptoed behind Arty as he made his way to his bedroom. All the lights in the house were off, but there were little nightlights plugged into the wall sockets, so it was easy to move around in the dark. She was right behind Arty when he turned on the light.
“ Mom,” he exclaimed and his mother opened her eyes. She had been sleeping in his bed.
“ Good morning, Arthur.”
“ I like to be called Arty now.”
“ You never liked it before.”
“ I do now.”
“ Okay, Arty, you didn’t come home last night, or the night before that, or the night before that either.”
“ Sorry, I had stuff to do.”
“ I didn’t say anything because of your father, but he’s gone now and all we have is each other.”
“ He has me, too,” Carolina said and Arty’s mother noticed her.
“ Well, who are you?”
“ Carolina Coffee.”
“ Your mother’s the painter?”
“ Yes, ma’am’
“ My name is Virginia, but you can call me Ginny.”
“ Thank you.”
“ Now, don’t you two think you’re a little young to be staying out all night?”
“ I wasn’t out all night. I was at Carolina’s.”
“ What do her parents have to say about that?”
“ They don’t know, Ginny,” Carolina said. “They’re divorced, so it’s just me and my mom, and she’s never home.”
“ Mom, can we talk about this later? I got papers to deliver.”
“ No, Arty, we can’t. We’ll talk now.”
“ We can’t, I’ll be late.”
“ It won’t hurt you to be late for once.”
“ I can’t be late, you don’t understand.”
“ Try me.”
“ Those people count on me. They depend on me to have their papers on their porches, before they go to work, or have their breakfast, or go to school, or a zillion other things, and I’ve never let them down. All those people know they can count on me. Not like dad, who no one could count on. I never wanna be like that. I never wanna let anybody down.”
“ I’m sorry, Arty. I didn’t know you felt that way. But the fact remains, you’ve been out for the last three nights and I need to know why?”
“ I have trouble in school,” Carolina said, “and my mom said she’d take me to Disneyland if I got all the state capitals on the test right. So Arty’s been at my house every night helping me, because I can’t do it by myself.” Carolina continued lying. “I just have to get them all right, and now I think I will, thanks to Arty.”
“ It takes three nights to memorize the state capitals?” she asked, her eyebrows going up.
“ Sometimes I know things, but I can’t put them on paper. Sometimes the letters get mixed up and it gets me confused. But if I know a thing real good, like my name, or the name of the school or the grocery store, I can get those right. But something I just learned, I can’t, so I have to know it real good.”
“ Florida?” Ginny Gibson asked.
“ Tallahassee,” Carolina answered.
“ Texas?”
“ Dallas.”
“ Louisiana?”
“ Baton Rouge.”
“ So that’s what you’ve been doing? Studying for a test?”
“ What else?”
“ And the test is tomorrow?”
“ So Arty won’t have to come over anymore.”
“ That doesn’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“ I have to help Arty with his paper route. That’s part of the deal. He helps me. I help him.”
“ But Arty doesn’t need any help.”
“ He will if he ever gets sick, or has to go somewhere, or wants a couple of days off.”
“ Then you could deliver the papers?”
“ Yes, ma’am.”
“ That would be nice. I didn’t think it was fair that he had to get up and do his route when he was sick. You would do that for him?”
“ Fair’s fair. He helps me when I need it and I help him when he needs it.”
Arty could only stand there with his mouth open. No way could he ever lie like that, and if his mother only turned to look at him she’d see it plain on his face. But she was staring at Carolina and thinking. Arty crossed his fingers behind his back for luck.
“ Okay,” Ginny Gibson said, “you two can do the paper route.” Arty sagged with relief. Then she said to Carolina, “Arty and I have had a lot of problems, but now with his father gone, I hope we can be a normal family. I don’t want to get in the way of any of Arty’s friends, but I don’t want any sneaking around behind my back. So if there are anymore tests, you tell me in advance. Understand?”
“ Yes, ma’am,” Carolina said.
“ Yes, Mom,” Arty barely managed to get it out.
She pushed herself up from Arty’s bed, turned to Arty and said again, “In advance. Understand?”
“ Yes, Mom.”
Then she was out of the bedroom and the two children were alone.
“ Let’s get that jacket and deliver those papers,” Carolina said.
Thirty minutes later, Carolina was pedaling hard to keep up behind Arty. The backpack was digging into her shoulders and Sheila wouldn’t keep still, making the straps seem to bite in harder. But the air was crisp and it was a pure joy to watch Arty throw the papers.
