This Is Not a Werewolf Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

sees is the Olympian.
    Mr. Tuffman stands taller. His chest puffs out. He holds on to Pretty Lady’s hand and smiles down at her. But she keeps squinting at his mangled toupee. Her mouth drops open and her eyes get bigger.
    Is she really that rude?
    My eyes follow hers. What I see is awful. I’m so surprised, I can’t remember the word, so I point. Mr. Tuffman sees me. He thinks I’m pointing at his toupee. He shifts like he’s about to pounce on me. He’s going to kill me and he doesn’t care who sees it.
    â€œSnake!” Sparrow shouts.
    That’s the word I was looking for.
    Everyone looks up and screams.
    Gollum dangles from one of the hanging lights, stretching down toward Tuffman’s head.
    Tuffman screeches. The sound is so sharp my knees buckle. My skin pricks. Woods magic. It starts to happen again.
    Gollum lands on his shoulder and skitters to the floor. She’s a long black streak, but Tuffman’s quick. He sprints after Gollum. Everyone stops screaming. Tuffman to the rescue.
    Then, at the exact same moment, we all notice the hunting knife in Tuffman’s hand. It’s huge. Everyone starts screaming again.
    â€œNo,” Dean Swift shouts. “Don’t kill her! She’s not that venomous.”
    Tuffman doesn’t hear. Gollum darts under chairs and tables, racing for the door.
    â€œDon’t kill her!” Sparrow shouts. “She’s our baby , remember?”
    The door to the dining hall bangs open. The reading teacher, Ms. Tern, walks in with her head down and an open book in her hand. Gale-force winds couldn’t make that lady pull her head out of a book. Gollum heads in her direction. Tuffman is in pursuit.
    â€œWatch out, Nicolette!” Dean Swift yells.
    Ms. Tern looks up just as Gollum slides past her foot into the hallway and freedom, just as Mr. Tuffman lunges and raises the knife.
    We all shout. I like Ms. Tern and her mouse-colored hair and her soap-bubble yells and her reading and walking. I don’t want to see her get hurt. But I can’t look away.
    Ms. Tern drops her book. Her left hand flies into the air and catches Mr. Tuffman’s right arm by the wrist. The knife clatters onto the floor. What a grip!
    With her other hand she punches him in the gut so hard that he grunts and falls to his knees.
    The room is so quiet I hear Gollum slither down a vent in the hallway. Tuffman gets back on his feet. He stands there, a little bent at the waist, rubbing his wrist, staring at Ms. Tern.
    Ms. Tern shoves her glasses up higher on her nose. “Crikey. Are you very hurt?” she asks. Her British accent makes each word trip to the next.
    She looks out at all of us and explains sadly, “I only just finished reading a self-defense manual. I’m afraid I took rather careful notes.”
    She picks up her book and walks toward the kitchen, her nose down, her fingers flipping pages as she looks for her lost place.
    And then, as she walks by me, it happens. Ms. Tern smiles.
    I don’t think it’s the book. I can see the title. Fifty Unsolved Crimes Against Endangered Species. Not exactly the kind of reading that’s gonna crack you up.
    Ms. Tern is smiling because she knocked Tuffman to his knees.
    The bell rings for class. I bend down to grab my backpack. I glance to see if anyone’s looking at me.
    Then I smile too.

Chapter 4
WHERE RAUL LEARNS THE WRONG WAY TO WRESTLE
    Nobody can stop talking about Ms. Tern and Mr. Tuffman. Has he been packing a six-inch blade all along? Can you really get a death grip and a right hook out of a how-to book? Who knew her first name was Nicolette?
    Then, as we’re all heading to class, Little John finds some gross stuff on the bathroom floor under the ceiling fan. He comes running out in the hall saying that Gollum got herself killed.
    Sparrow starts to sob. “It’s all your fault!” he screams at Mean Jack. “Your! Fault!”
    â€œI didn’t want