Angelina’s head swiveled as she looked around the room. “Where am I?” she asked.

A small laugh of relief ran through the crowd. Of all the things someone in Angelina’s condition could say in a moment like that, “Where am I?” seemed the most normal.

“You’re in Redstone Hospital,” Doctor Dhillon said as he began to check her pulse and heart rate. “You’ve had quite an ordeal. Do you remember anything of what happened to you last night?”

Angelina said nothing for the longest time. It was obvious she was thinking hard about the question, but just how much she’d be able to remember…who knew?

“I was out with my sister…” Angelina said at last.

Everyone around the bed turned to look at Maria, and Maria could feel her face getting red and her body suddenly hot beneath her clothes. She gave a little wave and waited for everyone to return their attention to Angelina.

“I turned around for a second and I got lost in the woods,” Angelina continued. “I started walking, but then I slipped and fell down the side of the mountain. I would have been all right,” she continued, “but I saw a wolf in the forest. I ran away from the wolf, but then I was really lost!”

Ranger Brock seemed very interested to hear about the wolves. He was leaning forward over the end of the bed and looking straight into Angelina’s eyes. “Was there just one wolf, or a bunch of them…a pack?”

“Only one of them at first. I kept walking and walking, but it kept on following me. Not getting closer, but always there.”

“But there was more than one wolf,” the ranger pressed her. “You’re sure of that?”

Angelina nodded. “There were lots of wolves in the forest.”

“Did they hurt you?”

Everyone around the bed was silently following the conversation between the ranger and Angelina.

“They wanted to,” she said. “And they were going to…maybe even eat me.”

Mrs. Abruzzo gasped.

“So what happened?” the ranger prodded.

“There was a fight.”

“Between the wolves?”

“No.”

“Then who?”

Angelina paused, as if thinking. “There were other wolves…good ones. They fought the bad wolves and saved me from getting eaten.”

“Holy cow!” someone at the back of the room said. “This is front-page news!”

Maria and everyone else in the room turned to see that John G. Smith from the Redstone Gazette had slipped in and was recording everything Angelina was saying. No one seemed to be bothered by the reporter’s presence, except for Ranger Brock, who suddenly had a look on his face that was halfway between worry and fear.

“And then they brought me here,” Angelina said.

“Who did?” asked the ranger.

“The good wolves…” Her voice trailed off for a moment, then she corrected herself. “But they weren’t really like wolves, they were people who looked like wolves…like man-wolves, or something.”

“Werewolves?” somebody said.