Two

“WHAT IN THE world do you think you’re doing?” the farmer shouted at Stacy. “I saw you walking with that wolf!” Stacy froze in shock. The farmer spun around, his rifle still raised.

“Where did he go?” he said frantically. “I just saw him.”

Stacy turned around to discover that Everest was no longer standing beside her. She began to panic. I knew Everest coming with me was a bad idea. He could get shot! And Tucker isn’t here to heal him—and might not be able to heal him even if he was. Everest . . . where are you?

Suddenly, Stacy realized what Everest had done. He’s using his camouflage ability! He must be around here somewhere . . . hiding in plain sight. Stacy scanned the horizon once more and spotted him instantly—concealed among the flock of sheep, his white fur easily blending in with their white fleece. It was the kind of thing you could only see if you were expecting to see a nearly invisible wolf standing in front of you. But the farmer would never suspect it. Stacy knew what she had to do. She turned back toward the farmer.

“A wolf?” Stacy said innocently. “Oh no! Where? I haven’t seen any wolves. I was just admiring your sheep over there.” Stacy knew pointing to the sheep was risky, but she also had to convince the farmer that he was hallucinating.

“What?” the farmer said. “No, there was a huge wolf here a second ago. And I read something in the paper a few months back about a white wolf in the forest. I could have sworn I saw . . .”

“I’m sorry, mister,” Stacy interrupted him. “But you think that I was in your field with a white wolf? And the wolf didn’t frighten your flock?”

The farmer lowered his rifle and furrowed his brow. “I know what I saw,” he said, sounding less convinced than he was before. “I swear I saw what I saw. . . .”

Stacy felt bad lying to the old man. But she knew it was for his own good. She walked up to him and put her arm on his.

“Sir?” Stacy said sweetly. “Are you feeling okay?”

“I . . . I must not be,” the old man stammered, blinking several times and shaking his head. “I just could have sworn . . .”

Stacy turned the man toward the village and started walking with him. “You should probably lie down,” she said. “And then maybe have something to eat. But before you do that, would you mind pointing me in the direction of the village animal doctor?” Stacy looked back to see a relieved-looking Everest trotting home toward the taiga. It wasn’t like Everest to slip up when it came to humans—Stacy was sure he hadn’t been expecting to see anyone out this early. She couldn’t wait to tell the others when she got home about Everest’s close brush with the farmer. Hopefully he wouldn’t be too sheepish about it.

“Oh, you mean the veterinarian?” the farmer asked Stacy, snapping her back to the present. “Her office is on the west side of the village. If you take a left at the diner and walk about a quarter mile, you’ll run straight into it.”

Stacy had no idea what the word veterinarian meant, but she knew where the diner was.

“Thank you so much,” she said. “I hope you get to feeling better.” But what she really meant was that she hoped the farmer believed he’d imagined it all and didn’t tell anyone about what he’d seen.

The farmer nodded and started toward his farmhouse.

“Happy to help,” he said. “I’m just glad there wasn’t a wolf. Imagine that. I must have been seeing things.”

Stacy waved good-bye, relieved she had been able to convince the farmer that he hadn’t seen Everest. She headed down the dirt lane, away from the farmer’s house and toward the village. She made her way to the diner and peered through the window. She could see Miriam setting up tables for the breakfast rush. Stacy thought about popping in to say good morning, but she knew the little cub needed a doctor straightaway. Besides, Stacy wasn’t sure she wanted to tell Miriam about the cub. Miriam was keeping Stacy’s secret: that she lived in the taiga with wolves. But a wild lynx? That might be too much for Miriam to understand.

Stacy headed west and quickened her pace. Soon enough, she arrived at the doctor’s office. It was open! Stacy pushed the door in and stepped inside.

“Welcome, do you have an appointment?” a cheery woman asked Stacy from behind a desk. Stacy steeled herself. She still wasn’t used to lying, even though she had to every time she visited the village. I’m going to need to lie about my name, where I’m from, and how I rescued this animal . . . I might as well be honest about everything else.

“I’m sorry, I don’t,” Stacy said. “I don’t have much money either, but I found this lynx cub while I was hiking in the forest and he’s very sick.”

