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"I meant after that. After you rescued him. He's always said he had a good childhood at Stonehaven."
"When he wasn't being expelled from school for dissecting the class guinea pig?"
"It was already dead."
Jeremy chuckled. "I can still hear him saying that. Over thirty years later and I can hear it perfectly. Clay's first Pack meeting. I'm trying to pretend every thing's fine, not let anyone know about the expulsion. Then Daniel roars in and announces it to the whole Pack. 'Clayton got kicked out of school for cutting up a guinea pig.' Clay tears into the room, marches over to Daniel, glares up at him--they were the same age, but Clay was at least a head shorter--and shouts, 'It was already dead!'"
"Which explained every thing."
"Absolutely." Jeremy smiled and shook his head. "Between the dissected class pet and the toy animal fiasco, I had to question whether I was cut out for surrogate parenthood."
"Toy animals?"
"Clay hasn't told you that one?" Jeremy drained his glass, picked up mine, and stood.
I grabbed his pant leg. "Tell me."
"When I come back."
I groaned and waited. And waited. Took him much too long to pour that milk. Playing the whole thing for full effect.
"Toy animals," I said when he finally returned.
"Right. Clay had problems with the other children at school. I assume you know that."
I nodded. "He didn't fit in and didn't try. Small for his age. Antisocial. The accent only made it worse. I wondered about that when I met him. He said he'd lived in New York State for twenty years, but he sounded like he'd just stepped off the train from Louisiana. He said when he was a kid, other children mocked his accent. So he kept it. Clay's perverse logic."
"Anything to set him apart. So, after the guinea pig disaster, I home-schooled him until the following September, then sent him to a different school and asked the principal to notify me of any behavioral problems. I swear I spent three afternoons a week in parent-teacher conferences. Mostly it was little things, but one day the teacher said Clay was having trouble at recess. The other kids were complaining that he was following them around, watching them, that sort of thing."
"Stalking them," I said. "S
couting for weaknesses."
"Exactly. Now, I wasn't worried he'd do anything. I was very strict on that point. No devouring classmates." Jeremy rolled his eyes. "Other parents warn their kids not to talk to strangers. I had to warn mine not to eat them. Anyway, this teacher says Clay isn't showing an interest in normal recess pursuits, like playing with toys. Toys. I knew I was missing something. Clay was the most un-childlike child I'd ever met, so I tended to forget he should be doing childish things. After the conference, I drove straight to the toy store and bought bags of toys. He ignored them all ... all except this set of plastic animals--cows, horses, sheep, deer, camels, and so on. He'd take them into his room and stay there for hours. I congratulated myself on my great insight, assuming he liked the animals because he felt some kinship to them. Then I found the book."
Jeremy paused.
"What book?" I asked, because I knew I was supposed to.
"Gibson's Guide to Animal Anatomy. He'd stolen it from the school library and dog-eared a bunch of pages. So I took a closer look at the plastic toys. They were all marked with strategically placed red Xs."
"Identifying the vital organs," I said. "For hunting."
"Exactly."
"So what'd you do?"
"Gave him a long lecture about stealing and made him return the book immediately."
I threw my head back and laughed. Jeremy rested his hand around my waist, a rare gesture of closeness that I enjoyed for as long as possible.
"How about a run?" he asked after a few minutes. "We could both use one to work off some stress after today."
I was getting tired, but I never would have said so. Werewolves preferred to run with others--the Pack instinct. As with so many other things, Jeremy was different. He preferred solitude when he Changed. He'd sometimes join us in a Pack hunt but rarely went for a regular run with a partner. So, when he offered, I could have been ready to drop from exhaustion and I wouldn't have refused.
We walked into the woods, taking the path until we were deep enough to find places for our Change. We'd gone about twenty feet when Jeremy turned to stare over my shoulder.
"What?" I asked.
