Not Your Ordinary Wolf Girl by Emily Pohl-Weary Page B

top of the pillows and comforter, in a kind of nest. I was also naked. Huh? I didn’t remember putting on pyjamas last night, but I generally wore them.
    I pulled a sheet around me like a dress, jumped out of bed, and walked around the apartment, turning on all the lights. The place was empty. I was losing my mind. Maybe I had post-traumatic stress … or I was delusional. I wanted to call the police or the park rangers or someone, but that wouldn’t go down any better than my visit to the hospital. And my mother would just start with a bunch of hippie psychology stuff. There really was no way to explain any of thiswithout sounding completely insane. Plus, I was starving again.
    Wallowing was not an option. I lifted the bed’s ladder back into position. A ball of cottony fabric lay on the floor beneath it: my nightgown, torn to shreds. I shuddered, picked it up, and shook out what looked like mud and fur. I tossed the ruined nightgown into a garbage bag, then wiped up the dirty footprints all over the floor. Wait, were those dog prints?
    Was there an actual dog in here? Now my dream world was bleeding into my waking life. Cleaning rag in hand, I followed the prints to the door. The rough wood floor on the other side didn’t show any prints. I cleaned out there anyway. Focusing on a concrete task helped me stay calm. What I wanted to do was run screaming through the streets. It was only a dream … unless the downstairs tenants and their dog were somehow inside my place?
    After I finished cleaning, I perched on the side of my tub and examined the scar on my arm with a magnifying glass. There wasn’t much to see by now. I imagined an army of white blood cells rushing to the rescue at breakneck speed, the skin tissue knitting together to heal itself. Maybe I wasn’t losing my mind at all. Maybe Dr. Alam was right—I was turning into a superhero.
    Another surprise awaited me up in bed. Switching on the light, I saw twigs, grass, and clumps of moist soil scattered across the mattress. I inspected the mess with a sinking feeling. After changing the sheets, I lay down and closed my eyes, just for a minute …
    It was mid-afternoon by the time I crawled out of bed again. My eyes were puffy and my head ached. Between chugs from a pitcher of tap water, I nibbled on dry crackers. The fridge was now officially empty, except for condiments and a head of lettuce rotting into soup.
    I ditched the lettuce, plugged in my cell, and checked all my messages, knowing my mom must be waiting to hear from me. Sure enough, she was about to send out a search party. Vinnie’d also called, to yell at me that we needed to reschedule the video shoot. The third-floor neighbours were demanding I put down my violent dog. The only pet I’d ever owned was a guinea pig in third grade whose death had convinced me I never wanted to go through that again. The message would’ve been funny if it wasn’t so bizarre: “This is a one-dog building and Zoe was here first. One dog, you hear? We refuse to live any place where Zoe feels unsafe.”
    Jules had called, too, demanding to know “exactly what is up your butt?” Malika had checked in aroundnoon. Her voice was heavy with concern, which made me feel guilty—but not enough to call her back right away. Mostly because I had no clue what I could possibly say that would relieve her worries. The final message was a surprise: Harris. He confessed he’d pried my number out of Malika and wanted to know if I felt well enough to grab a beer at the Cake Shop later on.
    I’d never be able to face any of these people until I’d eaten, so I grabbed my wallet and jogged the six blocks to our local supermarket. I felt as if I could run forever and added that to the new list of things that made no sense about my life.

SIX
    E ntering the store, I knew someone was frying sausages and zoned in on the sample booth, where I pretended to have a hard time