I stood slack-jawed, both horrified and pleased by what I had done.
Nana was crying, and my own breath was heaving in and out in great bursts. Outside, sirens went screaming by, and the two of us simply stood over the beast. Tears of relief started running down my face.
Nana stared. “How did you do that? How did you stop that monster?”
I shrugged, stepped over the wolf, and hugged her. I could feel her heart going a mile a minute.
“I have no idea,” I said. “All I did was stab it with a pen.”
I released her and leaned over the lifeless body. Holding back my own personal squick factor, I pulled the pen free, and lifted it up for examination. I began to laugh.
“What is it, dear?” Nana asked. I was sure I must have looked unhinged. And maybe I was. My mind was still reeling from the events of the past few hours.
“Well,” I said when I could finally speak, wiping the tears from my face, “What else does every college freshman have from their Nana but a nice graduation writing set? A silver writing set, to be exact.”
“And you said you’d get no use out of such a thing,” she tsk-tsked.
I hugged her even harder than before.
“You’re sure you’re okay?” I asked.
Nana nodded. “That was a pretty fancy move you did on the stairs.”
“I guess watching reruns of Buffy must have paid off.”
“From what I hear,” Nana said disapprovingly, “that’s all that’s paying off. About those grades of yours…”
“Nana, please,” I said, “I just saved your life. Maybe you could call my mom and put in a good word for me?”
She thought for a minute, then smiled. “I suppose I could put in a good word or two for my favorite little Red Riding Hood.”
With the mention of that name, I tugged at the zipper on the hoodie once again. This time it came free. The brightness of the Technicolor world faded and things around me turned to normal. The wolf melted into the floor.
I held the hoodie at arm’s length.
It was a bittersweet parting; I had loved the way it looked on me, but what I had been through was definitely too high a price for fashion’s sake.
The following day I returned to the thrift store, and asked for my money back. Hey, three dollars was three dollars. That was like three meals off the dollar menu or three midnight movies! Besides, I secretly held the wicked desire that that old crone who frequented the place, Mrs. Punzelli, might come back for it.
As I left, I caught the latest breaking news on the thrift store’s one working television. The story concerned a pack of wolves that had reportedly leaped from the subway car at the end of the 7 line the previous night. No one had been hurt, luckily, and after dispersing they were all later found surrounding a brick high-rise, barely able to move, and exhausted-from prolonged huffing and puffing, I had no doubt.
ANOTHER EXCITING ADVENTURE OF LIGHTNING MERRIEMOUSE-JONES: A TOUCHING GHOST STORY by Belle and Nancy Holder [1] [2]
Gentle Reader, You may recall that in our previous story, “The Further Adventures of Lightning Merriemouse-Jones,” Miss Merriemouse-Jones had fallen into the clutches of the evil Count Dracurat and his horrid Countess, who blamed dear Lightning for her husband’s extramarital misadventures. The lovely young rodentina was rescued by the dashing private detective Quincy Dormouse, a strapping Texan of large fortune. Once Lightning had been restored to her doting parents, Mr. Dormouse began to woo her with all the ardor of a young mammal who has stared death in its beady red eyes and known, down to the depths of his furry soul, that the bell tolls sooner than one can ever imagine and that one must seize the day-or in this case, clasp hands gently-for the impetuous American believed his singular chance of earthly happiness lay in persuading Miss Lightning to be his bride.
As you may also recall, Lightning was quite dashing herself, and no stranger to passion-for she had left her family home in the wall of the Summerfield estate when pressed by her well-meaning parents to select a husband and “be settled.” Our young heroine felt that the words “settled” and “Lightning” had nothing to do with each other. Therefore, to avoid such a fate mundane, she slipped into the pocket of Maria Luisa Summerfield, who was herself launching into matrimony via an elopement with her second cousin, Juan Eldorado Adelante-Paz.
It would be quite difficult to convey, in these more modern and, may one say, permissive times, what a serious breach of decorum an elopement was. But the two young misses were much of the same mind: Lightning herself was being sorely pressed to select a husband from the rats, mice, hamsters, and gerbils who came calling at her Papa’s door, and she truly fancied none of them, not even Gerhardt von Ratschloss, who traveled all the way from Prussia to dance attendance upon our young lady. In a similar state of vexation, Maria Luisa would have none other than Señor Adelante-Paz, declaring that she would rather die than be separated from him.
Thus, Lightning and Maria Luisa decamped, and after the wreck of the frigate El Queso, Lightning found herself thrust into the nightmarish world we described at length (four thousand, one hundred words including eeks) in our previous (and may we say, with all modesty, well-received) tale. And when all was resolved-with the death of Count Dracurat, and the restoration of Lightning to her parents-her mama made it quite clear that she thought Mr. Dormouse would make as spectacular a catch for her daughter as a fragrant chunk of Blue Castello perched upon the most devious of mousetraps. [3]
One may recall the thrilling conclusion of our previous story, [4] promising more adventures of Miss Lightning Merriemouse-Jones, and so, we are happy to provide such a story here. We have the means at our disposal to entertain our readers for some time to come, for when Belle was approximately eight years old (she is nearly ten as we write this), we discovered an object of great fascination on the porch of our home. It was so tiny and brown that at first I, Nancy, sans my spectacles, thought it was some sort of bug. But Belle, being keener-eyed and quite knowledgeable in the study of insects, declared it was no bug at all. [5]
She was quite correct: it was a tiny catgut notebook, labeled THE PRIVATE JOURNAL OF LIGHTNING MERRIEMOUSE-JONES. Imagine our delight! It is from this volume that we drew the material for our first story, and now do so again for our second. We happen to believe that it was deliberately left for us to read, and we have now accepted the commission to play scribe to this exceptional mammalian adventuress. The JOURNAL is filled with diary entries detailing her many deeds of derring-do, which pose some questions that we have yet to answer. Specifically, it appears that Our Heroine possessed (and perhaps possesses still!) some method of time-travel bequeathed upon her by her raternal uncle, Cheddrick Merriemouse-Jones. He was in his day either an innovative genius of the first water or a crackpot, depending upon whom one asks. He lived in the small English village of Stilton-Upon-Rye… and seems never to have died.
We mention this before commencing our actual story because you will see that our narrative opens in 1940, when Lightning should have been sixty years old, as she was born in 1880. And yet, in this tale, she is still a young, unmarried maiden as fresh as Devonshire cream. Indeed, as we began working, we were quite puzzled, and at first we thought the hero of the story was actually Cyclone Merriemouse-Jones, supposed to be a descendant of Lightning’s, who is buried in the quaint and lovely churchyard in the village of Neufchâtel.
[1] The annotations, provided by miss Belle Holder
[2] “Mom, my name should come first. B comes before N. I am a published author now, so let’s play by the rules.”
[3] “Mom, that’s great. I’m tired. I’m going to bed. Here are some interesting facts about lizards: some lizards live for as long as twenty years. Did you know that? Probably not.”
[4] To wit: “But do remember this, Gentle Reader: Lightning Merriemouse-Jones was destined for greatness.”
[5] · When Belle was five years old, an approaching woman came to a dead stop approximately two feet in front of her. The lady’s eyes widened with admiration, and she bent down to address Belle in that singsong voice which some adults use when addressing children:
“Oh!” she said. “You are such a beautiful little girl! Look at those big blue eyes! Have you ever thought of becoming a fashion model when you grow up?”
Whereupon Belle replied, “Actually, I would like to be an entomologist.”