52 Project #26 - Marc Snowfrolic and the Quest for Biscuits (Patreon)

Marc Snowfrolic wanted biscuits.

It was really odd for him to want biscuits at a time like this. Also, very inconvenient, because he was a wolf, and couldn’t bake his own biscuits like he could have if this had been last Thursday. Not that he actually knew how to bake biscuits, but on Thursday he could have read a recipe book, and used his bipedal stance to stand at a kitchen counter and opposable thumbs to use tools and pour ingredients and put cookware into the oven and take it out, with appropriate oven mitts on. Today, and for most of the rest of the month, he couldn’t do any of those things, because he was a wolf.

If anyone in the town of Rema had been able to bake biscuits right now, Marc could have gone to that person and made his desires clear. He could read the Bisquick logo even though he was a wolf. There wasn’t any in his own pantry, but he was sure someone in town had some, and had some guesses as to who. And if, say, Heather Digswell or old lady Janice Eyehowler had some Bisquick in their pantry, he could go to their houses, knock on the door, walk into their kitchen when they let him in, go grab the Bisquick out of the pantry with his teeth, bring it to them, and point to the picture of biscuits on the back, and they’d get the idea. They’d be happy to make him some biscuits. If only they weren’t wolves too, right now.

Normally, he didn’t want biscuits when he was a wolf. Bread products were not usually the favored cuisine of wolves. He liked steak, and venison, and chicken, and elk, and pork, and mutton, and swordfish, not that he got much swordfish because Rema wasn’t particularly near any oceans but when he and his pals pooled their money and special-ordered it with 2 day delivery so they’d get it while they were still human, it was still delicious a few days later when they were wolves. About the only kind of meat he didn’t like when he was a wolf were crustaceans, because it was just too damn hard for a wolf to get the good meat out of a crab, or peel a shrimp, and honestly if he wanted to eat bugs there were plenty in Rema just waiting to be hunted. But today, he was really jonesing for a biscuit. 

He trotted over to Ken Mayor’s house. The wolves didn’t generally spend a lot of time indoors, but Ken was an exception. Inside, the older wolf had a large flat-screen television, and a gigantic keyboard that he was typing on. Marc could almost make out the words on the television, but trying made his head hurt. He could see well enough to tell that Ken was writing an email, though.

Originally, the town of Rema had been fully self-sufficient. Wolves didn’t need much in the way of shelter or clothing and were quite capable of finding their own food. What little they couldn’t supply for themselves, they traded for with the humans, offering meat and pelts in exchange for things like nails to make the houses they built for their human days sturdier. But once the humans invented the automobile, it had been only a matter of time before they brought a road to Rema. And with roads had come salesmen, and more exposure to the modern conveniences the humans loved, which the people of Rema found pleasant for themselves on human days as well. Freezers, for example. Freezers were great, but they needed electricity, and both the freezer itself and the electricity that ran it needed to be paid for. Then there was the government, demanding that everyone in Rema pay taxes. And so forth.

Pelts and meat weren’t going to pay for all of that. But the citizens of Rema could get to places in the mountains that the humans couldn’t, and never had been. They mined for gold in places the humans had never managed to mine out. Wolves could dig, and humans could put up structures that would keep wolves safe while they did it. Everyone in Rema did shifts at the gold mine, and of course, they supplemented their income with their sales of meat and pelts from their hunts. All of the funds that anyone in the town owned were pooled to make them easier to manage. Wolves were not good at math.

Ken Mayor was the mayor, and had been the mayor for twenty years, not because he was a big or powerful wolf – he was actually smallish, and rather quiet. But he had a remarkable talent. He could read, do math, and, on a sufficiently large keyboard, even type, in wolf form. Back in the old days he’d used a typewriter, carefully, and sent a lot of letters, but he’d taken to this new Internet thing like a duck to water. He managed the town’s funds, paid the electric bills and things like that, and kept in contact with government officials via email to make sure they left Rema alone, or that if they had to come here they only came on human days. He had a teletype phone, like deaf humans used, but he’d made some kind of arrangements with the company that provided the service to make it clear to them that he was mute rather than deaf, because the wolves could understand human speech just fine even though they couldn’t speak it. Lately he was all excited about some kind of new software that would give him a cartoon human avatar when he talked to humans on the phone that ran over his computer, with a voice program that actually sounded human when he typed sentences into it. Mostly.

In the language the people of Rema used when they were wolves, Marc whined at Ken. “I really want some biscuits. Can I have money to go to a bakery and buy biscuits?”

