Cassie and the Woolf Page 3

  “I just wish I’d gotten here on time,” Cassie said. “If I had, this never would have happened.”

  Mom came into the kitchen. “Is this yours, Cassie?” she said. She was holding up a black hooded sweatshirt. It was sopping wet.

  “No,” Cassie said. She looked at Grandma, then quickly back at the sweatshirt. “It’s his, isn’t it?”

  “His?” Mom repeated.

  Cassie’s body went cold. She jumped out of her chair and grabbed the hoodie. “It’s the maniac who knocked me out,” she said.

  She spun to face Grandma and added, “And I know who he is.”

  ~16~

  Cassie planned every minute of it. It wasn’t raining, but she wore her red raincoat.

  She stalked the halls of Perrault Middle School with her hood up, casting a shadow over her face. Her mind raced with sinister plans of revenge and justice.

  The school was mostly empty that early in the morning. She’d gotten there early, quite on purpose, so she could be ready for Caleb when he reached his locker.

  At 7:30, the halls began to fill as the buses arrived in front. Cassie stood in the stairwell closest to Caleb’s locker, and she watched and waited.

  By 7:45, most students were already at their first class. The first bell would ring any minute.

  Still, Cassie stood. Cassie watched and waited.

  Finally, with only seconds until the first bell, Caleb appeared. He ran down the hall with his backpack slung over one shoulder. When he reached his locker, he hurried to open it and dropped the bag at his feet.

  Cassie stepped quietly out of the shadows and stood behind the boy.

  When he stood up and turned around, he jumped. “Ah!” he said. “You—you scared me. What are you doing?”

  “Doing?” Cassie said, smiling. She pulled off her hood. “I’m not doing anything.”

  “Okay,” Caleb said. He tried to shove past her, but Cassie stepped to the side to block him. “I have to get to first period,” Caleb said.

  “I know,” Cassie said. “I just want to apologize for yesterday.”

  “What?” Caleb said.

  “I should have offered to share that big supper my grandma and I had,” Cassie said. “That was very rude of me.”

  “Oh,” Caleb said, looking at his feet. Cassie noticed the laces were missing from his sneakers. A burst of anger flooded her chest: he’d used them to tie up Grandma.

  “I want to make it up to you,” Cassie said. “Will you come to my grandma’s apartment for supper?”

  “Really?” Caleb said. He shuffled in place a little. “Tonight?”

  Cassie nodded.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Caleb said. “Um, I’ll think about it, okay?”

  Cassie smiled. “Sure,” she said. “I’ll get whatever you want from Maurice’s, too. It’s on me and my grandma!”

  She made a point of looking at his feet and asked, “What happened to your sneakers?”

  “Nothing,” Caleb said. He slipped away and started down the hall. “I have to go,” he called as he ran to his first class.

  Cassie stood there, grinning, even as the first bell rang. She was late, but she didn’t care. The plan would work.

  ~17~

  Caleb couldn’t concentrate on his classes at all. All he could think about was Cassie Cloak. Her face flashed through his mind whenever he blinked. When his math teacher, Dr. Maple, asked him to come up to the board to solve for X, Caleb stumbled out of his desk.

  At the front of the room, his mind reeled. The dry-erase marker in his hand felt like it weighed fifty pounds. His hands sweated. He dropped the marker twice before making a single mark on the board.

  He scribbled mindlessly. He was not math genius, after all, but mostly his mind was elsewhere. As he frantically added numbers and symbols and x’s and y’s to the board, he thought about Cassie, in that sinister red coat of hers. He thought about his hoodie, balled up on the floor of Grandma’s apartment. He remembered the taste of those sandwiches in his mouth.

  He’d nearly forgotten where he was and what he was doing by the time he lowered the marker from the board. He stood back and looked at what he’d done.

  The class laughed behind him. Dr. Maple cleared his throat and said, “Shush.”

