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Title Page

WOLVEN

BY DI TOFT

SCHOLASTIC INC. | NEW YORK

Dedication

THIS ONE’S FOR JOHN AND CONNIE MAJOR
—MY MUM AND DAD

CHAPTER 1
HELD TO RANSOM

In Nat Carver’s opinion, the strange animal being paraded before him looked as though it owed its origins more to Dr. Frankenstein than Mr. Darwin. For once he felt lost for words, although he could think of a few he might have said if his mum hadn’t been there.

This, he thought, has got to be a joke.

But when the silence became prolonged and uncomfortable, the kind where no one really knows what to say for the best, Nat knew it was no joke.

Behind him, his granddad, Mick, forced air through his false teeth, making a humming noise like a kazoo, a clear sign that he didn’t know what to say, either. “I’m flabbergasted,” he muttered at last.

“It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be,” whispered Nat’s mum, also clearly stunned by the creature standing before them.

“And a heck of a lot older,” muttered Mick, sharing some of Nat’s dismay. He turned to the farmer.

“You’re playing a prank, Alec,” said Mick angrily. “Our Nat wants a pedigree puppy, not this scraggy ol’ mutt.”

Despite the wasted journey, Nat thought that it had been worth it just to meet this miserable old farmer. Alec Tate had enormous, ill-fitting false teeth and the type of lugubrious mug Nat normally associated with a bloodhound or getting your face squashed in the doors of an elevator.

Nat’s mum, Jude, watched nervously from the safety of the barn door, in case the animal made any sudden move toward her. It kept blinking as though it wasn’t used to the sunlight, and plunked its hindquarters down on the dusty ground, quietly ignoring its visitors. When it opened its vast mouth to yawn, Nat and his grandfather hastily stepped backward. They stared in fascination as the top of the dog’s head appeared to become detached from the bottom half, revealing rows of sharp, white teeth. Then it made a loud noise like a supersonic jet taking off. Despite his initial disappointment, Nat found himself grinning.

Fed up with waiting for Tate to answer him, Mick tried again, hoping to lighten the awkward moment. “I mean, look at the beast. It’s so big our Nat could ride the beggar home.”

“Might not look like much at the moment,” said Mr. Tate. “He’s going through an adolescent phase. Looks a bit out of proportion.”

You’re so not kidding, Nat agreed silently.

Sensing his audience wasn’t impressed, Alec Tate’s bloodhound face reddened. His eyes flickered shiftily, as if he were trying to think of something to say to make the dog appear more attractive. Nat, who was not by nature an unreasonable person, tried to be fair. If you looked past the obvious odd parts — the crusty, sparse fur and the strong smell, which Nat imagined as squiggly stink lines rising upward from the strange-looking body like in a cartoon — it wasn’t that bad.

His mum, who was not usually keen on things that bite, seemed to have recovered well after seeing all those teeth in just the one mouth. She came out from behind the barn door, reached out, and gingerly patted the too-big head.

“Hello, boy,” she said softly.

Mr. Tate grinned for the first time, sensing a shift in opinion. When the sunlight hit his false teeth, the solar glare made black spots appear in front of Nat’s eyes.

Mick knelt down to make friends with the dog. As his lanky body folded up, his knobbly knees popped loudly. Nat’s grandfather was lofty and thin, and dressed in clothes you wouldn’t usually expect to see on a person of his years. He had eight silver earrings in his left ear and a shaved head, usually covered by a hat. Today, to mark the special occasion of dog buying, he wore his favorite: a green velvet pillbox with tiny mirrors embroidered on it. His lack of head hair was compensated for by a long, wispy beard, which he normally wore in a braid. On really special occasions he had been known to dye it purple, and it was at those times, much to Nat’s deep embarrassment, that his granddad could be found playing air guitar, or even worse, air fiddle.

“Is that mange?” Jude asked the farmer suspiciously, pointing to the crusty greenish patches that almost covered the dog’s entire body.