Stacy reached into her satchel and pulled Pipsqueak out and showed him to the woman.

“Oh dear, poor thing does look to be in bad shape,” the woman said. “We’ll get you right in to see the doctor, just have a seat over there for a moment. And don’t worry about payment, I’m sure we’ll be able to work something out.”

She motioned to a small waiting area to the left of where her desk was. Stacy took a seat and looked around at the walls. They were filled with framed posters. Two of them were charts of different dog and cat breeds. Another explained which foods were unsafe for pets to consume. Grapes . . . garlic . . . onions . . . good to know, Stacy thought.

She looked down at the coffee table in front of where she was sitting and saw an array of veterinary journals and pet magazines. She picked one up and began flipping through the pages. What a cool job it must be to be a . . . veterinarian, she thought, taking a second to remember the word. I bet it requires a lot of schooling—I’ve never even been to school. Although . . . Tucker is sort of like a veterinarian. I bring him sick or hurt animals from around the taiga, and he makes them better! Our cave is like our office . . . and Milo the bat is our receptionist!

“The doctor will see you now . . . er, what did you say your name was again?” the woman said to Stacy. Stacy jerked her head up to meet the woman’s gaze.

“Daisy,” Stacy said. “My name is Daisy.”

It was a lie Stacy didn’t feel too bad about telling. She didn’t think it was smart to use her real name. After all, her parents had gone missing while piloting a helicopter. They had never been found, and somehow Stacy had survived. Stacy had been living with the wolves since then, but that didn’t mean that there hadn’t been an airport with a flight manifest, or some type of record to show that Stacy had been a passenger as well. Stacy thought it best to use a fake name, and Daisy sort of sounded like Stacy anyway.

“All right, Daisy,” the woman said. “Right this way.”

Stacy pushed through a heavy iron door into a hallway with several other doors. The woman guided her through the second door they came to. Inside were a chair, a tall metal table, a round stool on wheels, and a small counter with a sink and a cabinet above it. The room felt cold and bare, and Stacy began to wonder if coming here had been a good idea after all.

But before Stacy could worry too much about what she had gotten herself and Pipsqueak into, there was a soft knock on the door, and the doctor walked in. She was short and stocky and had stick-straight hair the same tawny color as the pebbles on the shore of the river in the taiga. She was dressed in a white jacket and a pair of khaki trousers and had a strange silver instrument draped around her neck. She wore a watch on her left wrist, and a pair of sturdy and well-worn leather boots poked out from her trousers, as if she’d spent the morning in a horse stable or in a pasture with farm animals. She looked Stacy directly in the eyes and smiled.

“Hello, Daisy, I’m Dr. Kay!” she said.

Stacy managed a feeble hello to Dr. Kay. She immediately felt intimidated by her. Stacy hoped she’d be able to find her voice to get Pipsqueak the help he needed.

“This lynx is sick,” Stacy said quietly, pulling Pipsqueak from her satchel and setting him on the tall metal table.

“Lynx?” Dr. Kay exclaimed. “This looks like a house cat to me!”

Dr. Kay scooped Pipsqueak up and placed him on a small scale on the table.

“Two and a half pounds . . .” she said in a worried tone. “That does seem small for his age.”

She peered inside Pip’s small mouth, curling his little lip upward so she could inspect his teeth and gums.

“I would guess he’s around twelve weeks old,” she said to Stacy. “He needs to eat—what have you been feeding him?”

Stacy felt the emotions inside her begin to bubble to the surface. Suddenly, it all came rushing out of her.

“He’s not eating anything!” Stacy said. “He’s not drinking either, and I don’t know what to do. I only found him the other day, and I tried to feed him a little bit of salmon, but he’s just not interested.”

Dr. Kay reached up to her neck. She brought the strange device she was wearing up to her ears and held the small, round metal disk at the opposite end of it. She pressed it against Pipsqueak’s chest and closed her eyes.

“Um,” Stacy said. “Can I ask what you’re doing?”

Dr. Kay’s eyes opened, and she looked at Stacy.

“I’m using my stethoscope . . .” she explained. “Hasn’t a doctor used one on you at one of your checkups?”

