Unnatural Creatures

“Do you need an antibiotic?” she asked.

I told her that I didn’t think so. It wasn’t anything dangerous and, besides, it was almost healed.

Matthew was grounded. They found him in a closet in the museum, asleep in the wreckage of a very expensive specimen, a half-lion, half-tiger skin that Mr. Jabricot had been commissioned to mount as part of a display on rare hybrids of the world. His mom made a formal apology to the museum board and tried to quit her job out of embarrassment, but they begged her to come back, with the condition that Matthew would never go into the museum again.

I haven’t decided what I am going to say to him yet. I think he still might be my best friend.

The scar on my arm is very faint and narrow. It’s about the width of a piece of hair and curves three times between my shoulder and my elbow. Sometimes, on hot and quiet afternoons, I’ll go outside alone and look at it in the sun.

On the rare occasion, I sing.

A trumpet, just one, sounds sweet when it finds the right tune. If you’re lucky, a monster does too.

13

The second werewolf story in this book. If I love werewolves (and I do) it is because I read this story, with its professor, magician, Nazi spies, and Hollywood film actress, at an age where such things left lasting impressions. It is a very silly story by a very good writer and editor, ANTHONY BOUCHER.

Professor Wolfe Wolf, unlucky in love, is drowning his sorrows in a bar, when he meets a magician, who informs him that he’s not destined to be a professor, but a werewolf. Detectives, spies, brainy secretaries…Things, needless to say, do not go at all according to plan.

THE PROFESSOR GLANCED AT THE NOTE:

Don’t be silly—Gloria.

Wolfe Wolf crumpled the sheet of paper into a yellow ball and hurled it out the window into the sunshine of the bright campus spring. He made several choice and profane remarks in fluent Middle High German.

Emily looked up from typing the proposed budget for the departmental library. “I’m afraid I didn’t understand that, Professor Wolf. I’m weak on Middle High.”

“Just improvising,” said Wolf, and sent a copy of the Journal of English and Germanic Philology to follow the telegram.

Emily rose from the typewriter. “There’s something the matter. Did the committee reject your monograph on Hager?”

“That monumental contribution to human knowledge? Oh, no. Nothing so important as that.”

“But you’re so upset—”

“The office wife!” Wolf snorted. “And pretty damned polyandrous at that, with the whole department on your hands. Go away.”

Emily’s dark little face lit up with a flame of righteous anger that removed any trace of plainness. “Don’t talk to me like that, Mr. Wolf. I’m simply trying to help you. And it isn’t the whole department. It’s—”

Professor Wolf picked up an inkwell, looked after the telegram and the Journal, then set the glass pot down again. “No. There are better ways of going to pieces. Sorrows drown easier than they smash. Get Herbrecht to take my two o’clock, will you?”

“Where are you going?”

“To hell in sectors. So long.”

“Wait. Maybe I can help you. Remember when the dean jumped you for serving drinks to students? Maybe I can—”

Wolf stood in the doorway and extended one arm impressively, pointing with that curious index which was as long as the middle finger. “Madam, academically you are indispensable. You are the prop and stay of the existence of this department. But at the moment this department can go to hell, where it will doubtless continue to need your invaluable services.”

“But don’t you see—” Emily’s voice shook. “No. Of course not. You wouldn’t see. You’re just a man—no, not even a man. You’re just Professor Wolf. You’re Woof-woof.”

Wolf staggered. “I’m what?”

“Woof-woof. That’s what everybody calls you because your name’s Wolfe Wolf. All your students, everybody. But you wouldn’t notice a thing like that. Oh, no. Woof-woof, that’s what you are.”

“This,” said Wolfe Wolf, “is the crowning blow. My heart is breaking, my world is shattered, I’ve got to walk a mile from the campus to find a bar; but all this isn’t enough. I’ve got to be called Woof-woof. Goodbye!”

He turned, and in the doorway caromed into a vast and yielding bulk, which gave out with a noise that might have been either a greeting of “Wolf!” or more probably an inevitable grunt of “Oof!”

Wolf backed into the room and admitted Professor Fearing, paunch, pince-nez, cane, and all. The older man waddled over to his desk, plumped himself down, and exhaled a long breath. “My dear boy,” he gasped. “Such impetuosity.”

“Sorry, Oscar.”

“Ah, youth—” Professor Fearing fumbled about for a handkerchief, found none, and proceeded to polish his pince-nez on his somewhat stringy necktie. “But why such haste to depart? And why is Emily crying?”

“Is she?”

“You see?” said Emily hopelessly, and muttered “Woof-woof” into her damp handkerchief.

“And why do copies of the JEGP fly about my head as I harmlessly cross the campus? Do we have teleportation on our hands?”

“Sorry,” Wolf repeated curtly. “Temper. Couldn’t stand that ridiculous argument of Glocke’s. Goodbye.”

“One moment.” Professor Fearing fished into one of his unnumbered handkerchiefless pockets and produced a sheet of yellow paper. “I believe this is yours?”

Wolf snatched at it and quickly converted it into confetti.

Fearing chuckled. “How well I remember when Gloria was a student here! I was thinking of it only last night when I saw her in Moonbeams and Melody. How she did upset this whole department! Heavens, my boy, if I’d been a younger man myself—”

“I’m going. You’ll see about Herbrecht, Emily?”

Emily sniffled and nodded.

“Come, Wolfe.” Fearing’s voice had grown more serious. “I didn’t mean to plague you. But you mustn’t take these things too hard. There are better ways of finding consolation than in losing your temper or getting drunk.”

“Who said anything about—”

“Did you need to say it? No, my boy, if you were to— You’re not a religious man, are you?”

“Good God, no,” said Wolf contradictorily.