“Mange?” exclaimed Mr. Tate, clearly insulted. “‘Course it ain’t the mange! That’s only a bit of dung. Show me a dog that don’t like to have a roll in a cowpat now an’ then, and I’ll say it ain’t no proper dog!”

Jude snatched her hand away in horror, wiping it hastily on her jeans.

“Why is it, exactly, that you’re getting rid of him?” asked Mick.

“Er … he was the last in the litter,” replied Mr. Tate, avoiding Mick’s eyes.

Nat held out his hand to the dog, which until this moment had ignored him. It got up awkwardly and gave him a halfhearted lick, as though it thought it ought to make an effort.

“There you are — the boy’s bonded with him already!” exclaimed Mr. Tate, giving them the benefit of his false teeth again.

Jude still looked doubtful; she knew that Nat had his heart set on a puppy, not a fully grown dog like this malodorous mongrel.

“Other ‘uns were black and tan, and him being white, he’s what they call a throwback — that’s why he’s going cheaplike.”

“Thought dogs normally went woof, not cheep,” said Mick, winking at Nat, who shot him a withering look.

A sudden realization hit Nat: Mr. Tate is lying. There was something about the farmer’s manner that made him feel uneasy; his story didn’t ring true. Something told Nat there hadn’t been a litter of pups, either. But why? Why would he lie?

Mick looked at the farmer closely. “Are you absolutely sure there’s no other reason you want to get rid of it, Alec?”

Mr. Tate sighed as if in deep regret. “As I said to you down at the Slaughtered Sheep, we’re moving away. Goin’ to Wookey Hole to live with our Linda. She won’t take him an’ our Gypsy.”

“Truth now, Alec,” pressed Mick. “How old is he really?”

“Eighteen month?” tried Mr. Tate.

“How old?” asked Mick again, this time leaning closer to the farmer.

“Three year,” sighed Alec Tate. “And that’s the truth.”

“Has anyone else been interested in adopting him?” asked Jude.

“Nope,” said Mr. Tate gloomily. “Only you.”

“What will happen to him if you can’t get anyone to take him?” asked Mick.

Narrowing his eyes, Mr. Tate solemnly raised a finger to his throat and slowly drew it across in a slicing motion.

“You mean …?” said Jude, aghast.

“Yup,” said Mr. Tate, nodding slowly.

All three looked down in horror at the dog, which appeared to be listening intently. Nat wanted to clamp his hands over the animal’s ears, to spare it the dreadful knowledge.

“So, what you’re saying is, if we don’t take him, you’ll have him put to sleep?” asked Mick.

“Summat like that,” said Mr. Tate, turning purple.

Mick’s expression hardened, and for a horrible moment Nat thought his grandfather was going to hit Mr. Tate.

“I’ll not be held to ransom like this, Alec,” he warned.

Tate shrugged. “Suit yourself, mate. Makes no odds to me either way. It’ll be a long walk off a short pier for this ol’ boy.”

Nat risked a glance at the unfortunate subject of their conversation. The mutt had stopped its frantic blinking and stared directly at Nat. It was almost midday and the concrete yard offered no shade. Nat felt slightly faint, as though he were going to pass out. He shook his head to clear it, and noticed something peculiar about the dog’s gaze. Its strange, amber-colored eyes had changed. Now they watched Nat, gleaming with warmth and intelligence. A golden glow shone from within, almost as though someone had lit a candle inside its head. Nat forgot the yard, the horrible farmer, his mum and granddad. He saw himself reflected, two tiny Nat Carvers, one in each eye, and inexplicably, he felt like smiling.

Then something incredible happened to Nat. The sun went out. Or, to be more accurate, for a few seconds, Nat was somewhere else. The relentless sun had been replaced by a glittering full moon. A cold breeze tugged at his clothes, freezing water lapped at his sneakers. Something lay at the shoreline, gently moving in and out to the rhythm of the shallow waves. Nat moved closer. He caught an unwanted glimpse of a big, pale dog, front legs tied to the back, fur sodden and matted. Its eyes were closed. It looked sad and lonely and drowned.

