I look at the floor. Ever since Eloise gave me the books I have been reading like crazy but not writing. It was late when I finished cleaning up the store last night, and I had a doomed math assignment to wallow in. I didn’t think Mrs. B. would notice as long as words filled the page.
Mrs. B. looks as serious as she can with another human being swelling her to three times her normal size. “It’s plagiarism if you don’t cite your sources.”
“How am I supposed to report on wolves when they mostly live on the other side of the park? I work in my dad’s store.”
“Anyone in this town old enough to carry a plate has a job, honey. Virgil brought in these pictures this morning.” She holds up an eye-popping photograph of two wolves running. “Why don’t you drive over to the park with him and learn something.”
Of course I’ve screwed this up. My head spins. I’m being fired.
Mrs. Baby skewers my thought bubble. “Can you do this or not?”
Virgil is in the bathroom at the moment, but I still lean into Mrs. Baby and whisper, “Virgil and I aren’t really getting along.”
She doesn’t whisper back. “If you don’t have something better for next week we’ll cancel the column. You can cover the girl’s sports for Addison. I’m giving her a new job.”
“What’s that?”
“An advice column. ‘Dear Addie.’ I thought of it myself. Maybe you can write to her and find out how to get along with Virgil.”
Because I have nearly all my classes with Virgil, it takes work to avoid him. Fortunately he is an expert at acting like I don’t exist. I brainstorm with Sondra in journalism—which means we talk about her writing an article on vegetarian recipes for an hour. In Spanish we have conversation day, so nobody talks except the three Hispanic kids. In PE, I tell Mrs. Cole-man I have endometriosis. She looks concerned and I feel guilty. In English I just sit in the corner and pretend to care.
I sit alone at lunch. Joss and Mandy glare at me once and go back to their salads. I should feel bad but this way I can read my book about wolf extermination in peace. Halfway through I come across a picture of wolves strung up on a barn. I dump my food in the trash and head for the halls. This objectivity thing is going to be harder than I thought.
I go to the hallway where Virgil comes after lunch. I’m not really a stalker, but my school is so small it’s hard not to notice a person’s schedule if you have a compound crush and guilt complex about them.
He rounds the corner talking to Dennis. Dennis is explaining something with the words “X-wing” and “
Death Star
” involved. Virgil barely looks at me even though I am standing right next to his locker. Dennis is so wound up explaining the implications of galactic warfare that he ignores me, too.
I interrupt.
“Can I talk to you, Virgil?”
Virgil looks at me. “Dennis is telling me about something.”
Dennis looks exulted.
“Okay,” I say.
Dennis takes a breath and keeps talking at light speed. Virgil nods and switches books. I float away in my cloud of nothingness. I have learned the secret to being invisible. All you need is a knack for making people wish you would disappear and then you really do.
After school I see Virgil walking home with Dennis. Dennis is waving his arms around, and Virgil looks caught up in whatever Dennis is telling him.
I walk slowly so I won’t catch up to them. At the corner Virgil waves to Dennis, and Dennis takes off down the street alone. Virgil leans against the streetlight and waits for me. I force myself to walk the same pace all the way to the light.
“Hey,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to be rude. I just didn’t want to talk to you today.”
Two can play at this whole say-what-you-are-actually-thinking game. I say, “I don’t need help feeling stupid.”
“No, probably not.”
I take a step back. “When did you get so mean?”
“You feel stupid. That isn’t my fault.”
I feel something foul forming in my throat.
He says, “It also isn’t true.”
I swallow the scatological analogies I’m about to spew and try to keep up with what he’s saying.
“KJ, you assumed something about me. . . .”
I growl back, “I know . . . and I’m sorry. I’m an idiot.”
Virgil looks at everything but me. His hands fold and drop in front of him. I can’t tell if he’s furious or just bothered by having to talk to me. “But here’s the thing . . . you aren’t the first person to think that about me. I got that in my old school.”
“You did?”
“And your buddy Kenner had some nice names for me today, too. He’s a gem.”
