Read Online In Search of the Rose Notes by Emily Arsenault - Free Book Online Page A

producing five small wooden spheres. “These are for the heads. Do you think they’ll need superglue to stay on?”
    “Maybe,” I said, watching her begin to pencil-sketch a face onto one of them. “Where did you get those?”
    “My dad took me to the craft store in Manchester last night.”
    “Huh,” I said, trying to swallow my frustration. My mother didn’t believe in spending lots of money on a school project.
    “Do you want to know how to spot a werewolf?” Rose asked from behind her black book.
    “Pretty easy,” I said. “It’s the big, hairy snarly animal that jumps out and eats you.”
    “No, I mean a werewolf in its human form. Let’s see. They have bushy eyebrows that are grown into the middle.” ’
    “Like Toby’s brother?” Charlotte suggested.
    “Joe’s got dark eyebrows,” Rose pointed out, “and they’re thick, but not exactly bushy. ”
    Charlotte shrugged and went to work on her second tiny wooden head.
    “Their ears are low and far back,” Rose continued. “They tend to have a lot of scratches and scabs on their bodies from running around the woods all night. And they’re a little hairier than most people.”
    “Sounds like Joe could be one,” Charlotte said.
    “Well, Joe’s scratches are from when he works with metal.”
    “So he says,” Charlotte replied, dotting a second eye onto the head.
    Rose frowned, looking irritated at Charlotte but at a loss for a reply.
    “Charlotte’s dad is the hairiest man I’ve seen,” I offered.
    “Ew!” Charlotte said, looking up. “You’re not supposed to say that about someone’s dad. ”
    “And how many men have you seen without their shirts anyway?” Rose asked.
    “Lots,” I answered. “At the beach.”
    “Oh, okay. And you’ve made a study of it?”
    I ignored the question because I wasn’t sure what it meant. “Isn’t he, though? Isn’t Charlotte’s dad hairier than your dad?”
    Rose hesitated. “Um… I don’t know. I mean, I’ve never seen him in a bathing suit or anything.”
    “You don’t need to,” I said. “You can see it just from his arms and neck.”
    Charlotte threw one of her little heads at me. “I said you’re not supposed to—”
    “Charlotte’s right, Nora,” Rose said.
    I was supposed to shut up now because they understood about fathers and I didn’t. But I felt I’d hit some nerve, and I wanted to keep pressing it to see what else they would do. So what if there were certain rules about dads? Those were their rules, not mine.
    “There’s even some hairs sticking out of his nose,” I observed.
    “Okay, Nora, knock it off,” Rose said, sighing and turning a page.
    “Okay,” I said, shrugging.
    Charlotte went back to work. I plucked the head she’d thrown at me out of the carpet and slid it quietly into my pocket.
    “Werewolves tend to have an appetite for children,” Rose informed us.
    “Okay,” Charlotte replied in a bored singsong. “Whatever you say.”
    “And they eat people in the most gruesome ways. Devouring their still-beating hearts. Ripping out their throats.”
    “Really?” I said, feeling the lumpy part of my neck. “How do you rip a throat out? You just bite off the front part of it?”
    “Don’t ask her stuff like that, Nora. She’s only trying to scare us.”
    “Scare you ?” Rose replied. “I’m sort of scaring myself. You’re not even looking at these pictures.”
    “Is someone getting their throat ripped out?” I asked, rising to take a look.
    “No.” Rose closed the book before I reached her. “I shouldn’t be reading this stuff.”
    “I told you it was stupid,” Charlotte said.
    “It’s not that it’s stupid. It’s really that it’ll scare me to death. I already get scared enough walking on Fox Hill Road at night. There’s that spot right after the Cooks’ place, you know, where it’s all just trees and stuff? Right before the turn for the transfer station. And there’s no streetlights or house lights for that whole turn,