Ken looked at Marc disbelievingly. “First of all, town’s thirty miles away. It’ll take you over an hour to get there if you run all the way, longer if you walk. Secondly, you can’t walk into a bakery and ask them for biscuits. Thirdly, if you act too smart, humans might get suspicious.”

“But I really, really want biscuits. Come on, Mayor.”

Ken growled. “Snowfrolic, you’re being an idiot. Which isn’t unusual for you, but you usually manage to keep your idiocy within a reasonable range. This is a totally ridiculous request. You understand that, right?”

“Absolutely,” Marc assured him. “I am being a grade A idiot here. But you can’t imagine how badly I want those biscuits. I will get in a car and drive to town if I have to.”

“How?” Ken asked flatly.

Marc stood up on his hind legs. He was a large wolf, six and a half feet long, so on his hind legs he was easily taller than most humans. “Trust me, I can reach the pedals and still see over the dash. And if I put my paws through the holes in the steering wheel, it’s not hard to steer the thing.”

Ken facepawed. “You’ve tried it.”

“Why do you think I have a 4 by 4? The snow in the mountains sticks around a lot longer, but you can’t bring warm towels to dry off in and those little hand warmer things for your paws and a nice blanket for sleeping in if you just run up the mountain.” His wolf name might be Snowfrolic for good reason, but that didn’t mean he didn’t appreciate human conveniences for warming up after a good long day of playing in the snow.

“How have you never been pulled over?”

Marc shrugged. “I drive at night and I follow the speed limits. Not a lot of human cops around here anyway.”

“And if I don’t give you the money to go to town and buy biscuits, which you can’t do because no one will sell anything to a wolf, how does the fact that you’re willing to drive your car to town change matters?”

Marc grinned triumphantly. “Because no one will ever suspect a wolf of taking a getaway vehicle! So I’ll just steal the biscuits, and then drive off.”

Ken face-pawed again. It was a very human gesture; most of the people of Rema wouldn’t use it in wolf form. There were always rumors that Ken’s father was actually human, not one of the men of Rema. Marc wasn’t sure he bought it; half-human children were supposed to be human most of the time and wolf only on the change-days. But Ken making human gestures when no one else in Rema did while in wolf form was kind of hard to explain otherwise. Also, there was that whole reading and typing and doing math thing.

“Have you considered asking Jeff Leclair or Mandy Gruenwald or someone like them to bake you some biscuits?”

Marc had rather forgotten that there were, in fact, humans in Rema; human spouses were problematic in the sense that they produced kids who were wolf when Remans were human and vice versa, but they were very important for teaching Reman children how to talk like humans. Remans didn’t start being wolves most of the time until they hit puberty.

He whined a bit and pawed the floor, head down with embarrassment. “I don’t want to ask them for favors. Bob Pigeonchaser isn’t in town this week and everyone else with thumbs is someone’s wife or husband, and, well, you know…”

Remans were notoriously territorial. This often translated to jealousy. Saying hi to someone’s human spouse or inviting them over for barbeque on human days was one thing, but asking them to bake you biscuits was entirely too intimate a favor to ask. And right now, the only half-human in town, Bob Pigeonchaser, was out of town, because he was in human form when it wasn’t a full moon and he could drive wherever he wanted and buy his own biscuits.

“So you’re insisting that you have to go buy some?” Ken sighed. Wolves were not supposed to sigh; a huff, a snort, those were wolf expressions, but not a sigh. Marc didn’t mention this; Ken was oversensitive about his overly human behaviors. “I am going to have to go with you to keep you out of trouble, aren’t I?”

Marc growled slightly. “I’m not sharing my biscuits, dog. You can buy your own.”

“I’m a wolf. I don’t eat biscuits. Maybe you’d do well to remember that you are also a wolf. Wolves don’t eat biscuits. Or drive cars.”

“I’m a wolf and I drive a car, so why can’t I be a wolf who wants a biscuit? I mean, it’s not every day. I’m just really jonesing for one right now. One of those soft chewy ones with a ton of butter inside. Or maybe crisp and flaky. Man, I’m torn. No point in wasting honey butter on a wolf tongue but oh, man, can you imagine what a biscuit would taste like with bacon inside?”

“This is ridiculous but your mother would kill me if I let you run off in a car, and steal biscuits, and get your fool self thrown in a pound or shot by Animal Control or some overzealous human with a gun. So I guess I’m going with you.”

“As long as you don’t eat my biscuits, we’re cool.”