Stacy instantly regretted saying something. Of course this office would be filled with things Stacy should recognize. Doctors’ offices for animals and humans must not be that different from one another.

“Oh, um,” Stacy stammered. “I don’t remember.”

“This is my stethoscope—it lets me listen to his heartbeat,” Dr. Kay said. “Here, give it a try.”

Stacy put the stethoscope in her ears and immediately heard the soft rhythm of a heartbeat. Pipsqueak closed his eyes and started to purr. Stacy was amazed. She had no idea how the stethoscope worked, but she was in awe of Dr. Kay and her ability to help animals. Stacy took the stethoscope out of her ears and handed it back to the doctor.

“Is Pipsqueak going to be okay?” Stacy asked.

Dr. Kay paused and looked concerned. “I’d like to run some tests on him to determine what the issue is,” she said. “It should only take an hour, and you can come back and pick him up then.”

Stacy nodded. She didn’t love the idea of leaving Pipsqueak at the animal hospital, but she also knew that he was in good hands with Dr. Kay and that this was his best chance of survival.

Stacy gave Pipsqueak a kiss on the top of his head and left the room. She exited the animal hospital and headed toward the diner where Miriam worked. Stacy figured she could stop in and visit her and maybe even have something to eat for breakfast while she waited for Pipsqueak to finish his tests.

Stacy was scared that Pipsqueak’s tests would reveal bad news, but she tried to remain optimistic. And she was happy to be heading toward the diner. Stacy loved visiting Miriam (and getting a free meal) and went as often as possible. Miriam had been the one who tipped Stacy off about the team of researchers who were tracking the taiga wolves just a few weeks ago. Because of that information, Stacy and her pack knew to leave the taiga for a bit—for an expedition on the tundra—to evade the researchers. It wasn’t that Stacy didn’t like the head researcher, Dr. Berg, and his team of students. Quite the contrary—Stacy knew that studying wolves was actually what was in the wolves’ best interest. The more that humans learned about wolf behavior, the better the villagers near the taiga would understand that wolves weren’t a threat but should be left alone and treated with respect. But Stacy’s wolves couldn’t be studied—not with their supernatural powers. Everest’s telepathy and invisibility . . . Basil’s super speed and penchant for pyrotechnics . . . Wink’s indestructability . . . Noah’s underwater breathing . . . Tucker’s healing . . . Addison’s super intelligence . . . What would the researchers think about those?

Luckily, Stacy and her wolves had seen the researchers heading north as they were returning to the taiga, so there was nothing to worry about now. But Stacy wondered if Droplet and Splat, the two timber wolves she had rescued and raised last summer, had been collared. . . .

Stacy looked up and realized she had arrived at the village diner just as Miriam was unlocking the door to let in customers.

“Stacy!” Miriam exclaimed. “Good to see you! Come in, come in.”

Stacy followed Miriam into the diner and took a seat at the counter on one of the bright red stools.

“What brings you in so early?” Miriam asked her, setting a placemat down for Stacy and handing her a menu. “Here, order some breakfast.”

Stacy had never been to the diner for breakfast before and looked at the long menu, unsure of what to order. She settled on the eggs Benedict with asparagus. While she waited for the cook to prepare her breakfast, Stacy caught Miriam up on some of the events that had happened since Stacy was last at the diner—namely, that she had kept the cat she’d found the last time she was in the village, and named him Milquetoast, and that she had found another animal (Pipsqueak) who was currently at the village veterinarian. She decided to leave out the expedition on the tundra. Stacy was grateful that Miriam trusted her to live alone in the taiga with her wolves—she didn’t exactly want to tell Miriam about the polar bear encounter she’d had . . . or the avalanche she’d survived only a few days ago.

Stacy’s breakfast arrived—two poached eggs on top of two perfectly toasted English muffins, nestled next to a small bundle of steamed asparagus, with a creamy yellow sauce on top, sprinkled with some paprika. Stacy cut into one of the eggs, spilling orangey-yellow yolk onto her plate and over the asparagus. She’d never prepared any of the eggs from her chicken, Fluff, this way before—they were so . . . fluffy, and she couldn’t figure out how the chef had done it.

