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Overnight Moon

David D. Levine

David D. Levine is a lifelong SF reader whose midlife crisis was to take a sabbatical from his high-tech job to attend Clarion West in 2000. It seems to have worked. He made his first professional sale in 2001, won the Writers of the Future Contest in 2002, was nominated for the John W. Campbell award in 2003, was nominated for the Hugo Award and the Campbell again in 2004, and won a Hugo in 2006 (Best Short Story, for "Tk'Tk'Tk"). A collection of his short stories, Space Magic, is available from Wheatland Press (http://www.wheatlandpress.com). He lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife, Kate Yule, with whom he edits the fanzine Bento, and their website is at http://www.BentoPress.com. David's story in this volume, "Overnight Moon," revisits characters introduced in the story "Midnight at the Center Court" in Esther Friesner's earlier anthology Witch Way to the Mall.

 

" . . . so get some Comet, and vomit, today!"

Julian held his ears and winced as the bus jounced along the last stretch of road before camp. The Flickers, squeaky little third-grade girls, had been shrieking the Comet song over and over for the last twenty minutes, and he was just about ready to lose it.

He wished he could cast Angerona's Silence on them.

Liz, Julian's best friend, snoozed beside him in the window seat; she could sleep through anything. A wiry freckled redhead, Liz was a twelve-year-old sports nut, as unlike the pale bookish Julian as could be, yet the two of them shared an inexplicable kinship that had only deepened in the last year.

Outside the windows houses went by, big new ones in the same three earth tones over and over. Julian's parents had gone to Camp Acadia as kids, and it had all been farms around here back then. But now it was 1975, and there was a housing development just across the road from the archery field. Julian didn't mind; he was fundamentally a city boy.

The bus swerved into the camp's driveway, making the Flickers screech with glee, and Julian had to let go of his ears to keep his humongous pack from crashing into the aisle. He knew he'd brought too much stuff, but this was going to be his only overnight all summer and he wanted it to be perfect. Jacket in case it rained. Canteen in case he got thirsty. Marshmallows, graham crackers, and Hershey's chocolate, in case no one else had thought to bring them for s'mores. And sleeping bag, in case anyone actually went to sleep.

Hey, it could happen.

The bus squealed to a halt and all the kids tumbled out, shrieking and chattering as they headed down to the lake. Julian stumbled under the weight of his pack, lagging behind even the little Flickers and Blue Jays. All the girls' units were named after birds; the boys' units had tough names like Apaches, Bears, and Scouts. Liz was a Duck, and thought her unit name was bogus; that was one of the things Julian liked about her.

Julian himself was a Cougar. The Cougars were the only unit for seventh-and eighth-grade boys—next year he'd be too old for day camp.

Liz, who had nothing more than a sleeping bag and a little blue duffel with a change of clothes, paused and looked over her shoulder at Julian. "C'mon, slowpoke! You're holdin' up the flag ceremony!"

Grimly Julian hefted his pack higher on his back . . . but the shift in weight made him fall over backwards, crashing to earth like an overturned turtle. Liz snickered and turned away, but at least no one else had seen him.

Bruised, embarrassed, and intensely annoyed, Julian struggled to right himself. Panting hard, he managed to roll to his hands and knees, but returning to a standing position was too much to ask. Finally he peered all around, then centered himself and muttered the syllables of Cratus's Vigor.

Julian's limbs tingled with an electric feeling as the spell took effect. He got his feet under him, hoisted himself vertical, then jogged down toward the lakeshore.

He wasn't supposed to use magic around lay people. But Cratus's Vigor was only a God spell, so it barely counted. All the really cool spells, like flight and invisibility, were Goddess spells, off limits to Julian because of his gender—not that he hadn't studied them, and even practiced a few in private. Cratus's Vigor was such a lame little spell that no one here would notice the effect, and by the time he got home his mother wouldn't know either. He hoped.

Still, the pack jouncing against his butt felt like a reprimand.

