Jasper and Dreyfuss were so preoccupied with their conversation about Renee that they weren’t watching where they were going and ran pell-mell into a pair of long, hard, bony legs. The two boys were sent sprawling.
“You boys need to watch where you’re going,” droned the rolling voice of Mr. Josiah Scroggins, social studies and math substitute teacher, who had just started at their school this fall since Mrs. Hobson was having her baby. With him was Gribbett Keith, a high schooler who had gone to the same school as Joel before he dropped out a year ago.
“Sorry, Mr. Scroggins,” Jasper and Dreyfuss apologized together.
“Don’t be sorry, boys,” he said through a mouth frozen in a sneer, “be careful. You don’t want to miss what’s right in front of you. It could be a snake …or something much worse.” He let his words trail off ominously.
“Is it just me or does that guy give you the creeps?” Dreyfuss asked.
“Major-ly,” Jasper replied.
“Hey Jasper, let’s go,” Jasper heard his brother’s familiar voice call from the busy school entrance. Jasper and Dreyfuss scampered in Joel’s direction. “Sorry I’m late … and Dreyfuss, you officially become little brother number two this weekend while your folks are out of town.”
“Why do I have to be number two? I’m older than Jasper!” Dreyfuss protested.
“Hey Jasper,” a girl called to him, “is that your big brother?”
“Yeah,” Jasper answered.
“He’s cute,” the girl giggled back and went on her way.
“You guys ready?” Joel asked.
“Yeah,” Jasper answered. “Hayley Anderson thinks you’re a hottie, by the way.”
“And that is a little creepy,” Joel returned, helping Jasper shoulder his backpack.
“So Joel,” Jasper said on their walk home from school, “if you get a new car, does this mean that we won’t have to walk home from school every day?”
“When I get my new car,” Joel corrected him, “the last thing I’m going to want to do is to cart you rug rats around. You can get your own car for that!”
“Is it true that you’re going to be working at the McClafferty farm?” Dreyfuss asked.
“Hopefully,” Joel said.
“Uh-oh, not good,” Dreyfuss said.
“What are you talking about?” Joel asked.
“I heard the McClafferty brothers are really werewolves,” Dreyfuss said.
Joel almost choked on a laugh. Sure, the boys were kind of hairy and overgrown, but werewolves? “Now where you’d hear that?” Joel asked.
“Angus Robinson said when he and Herman Boone went looking for frogs over by that graveyard, he saw three great big wolves with shirts on prowling around, digging up graves and such,” Dreyfuss said, “and that was just before that McClafferty family came to town!”
“Oh, okay, now I believe you,” Joel said mockingly.
“Joel, you know there are werewolves,” Jasper said. “There was that big one from last Halloween. Remember, Dreyfuss?”
“Yeah, he was like on steroids!” Dreyfuss said.
“Major-ly!” Jasper said.
“It would probably be all right if you worked there though, Joel, as long as you don’t work on days when there’s a full moon,” Jasper said.
“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” Joel rolled his eyes.
“You should,” Jasper said, “and I’d carry some wolfsbane with you, just in case!”
“I’ll keep that in mind, too,” Joel returned sarcastically. He led the younger boys into the corner store.
“Afternoon, Mr. Greene,” Joel said.
“Afternoon, Joel,” the owner returned, pulling a bag from behind the counter and handing it to him. “Do you know where this is?” he asked, pointing to the address on the front of the bag.
“Sure,” Joel said, “it’s on the way.”
“Mr. Greene,” Jasper said, “can we have a pretzel stick?”
“Go ahead,” he said.
“One each,” Joel said to his brother and Dreyfuss, “and what do you say?”
“Thanks,” the boys echoed.
“Thanks for dropping that off, Joel,” Mr. Greene said as the boys left.
“Show him,” Dreyfuss started to hound Jasper on the walk home.
“I will,” Jasper replied, “but not here!”
“What are you guys flapping about?” Joel asked.
“Jasper has something to show you,” Dreyfuss said.
“It’s an old map we found in the lost and found,” Jasper said. “We think it may be real.”
“I bet it’s not,” Joel said, “or someone would have claimed it by now.”
“But it’s old and crinkly, just like a pirate’s map,” Jasper said.
“Let me see it,” Joel said. Jasper produced the old parchment and Joel examined it.
“What do you think?” Dreyfuss asked the older boy.
“It’s hard to say,” Joel said, “but I know someone who can help and it just so happens that I’ve got to drop this off at his house.” Joel shouldered the bag of groceries.
Back at the school, which had all but closed for the day, Josiah Scroggins had his own problems. “Well, where is it?” he nearly roared in the blanched face of Gribbett Keith, in a voice that was raspier and more guttural than the one his students heard. “That map is the key to everything!” The two had torn up the lost and found. The floor was strewn with boots, shoes, gloves and jackets.
“I tell you, I left it right here,” Gribbett replied, his voice panicky. “Someone must have taken it!”
“But who? The wolves?”
“No,” Gribbett said, “they didn’t see me come in here. I swear to you, they had made it outside by then! The necklace kept them at bay,” he wailed, touching the silver ram’s head necklace he wore about his neck. “It let me have all the time I needed to stash the map.”
“Now you’re a believer, are you?” Scroggins said smugly.
“Uh,
