Kat Lupin: Wolf Girl

It’s midnight and I’m lying in a hospital bed, half awake.

I feel half dead.

Hours ago, the doctor stitched up my arm and gave me a shot. I started getting a bad fever, so he said I should stay the night. Now, I’ve got a small room all to myself with a TV hanging on the wall. Some boring lawyer show is on, but the sound is turned down low. All I can really hear is the BEEP, BEEP, BEEP of the hospital machines surrounding my bed. It’s dark in the room, and kinda scary. All the wires and tubes don’t help me feel any better. In fact, it feels like I’m being attacked by an octopus.

I close my eyes. The doctor told me the medicine would make me sleepy. He wasn’t kidding. But a second later, me eyes snap open wide.

Oh no. I just heard a low growl right outside my door.

SQUEAK. My door creeps open. I hear soft footsteps on the tile floor, then… panting.

I want to pull the sheets over my head. When I was little, I thought that would protect me from monsters. Now, I know better.

Trembling, I ease up in bed and peek at the floor. The white wolf stands at the foot of my bed. She greets me with a wicked smile.

“Hello Katrina," the wolf whispers.

I scream.

Then I wake up.

I am at the hospital. But it’s not midnight and there’s no wolf in my room. It’s 8:00 am and the summer sun sneaks in through the room’s curtains. I’m hugging the stuffing out of my favorite kangaroo. Mom must have brought it for me.

“Kat?” says a familiar voice. “Are you okay?”

I roll over to see Sarah sitting beside my bed. Embarrassed, I quickly jam my kangaroo beneath the hospital sheets. Sarah is my best friend in the whole universe, but I still don’t want her seeing me with a “emotional support stuffie.”

“I had a bad dream,” I tell her. “That’s all.”

Sarah is skinny with freckles and long, curly hair like gold thread. When she’s nervous, she twirls that hair around her finger. We’re in the Sunflower Scouts together, and I’ve seen her do it when we start telling ghost stories by the fire. Sarah must be real nervous right now, because she’s twirling her hair like she’s in the middle of a math quiz. “Your mom said I could visit.”

“I’m glad you came,” I say. “But you could’ve waited until tomorrow. I’ll be back home by then.”

Sarah gets up and walks around the room, inspecting all the hospital gadgets. “I heard you got attacked in the woods. That’s crazy.”

I rub my bandage. The bite wound burns like fire. “My arm hurts, but my fever is gone. So it’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?!” Sarah’s eyes get big. “You were almost eaten by a wolf.”

“I was not!” I shout. But just hearing the word WOLF makes my heart race. “The thing just bit me, that’s all.”

“How did you get away?” Sarah asks.

“I… I don’t know.” For a second, I think my fever is coming back. But it’s the scary memory, making my skin go hot. Making me sweat. “I was hiding in this cave,” I say. “Like an old mine. And the wolf started coming at me. But then it just stopped and trotted off. I don’t know why.”

Sarah shakes her head. “That’s unbelievable. There’s got to be more to your story than that. What happened out there?”

“That’s it.” Not way I going to mention the white wolf whispering to me. Kids at school already think I’m a weirdo. I don’t want them calling me a psycho too.

“Come on, Kat,” says Sarah. “I’m your best friend. You can tell me.”

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” My shout even surprises me.

Then I do something even more surprising. I growl at her. It’s a low, mean sound that comes from somewhere deep in my guts.

Sarah backs away, looking frightened. “Sorry, Kat. I didn’t mean....” She turns to leave but stops and looks back at me. “I’ll see you at school next week, okay?”

“Sure,” I tell her. I turn my back to her, pretending to go to sleep.

Without another word, Sarah leaves.

Can’t believe what I just did. Growling at my best friend like some sort of dog? And why didn’t I tell her about the wolf? If I can’t trust Sarah with the truth, who can I trust?

I push the blankets away and sit up. I want to follow Sarah and tell her I’m sorry. But these tubes in my arms keep me tied to the bed. I can only stare out the window.

I’m on the third floor with a scenic view of the parking lot below. After a few minutes, Sarah walks out of the hospital with her mom. I watch them walk across the parking lot to their car and get in. Neither of them gives a second glance to a teenager standing a few feet from their car. But I do.

It’s the creepy older boy with the long, dark hair—the same one I saw last night, standing out middle of the woods. And now he is right outside the hospital, staring up at my window. I notice right away that he’s not wearing any shoes. His feet are bare, the skin dirty and gray.

Crap! I wish I still had my iPhone.

Last month, I stayed up all night, sneakily watching YouTube videos on it. Then in the morning, I was so sleepy that I dropped it on the concrete patio. The phone bounced twice and shattered like a fallen Lego toy. As punishment, Dad said I couldn’t get a new one until Christmas.

If I hadn’t been so friggin’ clumsy, I’d still have my iPhone, and I could take a bunch of photos of the guy.

It’s almost like he knows, ‘cause the teenager smiles up at me, real wicked like. Then he struts off towards a chain-link fence at the edge of the parking lot. The fence is super tall, but he rushes up and over it easily, climbing like a monkey. I’ve never seen anybody move so fast in my life.

How did he do that?

I realize I’m holding my breath. I press close to the window and watch him sneak off into the forest that surrounds the hospital. He disappears in the trees, but somehow, I just know I’ll see him again.