RAISED BY WOLVES: THE TEENAGE YEARS

HUMAN TEENAGER: Mom, you need to stop coming around my school. You’re embarrassing me.

WOLF MOTHER: What are you talking about, Bitey?

TEEN: All my friends think it’s weird that my mom’s a wolf. And can you please call me “Brian” like everyone else?

WOLF: “Bitey” is a perfectly lovely name. We named you after your grandfather.

TEEN: My friends at school all laugh at me! They call me “wolf boy” and try to capture me in a cage and throw rocks at me.

WOLF: Then they’re not your real friends, are they?

TEEN: Maybe if you’d let me walk upright I could concentrate more on making “real friends” and less on my disfigured spine.

WOLF: You have to earn that privilege, mister. I’ll let you walk upright when you stop fighting constantly with your brother.

TEEN: You don’t get it. He’s trying to bite me in the jugular vein. If I stop fighting back, there is no question that he will kill me. Because he’s a wolf, and that’s what he does.

WOLF: I don’t care who started it.

TEEN: And I’m getting too old for you to pack my lunches for me, mom.

WOLF: I understand, Bitey. Just don’t come crying to me when your cafeteria’s raw, bloody rabbit sandwiches don’t have the crusts cut off like mine do.

TEEN: You just don’t understand anything about me. Or my opposable thumbs.