“Good morning,” said Fang as Lucie entered the kitchen next morning.
“Oh good,” said Lucie. “You are real, after all.”
Fang yawned. “Of course I’m real. Where are your parents?”
“Oh, they always sleep late on Sundays. I hope you were comfortable? The floor is rather hard.”
“No matter,” said Fang. “A snow-covered forest is no feather bed, I can tell you. It does no good for a wolf to get soft. And now do you think you could find me something to eat? I don’t mean to be rude, but that stuff your father gave me is quite inedible!” And she growled, to show just what she thought of the vegetarian dog food.
“I suppose you like meat?”
“I do,” said Fang. “Something like a haunch of venison would go down nicely.”
“I don’t think we have a haunch of venison,” said Lucie. “Dad doesn’t eat meat. Mum and me do, but we mainly eat things like sausages.”
She went to the fridge, and as luck would have it found a pack of sausages on a shelf. “It’s a good thing Mum isn’t very noticing,” said Lucie, fetching a plate.
But Fang did not think much of sausages. They were not what she called Fresh Meat, she said, even though Lucie pointed to the date on the packet that showed they were perfectly fresh. She did not see, Fang went on, why human beings had to take perfectly good meat and then chop it up into tiny pieces and stuff it into tubes so that it did not even look like meat anymore. “I like something that gives my teeth some exercise,” she said. “Something with bone and sinew. Something with bite. Wait until I catch you some real meat, Lucie.”
“Err, actually I like sausages,” Lucie said. “Do you want these or don’t you?”
“No, thank you. We wolves can go for days at a time with no food, you know. I can wait a little longer. Besides, even if your mother is as unnoticing as you say, I don’t think we should rouse her suspicions.”
“You’re probably right,” said Lucie, putting the sausages back in the fridge. “Also I think —”
At that moment, the door opened, and Mum came into the room. She was wearing a dressing-gown and still looked half-asleep. “Goodness, Lucie,” she said, “who are you talking to?”
“I’m just talking to the wol — I mean Wolfie,” said Lucie hastily. “People do talk to their pets you know.”
Mum flopped into a chair. “Wolfie? You mean the dog? Is that what you’ve called it?”
She looked at Fang, as if she were noticing her properly for the first time. Fang stared back, looking more wolf-like than ever. Mum fidgeted. “Goodness, it is big, isn’t it?” she said after a moment.
“Not really,” said Lucie. “No bigger than yesterday.”
“Well, it looks big to me.”
“I like big dogs.”
“But they need a lot of exercise.”
“Well, we do have the garden — and the park.”
“Hmm,” said Mum.
“And I’m not sure about the name yet. I might call her Snowy.”
Fang gave her a Look which showed just what she thought of Snowy.
“So you’ve found out it’s a she, have you?” said Mum.
“Yes. Err — I could see when I was tickling her tummy.”
Fang gave Lucie another Look.
Mum sighed. “I don’t know, Lucie. I have to say I’m wondering now why Uncle Joe didn’t give us something a bit smaller —”
“But you hate little yappy dogs!” said Lucie quickly.
“It wouldn’t have to be little. Just about any dog would be smaller than — than Wolfie.”
“But I like her!”
“And Wolfie might be better off living with someone else, someone who could take her for long walks, maybe someone who lived in the country.”
Lucie thought about Fang living in the country. She imagined Fang in a field of nice, plump sheep. But in any case, there was no way she was ever giving up her wolf.
“No!”
“We could get a poodle. We could call it Fifi or Minette —”
“NO!” yelled Lucie. “She’s mine!”
“But yesterday you kept saying she was a wolf.”
“I know,” said Lucie. She made herself laugh. “What a silly! As if Uncle Joe would ever give me a wolf! Hee hee!”
She kept laughing in this silly way, until Mum joined in and laughed in a silly way too. After that Mum made herself some coffee and managed to drink it without glancing all the time at Fang — or not more than once every two minutes. But when they heard Dad’s feet coming down the stairs, Mum nipped out of the kitchen and went to meet him in the hall.
Lucie sneaked over to the kitchen door. It was open just a crack and she put her ear right against the gap. She could hear Mum rattling on, and the words “un chien énorme!” and then Dad said, “You know I never understand a word you say when you rattle on in French.”
After that they whispered in English. Lucie could only catch the odd phrase.
“…seems to have her heart set on it…know what I think…far too big…what will it eat…doesn’t like that dog food…way it stares at you…quite peculiar”
“Nonsense, Louise,” said Dad in a much louder voice. “You didn’t feel like this yesterday. I think it’s a fine animal. And it will make a splendid guard dog.”
“I suppose so.” Mum sounded doubtful.
“Anyway, it was a present.”
“True…and she likes it now. Oh dear. Well. We’ll have to keep an eye on things, that’s all.”
Lucie scooted away from the door. Fang gave her another Look, as if to say she didn’t think much of eavesdropping. “It’s all very well looking down your nose,” Lucie hissed. “But it’s about you, you know.”
She sat down quickly and was eating her cornflakes when her parents came into the room.
“Well, well, here you are with your new pet,” said Dad heartily, as if he hadn’t just been talking about them in the hall. “Sleep well? I must say it was very good in the night. I didn’t hear a bark or a whine.”
Fang looked down her nose.
“I think she’s very polite,” said Lucie.
“Polite?” said Dad,
“Well-trained, I mean.”
“Oh. Right. Well, that’s good — isn’t it Louise?” Dad went to pour himself some coffee. “Eaten any of its food yet?”
“I don’t think she likes it.”
“She’ll get used to it. Or we could buy her some tinned stuff. Doggy Chunks they call it — you know the kind of thing. What do you think?”
Lucie thought that a Wolf who turned up her nose at sausages was not likely to think much of Doggy Chunks. “We could try,” she said doubtfully. “Or — how about a haunch of venison?”
For some reason her parents thought this very funny. “The things you come up with!” said Dad. “Don’t worry. I don’t think her taste will be as refined as that.”
Fang snorted.
“What’s that?” asked Dad, surprised.
“She sneezed,” said Lucie hurriedly. “That’s all.”
She could see that it was going to be tricky at times, having a wolf for a pet.