“ Can I throw one?” she asked, when they stopped for a rest break.
“ Sure,” he said. He got off his bike, putting the kickstand down. She did the same. She watched as he took a couple of papers out of the bag. “We’re gonna do those two houses over there.” He pointed to two houses next door to each other. “They’re easy, ’cuz they both got double porches.”
He stood on the sidewalk, directly in front of the first house. “I threw underhanded when I started, ’cuz I couldn’t make it to the porch any other way.” He demonstrated by bringing his arm around with the paper coming up in an arc that went as low as his knee.
“ Then I tried overhanded, like the big league pitchers, but my arm got so sore that I had to walk the papers up to the porches for a week.”
“ So how do you do it?”
“ Sidearm, with a backhand whip, like the tennis pros.” He brought his right arm around his body, with his elbow pointing forward, and snapped it around, letting go of the paper at the exact instant his arm became straight.
“ Notice,” he said, “that I didn’t stop my arm coming around when I let go of the paper. That’s called follow through. You gotta follow through or you won’t get any distance. And you gotta point your arm to the porch, so the paper doesn’t go wild.”
He demonstrated, whipping the paper to the center of the porch, where it landed with a satisfying pop.
“ Your turn.” He handed her the paper and pointed to the next house.
She took the paper, brought her arm back and whipped it around like she’d seen Arty do, and threw the paper. She missed the porch and hit a bay window with a loud thunk.
“ Jeez, you coulda broke it. Then we’d really be in trouble.”
“ Sorry,” she said, “I’ll do better next time.”
They finished the paper route with Carolina actually making three porches, two from the sidewalk and one from her bike. They were on their way back to Arty’s to drop off the bikes when Carolina screamed.
“ What?” Arty said, turning around.
“ It’s the wolf,” she said.
“ No it’s not. It’s just dumb old Condor.”
He hopped off his bike and turned to face the charging dog, with his hands on his knees, like a football player. The happy, charging dog butted him in the chest as Arty wrapped his arms around its neck and they went rolling on the grass.
A porch light came on, curtains parted, and a door opened.
“ It’s six o’clock in the morning.” The speaker was wearing a long housecoat and brushing the hair out of her eyes.
“ Sorry Mrs. Lucus. We just finished delivering the papers and Condor scared Carolina.”
“ That dog ought to be put to sleep,” the woman said through tight lips, before closing the door and turning off her light.
“ Hey, Farty Arty,” Brad’s voice boomed through the hall, stopping Arty inches before the classroom door. He wanted to continue on toward his seat, but half the school heard that yell.
He turned around.
“ Yeah, Brad?”
“ I’m gonna kick your butt after school.” Brad was wearing a San Francisco Giant’s baseball hat turned backwards. Arty thought it made him look stupid, and he thought that tomorrow Ray and Steve would be wearing a backwards cap, too.
“ You alone?” was all Arty could think of saying.
“ What, you think I’m gonna need help?” Once again Arty regretted his flapping lips. He’d spoken up without thinking and only made Brad madder, if that was possible.
“ Just asking, that’s all,” Arty said, sounding like a tough guy from an old rebel movie. But before he could get into any more hot water with Brad, the bell rang, giving him the excuse to turn away and go into the classroom.
“ After school, punk,” Brad said.
Arty risked one more turn and saw Steve Kerr coming into the building. His cheek was bandaged and he didn’t look happy. Arty wondered if he had stitches and smiled. Then he slid in the door and took his seat.
It was going to be a long day, Arty thought, glancing over at Brad sitting in front of Carolina. Every ten minutes or so Brad would turn and fix him with a quick glare, then turn away. During recess all anyone could talk about was the big fight after school. Some of the kids gave Arty advice on how to fight, others told him to tell the principal, and some told him to try and make up with Brad. They all knew, or sensed, how scared he was and they were all glad that it wasn’t them.
It was the worst day of Arty’s life. He couldn’t concentrate on anything the substitute teacher was saying. She had pimples and talked in a steady voice that wanted to put you to sleep. Arty didn’t think she was very old to be a teacher, and he didn’t think she was even aware the whole class knew Brad was going to pound him into the ground after the final bell at three-ten. Every time he looked at the clock, it seemed like the hands had moved farther than they were supposed to. The day was racing by and he knew he wasn’t going to be getting any help. He was on his own.