At once, Nat knew for sure that Tate would carry out his threat if they didn’t agree to take the dog away. He felt the sun’s rays again as the vision disappeared. The dog was still there, fixing Nat with its extraordinary golden eyes. Gradually they faded back to their usual color.

It made me see that, thought Nat. The knowledge left him panicky and cold inside, despite the heat of the day.

“… or did you want to see the Labs at the stables?”

Nat shook his head, suddenly aware of the others.

“Sorry, what lavs, Granddad?”

“Labs,” repeated Mick. “Would you like to see the Labrador pups up at the major’s stables? I promised you a puppy, Nat. This … er, dog, isn’t what I had in mind at all.”

“Is he trained?” asked Jude.

“Oh, he’s fine with sit and stay, the usual commands,” said Mr. Tate airily.

The dog stood calmly next to Nat, its long legs wobbling slightly, its feet splayed out at gawky angles. It looked, thought Nat, slightly amused.

“Down,” commanded Tate.

The dog yawned and walked off, its rear end swaying almost jauntily, as if to say, “Stuff it, matey.”

“He don’t know that one yet,” blustered Mr. Tate, trying to regain some dignity.

Mick fiddled with his beard, lost in thought. Suddenly, he shot a contemptuous look at the farmer and grabbed Nat’s arm.

“C’mon, Nat,” he said. “I promised you a puppy. Let’s go.”

Tate and Nat looked alarmed, but for different reasons.

Nat turned to face Mr. Tate. “I don’t have a choice, do I?” he said coldly. “If I don’t take him, you’ll kill him.”

“I wuz only having a laugh,” said Alec Tate uneasily. “My missus wouldn’t let anything happen to that dog. Apple of her eye, he is.”

Again, Nat knew instinctively that Mr. Tate wasn’t telling the truth. Something very weird had just happened to him. Somehow, the dog had got into his head and shown him what might happen to it if Nat walked away and left it at the farm.

“Has he got a name?” he asked, rubbing the dog on its chest. In graceful slow motion, the dog rolled over onto its back and raised all four enormous paws in the air, inviting Nat to rub its belly instead. Another wave of happiness washed over him, the best he had felt since his dad left.

“He ‘ent really got one,” said Mr. Tate, “although the missus calls him Woody, on account of that’s … er, I mean because he likes going for walks in the woods. What would you call him, young feller?”

Nat hesitated. When Mick had told him about the white German shepherd puppy, he had imagined it to be a small, cuddly creature, which, in time, would grow into a handsome dog. The creature in front of him was nothing like he had imagined. Its head looked a bit too large for its body and its legs looked almost too skinny to support it. The fur that wasn’t covered in cow dung was patchy and thinning, as though someone had deliberately hacked at it with blunt scissors.

Nat shrugged. “White Fang?” he joked. He couldn’t think of a single name to suit the scruffy creature.

“Storm?” suggested Jude.

“What d’you think, Granddad?” asked Nat.

“I think we ought to leave it,” said Mick. “Go and see some more afore you make up your mind.”

“I have made up my mind,” said Nat. “I want this one, please. I want Woody.”

“Well then,” said Mick, “if you’ve made up your mind, it sounds as though you’ve settled on his name, too.”

“Woody suits him.” Nat grinned. “And he suits me, too.”

“Not quite what me and your nan had in mind,” said Mick, “but if you’re sure …”

“Positive,” said Nat firmly. “Thanks, Granddad.”

To seal the deal, Mr. Tate spat into his hand and held it out to Mick. Nat grimaced as his granddad did the same. Then they shook on it; the deal was done. Mr. Tate bundled Woody into Mick’s small car as though afraid he might change his mind. Somehow Nat managed to squash in beside him, trying not to choke on the smell of cow dung. The farmer slammed the door and waved them off, teeth flashing, skinny arms flailing like a windmill.