After the Pledge of Allegiance came the usual announcements. While the adults droned on and on, Jim Wisnewski, one of the other Cougars, leaned over to Julian. Wisnewski was a fat, blond, freckled kid with a pouty lower lip, but he was all right. "Hey, didja see Happy Days last night?"

"Nah. My mom wanted to watch Good Times, and she says it's her TV."

"Bummer. It was a rerun of the Christmas one, where Fonzie comes over."

But while Wisnewski proceeded to recap the highlights of the episode, Julian was distracted by the sight of Cindy Harrison, sitting with the rest of the Cardinals two benches ahead of him. He hadn't thought about her when he'd cast Cratus's Vigor on himself.

Harrison was the only other kid at Camp Acadia who was in the Craft—her mother was the treasurer of Julian's coven and her father was a werewolf. Julian's age, but a good six inches taller and beginning to "develop" in the chest area, she was smart, punctual, diligent, tidy . . . in other words, a total suck-up. Julian worried that she'd notice he'd used the spell and narc on him to his mother.

Eventually the announcements wound up, and all the units grouped up around their counselors for the first activity of the day. Julian's counselor, Todd, was a lanky guy whose brown hair and beard puffed out around his head like dandelion fluff. "Hey, guys!" he said, all bouncy and smiles.

"Hey," the Cougars said. They were thirteen and fourteen, too cool for enthusiasm.

Todd checked his clipboard. "How do you guys feel about . . . swimming!"

Julian groaned. The pool was always hideously cold first thing in the morning.

First, though, the Cougars hauled their stuff to the campout area at the far end of the lake. They'd be sharing the space with the Bulls, Cardinals, and Ducks tonight, roasting hot dogs and telling ghost stories around the fire pit. Even though they were in the middle of suburbia, not the deep dark woods, Julian still loved it. An overnight was Julian's chance to forget the grimoires and crucibles and herbs, and just be a kid for one night of the year.

Julian heaved his pack onto the pile in the gazebo, then trooped with the other Cougars and the Cardinals down to the swimming lagoon. He stripped down and put on his swim trunks as quick as he could, then stood shivering on the sand with his towel wrapped around his skinny shoulders. He almost envied Wisnewski his blubber.

The girls took longer to get ready. They always did, and they always emerged from the changing room in a group, chattering among themselves like the birds their units were named for. Julian wondered what they did in there. The boys hardly ever talked in the change room, or the bathroom—they just got in, did their business, and got out.

The pool itself was as cold as he'd feared. But even as they paddled around, practicing their kicks and breathing, Julian kept an eye on Harrison. He was still concerned she might be able to sniff out his illicit use of magic. Once, as they were both clambering out of the pool side by side, she noticed him watching her. She glared, covered her chest with her arms, and turned away.

Huh? She'd never been so twitchy before.

Girls were weird.

Later that day, at a softball game, Julian found himself sitting in the grass next to Liz while they awaited their turns at bat. He pulled up a grass stalk and began pulling it apart, stripping away layer after layer. "I don't understand girls," he said. "Harrison and I used to hang out together all the time, but lately she's gotten all weird."

Liz peered over her glasses at him. The thick black plastic frames were taped in two places, victims of many a sporting accident, and her white baseball cap was dirt-stained from her last slide into home plate. "You're asking me?" She shrugged. "Everything changes when they start to, you know . . . " She gestured with both hands at her chest. "I'm not really looking forward to it myself. I wish I could just wave a wand and avoid it, you know?" She gave him a significant look.

Julian wadded his mangled grass stalk into a ball. "You know I can't do anything like that."

Liz was the only lay person who knew anything about Julian's life in the Craft. He'd been forced to involve her in a major spell last fall—it was that or let the forces of darkness take over the Alewife Bay Mall—but since then he'd told her as little as he could. Most of the time she seemed content with that.

