My Teenage Werewolf Excerpt
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One
Lizzie comes home from school, walking down the long access road from the street where the bus drops her off. She makes her way to the side door of our house. She’s wearing (for the fourth day in a row) a particularly unflattering pair of brown corduroy jeans that sag at the knees and butt, a gray “Oregon Girls Rock” t-shirt (three days for that item) and a pair of blown-out Sketchers. On her back is twenty-pound pack that includes, among other things, several dozen broken pencils, two or three sack lunches that she thinks I don’t know she hasn’t eaten and a science book so heavy it makes you wonder if there really is that much science a seventh grader needs to know. She drops everything on the floor of the foyer, kicks off her shoes and starts to walk down the hall past my writing room. She knows I’m in there. I’m always in there, but she doesn’t stop.
“Hi!” I call out. “So, how was school?” I ask before she completely disappears from view. She looks over her shoulder and gives me a look. There may be nothing quite so withering as the look an almost teenaged daughter can give her mother. What is it, exactly, that look? Exasperation, annoyance, disgust? And that’s on a good day. Sometimes it’s pure, unadulterated antipathy. She sighs dramatically and mutters something under her breath. I don’t want to know what she says. I can tell where this afternoon is headed.