  On the board was a series of large, wild numbers and letters. Total gibberish. At the bottom, Caleb had written “X=Cassie Cloak.”

  ~18~

  Cassie couldn’t concentrate on her classes at all. It didn’t matter much. She was far ahead in English class. In math, they had dozens of problems to solve independently. And as for Spanish, Cassie was fairly sure she spoke the language better than her teacher.

  All she could think about was Caleb Woolf.

  The night before, after her mom found that black hoodie, and after Cassie identified it—to herself—as belonging to Caleb, Cassie and Grandma agreed to turn the shirt over to the police right away.

  Then, the moment Mom left the kitchen, they’d got to scheming.

  “Let’s not go to the police,” Cassie said. She narrowed her eyes at the light fixture hanging over the kitchen table.

  “No, let’s not,” Grandma said.

  “We’ll take care of this ourselves,” Cassie said. She thought about Caleb’s grinning face. Of course it was him! Why hadn’t she realized it sooner? Who else grinned like a wolf—a hungry, conniving wolf?

  “Definitely,” Grandma said. “Do you have a plan?”

  Cassie did. And now it was in motion.

  * * *

  After Spanish class, Cassie pulled up her hood and entered the crowded hallway of Perrault Middle School. No one seemed to notice her—they usually didn’t.

  But Cassie knew one person would recognize the red coat. She moved slowly through the halls toward the cafeteria.

  Caleb was tall—taller than most of the eighth-grade boys. She saw his face, near the cafeteria doors, and he saw her. Cassie could tell.

  His eyes went wide. His grin—that toothy grin he always wore—was gone.

  He hurried into the cafeteria. Cassie slid through the crowd and followed him. She slipped past the back of the line. She ignored people saying, “Hey!” and “No cuts!” She stopped behind Caleb.

  “Hi,” she said.

  He didn’t look at her. Cassie thought he couldn’t look at her.

  “Did you decide?” she said. “About dinner.” Before he could answer, she added, “Is that a new sweatshirt?”

  It was a bright green one, and it looked a little big.

  “What?” Caleb said, like he had just remembered where he was. “No. . . . It’s—it’s my brother’s.”

  “It’s too big on you,” Cassie said.

  “What do you want?” Caleb snapped.

  Snapped like a wolf, Cassie thought.

  She smiled at him just as pleasantly as she could.

  “Fine, I’ll come,” Caleb said. “I’ll come to dinner at your grandma’s apartment.”

  “Great!” said Cassie. She hopped a little. She didn’t even have to fake it. She was thrilled he’d be coming to dinner. Ecstatic.

  Caleb moved forward in the line. Cassie followed.

  “Leave me alone!” Caleb snarled.

  “Don’t you want to know what time?” Cassie asked. Her smile was tight and thin.

  Caleb grunted.

  “Seven o’clock,” Cassie said.

  “Fine,” said Caleb under his breath.

  Cassie’s heart raced. She took deep breaths. It took all of her willpower not to run out of the school that very instant, right to Grandma’s—clear across Forestville—to start getting ready for dinner.

  ~19~

  The girl finally walked away. Caleb’s heart pounded in his chest behind the borrowed green sweatshirt of his brother’s. Suddenly it struck him. He left the line.


  He dodged between people and trays and tables and trash cans. He spotted the red hood. He grabbed her by the arm. She spun to face him—her mouth open, her brow raging.

  “Where?” he said without breath.

  “What?” Cassie said.

  “Where does she live?” he said. “Where does your grandma live?”

  “Oh!” Cassie said. “Don’t you remember?”

  Remember? he thought. Oh no. She knows. She really knows.

  He tried to laugh. “Like I’ve had dinner with your grandma before?” he said. He grinned. His biggest, toothiest grin. He forced it onto his face.

  Cassie smiled. “Silly,” she said. “We talked about it yesterday, remember? Tall Pine Apartments.”

  “Oh yeah!” Caleb said.

