There's a Werewolf In My Tent! Read online

  Then Gary Petrie said, “I’ll SAVE HER! I HAVE THE POWER OF RIVER GARRY RUNNING THROUGH ME!”

  So Gary pretended to swim through the grass and he scooped Maisie up and helped her back on to a paper plate.

  That’s when Miss Moon came rushing over and said, “EXCELLENT team work! Well done everyone! Especially GARY!”

  Gary Petrie started taking loads of bows and then he licked his finger and pointed it at the sky and shouted,

  And then he looked at Maisie and winked and Maisie started giggling.

  Miss Moon said we could have some FREE TIME and then she got a REALLY EXCITED LOOK on her face and told us that there would DEFINITELY be a barbecue later and we all knew that she was excited because she was a bit OBSESSED with MEAT!

  But then all of a sudden Zach RAN over to us and said we had to get to the tent ASAP!

  And then he covered Maisie’s ears with his hands and said, “Hurry! It’s a

  Zach uncovered Maisie’s ears because she’d obviously heard him anyway because her eyes had gone all SWIRLY and then she’d sort of slumped against Zach and slid to the ground. And we all knew that Maisie had fainted because a Level Eleven Emergency is our code for an emergency that is even MORE serious than the usual most serious Level Ten Emergency!

  Miss Moon came RACING over when she saw that Maisie had fainted, shouting,

  And Zach went REALLY WEIRD in the face. But we didn’t know why.

  Maisie opened her eyes and said that she was OK and that she just needed some fresh air so we all used our hands to fan air on to Maisie’s face and hoped that Miss Moon would just go away so Zach could finish telling us what on EARTH was going on.

  But Miss Moon was already on the ground next to Maisie checking her VITAL SIGNS and shining a torch into her eyes. And then she started asking Maisie how many fingers she was holding up and who the Prime Minister was. I didn’t really think it was a good time to be giving Maisie a QUIZ since she’d just fainted but Maisie managed to get all the answers right and that made Miss Moon happy.

  Then Miss Moon took her jacket off and put it over Maisie and told her to stay COMPLETELY STILL until she could LOCATE FRESH WATER. And then she ran off.

  So we all asked Maisie if she was OK and Maisie nodded that she was, even though she was still lying on the ground in the RECOVERY POSITION with Miss Moon’s jacket over her and bits of mud and twigs in her hair.

  But then Maisie took a deep breath and said, “I’m fine. Really.” And I smiled at her because she was being really brave and also because I wanted her to look at me and not at the beetle that was right beside her head.

  Then Zach said, “COME ON! We have to get OUT OF HERE!”

  So we picked up Maisie and we RAN.

  When we got to the tent Zach looked a bit WILD. His hair was even messier than usual and he was muttering to himself as he rushed around packing a backpack until Jodi grabbed him by his shoulders and said, “WHAT?!”

  But Zach said that he couldn’t tell us here and that the “WALLS HAVE EARS!” and even though that made no sense it REALLY freaked Maisie out and she jumped inside one of her sleeping bags and said that she wouldn’t come out because she didn’t want to see the “CREEPY WALL EARS”.

  Zach wouldn’t stop packing the backpack and muttering things like “SHOULD HAVE KNOWN” and “IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME” and Maisie was shaking SO BADLY I thought the whole tent might fall down!

  But then Jodi put her fingers in her mouth and did her LOUD WHISTLE and everyone froze, even Maisie.

  Then Jodi said, “ENOUGH! We have TRAINED for this, people. If this really IS a LEVEL ELEVEN EMERGENCY we know what to do. OK?”

  But no one said anything so Jodi said, “OK??!!”

  We all nodded and said “CLEAR!” because we knew from our

  that Jodi had made us all do in her house after the time Zach got stuck in the bathroom for almost an hour because of the broken door handle, that we should shout “CLEAR!” in a situation like this.

  Then Jodi said, “Bag?”

  And Zach said, “CHECK!”

  And then Jodi said, “Izzy. Pad?”

  And I GRABBED a notepad and pen and said, “CHECK!”

  And then Jodi said, “Maisie. JUMP!!”

