Anger buoyed Alec’s fright. “I burned it,” he snarled back. “Like you lot made me burn my cows, when there weren’t anything wrong with them. Foot-and-mouth, my ar —”

Alec stopped in midsentence. To his horror, Scale’s face had begun to change. The nose and mouth began to push outward to accommodate large canine teeth, which lengthened and pointed downward in cruel spikes. Coarse black hair sprouted from Scale’s hairline and merged with the wolflike pelt that spilled over his collar. And his eyes! Alec watched in dreadful fascination as they started to glow with a dirty orange light. The blackened nails lengthened into vicious claws, which shone dully in the light of the setting sun. Scale flexed the claws with intent, as if he were going to pluck out one of Alec’s eyes. Mercifully, at this moment, Alec’s brain decided to call a halt to the proceedings, and he slid gracefully to the floor in a dead faint.

CHAPTER 6
A FREAK AND A WEIRDO

As he raced out of the house and through the garden gate, Nat half hoped there would be no sign of the boy formerly known as his dog. But when he reached the top of the lane, Nat was surprised to feel relieved when he saw the stranger, still wrapped in the striped blanket. The boy stood motionless, appearing to sniff the night air, as if he were making a decision about which way to go. Panting and dripping with sweat and nervous excitement, Nat ran to catch up with him.

“Wait!” he gasped. The boy stood patiently as Nat tried to catch his breath. “S … sorry. I’d just had a terrible nightmare about some kind of werewolf thing,” stammered Nat, “and, well … I realize you’re nothing like the creature in my nightmare. I’m pretty sure I can trust you.”

“You … helped me,” said the boy, in his curious, halting manner. “I’d never hurt you — or your people.”

“Mr. Tate was going to drown you!” cried Nat, remembering the vision of Woody, his front legs tied to his back, at the water’s edge.

“He was desperate,” said the boy sadly. “Sc … scared, too.”

Nat’s eyes lit up. “So you did show me with your mind. That was telepathy, right?”

“Telly … television?” said the boy, his face suddenly brightening.

“No, not television,” said Nat, “telepathy. It’s communicating with your mind.” Nat felt out of his depth. He didn’t know if the boy understood what he was trying to say. “Can you do it again?”

The boy shrugged. “Sometimes yes, sometimes no.”

“Like earlier?” Nat remembered. “When I tried to do telepathy in the garden?”

The strange boy nodded. Nat began to feel more confident. There were so many things he wanted to ask.

“But why was Mr. Tate so desperate to get rid of you? Was it because he thought you were dangerous? Like a werewolf?”