Red Rider's Hood by Neal Shusterman

Being deaf, dumb, and blind would be better than knowing the truth. These were dark days, getting darker by the minute, and I didn’t even want to think about the nights. I looked to Marissa, who seemed almost hypnotized by the sight of that little musical jewelry box. On the cover was a mountain lit by a full moon. I opened it to the sound of the innocent music, and the sight of the not-so-innocent silver bullets.
    â€œI’ve never used a gun, Grandma,” I said. “I don’t ever want to.” Once, when I was little, I saw a man get shot. It happened right in front of me, on the street. Ever since then, you could say guns and me didn’t get along. My dad calls it “ballistiphobia,” but I call it just plain hatred. Either way, I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to touch a gun, much less fire one. I guessGrandma understood, because she took the music box from me and gently closed it.
    â€œI don’t blame you, Red. I don’t blame you at all. You’ve got a decent heart,” she said, although I wasn’t sure whether or not I really did. She put the box away, and hid it behind the loose bricks again. “Different times call for different weapons.”
    Marissa rolled her eyes. “C’mon,” she said. “You gotta kill werewolves with silver bullets. Everyone knows that.”
    But Grandma shook her head. “If there’s one thing I learned in all of this, it’s that instinct counts for a lot. If Red’s instinct is to stay away from bullets, then maybe he should stay away from them.”
    I turned to Marissa. “What does your instinct tell you?”
    Marissa looked at me, then at Grandma, and closed her eyes, going deep into herself, I guess, to tug at some of those instincts. She took a deep breath, and another, then she opened her eyes.
    â€œIt seems to me my instincts are telling me only one thing…that Cedric Soames is going to be harder to defeat than his grandfather.”
    There are werewolf legends, and there are werewolf facts. Grandma knew the difference, and that night, until the sun made a lonely appearance on the horizon, she gave us a crash course in the Lycanthropic sciences, as she called it.
    On the power of the moon, she told us this: “The full moon ain’t an exact sort of thing. The phase of the moon is always changing slightly. For three days, the moon is full enough to boil the blood and make a man turn wolf. The second day thecurse is at its strongest, and the higher the moon is in the sky, the more deadly the wolf.”
    On werewolf appetites, she told us this: “In human form, they can eat anything humans eat, although they’re partial to meat. In wolf form, they’re driven to eat their weight in meat each night, and it must be the meat of a fresh kill.”
    On the mind of the werewolf, she told us this: “The mind of a human infected with the werewolf curse doesn’t always start off being evil, but the way I see it, a person turns evil real quick.”
    On werewolf redemption, she told us this: “Ain’t no such thing. No antidote, no remedy, and no turning back. Only way to save a werewolf’s soul is to end its misery, and hope the good Lord truly does have infinite mercy.”
    And of our chances, she told us this: “We all have to die someday. Let’s hope we die as humans.”
    By dawn, my eyelids felt as heavy as the boughs on her tree-lined street, but a plan had already started forming in my mind. Marissa went home, and I closed my eyes to take a quick nap—but when I woke up, it was already late afternoon. Grandma was still sleeping. I didn’t wake her. Instead I slipped out and set a scheme in motion. It would take everything I had inside me to pull it off, and now I was restless as a caged animal, eager to get started. My plan was twisted and nasty and clever and cruel. I left that morning with a grin on my face, feeling as wicked as