NO WOLVES IN HONOLULU, NO WOLVES IN BOWLING GREEN (1971 words)

Have you ever noticed that when you hear a scary story in the daytime you’re hardly frightened at all? Even if it’s about something really scary like a big, hungry wolf? Four years ago when I was in nursery school the teacher told us a funny story about a big hungry wolf and the other kids and I all laughed and thought it was funny.

Actually, even though I laughed I didn’t really think the story was all that funny. I’ve never been a big fan of wolves or large, fierce dogs, so I remember that the story made me a little uncomfortable at the time. But it was a bright spring day and we were all sitting outside in the playground having cookies and milk, so somehow the idea of a big shaggy wolf with pointy sharp teeth wasn’t so awful.

The trouble started that evening after I got into bed. I lay there and started adding things to that wolf, in my mind. His teeth weren’t just pointy and sharp, they were yellow. And they were dripping slimy stuff, too, and he was hungry. Really hungry.  Okay, I was a baby back then, only five years old, but tonight when you’re all by yourself in bed and it’s completely dark, just imagine a big, hungry, growling wolf with pointed yellow teeth, and then tell me if you’re fine going to the bathroom all by yourself.

Because I’ll admit it, I wasn’t. I made my Mom go with me twice. ‘Oh Sophia, for Heaven’s sake!’ she said the second time I asked her. So later on that night when I needed a drink of water, I called for my Dad. ‘You’re a big girl Sophia,’ he called back, ‘Get your own glass of water.’ Parents.  They’re always talking about how they’d do anything for their kids, but ask them for a little thing like a glass of water and see how fast they think of excuses!

Anyway, the next night, too, I couldn’t get that wolf out of my mind. His eyes were yellow and they stared right through you. His tongue was a long, slippery pink ribbon dangling down between those rows of teeth. And he wasn’t just hungry, he was starving. For little kids. Tender, tasty five-year-old kids.  I made Mom look under the bed before I got in it, and I asked her to go to the bathroom with me again. When I got back from the bathroom it struck me that the wolf could’ve hurried into my room and snuck under the bed when he saw me on my way to the bathroom, so I made Mom check again. ‘Oh for Pete’s sake, Sophia,’ she said. ‘Look yourself!’  But there was no way I was going to do that!

I told Mom that looking myself was just what the wolf was hoping I’d do. When I peeked down, the wolf – who would be waiting for just such a moment –would open those huge jaws and snap my head off, and then how’d she feel? ‘If this keeps up for much longer,’ she said, ‘I’ll snap your head off myself. Now get into bed and go to sleep so I can have some peace.’

For the next week, then the next month, then the rest of the year and a lot of the next, that wolf just kept getting bigger and uglier and meaner until my parents claimed they were going out of their minds. ‘Don’t talk to me about wolves,’ I heard Mom telling her friends once, ‘I’ve reached the end of my patience. If I don’t look under the bed about three times a night, Sophia insists she can’t get to sleep. And I’ve got to look in the closet, even behind the bookshelves, oh, five or six times at least. Plus I now have to go all over the house and declare each and every room to be wolf-free. And sometimes, even after all of that, she still asks if we’ve really locked all the doors and windows just in case a wolf might try to get in during the night. When we wake up in the morning, she’s in bed right between us. Wolves, wolves, wolves! I’m telling you, if I hear the word ‘wolf’ one more time, there’s no telling what I might do.’

That might have been why my parents decided to go to Hawaii during the summer for their ‘just the two of us’ vacation. Every year Mom and Dad have this ‘just the two of us’ holiday for a few days while I stay with my Aunt Anna-Mae, then we all have a family vacation together. I’ve never been to Hawaii and I thought I might like to go too, but my mother said that wasn’t such a good idea, there might be wolves there.

Well, I may have been only six at the time, but I wasn’t dumb. I could read, too, even if only just a little. So I got out the ‘H’ book of our encyclopaedia set and looked up Hawaii, and there wasn’t one single thing there about wolves. I pointed this out to Mom, but she just shrugged. ‘Look up Bowling Green, Kentucky’ she said, opening her suitcase and tossing in some shorts. ‘Go on, look up our very own city and see if you can find anything about wolves.’ I did. She was right: there was lots of stuff about Bowling Green, but it didn’t say anywhere that there were wolves here. ‘It doesn’t say anything about wolves under Bowling Green,’ I had to admit. Mom nodded. ‘That’s what we keep telling you, honey. That there aren’t any wolves in Bowling Green. And yet that doesn’t stop you from waking us up every night to come and look for them. So just for three days I’d kind of like to have a wolf break.’ 

