Page 77 of Raised By Wolves

“And stole from,” Holo adds brightly.

Wendy lifts her eyebrows so high they disappear under the bangs she cuts with a pocketknife. “A store’s a little different than a campsite,” she says. There’s a hint of reproach in her voice.

Sometimes, when Holo and I were littler and didn’t have the stomach for the blood and stink of gutting a deer, Wendy would let us go “camp hunting.” That meant sneaking into people’s campsites and helping ourselves to whatever food we could snatch. We were good at it—silent and untrackable. And people always brought so much more than they needed.

“The consequences are different, too,” I say wryly.

Wendy’s eyes search my face. “What do you mean? Did you get c—”

“It’s a long story,” I interrupt her.

And it involves a person I need to stop thinking about.

Wendy nods. Spears a piece of trout with her fork. She can tell I don’t want to talk about it right now. And she’s always let us say and do—and alsonotsay, andnotdo—what we want. As long as we keep ourselves safe. That’s all she’s ever asked of us.

“Are you glad you went?” Her voice is quieter now. Like she wants to give me the chance to pretend I didn’t hear.

Holo answers for me. “Yeah, we are. Right, Kai? We had tofind out what was out there! We needed to see the world. Meet other kids. And figure out what regular people were like.”

“And Holo needed to learn about light switches,” I say dryly.

Wendy laughs. “It’s not like you’ve never seen electricity before, Holo.”

“Yeah, but we use candles and run stuff off of car batteries,” he points out. “And our TV only ever got one channel.”

“Itoldyou to build a better antenna,” Wendy exclaims. Then she adds, “Even though PBS is the only channel worth watching.”

“I don’t need to watchOutdoor Idaho,” Holo says. “My wholelifeisOutdoor Idaho.”

“But you adored that show.”

“Because it was the only show I’d ever seen!”

I smile at their familiar bickering. Holo and Wendy have always loved arguing with each other, and if I don’t change the subject, I’ll wind up refereeing some ridiculous debate—like about which is cuter, the ground squirrel or the meadow vole—for the rest of the day.

“I promise to tell you everything later,” I say to Wendy. “In the meantime, let’s just say that we went into the world to see what it was like. And now—well, now we know.”

Can I leave it at that forever?

“Honestly, it wasn’t the funnest time we ever had,” Holo says, his voice serious now.

“Funnest isn’t a word,” I tell him.

“Doesn’t matter if I’m not in school.”

The kid has a point.

“You know what was fun, though?” he asks.

“What?” says Wendy.

“We convinced everybody we were raised by wolves.”

Wendy stares at him in surprise for a minute. And then she starts to laugh. She laughs so hard that tears run down her narrow, lined face. “And they believed you?” she gasps.

“They couldn’t figure out what else to believe,” I say. “They’re not really in the habit of solving mysteries in Kokanee Creek.”

Holo puts his hand out and covers Wendy’s with it. “We said it because we wanted to protect you,” he says. “Like you’ve always protected us.”

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