  And Maisie LEAPT out of her sleeping bag and on to Jodi’s back.

  And Jodi yelled, “GO! GO! GO! GO!”

  As soon as we were in the woods Jodi shouted, “SWITCH!” and that meant it was someone else’s turn to give Maisie a piggyback because Jodi was getting tired. So Zach took Maisie and Jodi took the bag of LEVEL ELEVEN SUPPLIES and we ran through the woods until we found somewhere for the

  Eventually Zach spotted a good place with a really big tree that looked good for sitting behind and keeping a LOOKOUT to make sure no one tried to SNEAK UP on us.

  We quickly unpacked the backpack and COVERED Maisie in INSECT REPELLENT so we could have a

  As soon as the meeting had OFFICIALLY BEGUN, Zach’s eyes went HUGE.

  Jodi said, “What is it? What’s going on?”

  Zach gulped a bit and said, “Izzy. Did the howling you heard sound a bit, um, HUMAN?”

  I didn’t really know what Zach meant but then he did a little howling noise and I realised that the howling HAD sounded a bit human.

  Then Jodi said, “It wasn’t howling Izzy heard. It was just the WIND!”

  But I ignored Jodi because I knew that it WASN’T the wind that I’d heard and also because Zach was shaking his head, really slowly, backwards and forwards.

  I could see by the look in Zach’s eye that he KNEW what had made the howling sound and that it was BAD.

  That’s when Zach said, “I have to tell you. There is DANGER among us.”

  Jodi rolled her eyes because Zach was doing that THING he does when he makes EVERYTHING sound like a FILM and he won’t just talk like a

  But then he said, “There’s a

  Maisie GASPED and grabbed my hand so tight I YELPED.

  Then Zach started talking about the WEIRD TREE SCRATCHES and how they had obviously been made by a WILD BEAST.

  And he said that he couldn’t stop thinking about the GIANT POO and that it had DEFINITELY looked a bit

  And Maisie nodded loads.

  Then Zach said, “And then there’s the MEAT THING.”

  Jodi looked at me and I looked at Jodi because we both obviously had NO IDEA what the MEAT THING was.

  So that’s when Zach explained that SOMEONE AMONG US was OBSESSED with eating MEAT and that that was a CLEAR SIGN that they were a

  Maisie gasped and whispered, “MISS MOON!”

  And Zach nodded and said, “It also explains her SUPER STRENGTH.”

  Then Maisie took FIVE DEEP BREATHS and said, “Miss Moon has really long nails. Mi-mi-maybe they’re … CLAWS!”

  Zach’s eyes went WIDE and he said that he thought Maisie was a hundred per cent CORRECT about the CLAWS. And that’s when I remembered that Miss Moon had actually accidently scratched Jodi when she snatched the hammer out of her hand when we were putting up the tent.

  Zach said that we also had to SERIOUSLY CONSIDER how TALL Miss Moon was because he did not think it was normal for a lady to be as tall as Miss Moon.

  Zach explained that

  are not like regular wolves because they are SHAPESHIFTERS. Zach said that when werewolves go into HUMAN FORM they would be much taller than everyone else because it would be like a huge wolf standing on its hind legs.

  Then Jodi said that explained why Miss Moon had known all that stuff about the LAST WOLF IN SCOTLAND.

  Zach said that he had SUSPECTED there was a

  the second I told him about the late-night HOWLING but that it was when he saw Miss Moon’s HAIRY LEGS during the hot chocolate river game that he knew for sure.

  And that’s when we all looked at each other. And Maisie put her head in her hands and said,

  And we all knew we had a SERIOUS PROBLEM.

  Our PE teacher was a WEREWOLF.

  I coul
dn’t BELIEVE that this was happening to us. I mean, we were living in a TENT in the middle of the WOODS with a WEREWOLF! Jodi was tapping her hands against her legs LOADS because that’s what she does sometimes when she’s a bit nervous.

  And then she said, “Zach. Are we in DANGER?”

  Zach took a DEEP BREATH and said that we were probably OK for now because Miss Moon was still in HUMAN FORM but that since she’d starting

  and growing HAIRY LEGS that it was probably just a MATTER OF TIME before she FULLY TRANSFORMED.

