Read Online This Is Not a Werewolf Story by Sandra Evans - Free Book Online Page A

Progress.
    Whiz. Thwack.
    Now that hit straw.
    I turn back and give him a thumbs up. He stands taller, throwing back his shoulders like a major league pitcher on the mound.
    Thwack, thwack, thwack, the sound follows me all the way to where the little kids are squatting over their hooks.
    One problem down, another pops up.
    Little John is bawling. Tears are streaking through the dirt on his face and snot is running from each nostril like two yellow slugs. He looks at me and sobs, “Wahoul, I don’t wanna kill Mr. Wormie.”
    â€œIt’s just a worm,” Sparrow says to him. He stabs three of those suckers onto his hook.
    I lead Little John by the hand to the edge of the lake.
    â€œLook,” I say. I point to the pollywogs swimming around the shiny smooth rocks. I scoop up a bunch and let them wriggle in the palm of my hand.
    Little John bends down to look. He stops crying. He starts petting the pollywogs. Nothing like the life cycle of amphibians to get a boy’s mind off his troubles.
    Before I can stop him, he pops four of them into his mouth. He swallows. A huge gulp. “They’re good,” he says, rubbing his tummy.
    â€œOh man,” I say. I’m gonna zuke.
    Then my scalp tingles.
    Something in me says to look up. Woods magic.
    I look up.
    I look up and see a glowing ball of blue-green fire floating across the lake. Will-o’-the-wisp. I mouth the words but no sound comes out. I’ve seen it once before—when I first noticed the woods-world. And it takes the breath from my lungs this time too.
    Will-o’-the-wisps are one of the light phenomena that Dean Swift studies. Ignes fatui it’s called in Latin,and that means “foolish fire.” People have been seeing it for centuries, but it’s still a mystery. Dean Swift says most scientists think it’s some kind of chemical reaction caused by a bunch of dead stuff breaking down. He says it with bigger words, but you get it.
    When I researched it on my own, I found out that a long time ago people thought will-o’-the-wisps would lead you to treasure or to a secret doorway where you could get in and out of heaven and see people you loved that you had lost.
    They were on to something.
    I watch the ball of light skip above the water. Tonight I’ll go again to the place the will-o’-the-wisp led me a year ago, and I will feel like I am home, and I will find what I have lost.
    My breath comes calm and slow like it does when I’m deep in the woods with her.
    Little John looks up, his cheeks bulging and a little trickle of slime in the corner of his mouth. He doesn’t see what I see.
    Then I hear Vincent shouting behind us. “You guys won’t believe what I just saw!”
    The coyote! I jump up. I can see Sparrow by the lake, but where’s Bobo?
    Everyone runs toward Vincent. As I hurry to catch up, I notice that they’ve all dropped their poles. Six poles are floating in the water, heading slowly towardthe middle of the lake. I change the count—sixty-six poles have gone adrift. I’m about to say one of those bad words Jack is always saying, when I see a shadow by the big hemlock. It’s Sparrow. He’s got his new pole in his hand and he’s setting it on a thick bed of pine needles far from the water’s edge. He looks up and sees me. “I told you I’d take care of it,” he calls to me. Then he lopes over, and we head toward the old cedar and the straw man.
    Six times he’s put his hand in mine.
    The kids are all gathered around Vincent. I let out a little puff of air when I see Bobo behind him, her ears flat. Her tail is tucked as far up under her body as it can get.
    â€œIt was over there,” Vincent says, pointing to the other side of the lake, where White Deer Woods begins. On that side, the water comes right up to blackberry brambles and trees. It takes four legs to find the rabbit and deer paths in that tangle of branches, needles,