The thought of being aligned on Kenner’s side of anything makes me ashamed. “I’m so sorry.”
His voice goes flat. “I have even wondered about it. Like maybe I’m in denial or something.”
I consider this. “How do you know you aren’t?”
“Well, you know . . .” he says. His face is slightly sunny, like the first day, but with a chance of showers. “You’re with someone, and you just know.”
“Oh,” I say.
I’m not entirely sure I know what Virgil is saying, but if he’s felt the way I feel about him, about a girl, any girl, I get why he’s so confident about his preferences. We stand there watching the tourists for a minute. A couple that collectively weighs five hundred pounds eats ice cream at the Dairy Queen.
Virgil says, “Mrs. Brady told me to take you wolf watching. How about me and my mom pick you up at four o’clock on Saturday?”
“P.M.?”
“A.M. I thought you fishing guides were up at three.”
“We don’t actually sleep after our twelfth birthday.”
“You bring the bear claws,” said Virgil. “I’ll bring my mom.”
“That’s really nice of you,” I say.
“Mrs. Brady’s right; you can’t write about wolves by copying stuff out of an encyclopedia.”
I can’t believe Mrs. B. told him that. I’m so mortified I just stand there with my arms folded across my chest.
“Later then,” he says, and jogs across the street against the light.
The truth is we know little about the wolf. What we know a good deal more about is what we imagine the wolf to be.
Barry Holstun Lopez,
Of Wolves and Men
CINDERELLA WOLF
THE BAD PART about a car ride with Eloise is she never stops feeding you. The good part is that she never stops talking. Virgil is polite, but it’s obvious that this trip is not his way of saying he likes hanging out with me.
Eloise says, “Nobody messes with the alpha female in the Druid Peak pack, Number Forty. That’s probably the pack we’ll see today, if we see anything. She’s fast, mean, and doesn’t take sass from her lessers, which is everyone, including Number Twenty-One, the alpha male.”
“How come everybody is so interested in the Druids?” I say. I know from my reading that each pack has a name but the individual wolves have numbers so the people won’t get attached to them. Some of the packs, like the Druids, have real celebrity status.
Eloise says, “Most of the people that come out here to watch the wolves for more than a week are avid Druid or Rose Creek watchers. They are the packs you can see with a scope from the road, and they’re always feuding so they’re the best soap opera in town right now, next to you and Virgil.”
“You eat too much sugar,” says Virgil.
“You need a little protein,” says Eloise. “You’re looking pale all of a sudden.”
Starting in Mammoth Hot Springs we listen to Eloise’s two-way radio. It’s not even light yet and her radio is buzzing with commentary from the Wolf Mafia. She narrates in between their dialogue. The Wolf Mafia, as they have been called by some of the locals, aren’t criminals, but they are a little zealous. They are not official park rangers or scientists. They are the volunteer keepers of the flame. They watch out for the wolves and record their activity. They range from groupies to gurus.
“As with any tight-knit group, you need to be mindful of your place out here,” says Eloise.
“Which is where?” I ask.
Eloise chuckles. “Next to me.”
The season of car access into Yellowstone is coming to a quick conclusion. Fall can disappear on the first day of September around here, but we usually make it into the end of October before winter really comes to stay.
September is brilliant in the park. The colors change and a mist settles on the valley like a giant sigh of relief after three months of RV rush hour. But this morning the road is still lined with cars. We stop at the biggest cluster.
“Doggone it. I hope we’re not too late.” Eloise parks her truck on the lip of the road. For most people it’s not even breakfast time yet, but campers and trucks jam the tiny pull-out. Eloise gathers her gear and goes to greet a circle of parkas. She is chatty and generous with each cluster of observers while she navigates a prime position and sets up her scope. I watch with jealousy as she both gets what she wants and ingratiates herself with everyone in her wake.
Virgil and I throw on our jackets and strap on our equipment. If he knew how much time I spent picking out this cornflower-blue-water-resistant-non-pilling fleece to wear, I’d die. My dad humored me with a new T-shirt, too. Luckily my dad doesn’t have as big of a mouth as Mrs. Baby.