After the softball game, the overnighters convened in the campout area, where Julian and Wisnewski spent the rest of the afternoon setting up the tent they'd be sharing. Pretty soon it was time to gather together for the flag-lowering ceremony. Then everyone else trudged off to the buses, leaving the Cougars, Cardinals, Ducks, and Bulls behind. Julian grinned and waved as the buses pulled away, trailing rooster tails of dust. They had the whole camp to themselves until tomorrow morning!

While the counselors got the fire going, the kids ran around in the woods behind the campout area, looking for long straight sticks. Julian found a great one right by the fence that marked the boundary of the camp.

As he bent down to pick it up, suddenly a huge dog started barking like mad on the other side of the fence. Heart hammering, Julian jumped back, clutching the little stick to his chest as though it would help. He couldn't see the baying hound, but the rattle of the fence as its body struck again and again told him it was a big one. "Nice doggy," he said as he backed away.

The fire was going strong when he got back to the campout area. Julian stood in line, got a hot dog, and threaded it onto the end of his stick. Then he joined the mob jockeying for position around the fire. The orange and yellow flames licked delicately at Julian's hot dog, mirroring the banded colors of the sky above.

"Not like that!" Liz said. "You have to hold 'em near the coals." She had a forked stick with two hot dogs on it, and she rotated it slowly near the bottom of the fire. "If you hold 'em in the flames they just burn on the outside."

"I like 'em burnt on the outside," Julian said, still holding his stick high.

"Yuck!" said Harrison, and all the other Cardinals followed suit: "Eew!"

"Gross!"

"Grody!" Julian tried not to react, but as soon as his hot dog was reasonably done he backed away from the fire and headed off to the lake-shore to eat by himself. He wasn't going to let those girls ruin his overnight.

Despite the importance of the sun and moon cycles to his Craft work, Julian rarely got to enjoy the sunset. Munching his hot dog, he watched the sun shimmer, seeming to melt as it slid down the sky toward the horizon. Behind him, he knew, the full moon would be rising, lost among the trees.

Then he heard a retching sound.

Julian turned and saw Harrison running, doubled over, away from the fire. The other Cardinals started to follow, but she shouted something and they all turned back, chatting among themselves as though nothing had happened. Harrison continued on, vanishing into the woods.

What the heck?

Julian hurried up the sand to the fire pit. As soon as he reached the point where Harrison had shouted, his suspicion was confirmed: she'd used Peitho's Command to turn the others back. That spell was such a strong one that even Julian couldn't fail to recognize it.

Harrison the narc, using such a powerful spell on lay people? If her mother found out, she'd kill her.

Then, in the distance, a dog barked.

It was the same deep-throated woof he'd heard earlier, only even angrier.

Harrison's father was a werewolf . . .

Julian set off at a run toward the sound, sand and then dirt thudding beneath his feet.

A minute later, he heard pounding feet behind him. He looked over his shoulder and saw Liz. "Whoa!" he said, stumbling to a halt in a stand of pines.

Liz stopped neatly beside him. "You never run. What's up?"

"Witchy stuff," he gasped, winded, hands on knees. She was right . . . he didn't run much. "You'd better stay out of it."

Liz just planted her hands on her hips and glared at him.

The dog was really going insane. Someone yelled at it, but it just kept barking.

If Julian was right about what was happening, there wasn't much time to spare and he could use Liz's help. "Okay, but you've gotta keep quiet about it."

"You know me." She made a zip-my-lip-lock-it-and-throw-away-the-key gesture.

"Okay. You go that way," Julian said, pointing down the length of the fence. "I'll go this way. If you see anything, don't go near it, just yell for me."

"What am I looking for?"

Julian swallowed. "A wolf."

Liz shot him a look. "There aren't any wolves around here."

"Not usually. Look, just do it, okay?"

"Shouldn't we get a counselor?"

"Witchy stuff."

"Got it." She took off down the fence.