The teacher asked Carolina to stay inside during the last recess, because she missed too many words on the spelling test. She wanted to go over the words with her and see if she needed any special help. Arty wished he could stay in with her, but instead he found himself on the playground, alone.
Brad was over by the tetherball watching Ray and Steve bat it around the pole. There was a line of kids waiting to play, and Brad walked to the head of the line, like it was his right. None of the kids challenged him and none of the kids came over to stand with Arty.
Arty leaned back against the building and closed his eyes. The recess bell jerked them back open and he hustled back into the classroom, before any of the other kids.
He returned to his seat and saw a folded note on his desk. Probably from Carolina, he thought, and he sat down before opening it. The second bell and the substitute started droning on in her Sleepy Hollow voice. Arty opened the note to see what she had to say.
It was from Brad.
And it read:
AT THE BASEBALL FIELD EVERYONE’S GONNA BE THERE
So, Arty thought, Brad didn’t want the fight near the school. He didn’t want to take the chance a teacher might break it up until Arty was completely wasted. He looked over at Brad and frowned. He was asleep.
But he woke up when the final bell went off.
“ A little bird told me you two lovebirds are taking karate lessons at the Rec Center,” Brad said, right outside the classroom
“ That bird shoulda told you to mind your own business,” Carolina said.
“ Think you’re gonna ever get tough enough to take me?” Brad said through tight lips.
“ Oh yeah,” Carolina smirked, “by the time this year’s over I’ll be able to wipe your sorry face all over this school, so you just might think about starting to be a little nice to me.”
“ Or what?”
“ Or you’ll find out,” Carolina said, stepping up to Brad.
“ Oh yeah?” Brad said.
“ Yeah,” Carolina said.
“ Sure.” Brad pushed her away from him. She went flying backwards, stumbled and landed on her backside.
“ Jerk face,” Carolina said, with her arms protectively wrapped around the backpack.
“ You can say that, but who’s on the floor?” Brad said with a self-satisfied sneer.
“ You are!” Arty screamed, swinging his backpack toward Brad’s face. The combined weight of his and Carolina’s books made a solid thunking sound when they connected with the side of Brad’s head, and Arty’s scream, the only thing he’d learned in his one karate lesson, filled the hall and quieted the kids from the first grade side of the hall to the sixth.
Brad turned toward Arty, a bully enraged, and most of the observers thought he was going to jump Arty and beat him senseless right inside the school, but Brad was stunned by the blow and waited before attacking.
Arty, however, didn’t wait. He kicked Brad in the crotch with all the force he could muster from his heavy body and Brad doubled over with a kind of little girl scream.
“ No fair,” Ray Harpine said, as Arty slammed the backpack into Brad’s head again.
“ Get him,” a voice out of the crowd begged, and Arty hit him again with the backpack, and Brad finally went down with a thud, holding onto his crotch and rolling on the floor. Arty stepped back.
“ You little shit. You didn’t fight fair,” Ray Harpine said, an instant before his fist connected with Arty’s chin.
Arty, surprised, turned toward his new attacker, but before he could think about defending himself a ball of white flew out of Carolina’s backpack and landed on Ray’s shoulders.
“ Get it off me,” Ray wailed. He tried to grab it, but the ferret was too fast, leaping to the ground, as Carolina replaced it, jumping on Ray’s back and scratching both sides of his face with her sharp fingernails.
Arty turned without thinking, wielding his backpack like a mace. He smashed it into the face of the watching Steve Kerr, breaking his nose and filling his face with blood. Steve was out of the fight before he had a chance to get in it.
“ Get her off me,” Ray wailed, even louder than before, and with one opponent on the floor, another holding his face and out of action, Arty turned toward Ray Harpine. The boy had both his hands over his shoulders, clutching Carolina, trying to pull her off. Arty kicked him in the balls. It was easy. Carolina jumped off and the boy doubled over crying, like he’d just been spanked.
“ You little punk,” Brad Peters said, in a low throaty voice that caused Arty to turn. Brad was pushing himself up from the freshly waxed floor, and Arty knew if he allowed the bully to stand, he would be in trouble, so once again he swung the book laden backpack. It caught Brad on the side of the head again, and he went down again, and he didn’t get back up.
“ Come on, let’s go,” Arty said to Carolina.