We wonder into the crowd. Two women with matching tan stocking caps and green snowsuits talk in hushed tones with Eloise. It’s thirty degrees. That’s practically swimsuit weather for locals.
Virgil whispers, “They’re up here from Florida.”
I whisper back, “They look like zucchinis.”
Virgil shoots me a reproving look and starts setting up his stuff.
The first zucchini says, “She’s beating her up again.”
“I don’t know how much more of this that little sweetie can stand.”
“Her sister is a true leader. She gets the job done.”
“Well, she beats the daylight out of everyone, that’s for sure. But can’t keep her man happy.”
“Oh, he’s just as much to blame for the way things are and you know it.”
I step in close to Virgil so my back is to the zucchinis. “Who are they talking about?”
Virgil whispers, “Druids.”
“They’re talking about wolves?”
Eloise’s voice carries over the buzzing crowd. “Just below the tree line.”
Everyone quiets down and goes to their scopes, including Virgil. He focuses and takes a dozen shots. I try to find movement with my binoculars, but all I see are trees and brush. I feel like a tourist.
“What’s going on?”
Virgil steps back and pulls me in front of him, so I can see into his camera scope. I try to look more interested in what’s in front of me than what’s behind me. He says, “Forty-Two’s hating it. Can you see her?”
I sort through the colors and shapes of the mountain but draw a blank. “I’m blind,” I say.
I feel Virgil’s breath on my neck. “She’s in front of that juniper, just below the big rock.”
My eyes focus in, and I see a dark shadow that turns into a head after I stare at it for a second. Then I see the hunched line of her back.
One of the zucchinis says, “I saw her limping right before you got here, Eloise. She’s been through the ringer. Do you think she’ll stay?”
Eloise nods and speaks softly to the woman. “It will be unusual if she sticks around with so much abuse. Especially if Forty killed her pups and lover boy doesn’t seem to change his ways any time soon.”
“But she’s been through so much already.”
“You can never tell with a situation like this one. To be honest, this pack is just another reason why I tell people you can generalize about wolf behavior, but you can’t make rules about it.”
I turn to Virgil. “Her sister killed her pups?”
“No one actually saw Forty-Two’s pups. But last year Forty-Two dug a den and then Forty, the über alpha, showed up and let Forty-Two have it. Not the usual harassment, but a real beating. Forty-Two didn’t even fight back. Afterward, Forty-Two abandoned the den. The theory goes that the pups were killed as part of the punishment.”
“That’s horrible,” I say.
“Forty’s famous for her brutality. Even for wolves, Forty’s brutal. I saw her rip a coyote to shreds a few weeks ago just for wandering a hundred yards from a kill. I think she enjoys her work.”
“But why did Forty-Two even have pups? I thought only the alphas got breeding rights.”
“In this pack they think there have been as many as three litters at a time.”
“Is that alpha male crazy?” I say.
“That’s why people love the Druids. They’re very dramatic and easy to romanticize. Especially Forty-Two. She’s an impressive hunter, and she has clearly identifiable dark circles around her eyes that give her a neurotic look. She does the work and takes the beatings. They’ve started calling her the Cinderella wolf.”
“Cinderella wolf?”
“Everybody loves a fairy tale.”
“It doesn’t sound like a fairy tale to me.”
Eloise joins in, “This Cinderella will probably have to splinter off like the mom and the sister. It’ll be a shame though. She’s a great hunter.”
“What will she do?” I say.
“The other packs around here are highly territorial. She’ll probably have to head out alone for a while until she gets to the perimeter of the park and then look around for a new pack that will take her.”
“Can she make it alone?”
Eloise writes a few things in her notes and then remembers we are talking. “A lone wolf is usually a dead wolf if the isolation goes on for long. They can’t hunt big game alone and they wear themselves down.”
“If Forty-Two’s such a good hunter, what’s the point of driving her out?”
“Breeding competition.”
“So it’s like a girl fight?”
Eloise gets an annoyed look on her face. She says, “Wolves are like people, but they aren’t people.”