Mom changed the subject. ‘Think I’ll need my swimming goggles?’ she asked me. ‘Oh what am I saying,’ she laughed, ‘I’m going to Hawaii! Of  course I’ll need my swimming goggles!’ I just stared at her. As it happens, I like to swim. A lot.

‘Why are you packing now?’ I asked. ‘You’re not going for another week!’ Mom shrugged and folded up a pair of shorts. ‘Maybe so,’ she said, ‘but I want to be prepared. We’ve got a lot to do before your Aunt Ivy and Uncle Philemon arrive.’

‘Aunt Ivy and Uncle Phil!’ I practically shouted. Aunt Ivy sends me socks and used textbooks for Christmas. Uncle Phil watches football on T.V. all day long. Plus, when he and Aunt Ivy come to stay over Christmas, his snoring is so loud that no one in the house can sleep. ‘I thought I was staying with Aunt Anna-Mae!’

‘Your Aunt Anna-Mae is going to Washington D.C. this summer,’ said Mom. ‘Besides, you like your Aunt Ivy. She bakes cookies for you.’ This is true, but what Mom didn’t say is that they taste like Aunt Ivy’s hand lotion.  

‘You’ll be fine,’ Mom said, tossing a bottle of sunscreen into her bag. ‘Remember, we’ll be back in three days and then we’ll all go off to Disneyworld. Ivy’s looking forward to spending a lot of time in our museums. Think you can show her around?’  I didn’t say anything. Mom knows I hate museums.

‘Do you think I could come to Hawaii too?’ I asked her for maybe the hundredth time. ‘If I agree to be really, really good?’ Mom stared at me, then shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ she said, ‘but remember last year in Miami? Dad and I never got a minute’s rest, checking the hotel room for wolves. You had us up a couple of times a night, and the one time we ignored you, you wet the bed because you were too scared to get up and go to the bathroom by yourself. No, I’m afraid not. You’ll be fine with Ivy and Phil, don’t you worry. They know all about your wolf problem and they’ve promised to do the wolf check every night as many times as you need them to.’

‘How long will you be gone?’ I asked, even though she’d already said. Mom looked at me. ‘Just three days. As usual. Oh, take a look at this brochure – this is the hotel we’re going to be staying at. Just look at that swimming pool.’ I love my Mom, but at that moment, I could have pushed her right into her suitcase and snapped it shut.

Lying in bed that evening, I could picture the wolves lining up outside my room. They were humongous, shaggy guys with eyes like lanterns, and they were starved.  Just thinking about them made me shiver. But I was picturing something else in my mind, too:  a swimming pool. A big aqua-colored swimming pool with a diving board. The pool was surrounded by beautiful bushes with orange and yellow and red flowers. I got up and went to the toilet by myself. I was terrified, and I had to run back to bed and jump in fast, so a wolf couldn’t grab me by the ankle and pull me under, but I did it anyway. Later that night I got myself a glass of water and even though I really wanted to call my parents to do their usual wolf check, I didn’t.

For that whole week, I did my best to picture that swimming pool instead of drooling, snarling wolves with paws the size of horses’ hooves. Every morning I could hear Mom saying to Dad, ‘Goodness, I slept well last night!’ And he would say, ‘So did I! I wasn’t woken up once!’ I might have been imagining it, but it seemed like their voices were really loud, almost like they wanted me to hear them.

On the plane going to Hawaii, Mom patted my hand. ‘I’m awfully proud of you, Sophia,’ she said. ‘You’ve gotten over your wolf problem all by yourself.’ Dad agreed. ‘You’re really a big girl now. As soon as we get into that pool, I think it’s time for you to learn how to dive.’ All I could do was stare at him. Mom and Dad have this thing about me diving. ‘No way, you’re far too young! You could break your neck!’ Mom says. And Dad agrees with her, too. ‘You’re not quite ready for it yet, honey,’ he’s always told me.

We had a great time in Hawaii. We ended up staying there the whole week. We swam in the pool every single day and went to the beach too. Mom and Dad had lots of drinks with fruit and little umbrellas in them, and we went for walks and took tours and I played with other kids while Mom and Dad talked to their parents. And we didn’t go to a single museum the entire time we were there.

At Christmas time, Uncle Phil and Aunt Ivy came to stay with us. ‘Sorry about last summer,’ I said to Aunt Ivy when she and I were sitting on the sofa watching Uncle Phil watch football. ‘What about last summer?’ Aunt Ivy asked. ‘What happened?’

‘I know you were going to come here and look after me and go to museums,’ I said, ‘but then when I ended up going to Hawaii with Mom and Dad, you had to change your plans.’

Aunt Ivy just looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Why honey,’ she said, ‘this is the first I’ve heard of it!’

So here’s a piece of news for all you kids out there who think you’re smarter than your parents. Just remember, sometimes they might just be smarter than you think.