Julian moved off at an angle from the direction he'd sent Liz, picking his way through the trees. Between the remaining skyglow and the rising full moon there was still some light, but it was getting harder to see.

The dog began to quiet down a little. Maybe the wolf—Harrison—was moving out of its smell range.

If it was Harrison. If she was a wolf.

He almost hoped he was wrong. If he was right, he might be putting himself and Liz into serious danger. But he was the only person for miles who'd have the slightest chance of defusing the situation . . .

"Julian!" It was Liz.

She sounded freaked out.

Julian ran toward the voice. "Don't antagonize it!" he shouted. He really wished his mother had let him learn a few of the more powerful Goddess spells.

He just about ran past Liz, but she called his name and he managed to stop himself without running into a tree. Liz was standing in a small clearing, but there was no sign of the wolf. "Where is it?" He peered all around into the rapidly deepening night.

"I'm right here, lame-o."

Julian looked down. Harrison was curled up on the ground at Liz's feet with her arms wrapped around her stomach. Her voice was wavery and muffled, but she was still wearing her clothes, still had hands and feet and head in all the usual human places.

Oh, thank the Goddess. He'd been all wrong. Julian breathed a sigh of relief.

But when he bent down and saw her face . . .

Harrison didn't have a wolf's shape, but her face and her hands were all covered with bristly hair, silvery in the moonlight. Her nose had turned small and dark and shiny.

She smelled like a wet dog.

Julian resisted the urge to pet her. "Are you all right?" He realized how stupid the question was as soon as he'd asked it.

Harrison glared up at him, her eyes shining like a cat's. "Of course I'm all right! I've got cramps like you wouldn't believe, I ache all over, and I'm covered with hair! Everything's fine!"

"But you're not going to run around tearing people's throats out?"

"Only yours," she growled. Her voice, Julian realized, was now deeper than his. "If you don't help me!"

"Okay, what can I do?"

"Well, I can't go back to my tent looking like this!" Then she grunted and curled tighter around her belly, obviously in pain.

Julian sat on the ground. "Are you going to . . . transform any further?"

"I don't know!" Harrison's voice quavered and Julian realized that, behind her bluster, she was terrified. "I . . . this has never happened to me before. Dad said . . . he just hoped I'd avoid it. It'll go away when the moon sets, but . . . "

Liz squatted down behind Harrison and stroked her shoulder. "It'll be all right."

"I don't see how. I can't hide out here all night. Bed check's at ten."

Julian checked his watch, then looked up. It was about

9:15 and the moon was just clearing the trees to the east. It wouldn't set until 7:00 tomorrow morning. "The moon's well up, so maybe this is all the transforming you're going to do for now. You could use Aphrodite's Glamour to give yourself the illusion of your normal appearance."

"I don't think I can cast a spell"—she gasped and clutched her stomach again—"like this."

Julian stood up, brushing pine needles from his knees. "I'll have to cast it on you, then."

"But that's a Goddess spell!"

"I've been studying it anyway." But as he ran through the spell in his mind, he realized it wouldn't work. "No, wait. You can't cast a glamour on a supernatural creature."

Liz shook her head. "Even if you can make her look like herself, she's not going anywhere in this shape."

"Well, someone has to be in my bed at ten!"

Then Julian had an idea. "Someone will."

Harrison looked up. "What?"

"I'll cast Aphrodite's Glamour on myself . . . make me look like you."

"What about you?"

"I . . . I'll think of something. But we need to hurry . . . that Peitho's Command you used will be wearing off soon, and then you'll be missed. We all will."

"Yeah, but—" Harrison cut off with a grunt, her face clenching in pain.

Liz looked from Harrison to Julian, her eyes white in the deepening dark. "Maybe we should get a doctor."

"No!" Harrison groaned.

Julian bent down and laid a hand on Harrison's shoulder. The warm fur trembling under the fabric of her shirt felt like a pillow full of puppies. "You're sure?"

She just nodded, her furry forehead scraping against the hard earth.