“He cracks them into a pot of boiling water,” Miriam said. Stacy realized she must have been staring at her eggs in amazement. Next, she took a bite of the asparagus—the vegetable was cooked to perfection. Stacy had eaten asparagus lots of times before, as it grew wild near the river in the taiga. She’d pick it often in the springtime when she would go fishing with Noah. The sauce was delicious—buttery and creamy with just a hint of lemon. Everything tasted so good together. Stacy wondered if she and Addison could somehow assemble all the ingredients to re-create it sometime.

The diner was busy with villagers coming and going during the hour Stacy was there. She watched as Miriam confidently waited on the different villagers. Stacy was impressed by how Miriam could remember each villager’s order and operate the cash register while also remembering when certain villagers needed their coffee mug refilled and others needed their check.

Finally, most of the villagers had paid their checks and left, leaving Miriam to clean up the plates and wipe down the counter.

“Did you like your breakfast?” she asked Stacy while she began brewing a fresh pot of coffee.

“Yes, thank you!” Stacy answered earnestly.

Stacy looked up at the clock and realized it was almost time to pick up Pipsqueak.

“Before you go, Stacy . . .” Miriam said. “I wanted to talk to you about something.”

Stacy braced herself for more bad news, but Miriam’s expression seemed to soften, and she leaned over and put her hand on Stacy’s arm.

“School will be starting up in the fall. . . . I know you have an, um, interesting arrangement in the forest, but I could tell the school that I’m your guardian to sign you up if you wanted. You could go to school.”

Stacy took in Miriam’s words, but almost couldn’t believe she was hearing them correctly. I could go to school? Stacy’s immediate emotion was one of excitement, followed quickly by fear. She had never been to school . . . at least, she could not remember ever going to school. She was about eight years old when her parents’ helicopter crashed in the taiga, killing them and leaving her orphaned and alone in the forest. Luckily, Stacy’s pack of wolves had taken her in, but it was possible she had attended a year or two of school before that. That would certainly explain how Stacy knew certain things—like how to read and write, and some nursery rhymes, and a few songs about animals. But most of her memories had been erased by the helicopter crash. She had remembered her own name, but that was about it. Stacy couldn’t remember anything about her parents, and that made her sad to think about.

All of Stacy’s feelings must have registered on her face, because Miriam squeezed Stacy’s hand and simply said, “Why don’t you take some time to think it over. It’s not until the fall, and you have the whole summer in front of you.”

“Thank you,” Stacy said softly. “Thank you so much, Miriam.”

Stacy really meant it too. Even though she wasn’t sure whether she would take Miriam up on her generous offer, Stacy realized how meaningful the offer was. Miriam must think of me almost like family. Stacy was so grateful for that day last summer when she’d met Miriam in the forest.

“Well, I’d better be getting back to the veterinarian,” Stacy said, wiping her mouth and hopping off the bar stool. “Thank you again for breakfast, and I will definitely give your offer a lot of thought.”

Stacy’s smile faded from her face as soon as she left the diner. On her way back to the animal hospital, she couldn’t help but think about what it would be like to attend school with classmates who were her age. Sure, Stacy had grown up under the tutelage of a super-smart wolf, Addison, but there was no way to know if what she had learned under Addison’s watchful eye was what Stacy needed to know to keep up in school. What if I’m the dumbest one in the whole class? Stacy had a feeling that, regardless of whatever grade she was in, the lessons would not be centered around the different plants and animals of the taiga forest . . . or confined to the letter H, which was the only encyclopedia book Stacy had back in the cave. Still, she had read a lot. Addison had seen to that—bringing Stacy all sorts of different books she’d found in the woods or stolen from the village library book return. But Stacy couldn’t help but worry that she wouldn’t be able to keep up with her fellow classmates.

Stacy was looking down sullenly at the ground, and so she did not see the large spotted dog running full speed in her direction. The dog collided with Stacy’s knees, sending Stacy toppling over. She caught herself with her hands before hitting the cobblestone street. The dog, mostly white but freckled all over with black spots, spun around and sniffed at Stacy. Stacy met the dog’s gaze. It looked scared. Suddenly, the dog darted off again, running away down the village streets.

“Hey!” Stacy shouted. “Come back!”