A Rare Thing
The wolf pup doesn’t know he’s a rare thing. He doesn’t know there are people who would give anything to lock him up and run tests on him, and perhaps, eventually, take him apart.
No one pays attention when he hangs around street corners in the daytime, asking passers-by for change. When he lurks outside apartment buildings and family homes in the nighttime, rifling through the trash, he has the raccoons and opossums for company. They’re wary — they can sense the predator — but they don’t run. They can sense he’s also prey, like them; a scavenger, not a hunter.
A man stops him in the park one evening, when the wolf pup wants to find a place to sleep, a place that might stay dry, because it’s going to rain.
“Hey, kid, you okay?” asks the man, and the wolf pup eyes him warily.
“What’s your name?” asks the man, following one question with another, like he’s trying to see what sticks.
The wolf pup says nothing.
“You lost?”
“No,” says the wolf pup, because he isn’t. He knows the park better than his old home, the home he barely remembers and doesn’t want to.
“You’re not gonna sleep outside, are you?”
The wolf pup tilts his head, listening. If a cop comes by the park, he hides. But cops scare everybody, and if he ever wanted a cop to come by, it’s now. The only other people still in the park are leaving through the main gate. He and the man are alone, only a few feet apart, under a tall oak.
“You can’t stay out here,” says the man. “You better come with me.” He moves to take the wolf pup by the arm.
“Are you a cop?” asks the wolf pup, and the man drops back. He hesitates, then grins.
“Are you?” he asks, and the wolf pup can see the man’s trying to be funny, to get him to relax, so he shakes his head and says, “No.”
“Look, it’s dangerous out here for a kid,” says the man, and tries again to take him by the arm. The wolf pup steps back, knowing the rhododendron bushes along the wall enclosing the park are within a few yards’ dash. When the man advances a step, the wolf pup growls, a high-pitched burring in his throat. It doesn’t sound like a boy of eleven.
The man raises an arm as if to fend off an animal. “Fucking freak!”
The wolf pup blinks at the word. He narrows his eyes and bares his teeth, still growling. Sometimes that’s enough. His teeth are a little longer than other people’s teeth. Just his smile used to get him in trouble. He doesn’t smile anymore.
The man glances around quickly, but the park is empty now, and he makes another grab for the wolf pup, who snaps his teeth. When man flinches, the wolf pup flees for the bushes.
He hopes the man will decide he’s too much trouble, but he can hear the man cursing and pushing at the branches, looking for him. The wolf pup presses himself against the wall. If he runs, the man will hear him. If he stays where he is, the man will see him.
The wolf pup feels it coming. He doesn’t have a name for it, because he can’t remember a time before it. He tenses, feels the familiar prickling along his shoulders and the back of his neck, straight down to the base of his spine.
There’s a grunt, then a thump. In a minute, the wolf pup smells more people. He hears hushed voices and quick, quiet movements. The man’s scent fades, as if he left, and soon the other people leave, too.
The wolf pup smells meat. He sniffs the air and listens, but there’s no one around, so he crawls forward to peer out from the bushes.
A piece of raw beef, marbled with rich fat, lies in the grass a few yards away.
The wolf pup’s mouth waters, but he’s not stupid. No one carries around an unwrapped cut of raw meat, and they certainly wouldn’t drop it and leave it in the park. Someone is waiting, hoping to catch him. It might be the man, or whoever took the man away.
He retreats into the rhododendrons, and makes his way to the opposite end of the park by following the wall. He stops at a place where the walls meet, a dark corner behind an oak flanked by tall, thick hedges. The wolf pup curls up with his back against the whitewashed stone. He’s still afraid, his hidden wolf-self restless under his skin. But the wolf pup doesn’t let it out, even though the fur that sprouts along his body and his jaws and throat would keep him warm. He pulls his arms inside his shirt and tucks them around his torso, and when the rain comes, whispering against the oak leaves, the wolf pup is already asleep.
When he wakes up, he’s not too wet, and the ground isn’t muddy. He shakes himself, an instinct the people he ran away from always found off-putting. But he’s been away so long he forgets to stop himself from doing it.
The wolf pup stretches his limbs and combs his hair with his fingers, brushes the dirt and leaves from his clothes. He circles the oak and ventures out into the open, sees the sky turning blue as the morning sun rises. There won’t be any rain tonight.
The meat is gone, but the wolf pup expected it to be; he’s not the only hungry thing in the park. He can smell the McDonald’s on the next block, and thinks he’ll try his trick of startling someone coming out the door into dropping their breakfast sandwich.
As he leaves the park’s main gate, a woman collides with him. She says, “Oh!” and a man coming up behind nearly bumps into her. He recovers and walks briskly around, glaring. There’s barely anyone else on the street yet.
“Are you alright?” asks the woman. She’s standing a safe distance away, keeping her hands to herself.
“Got a dollar?” asks the wolf pup. People usually only stop to avoid the embarrassment of being seen shoving past a kid, but the woman seems nice.
“I’ve got ten,” she says, and unzips her purse.
Ten dollars. The wolf pup watches her pull out her wallet. He could snatch it and run, but he’s never liked doing that. It’s more trouble than it’s worth.
“I only need one,” he says uncertainly, but the woman is holding out a crisp ten dollar bill. He could make it last a long time if he still pulls the sandwich trick.
“Ten is better than one,” says the woman, and smiles. It’s a beautiful smile, and kind, and so the wolf pup thanks her.
“Why don’t we have breakfast together?” The woman nods at the money as he takes it. “You keep that. It’ll be my treat.”
The wolf pup thinks of the man last night, who wasn’t the first person to approach him like that, and won’t be the last. But this woman is different. “Okay.”
“My name is Ivy,” she says as the wolf pup tucks the money into his pocket.
“I’m Sid,” he says, and the woman looks pleased.
“I’m very happy to meet you, Sid,” she says. “Where should we go for breakfast?”
“It’s your treat,” he says politely, and Ivy laughs.
“You’re a rare thing, Sid,” she says, and when she reaches for his hand, Sid only hesitates a moment before he gives it to her.
