Passage Four

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“Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met,” I introduced myself to the family kindly, hoping they wouldn’t get suspicious of us being in the forest. The youngest, a little boy with green eyes, tilted his head and whispered something to his dad.

“Um. Hello. What exactly were you two teenagers doing in the forest full of werewolves?” asked the father, a man with glasses and a bald head.
“Oh my gosh! There are werewolves in there? Wait, the news is just making all that stuff up! We were fine when we were in there. No werewolves attacked us!” Tanya thought up quickly, putting her hands on her hips. The father glared her down, and then turned his attention to me.
“We were taking a nature walk, hoping to prove once and for all there are no such things as werewolves,” I said indignantly. He rolled his eyes and said something in Spanish to his wife, who nodded her head sadly.
“Well, you’re lucky! A bunch of trappers are going in there, and it’s a wonder you didn’t get caught in a trap at least!” he explained, and waved us off, his family following him to the other end of the lake, where their picnic basket was. I sighed, and turned my back on him.
“He’s growing suspicious, that’s not good!” I exclaimed, and Tanya and me walked along the banks, looking for maybe some seashells or sand dollars. We walked, being careful not to step on sharp pieces of broken beer bottle glass. Tanya leaned on my shoulder, looking tired. I suddenly felt very droopy. The humans didn’t want us going back to the forest; we’d have to go to our houses away from the forest.
“Let’s get to the human houses,” she yawned, leaning harder, but careful not to hurt me in doing so.
We walked down the beach, up towards the grocery store, down the road, past the mall, past the post office, through the strawberry gardens, and into the housing areas. We both lived on the same street. My adopted werewolf mom, May, would be waiting inside like she always was. She was one of the only werewolves who preferred being human. Of course, so was Tanya’s adopted mom, Summer, who spent almost her whole life in the house.
We walked down the road together, but I walked into building 534, she walked into 567.
“Are you actually home?” asked May. She turned to look at me, nodded, and turned back to making her lunch. “How’s the pack doing?”
“Well, not so well actually. The Elders are discussing the topic of people knowing who we are every night, and this man can, like, sense werewolves! You’re not safe here anymore, and neither am I! I’m thinking of just staying wolf form forever!” I sighed, deciding the smartest thing to start with was the man.
“Is the man’s name Fred?”