Debra watched her daughter disappear into the crowd. “Well, that went well,” she said sarcastically to herself. Driving off the school property, she really hoped that her daughter would say nothing to Dita, never mind what might happen if her warning was heard by someone outside the Coven. A pang of guilt swept over Debra. This really wasn’t fair to her daughter, a momentary impulse on her mother’s part and she gets stuck with the result. She hadn’t even mentioned the side effects of being a werewolf, the body hair, the impulses, and the appetites. Hopefully the benefits would mitigate it somewhat.
Debra arrived home, put away Heathers presents and her own gifts to herself, and dialed Lisa’s number.
“Debra?!”
“Hi Lis! Hey look, I needed to talk to you…”
“Of course! What’s happening?”
“Yes, Lisa. It looks like last night Heather stumbled onto the video we took of Sharon’s initiation. Smart kid that she is, she got onto my computer and found out pretty much everything. Naturally once I got home, she confronted me over it. Of course I told her the truth.”
“Ohhhhhh Lordy. How’d she take it?”
“Well, Heather seemed pretty accepting of the fact that I was a werewolf, even if it did freak her out a bit, but…. Oh hell just 2 hours ago, I left my daughter in tears when I told her in no uncertain terms that she was going to have to change too.
Lisa was silent for a few moments. “Debra, I have an idea. Since I haven’t told Dita yet, and she and Heather are best friends, why don’t you and Heather come over tomorrow night? We can explain everything to both of them, and you’re welcome to spend the night.”
“Sure...sure that sounds great. Any suggestions on what I should do with Heather in the meantime?”
Lisa shook her head. “Well, there is nothing WE can do except to be honest with her. She’ll come to grips with it sooner or later.”
Debra sighed. As much as she hated letting her daughter hurt like that, Lisa was probably right. She wondered how Heather was doing.
Not too well, as it turned out. On the economics test, she swore that the Laffer curve was laughing at her, and that supply-side economics was putting demands on her she couldn’t handle. As time ran out, she handed in her test booklet, thinking she’d be fortunate if she pulled as much as a C- minus out of it.
Gym was even more of an ordeal than usual. She had gone off into a daze as her classmates showered, wondering if any of them knew their parents were werewolves, resulting in a few rude remarks from two of the girls she had unknowingly been staring at.
The hardest thing of all was thinking about Dita. She couldn’t help staring at her friend as she greeted her that morning. “This is my best friend in the world, and I can’t tell her she’s a werewolf. Is she really a werewolf? My God...my God, am I really one too?” That of course was the real sticking point, she realized as she headed for lunch, she could handle her mother and her friends being wolves...but it COULDN'T happen to her or Dita.
Could it?