From the moment Mick turned on the ignition, it became clear that Woody was not a fan of car travel. His calm temperament disappeared in a display of such terrified behavior that Nat feared he was going to cause an accident as he thrashed in the confined space of the backseat, his eyes flashing their strange golden colors and his nostrils flaring alarmingly. Nat and his family trundled off down the rough farm track to the main coast road, arms, legs, and furry bits entwined, as the boy tried in vain to persuade Woody to stay sitting.

Had they looked back, they would have been surprised to see the farmer still watching them, his shoulders slumped, the expression on his long face a mixture of misery and relief. They would have been even more surprised to see Mr. Tate do a very strange thing. He looked up at the clear blue sky and made the sign of the cross, his lips moving as if in prayer. Only when the car had disappeared did he make his weary way back to the yard. Although the sun was still hot, he shivered as he walked into the farmhouse.

“No going back now,” he muttered under his breath.

CHAPTER 2
THE SLAUGHTERED SHEEP

By the time they had reached the end of the farm track, Woody’s Eau de Country Cow Pie body odor problem had become so bad that Nat could almost taste it.

“Quick!” spluttered Mick, trying to breathe through his mouth. “Open the windows!”

Woody stuck his head out, his tongue snaking over the side of the window like a pink banner. Nat, by this time struggling for fresh air, stuck his head out of the other side as Woody’s distressed moaning stretched into a soul-shriveling howl, so loud it made Nat’s ears ring. At Temple Cross, Mick threw up his hands in surrender and made a decision he regretted exactly ninety-seven seconds later.

“I think a pit stop might be a good idea,” he gasped; the smell was making him woozy.

As Mick pulled into the bustling market square, Woody was getting desperate. “AAAAAAAWHHHHOOOOOOOhhoooooooooo,” he howled in anguish, his ears flattened against his skull. “WHHHOOOOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO OOOOH.”

Jude’s normally pale face was flushed brick red with heat and embarrassment as shoppers stopped dead in their tracks, craning their necks to see who or what was making such a racket.

“For goodness’ sake, Nat, shut him up!” Jude yelled, putting her hands over her ears. “Everyone’s looking!”

Mick turned off the ignition. Nat closed his eyes in a prayer of thanks as the howling stopped abruptly, and Woody poked his head between the front seats. Strings of saliva swung gently as he made little chuffing yips, blowing his furry cheeks out in distress. To a delicate traveler like Nat, no stranger to a sick bag himself, it wasn’t hard to guess what was coming next.

“LOOK OUT!” he shouted. “HE’S GOING TO BE SICK!”

Across the square, the commotion had alerted customers eating their lunch outside the Slaughtered Sheep, a pretty sixteenth-century inn. Forks poised in disgusted dismay, they watched as the sweaty family spilled hastily out of the tiny car and Mick and Jude fled to the public toilets to clean up. Time seemed to stand still for a moment as the sight of Woody’s last meal registered with the people outside the pub. Nat feared there would be a mass puke-a-thon, as everyone followed Woody’s example and lost their overpriced grub in sympathy.

Fortunately, the response was less spectacular. A party of ladies who had been subjected to the clearest view of poor Woody cried out in disgust and promptly put down their forks, fanning their faces in distress. Everyone was staring; even the raucous laughter from the gaggle of older boys in the corner of the square had trailed off into a sort of horrified glee.

Oh, brilliant, thought Nat, they’re coming over. Sensing trouble, he pulled on the piece of string that was Woody’s leash and made an abrupt turn back to Mick’s car.

His way was barred by a barrage of grinning youths. One of them, his hair so blond he’d looked bald from a distance, drew his lips back in a fake smile.