"Okay." He moved a little way away and started clearing a patch of ground for the spell. "We need two candles, salt, water . . . and some of your hair."

"Take it all," Harrison said, her words muffled.

Liz stood up. "We've got candles in my tent, and I can get some salt from the picnic table."

Julian glanced around. It was really starting to get dark fast. "Bring a couple of flashlights too. And a glass of water."

"Will bug juice do?"

"No. It has to be pure clear water, in a glass you can see through. And hurry."

"Right." Liz took off through the woods. Julian was worried that she'd bash into a tree, but she seemed confident and light on her feet.

Julian tried to keep Harrison's spirits up by describing his plan as he prepared the spell. First he raised his pocketknife in the four cardinal directions, invoking the God and Goddess and blessing the area. "I'll go back to camp as you, then tell everyone I've got a stomachache and I'm going to bed early." He scratched a pentacle in the dirt with a stick, keeping the lines as straight as he could. "Then I'll put some clothes or something in your bedroll, sneak out of your tent, and come back to camp as me." He breathed on his knife blade and cleaned it with the tail of his shirt, carefully inspecting the reflection of the moon in the blade's shiny surface. "When the moon sets, you sneak into your tent, then come out in the morning and say you're okay. Nothing to it."

Harrison raised herself on one elbow. Her expression was hard to read, what with the hair all over her face and all. "That's your plan?"

"Yeah."

She sank back to the ground and covered her face with her hands. "We are so doomed."

"Don't be such a worrywart." But Julian was deeply concerned. He'd never performed Aphrodite's Glamour for real before; it would have to work perfectly the first time, using improvised equipment, with a supernatural creature as the objective and lay people as the target. And there was a lot of sneaking in and out of tents involved . . .

Julian's cycle of apprehension was broken by a brief spike of panic when he saw a flashlight beam probing through the trees toward them. But it was just Liz. "Here's the stuff. How's Cindy?"

"No worse," Harrison muttered from the ground. "But if this doesn't work, I'm dead."

"It'll work." It had better work. "Give me the cup."

Julian set the plastic cup in the center of the pentacle and filled it with water from Liz's canteen, adding a pinch of salt with a blessing to the Goddess. Then, chanting the words of the spell, he cut a snippet of hair from Harrison's head and one from his own, tying each around one of the two candles. Finally he stuck the candles in the dirt on either side of the cup. "Okay, here we go."

He swallowed and lit the two candles, trying hard not to drop a syllable of the incantation or burn himself with the bent little paper match. Then he opened his pocketknife and, using the blade as a mirror, reflected the light of Harrison's candle through the cup and onto the flame of his own. As the incantation reached its climax, he held the image of Harrison as she'd looked this afternoon in his mind, licked his fingers, and pinched out his candle.

A dim flickering ghost of a flame remained on the dead black wick, exactly matching the trembling motion of the remaining candle's flame.

Liz's eyes widened at the eerie sight, but Julian cautioned her with a finger to his lips. Then he picked up the cup, said another blessing to the Goddess, and drank the water down.

It tasted of salt and nothing more.

"Whoa," said Liz.

"Did it work?" Harrison muttered from where she lay outside the charmed circle.

"Yeah. It's amazing." Liz walked all around Julian, shining her flashlight at him and peering hard. "He looks totally like you."

Julian felt no different. He tried to inspect himself with his knife blade, but the little reflected sliver of face looked the same as ever to him. "How's the voice?" he asked aloud. He sounded like himself too.

"Whoa," Liz said again. "Freaky. You sound just like her."

Harrison lifted her head and stared at him, eyes shining in the light of Liz's flashlight, for a long time. "Maybe this will work," she admitted at last.

Liz was staring at Julian too. "So, how long are you stuck like this?"

"The spell lasts about a day, but I can turn it on and off." He closed his eyes and thought a brief incantation.

Liz actually clapped her hands with glee. "You're you again! Cool!"