  His heart slowed down a little. She didn’t know. He was safe. “I remember now. See you later.”

  Cassie smiled at him. Then she turned and left the cafeteria.

  ~20~

  “So much to do,” Cassie said as she hurried through downtown Forestville. “So much to do and not a lot of time.”

  She’d ducked out of school early. No one would care. No one would even notice. Mom already knew Cassie wasn’t going home after school. “I want to check on Grandma,” Cassie had told her over breakfast that morning.

  Mom had looked at her adoringly. “That’s very sweet,” she said. “I don’t know if I like the idea of you being downtown on your own, though. I mean, after what happened and everything.”

  “I’ll be back before dark,” Cassie said. She kept a serious look on her face. Inside, she was grinning.

  She wasn’t feeling very helpless, truth be told. That morning, she’d felt like a predator herself.

  * * *

  Downtown Forestville was crowded at three o’clock on a Monday. The streets were full of shoppers and office workers. The stores were open. The restaurants were open. It was a sunny afternoon, and some people were having a late lunch at the sidewalk cafés.

  Maurice leaned on the door of his deli. He smiled as Cassie walked by.

  “Hello, little Cassie,” he said.

  Cassie waved, but she didn’t stop.

  Her part of the plan was to get Caleb to Grandma’s apartment at seven.

  The trap was up to Grandma, and Cassie was dying to see what she’d come up with.

  ~21~

  Caleb tried to take his mind off it. At the court that afternoon, he snapped at his friends and growled and grunted so much that eventually they’d given up on him.

  “You’re in a foul mood today, man,” said Andrew, the last of his friends to leave the court. He rocketed the basketball at Caleb. Caleb caught it.

  “Whatever,” said Caleb. “So go home.”

  “I plan to,” Andrew said. “Later.” And he walked off.

  Caleb was alone, which was how he wanted it anyway.

  A lone wolf.

  It was only four o’clock. Three hours till he was supposed to be at Cassie’s grandma’s place.

  I should just skip it, he thought. He shouldered the ball at the top of the three-point line and took a shot.

  Air ball.

  He watched the ball roll on the grass toward the playground, where a few younger kids were playing while their moms looked on from nearby benches.

  I’ll just skip it, he thought again. This is stupid. What is that weird Cassie girl going to do if I just don’t show up at her grandma’s house? Nothing.

  He walked slowly to collect his ball.

  He found the basketball up against the big sand pit on the edge of the playground and scooped it up.

  But my hoodie, he thought. I have to get it back. If no one’s seen it yet . . .

  He tucked the ball under one arm as he walked back to the court.

  They must have seen it, he realized. Then this is a trap. And if I go, I’ll be walking right into it.

  I’m not going to go. No way.

  His stomach growled.

  He reached the foul line and stared up at the orange rim of the basket.

  If it wasn’t for the hoodie, he’d go. Just for the food.

  But she wouldn’t recognize it, he thought. No way. It’s just a black hoodie. I’m not the only one who has one. Probably everyone in the whole world has a black hoodie.

  He took a shot.

  The ball slammed into the rim and bounced off. He watched it fly off the court and clear into the street. It bounced across and rolled into the gutter.

  ~22~

  “Are you sure about this?” Cassie asked. She sat at the kitchen table while Grandma slid a huge roast into the hot oven.

  “Quite sure, yes,” Grandma said. She closed the oven, and then stirred the big pot of simmering chicken soup on the stove.

  “We’re not going to actually feed him, are we?” Cassie asked.

  “Of course not,” said Grandma. “But the boy isn’t stupid, even if he is a dirty little dog—a terrible person.”

  “Grandma!” Cassie said.

  “He is,” Grandma insisted. “And he’ll be having second thoughts about coming here tonight.” She turned from the stove and put her fists on her hips. The wooden spoon she wielded jutted out from her side like a dagger. “Really, Cassie,” she said. “I wish you hadn’t mentioned his sweatshirt.”

