“Yeah, and Mom and Dad told you to look after me, not take me on a wild-goose chase.” Maria’s younger sister, Angelina, trudged along the path Maria’s boots had made in the snow. When she’d caught up with her sister, Angelina sat down on a snow-covered log and wiped a bright-red mitten under her nose.

The girls’ parents had gone to a trucking industry trade show in Abbotsford and had given Maria specific instructions about taking care of her sister while they were gone. Except for school they were to stay inside the house, period. They were also not to let anyone into the house, not even friends or family.

Maria knew she was taking a chance, but she’d figured that if she took her sister with her then she’d technically still be looking after her. And if all went well, she’d be able to get some pictures of the Brocks doing their “changing thing,” and be back home long before her mother called from the truck show to check up on her and her sister. No matter how her parents decided to punish her, as long as she had pictures proving that the Brocks were total freaks, then all of it would have been worth it.

“It’s not a wild-goose chase,” Maria whispered. “It’s a wolf hunt. We’re hunting werewolves.”

“You keep saying that…and it scares me,” said Angelina. “How do you know they’re werewolves, anyway?”

“Because I saw them. I saw them change from people into wolves.” She glanced at her camera again, making sure everything was all right. “Nobody really believes me. Oh, they’re having fun with it right now, but they don’t believe what I’m saying is the truth. Some of them even think I’m crazy.”

“Even if they are where…wear…” Angelina struggled with the word. “Even if they are what you say they are, why are you bothering them? They never did anything to you.”

“Oh, no.” Maria laughed under her breath. “That dog Tora Brock stole the lead in the school play from me. She probably put a hex on me or something.”

Angelina drew a line in the snow with her mitten, then turned it into a smiley face by using her thumb to make two eyes above the line. “I don’t know,” she said. “I thought Tora was pretty good in that play.”

“She was lousy,” Maria spat. “I could have done better.”

“They got third place in Vancouver, that’s pretty good.”

“If I had gotten that part, we would have won.”

“Or finished last.”

“Shut up!” Maria said.

Angelina was about to say something when the back door of the Brock house opened.