Julian leveled a finger at her. "This is no game, Liz! And remember, you can't tell anyone. Not even your parents. Not even your best girlfriend."

Liz looked abashed. "Sorry."

Harrison lay back down. "You'd better head back to camp."

"Are you sure you'll be okay here?"

"I'm feeling a little better. Just leave me that canteen and one of the flashlights."

Julian took off his jacket, rolled it up, and slipped it under Harrison's head. "Liz and I will try to come out here and check up on you." Liz nodded.

"I'll be fine. Just go."

"Okay." Again he thought the incantation.

Harrison gave him a little smile, the first one he'd seen on her fuzzy face. "You don't look half bad as me, if I do say so myself."

"Thanks . . . I think." Julian and Liz headed back toward camp.

"Break a leg, sis," Harrison called after them.

They picked their way cautiously through the woods. The full moon gave a cold, clear light but there wasn't really very much of it, and they only had one flashlight between the two of them. But then Liz stopped, staring at Julian.

"What's wrong?"

"This is too weird," she said. "You look just like Cindy, but you still walk like Julian."

"Huh?" Suddenly Julian realized that this might be harder than he thought. "What's the difference?"

"I'm not sure. Lemme watch you a minute." Liz hung back with the flashlight and watched Julian walk back and forth. "I dunno . . . " she said after a bit. "She walks . . . smoother than you. Try taking shorter steps." He did. "Don't slouch." He put his shoulders back. It felt horribly weird and awkward. "Better. Try swiveling your hips a little?" But when he did that, she just made a face.

"Not like that." He tried again, a couple of different ways, but finally she shook her head. "Forget it—you were better off before."

"Whatever." Julian rubbed his arms. Leaving his jacket with Harrison had been the right thing to do, but the night was getting cold.

"Maybe no one will notice."

They hurried back to camp, where most of the kids were sitting in a circle around the embers of the fire. Todd was holding a flashlight under his chin. "But when she turned around . . . hanging on the passenger door handle . . . she saw . . . a HOOK!"

As all the kids screamed, Julian and Liz took advantage of the chaos to slip into the circle and seat themselves on a log. "Hey, Cindy," one of the Cardinals said. It was Sager, one of the girls Harrison was sharing a tent with.

"Hey, Sager."

Sager gave Julian a funny look, and Liz elbowed him hard in the ribs. "Melissa!" she hissed in his ear.

"Huh?" he whispered back.

"If you call her Sager she'll think you don't like her."

Oh. Guys called everyone by last name all the time. This was going to take some getting used to. "Uh, hey, Melissa."

Sager looked somewhat mollified, but not completely. "Where've you been, anyway?"

"I was in the KYBO." KYBO was the stupid official camp name for the toilets. It stood for Keep Your Bowels Open. Julian hated it. "My guts are all in an uproar." He stood up and yawned theatrically. "I think I'll hit the sack early."

"Okay," said Sager. Melissa. Whatever. She stood up, and so did Gensler and Piaskoski, the other two girls in

Harrison's tent. They followed him as he headed toward his tent.

"Where you going?" said Gensler . . . no, Barbara.

Julian swallowed. "To bed?"

"Our tent's that way."

"Oh. Yeah, right." He turned around, only half faking disorientation. "Sorry, I'm . . . I'm not feeling too good."

Piaskoski—what was her first name?—moved up close to Julian and winked. "Yeah, me too." The others giggled.

"Great plan," Melissa whispered to him. "Now we can get straight to the important part of the evening. Gossip!"

This wasn't going at all the way he'd hoped it would. He shot a desperate look at Liz. Cover for me, he mouthed. She gave him a thumbs-up and dashed away toward Julian's tent.

He hoped she had a better plan than he did.

The three Cardinals fluttered around Julian as they made their way to their four-person tent, trading rumors about first names he didn't recognize . . . they might be other campers, or TV stars, or high school students, or imaginary friends. He kept quiet, hoping they'd take his silence for stomach distress. At least he managed to figure out that Piaskoski's first name was Patricia.