  Cassie shrugged. “I couldn’t help it,” she said. “You should have seen him. Squirming and afraid.”

  “I know,” Grandma said. “But he must realize we found the hoodie now. He’ll suspect we’re setting him up.”

  “Maybe so,” Cassie said.

  “The point is,” Grandma went on, “we need every possible thing to seem right. To seem normal.”

  “I know,” Cassie said.

  “We need that boy to smell this food from clear across Forestville,” Grandma said as she put down the spoon and went to the window. She threw it open and waved her towel in front of the window. “Fly, scents of supper! Fly!”

  Cassie giggled.

  She could just imagine Caleb on the basketball court with his friends. He’d smell the roast and the soup. It would be so distracting that he’d miss a foul shot. His nose would tickle, and he’d practically float the whole way here, lured by the delicious aroma of Grandma’s cooking.

  ~23~

  The sun just peeked over the top of Forestville’s tallest building. Caleb sat on his basketball, watching the sunset, trying to ignore the rumbling in his stomach.

  He could go home and face his obnoxious older brother and doting mother. He could stay here on the basketball court until his brother came to find him, sent out by their mom, both of them angry and red-faced.

  Or he could go to Tall Pines. He could pretend he’s never been inside before. He could sit down with Cassie and her grandma and hope they’re not up to something.

  “I’ll think about it,” he said to himself. He stood up, cradled his ball under one arm, and started walking toward Tall Pines. “I’ll think about it while I walk.”

  And think about it he did. He couldn’t think about anything else, in fact, because clear across Forestville, he was sure he could smell his supper.

  “Impossible,” he muttered. He was probably smelling the deli, or the steakhouse on Park Boulevard, or even the fast-food chicken place behind the stadium. But his supper, all the way across town, coming from a little apartment on the fifth floor? “Impossible.”

  But it wasn’t impossible. Caleb could have walked the whole way with his eyes closed. The smell grew stronger, and it carried him along the streets and avenues of Forestville’s downtown.

  By the time he reached Tall Pines, it was as if he floated on a stream of fragrant air—a roast, chicken soup, an apple pie, a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes, rich gravy.

  His eyes were half closed. His mouth hung open in a grin. His tong
ue nearly rolled from his mouth.

  He reached up and poked at the numbers 5, 1, and 6.

  “It’s me,” he said, breathless. “It’s Caleb. Cassie invited me—”

  The door buzzed. “Come right up,” said Grandma. “Come right up, dearie.” As the phone clicked off, he thought she might be laughing.

  ~24~

  “Where’s the sweatshirt?” Cassie said. She hurried around the little apartment, switching off this light, switching on that one, then reversing it.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” Grandma said. She sat at the kitchen table, nibbling halvah. “I washed it and folded it and set it down on the table near the door.”

  “He’ll see it?” Cassie said.

  “He will if you stop futzing with the lights,” Grandma said with a wink.

  Cassie took a deep breath. “How can you be so calm?” she said. “I’m a bundle of nerves.”

  “I see that,” said Grandma. “But I’m old hat with this stuff. Back in the old country—well, let’s say we had our share of wolves.”

  Cassie smirked and dropped into the chair next to Grandma. She let her head fall onto the old woman’s shoulder. When Grandma pulled her close in a one-armed hug, Cassie sighed.

  “Then we’re all set?” Cassie said.

  Grandma nodded slowly. “The trap is set and ready to spring,” Grandma said. “Now we’d better get ourselves in position.”

  “Or we’ll become our own prey,” Cassie said.

  “And I for one am not quite ready to see your grandpa again,” Grandma said.

  With that, they both stood up. Grandma closed the kitchen window, and then they left the apartment, leaving the door open, just the tiniest bit, for the company.

  ~25~

  The ride up the elevator seemed to last forever.

  Though he’d been enjoying and luxuriating in the sumptuous odors of supper for the whole walk across Forestville, here in the elevator, the smell was gone.