Gloria squeezed my wrist tight. My hand tingled. Dust and smoke stung in my eyes. Chicken was gone. Chicken was gone to get Rowan. Whispers came into my head, Maise, Maise, Maaaiseeeey.

Then I heard Carl say, “You are not brave. But you will be brave.”

The skipping rope snapped. The lid burst off the box.

I breathed fast. He was a wolf. Rowan was a wolf. I looked at the woods. The creek was in there. Carl and the bridge. Fresh air. He ran through the bushes, and he was laughing. Rowan was happy in the woods with Carl. He was happy in the outside.

Then I understood. A wolf didn’t belong in a box. A wolf was supposed to be free in the forest. A hurt wolf would be angry. A trapped wolf would be sad.

Then I felt a hot burn right in my middle. There was wolf in me too. It was a tiny wolf. It was a scared wolf. But it was still a wolf.

I snapped my wrist out of Gloria’s hand and I ran, a skipping stone, over the driveway, fast like a train, and I did not fall, I did not fall, and Darrell didn’t catch me, and I was up those stairs, and I turned, and Gloria was shaking her fists, and her face was mad and full of orange fire shine, and Mrs. Spooner had her hands over her mouth, and Shar was smiling and jumping, and the fireman screamed “Stop that kid!” and I knew I’d never get back in Gloria’s heart, she would slap it closed, and then I’d be gone, taken by those men, no one would want me, no one, no one, no one, sneaky useless spy sneak, and Gloria was growling like crazy and inside Chicken was growling like crazy too, but in a different way, a brave way, and I emptied my head and made a small wolf howl, it felt good to make a howl, and I rushed into the oven of dark clouds, and I closed up my eyes and my mouth and I did not breathe, and I waved my hands and gray still leaked up my nose holes, sunburn on my throat and my skin, coughing, the key in Gloria’s closet, up the stairs and too far away, but maybe it will be open, maybe she forgot, fingers crossed, monster arms out through the cloud, tumbling where I knew, then Chicken against my leg, whining, but my turtle head was out, I felt the flat bits of metal, the screws, burning, Chicken was scritching and scritching, the lock, the lock, be open, be open. I pulled on it, my hand got small around it. Both ends trapped inside, and my fingers screamed.