After the communal brushing of teeth—the chattering barely slowed down—Julian had a moment of panic when it came time to undress for bed. But all the girls wriggled into their sleeping bags fully clothed and thrashed around, emerging in frilly little nightgowns like butterflies breaking out of their chrysalises. Julian found Harrison's nightgown in her duffel and followed suit, but simply stuffed the nightgown into the bottom of the sleeping bag and changed his mental image of himself-as-Harrison to include it. He hoped he hadn't imagined it backwards or something. But when he emerged, no one commented on his appearance so he must have gotten the illusion more or less right.

They spent the next hour talking about who had a crush on whom, whose hair was the most atrocious, and which Hudson Brother was the most kissable. Bed check came and went. Julian crawled into his sleeping bag, continuing to feign illness, but even if the other girls would leave him alone—which they wouldn't, they kept pestering him for his opinion on whether Donny Osmond was cuter than Jan-Michael Vincent—he couldn't possibly sneak out as long as they were awake. And even if Liz had managed to find some way to get him past his own bed check, if he wasn't back in his own bed by morning someone was sure to notice.

Finally one other factor rose to the forefront of his attention: he desperately needed to pee. Even if he couldn't use it as an excuse to sneak away, he had to do something about it. He slithered out of his sleeping bag as quietly as he could.

"Where you going, sickie girl?" said Patricia.

"To the KYBO."

All three girls stood up in unison, slipping on shoes and jackets.

"Don't worry about me," Julian protested. "I can find my way there by myself."

"Ha ha," said Melissa. Without further comment, they all followed him out the tent flap. Fortunately the girls' KYBO was right next to the boys', so he didn't have to embarrass himself by asking directions.

Julian could barely hold it until he got the stall door closed. He breathed out a sigh as he relieved himself.

"What the hell are you doing over there, Cindy?" came Barbara's voice from the next stall. "Sounds like rain on the roof!"

"And your feet are pointing the wrong way!" That was Melissa, on the other side. There was about a nine-inch gap at the bottom of the wall.

Oh shit. He was peeing standing up. "Uh  . . . I'm pouring out my canteen." He tried to stem the flow, but it was incredibly difficult once he'd started.

"Huh?"

"I . . . I think it was the bug juice in there that made me sick."

"Bug juice, huh?" Barbara giggled. "Boones Farm Strawberry Bug Juice, maybe?"

All three of the other girls tittered. "Ha ha," said Julian.

Finally he finished his business and zipped up. At the last minute before opening the stall door, he remembered what he'd told them and added an empty canteen to his illusion.

Back in the girls' tent, Julian stole a glance at his watch. It was after midnight and the chatter showed no sign of slowing down. It was all about hair and clothes and fingernail polish now, meaningless and totally boring; Julian, still feigning illness in his sleeping bag, was having trouble keeping his eyes open. He had to do something soon, because if he fell asleep here there'd be serious problems in the morning.

"Wanna hear a scary story?" he said, sitting up in his sleeping bag.

"Okay . . . "

"First you have to turn off your flashlights."

In the dark, he told them a story—all true, he swore, it had happened to his cousin, though he was making it up as he went along—about a boy and a girl who went camping at an isolated lake way out in the country. He played up the darkness, the eerie waving branches, the spooky wind in the trees.

He was hoping to terrify the Cardinals to the point that they'd crawl into their sleeping bags and pull the covers over their heads until dawn. If that didn't work, he'd just sneak out of the tent in the dark.

It wasn't much of a plan, but it was the best he had been able to come up with.

"And then she heard a noise outside the tent," he said, pitching his voice low and ghastly like Doctor Cadaverino on Nightmare Theatre. "A horrible, slithering footstep. Thump-kssshhhh. Thump-kssshhhh. Thump-kssshhhh."

The girls just giggled at that. This wasn't working at all.