Carolina took off her backpack, held it open by the floor and the ferret hustled into it. Then she slung it over her shoulder and took Arty by the hand. They left the building, with a gang of kids looking on in amazement. Brad and the shadows were on the floor, and Arty wanted to be out of there before they got up.
“ You clobbered them. Boy, oh boy. Just think how tough you’re going to be after a few karate lessons.” Carolina was bubbling with excitement.
“ Yeah, but right now we gotta hurry, ’cuz Brad’s gonna be up in a minute and he’s gonna be after us. We won’t be so lucky next time.”
“ Yeah.” Carolina picked up her pace to match his, but they didn’t have far to walk, because the milk truck cut them off as they were crossing the street.
“ Get in,” Harry Lightfoot said, and they did, both children standing and holding the rail by the door, because the truck only had a driver’s seat.
“ You can sit on the crates in the back,” Harry said.
“ That’s okay,” Arty said, “we’ll stand.”
“ It’s better for all of us, if a certain old woman doesn’t see you riding around with me,” Harry said.
“ Gotcha,” Arty said, and they moved to the back of the truck to sit on the milk crates.
Ten minutes later they were in Harry’s den, with a fire roaring in the fireplace. Harry sat in an easy chair and the children sat on a small sofa. Arty had lounged there many times in the past, leaning back with his feet on the coffee table, but this time he was sitting up straight, like Carolina, and they were both glued on to Harry’s wise brown eyes as he talked.
“ Did you ever wonder where the stories of werewolves and vampires got started? I did. When I was young, like you, my grandfather told me stories about shape changers. When I got older, I grew interested in the shape changers that roamed around Europe. They were more interesting than the Indian variety, especially the ones that dressed in evening clothes during the night and slept in coffins during the day. The vampires.
“ Where did the stories come from? Were they true? Probably not, but they say that anything man can imagine, one day he can accomplish, and that every idea has its roots in the past. And our past takes many twists and turns and the shape changers are always there.
“ But what is real, and what is imagined? Did vampires ever stalk young women? Were young men ever turned into the wolf during the full moon? Along the course of my life I have met many who believe, but I always doubted. Then I went to Trinidad.
“ I was walking back to the dock to get on my ship one night during the rainy season. I had a little to drink, so the light rain felt good on my face. I was thinking about one more drink on board, before going to sleep, when the electricity went out and Port of Spain was covered in darkness. The rain clouds covered the sky, shutting out the moonlight.”
He paused for breath, then he got up and went into the kitchen. He came back with a quart of cold chocolate milk and three glasses.
“ What happened?” Carolina asked as he poured the milk.
“ Yeah, tell us,” Arty said.
Harry Lightfoot poured the milk and set the bottle down. He picked up his glass and raised it.
“ One for all,” he said.
“ And all for one,” Arty said, raising his glass and clinking it with Harry’s.
“ And all for one,” Carolina said, clinking her glass with theirs.
“ No matter what happens, we have to trust each other,” Harry said. “No matter how bad it gets, we can’t ask for help, because no one is going to believe us. I’m just a crazy old man and you’re both children with wild imaginations. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
They nodded their heads.
“ Okay, back to my story,” he said, but he took a drink of the milk and let the silence rule the room for a few seconds before continuing.
“ I was walking down a quiet street, when I heard a woman scream, and it was at that instant that the power went back on, and what I saw would be enough to chill any man’s soul.
“ A young woman was laid out on the sidewalk in front of me. Dead. And a wolf was chewing on her neck, sucking out her blood. So, quiet as I could, I moved behind a parked car and hid, and watched.”
“ You didn’t try to help the lady?” Carolina asked.
“ No.”
“ Why not?”
“ She was already dead and I knew it was no ordinary wolf.”
“ How?” Arty asked.
“ Because there are no wolves in Trinidad.”
“ How do you know it was a wolf and not a big dog?” Carolina asked.
“ I’m an Indian. I know.”
Again the room was silent, lit only by the fire coming from Harry’s fireplace. Arty felt a tingling sensation, like static electricity, running up and down the hairs on his arms, and, when he looked over at Carolina, she was biting her lower lip. She looked scared.
“ After the wolf drained all of the woman’s blood, it raised its head and howled into the night and then, right before my eyes, it turned into a ball of fire and shot up through the clouds.”
“ Wow, just like I saw,” Arty said.
“ Wow and double wow,” Carolina said.
“ Now let me tell you about the Nightwitch, the witch that can’t die.”