By Madeleine Setzer
Grey Wolf was never very wise. Don’t get me wrong, wolves are normally smart, but this one was downright thickheaded. And, being young, he was normally sticking his nose into trouble without realizing there was any trouble at all. It gave the rest of the pack a nasty headache, constantly telling him what to do, and he didn’t like it either.
Their points of view were rather different. The young grey wolf thought the rest of the pack was overbearing and selfish. He did not think about his own selfishness, expecting to be taken care of all the time and not do any work. Many times he didn’t listen, and then when he got into trouble he thought it insulting not to be helped out right away.
He hated being told, “Don’t do that,” or “Now isn’t the time,” or “Not until you prove yourself.”
The ones who said these words, in turn, said them in exasperated tones and were terribly embarrassed to have such a “miscreant” among them.
The young grey wolf was blissfully unaware of exactly what his pack thought of him ó until one day when the hunt was about to start.
Grey Wolf complained constantly about the hunt, and today was no exception. He overhead one of them saying, “We should just stick him in a box and leave him. Maybe he’ll get adopted by some little girl with braids.”
The pack roared with laughter, leaving the young wolf infuriated.
“They want to just leave me, do they?” he thought. “Well, I’ll do them a favor, and run off on my own! That’ll really rub their fur the wrong way!”
Grey Wolf was greatly deceived in thinking that the pack really didn’t want him to leave, and that they just said those things without meaning.
And so, as they were heading out for the hunt that evening, young grey wolf slipped away from the pack in a different direction.
He chuckled excitedly to himself as he traveled farther and farther away from them. “Now look!” he said. “No one is telling me what to do! I can go wherever I want, have fun and be my own wolf!”
He jumped about and ran in circles and zig-zagged through the woods, excited about his new position in the world.
He ran about so much that he eventually ended up outside the woods, in a rocky place that he did not recognize.
The sky was growing dark, and he slowed down, wondering where he had ended up. “How strange,” he said. “We’ve never been here before.” A grin spread over his snout. “They are probably missing me now. I bet it isn’t too long before they come looking for me!”
He ran into a canyon ahead. The dark stone walls towered over him, quite ominous as night closed in. The wolf looked around and saw one truly familiar sight: the moon, rising in the sky.
“The moon!” he exclaimed, stopped to perch on a large stone in his path and he howled out to it.
Much to his surprise, a howl exactly like his came ringing back!
With a gasp the wolf said, “The moon! The moon has howled back at me! This has never happened before!”
He howled again, and again, the howl returned immediately. Very excited, the young wolf thought of running back and telling the other wolves about it, but he remembered that he was teaching them all a lesson, and gave a humph.
“Ha! Nearly went back. They don’t deserve to know that the moon can howl. It probably only howls to me!”
“I wish you would stop making that racket down there,” drawled a voice quietly from the dark.
The wolf started, looking at the canyon wall from which the sound had come.
“Who’s there?” demanded the wolf, but a little weakly. He was suddenly aware of how the night had come, and how dark and unfriendly the stone was.
“Mountain Lion,” said the voice again, and sure enough, the sleek form of a large cat came slinking into the moonlight. The wolf, so absorbed with the moon’s howling, had not even noticed its approach. The mountain lion’s yellow eyes flashed in the moonlight, and its sharp teeth glinted. The young wolf shuddered.
“What do you want with me?” the wolf squeaked.
“You’re making too much noise, but that’s not really the point. I’m hungry, actually.” The cat’s tongue appeared, licking slowly around his huge mouth.
The wolf was terrified. In his panic, he did the only thing he knew how to do well. He lied.
“You can’t eat me! My pack will be here any moment now to come and save me!”
“Is that so?” the mountain lion said. There was a definite laugh in his voice. “I don’t see anyone.”
“They ARE coming!” the wolf said, losing confidence. “Any moment now”
“I don’t have a moment,” the lion said. “I’m hungry NOW.”
The cowardly wolf took off from the stone and down the canyon path, farther and farther away from his pack. He felt indignant toward his pack for not coming to save him and did not know if he would get out of the situation alive. He wished he had not run off.
Meanwhile, the pack was still hunting. They had noticed that the young wolf was missing but had not heard him howling in the canyon and could not have cared less
“That saves us a box, anyway,” said one wolf.
Still, the mountain lion chased after Grey Wolf, laughing to himself. He was lucky: if the wolf hadn’t been so preoccupied with his echo, he would have noticed his attacker before and would have gotten away
(And that’s the end. A little birdie told me this story one day, in exchange for a cracker. The bird said that most wolves will not tolerate stupidity ó and certainly not a wolf who doesn’t know what an echo is.)
Madeleine Setzer, 15, is an aspiring artist and writer. Her drawings and paintings are regularly viewed on DeviantArt.-com, and her writing earns high praise. She is the daughter of Wanda Setzer of Kannapolis.
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