And then they heard a noise outside the tent.

It wasn't a horrible slithering footstep.

It was the howl of a wolf, not far off.

All sound and movement inside the tent ceased.

"Did you hear that?" said Barbara.

Patricia said "There aren't any wolves around here . . . " but she just sounded as though she was trying to convince herself.

"Hush!" Julian said.

They listened intently, straining the silence with their ears.

Then the howl came again: "Awooooooo . . . "

It was much closer this time.

Patricia let out a strangled little shriek.

"Be quiet!" Julian whispered. "Or it'll hear you!"

The darkness vibrated with tension as the silence went on and on. Every cricket's chirp, every frog's croak, every branch's creak struck their ears like thunder.

Then came a snuffling of breath against the ground.

A slow, steady pad of feet on fallen leaves.

A low, tentative growl.

And then, just outside the tent flap: "AWOOOOOO!"

Even Julian screamed, his voice lost in the general cacophony.

Everyone sat trembling in the dark. Then came a voice, a low growl almost unrecognizable as words: "Cinndy Harrrrissssonnnn . . . "

Julian didn't react until someone poked him in the shoulder. "Y-yes?"

"Come ooouuuuut . . . "

Julian stared into the darkness. What the hell was going on?

"Cinnndy . . . come oooouuuuutttt . . . "

Someone whimpered. Maybe it was Julian.

"Sennnnd Cinnndy Harrrrrissson ouuuut . . . or I will EAT YOU ALL!"

Again the tent exploded in screams. Hands grabbed at Julian's clothes, some pushing him toward the tent flap, others hauling him back. A fierce whispered argument ensued about what to do.

"Sennnnd herrrr oooouuuuttt . . . NOW!"

And then Julian recognized the voice.

"I will go," he said. "I will sacrifice myself for the sake of the Cardinals!"

And before anyone could stop him, he dashed out the tent flap.

Furry hands grabbed him and hustled him away into the woods.

"Tree on your left . . . " Harrison whispered in the moonlit dark. "Don't step in the ditch . . . "

Werewolves had very good night vision.

They didn't stop until they got to the little clearing where they'd left Harrison earlier. Liz was waiting there.

"What the heck do you think you were doing back there?" Julian demanded of Harrison. "Someone could have seen you!"

"After listening to you for an hour, I had to do something!" Werewolves had very good hearing, too. "You make a totally pathetic girl! You've ruined my reputation forever!"

"Sorry." Julian sighed. "Thanks for the save, though."

"Well, it was your stupid ghost story that gave me the idea."

Julian grinned at the backhanded compliment, then turned to Liz. "I hope you did better than I did."

"I told everyone you'd gone to bed early with a stomachache," Liz said, "and stuffed your big ol' pack into your sleeping bag. Your counselor didn't notice the difference. Neither did Wisnewski. He's snoring away next to it right now."

"Thanks." Julian let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding. "So what do we do now?"

"I've got it all figured out," said Harrison. "We wait out here until after moonset, then we come back to camp all chipper, and say it was just a gag the three of us cooked up. We might get in trouble, but after all that, anyone who says they saw a werewolf will just get laughed at."

They all walked down to the lakeshore and sat on a log side by side, watching the moon as it crept down the sky. Eventually, as the dawn began to brighten behind them, the moon slipped below the horizon and Harrison gave a little gasp. When Julian turned to her she had returned to normal.

"You should probably change too," Liz said.

Julian realized he was still wearing Harrison's face. He thought the incantation and returned to his own form.

"That's much better," Harrison said.

"Oh hey," said Liz, "I almost forgot." She reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled out three napkin-wrapped packages. "You guys were, um, kind of busy, so I saved some for you."

Julian unwrapped his package. It smelled of chocolate . . . and marshmallow . . . and graham crackers. "S'mores!"

They dug into the sweet gooey goodness as the sun rose, casting their shadows across the surface of the lake.

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Framed