Coyote

Chapter 18: Words That Start With The Letter R

Now that Mr. Rodgers' grubby little paws are off the paper, let's get back to the real story as told by me, William, fiercest of the wolves, a proud member of the forest, a feral hunter of the night, defender of the moon, fisher of fish, cruncher of kittens, and howler of justice. Whatever Mr. Rodgers said can probably be discounted. If ever there was an unreliable narrator, it would be him. What follows is entirely truthful.

Hunter, River, and Ollie had begun to track Mr. Rodgers, but quickly got sidetracked when a person walking on the street gave them some treats. It was so embarrassing seeing them succumb to their lowest instincts. A true wolf wouldn't stop what they were doing for some treats. While we waited for them to finish, we snatched some gyros from a nearby street cart. Gyros were worth a break. Some people just don't know what good food is.

We all knew that we would have to rescue Mr. Rodgers. Eli made sure to remind me of this fact repeatedly, telling us all that, "we are all wolves, after all." I should have expected him to be the voice of unity. Unlike the rest of us, he had always seemed to get along with our cranky old neighbor more than he should have. I knew he was right, but I certainly didn't run as fast as I could have.

"Should we have let Kai know where we were going before we left?" Asher asked once we had finished our gyros and thrown our wrappers onto an empty field where humans were standing and waiting for other humans to hit a ball with a stick.

Eli shook his head. "There wasn't time. We need to find Mr. Rodgers before anything truly horrible happens to him. Who knows what terrors he is enduring as we speak? He could be eating a subway sandwich right now, or maybe he's listening to an elementary school concert. We must rescue him before it's too late!" He ushered the puppies over and set them back on task.

"But what about our mission? Shouldn't we be hunting down the green sweatered demon? Have you forgotten what he did?" I asked. "We should be plotting our revenge, not planning a rescue! That's a completely different 'r' word!"

"Brother," Eli said, placing a paw on my shoulder and speaking in a hushed tone. "Firstly, I'm thrilled that you're finally taking your alphabetical studies seriously. But what is the point of revenge if we lose ourselves along the way? Have you forgotten who we are? That despicable human wanted to mess with us, to diminish us, to cause us harm. Well, Mr. Rodgers will be harmed if we recuse ourselves from this situation, if all we can see is our own hatred of the terribly dressed human. We need to refocus our priorities and return to what it truly means to be wolves, to be part of a community. To be us."

Tears rolled down my cheeks. "What a lovely speech," I told my brother.

He bowed his head in gratitude. "Thank you. I've been preparing it for a while. I knew something like this might happen."

"How could you have known?"

But before he could reply, River roared. "We found him!"

Our group gathered on the road in front of a store with a bunch of television screens. A man with a red sweater and black tie was walking around his neighborhood, asking unseen people if they wanted to be his neighbor. We all looked at River, confused. "This guy said his name is Mr. Rodgers! They must have turned him into a human!"

Once we educated River about the impossibility of shape shifting, we continued following the real Mr. Rodgers' scent. The trail took us out of the town and into a nearby nature preserve adjacent to a laboratory. The hiking trails angled away from the lab, and took us into a meadow, and then a forest, and finally, to an old, abandoned house that had been boarded up. All sorts of different vines grew along its walls and through its cracked windows. A faded sign that lay in a tangle of thorns read "Warn ng! o not e ter, un er enalty f DEATH." The entire place reeked with the stench of rot and decay and Mr. Rodgers.