  Jodi started tapping her legs LOADS when Zach said that and Maisie was looking a bit SWIRLY so that’s when I took the pad and pen out of my jacket and started writing down everything that we knew about WEREWOLVES so we could make a plan about what to do next so we didn’t get EATEN ALIVE!

  Zach said that he was basically a WEREWOLF EXPERT which I was really pleased about because there wasn’t a library at the campsite and phones and other devices were BANNED so we couldn’t do research on the Internet. So we did the list using only ZACH’S BRAIN:

  Then Zach said that that was all he knew and that he was sorry he didn’t know more.

  Then Maisie said, “I might have broken the rules.”

  And she said it in such a tiny voice that I wasn’t sure if I’d just imagined it or not until she reached into her pocket and pulled out her MOBILE PHONE!

  Maisie made us all PINKY PROMISE that we wouldn’t tell Miss Jones about her phone because she didn’t want to be EXPELLED. She said that she’d sneaked her phone along with her on the trip because she was worried that a SNAKE or even a BEAR might get into our tent and that she’d need it to call

  But Maisie said that she didn’t have any signal because of

  Zach said that if we could maybe just get a little bit of signal we could call the library and get them to read to us over the phone. But Jodi said she wasn’t sure they did that but Maisie said that they DEFINITELY WOULD because we all have library cards.

  But we couldn’t get any phone signal at ALL, even when Zach pointed the phone at his own head (because he heard that your BRAIN WAVES can give your phone a signal).

  Then Zach started waving the phone around until he shouted, “I’ve got TWO BARS!”

  So we made Zach stand COMPLETELY STILL and tried to decide what to do next because we didn’t actually know the number for the library. So that’s when we decided we should text our friend AMY (who wasn’t on the trip because of her tonsils) and ask her to look up stuff about werewolves and text it to us.

  We couldn’t decide what to say in the text until Zach said, “HURRY UP! It’s gone down to ONE BAR!”

  So we just quickly sent:

  But as SOON as we pressed send we lost the signal, so we couldn’t be sure if Amy got it or not.

  But then Maisie said that she’d once read a poem about a werewolf and that it had said that werewolves were

  who didn’t really like being werewolves and also that they were LONERS and that she was starting to feel bad for Miss Moon.

  So we added LONER and SAD CREATURE to the list.

  But then Jodi said that Miss Moon didn’t seem very sad OR lonely and that she just seemed ANNOYED all the time.

  And that’s when we heard a noise.

  A RUSTLING.

  Then TWIGS CRACKING.

  Maisie gasped so I put my hand over her mouth and stood with my back against the tree and Zach and Jodi hit the floor, just like Jodi had trained us to do.

  I could hear the noise getting CLOSER and CLOSER and Maisie went limp so I knew that she had fainted. So I slowly slid down the tree until we were both lying on the ground next to Jodi and Zach.

  And that’s when we all saw it.

  It was Miss Moon.

  She was running through the forest!

  She was running SO FAST that at first I was worried there might be something in the woods chasing her. But then I saw she was GRINNING. And she was even laughing a bit even though there was no one with her making her laugh or anything like that because she was ALONE.

  We all held our breath as Miss Moon ran past us.

  I looked at Maisie because I was hoping that she was still unconscious but she wasn’t. Her eyes were WIDE OPEN and FROZEN IN FEAR.

  We all lay completely still and didn’t say a WORD until we couldn’t see or hear Miss Moon any more.

  On our way back to the campsite Zach said that Miss Moon must LOVE running free in the forest because she is a WILD ANIMAL.

  He said that we probably should have followed her and that if we had we might even have seen her SCRATCHING her CLAWS against the trees.

  As soon as we were out of the woods, I smelled the barbecue and I gasped and said, “It’s the meat. She must’ve smelled the MEAT! That’s why she was smiling and running so fast!”

  Maisie agreed with me loads because she said that DOGS have a HEIGHTENED SENSE OF SMELL which means they can probably smell a cheeseburger from a mile away and that WOLVES and DOGS are sort of the same.