“That wasn’t very nice, was it?” the blond kid asked in mock concern. He pushed his face threateningly close to Nat’s. His eyes were extraordinarily blank, the pupils tiny in the blue of the irises.

“Those are my dad’s paying customers,” he said. “How’d you like it if you were enjoying a nice bit of venison carpaccio and some dumb ol’ dog spills its guts in front of you?”

The boy was at least three years older than Nat, and much bigger. Nat knew that whatever his answer was, it was never going to be the right one.

“I … I’m …” Nat’s voice came out squeaky and scared. He tried again. The tone he was aiming for was confident and grown-up. “I’m really, really sorry about that,” he finished.

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew that he hadn’t sounded sincere or confident. It sounded as though he were being sarcastic, and not in the least bit sorry.

“Ooooh oooh,” mimicked the boy in a high falsetto. “Hear that? He says he’s really, really sorry! He don’t sound very sorry to me!”

Vicious laughter rang out from the others, who had gathered around in a grubby corral of dirty necks and sneering faces.

Nat was just about to say something else when his arm began to vibrate with a remarkable noise. Low at first, it built to a rumbling, thunderous hum. It seemed to be traveling up from the piece of string to which Woody was attached. Puzzled, Nat looked down.

Woody’s matted, dingy fur had puffed up to almost twice its size; his head seemed to be made solely of gleaming white teeth and blazing eyes. The rumbling grew to a bloodcurdling growl. The blond boy drew back sharply and brayed forced laughter.

“Has he got rabies or what?”

Badly shaken, Nat dragged Woody away from the gang.

“We shoots animals like that ‘un!” shouted the blond boy. “Then we hangs ‘em up by the legs for ten days, before we chops ‘em up and feeds ‘em to the pigs. You wanna keep it out of my way, or that’s what’ll happen to your dog!”

Spiteful laughter followed as Nat walked back to the car.

“Who was he?” asked Jude indignantly.

“Take no notice of him,” said Mick. “That snotty little so-and-so is the landlord’s son, Teddy Davis. He’s a wrong ‘un. I’ve had to have a few words with him in the past; that might be why he picked on you.”

“Nat, are you OK?” asked Jude, concerned.

“Can we just go?” pleaded Nat. “Let’s get him back into the car.”

But Woody planted his lanky legs firmly into the dusty ground and refused to move any nearer to the car. Nat, the pukey smell still haunting his nostrils, wasn’t sorry; if Woody wouldn’t travel by car, then they would walk the rest of the way home. Still uncomfortably aware that Teddy Davis and his gang were sneering from their corner, Nat and Woody jogged past the inn out onto the main Temple Gurney road, keen to leave Temple Cross behind them.

Nat wondered if it would be all right to let Woody off the leash. He didn’t fancy chasing after him in this heat if the dog got it into his head to leg it back to Temple Cross, but he decided to take a chance. He knelt down and untied the string from the battered old collar Tate had given them.

“Don’t do a runner, will you?” he asked the dog anxiously, then instantly felt stupid. He’d have had a right shock if the dog had answered him! Nat thought again about the strange vision he’d had at Tate’s farm. Had Woody really been trying to show him what would happen if they didn’t take him away? He grinned to himself, feeling slightly embarrassed at even thinking such a thing. As if! Maybe he was coming down with heatstroke; anything else would be way too weird. Nevertheless, the image of the big, pale dog, hog-tied and drowned, had been enough to make up Nat’s mind. He felt as though he really had saved Woody’s life by taking him away from the horrible farmer.

And that was good, wasn’t it? But something else nagged at Nat’s brain. A saying, or an old proverb. Something like: “If you save a life, you become responsible for it.” That bothered him a bit.

But as they walked through the leafy lanes toward Temple Gurney, he felt considerably cheered up. Woody had completely lost the depressed, downtrodden look he’d had at the farm. Free of the piece of string, he loped along, making weird little chuffing noises and occasionally turning around as if to check that Nat still followed.

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