  So we all hurried up to the campsite because we wanted to see if Miss Moon was there FEASTING and also because we were really hungry and the barbecue smelled good.

  When we got there Miss Jones was cooking and Miss Moon was FIRST IN LINE with her paper plate, waiting for the burgers!

  Miss Moon’s face was BRIGHT RED from all the running and it even looked a bit like she was DROOLING!

  We joined the back of the queue and watched Miss Moon CLOSELY as she asked for THREE BURGERS. She didn’t even take a bun! She just sat down and ate all three burgers on their own, really fast.

  When we got to the front of the queue I wasn’t really that hungry for burgers any more because it was a bit disgusting watching Miss Moon scoff them like that.

  So I asked for a sausage instead of a burger and that’s when Miss Jones said the sausages were

  Miss Jones let me have the halloumi cheese-and-tomato kebabs and a cheese roll, just like Jodi was having, because Jodi is a VEGETARIAN.

  By the time we sat down Miss Moon had finished her MEAT FEAST and was going up for SECONDS.

  That’s when Jodi said, “She definitely IS obsessed with meat!”

  And we all said that she DEFINITELY WAS.

  Then we heard Miss Jones asking Miss Moon where she had been and if she knew where the MISSING SAUSAGES were.

  We all leaned in as close as we could and my food nearly tipped off my plate because I was leaning forward so much.

  THAT’S when Miss Moon’s face went EVEN MORE RED and she got a bit FLUSTERED and she said, “Erm, well, I’m sure they’ll be in one of these cool boxes somewhere.”

  But she didn’t even LOOK for them. She just grabbed another burger off the barbecue with her BARE HAND and wandered off with it.

  That’s when Zach said, “She knows fine well the sausages are gone. If they were here she’d be able to smell them a MILE AWAY. She’s obviously stolen them and EATEN THEM RAW. That’s probably what she was doing in the woods.”

  And we knew Zach was right.

  Just then we heard loads of BEEPING coming from Maisie.

  Then Zach said, “AMY! She must have got our TEXT!”

  So Maisie took out her phone and her face went COMPLETELY PALE.

  And that’s because Amy had texted back:

  That night, Zach said that it was time to take ACTION. And that meant we had to put our spending money together and buy loads of MEAT.

  Zach said that if we HID meat near Miss Moon’s tent then she would go WILD trying to find it and that she might even get SO ANGRY that she TRANSFORMED and we could take a video on Maisie’s phone as EVIDENCE.

  Zach said that if we caught Miss Moon in WEREWOLF FORM we could show it to Miss Jones and she would show it to the POLICE and Miss Moon would get taken away and put in a WEREWOLF CAGE and we would be safe.

  But then Maisie started crying because she said that it was not nice to keep human werewolves in a cage and that she still felt really sad about Miss Moon and her WEREWOLF DISEASE.
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br />   I hadn’t thought about

  being a disease before and I started to feel bad about the cage thing, too.

  But then Zach told Maisie that it was OK and for her OWN GOOD because if she ate one of her pupils on a FULL MOON she would probably feel TERRIBLE and she’d also get sent to prison for life.

  But that’s when Jodi said, “If you’re right, and Miss Moon IS a werewolf, we can’t be sure she’s a NICE ONE, Maisie. I mean, she’s not a very NICE person as a human.”

  And that made Maisie gulp and she stopped crying right away.

  We waited until everyone else was inside their tents getting ready for bed and then we put out our torches so that it looked as though we’d gone to bed and then we sat in the darkness for AGES so everyone thought we were asleep before sneaking out and down to the campsite shop.

  The shop door made a BEEP BEEP sound when we opened it and we almost jumped out of our SKIN because we were on a SECRET MISSION so we were all a bit nervy.

  It was SO BRIGHT inside the shop! Zach said hello to the shopkeeper and he gave us a bit of a weird look and Jodi told me to stop scrunching up my eyes so much because it was making us look suspicious (even though I was a hundred per cent sure that the reason the shopkeeper was looking at us strangely was because Maisie was still wearing her SPACE SUIT SLEEPING BAG).