***

The thought occurred to Marc later that maybe, what worked really well in the dead of night when he was driving up a mountain nowhere near human habitation, just possibly, could have been expected to not work nearly so well in broad daylight as he drove toward a town full of people.

“Goddammit, Snowfrolic, that’s a cop! You just blew past a cop at 85 miles an hour!”

“Lots of people go 85 miles an hour around here,” Marc pointed out.

“Yes, but none of them are wolves. And I thought you said you drive the speed limit!”

“I really want that biscuit.” Marc kept his eyes on the road, not glancing back at the blue and dark yellow lights strobing on the car behind him. (He knew perfectly well that the dark yellow light was actually red, because when he was human he could see the color red, but to his wolf eyes it just looked kind of brownish.) “Anyway, he probably didn’t even see I was a wolf. He just wanted to make quota.”

“Yeah, well, he’s gonna see you’re a wolf now.”

“He’s gotta catch me first!” Marc sped up. He’d never tried to push the SUV past 100 mph. Maybe today was the day to do that.

“What? No! What the fuck are you doing? You can’t outrun cops!”

“How much do you wanna bet?”

“I don’t want to bet! They’ll call for backup and they’ll be out here with guns!”

“They won’t have silver bullets, though, I bet.”

“That doesn’t mean it won’t ruin your car and hurt like fuck!”

The cop was gaining on Marc. This was actually exciting. Like a hunt, although he was the one being hunted, which made it slightly less fun. It would be much more entertaining to be the one chasing the cop car. 

Hmm. That was a thought.

“Marc, for gods’ sakes, slow the fuck down and pull over! We can both jump in the back seat and pretend the driver bailed on us.”

“Naah, I’ve got an idea that’s more fun.”

“I do not like the sound of that.”

Marc swerved around a rocky outcropping and brought the car to a screeching halt in the truck pull-off right on the other side. The cop car zoomed past, unable to stop or pull off in time.

“He’s gonna turn around and come back. You’ve pissed him off. Just watch.”

“Oh, yeah, I’m counting on it.”

Marc opened the car door, awkwardly – he always hated this part. Getting his paw under the lever to pull it and open the door was never fun; wolf forelegs just didn’t bend the right way. The door swung open and he half-tumbled out, rolled about in the dirt a bit, used his back legs to close the door, and then trotted around to the other side of the car, where he lay down in the dirt of the pull-off and watched from under the car.

The cop car, predictably, came back. Police shoes, attached to police uniform pants, approached the car. “Get out of the vehicle with your hands up!” the officer yelled.

This was Marc’s cue. He popped up on the other side of the hood and barked.

And then immediately ducked back under the car as the cop unloaded a weapon at him, human face dead white and smelling of terror. None of the bullets hit him, but a few hit the hood of the car. Dammit. Ken was right, as usual. The cop really had just fucked up Marc’s car by shooting at it.

This wasn’t fun anymore. Marc growled. He really liked this car.

Through the rolled down window, Ken barked at him. “Don’t do anything stupid!”

“Yeah, no, gotta take a hard pass on that,” Marc said, and leapt onto the hood. The cop screamed and backed up, trying to aim his gun, but in the time it took him to do that, Marc was already jumping onto him, knocking him to the ground and sending the gun flying. He shrieked.

Marc licked his face.

“No, no, get away from me, get – what the fuck?” The cop seemed to realize that this was not going the way he expected around the third slobbering lick. “What the – shit, are you licking me?”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Marc said, but since it was in wolf language, he knew all the cop would hear was whining and a bit of a growl.

“Marc. Stop torturing the poor guy. Knock it off.”

“He ruined my car! Shot a hole through the engine block! You see all that steam? There’s no way I’m driving this home!” Marc growled at the cop, who was trying to push him off, and then licked him a few more times for good measure. He strongly considered pissing on the cop, but Ken would have his head. “I can’t even get it fixed for most of a month – the full moon’s, like, three weeks off or something. And it’s gonna rain, and the rain will get in the bullet holes, and the whole damn engine will rust.”

“This is why I told you not to provoke the cops,” Ken said unhelpfully.

He got out of the car, tongue lolling, and trotted over to the cop’s gun. “Good doggie,” the cop whimpered. “Good doggies. Good, good doggies. Stay. Stay.”

Ken did not stay. He picked up the gun with his mouth, trotted over to where there was a scenic overlook down the side of the mountain, and dropped the gun over the cliff.

“Fuck!” The cop pushed Marc off, with difficulty, and struggled to his feet. “Goddamn it, dog, did you just – you did. You dropped my gun off the side of the mountain.”

Ken barked at him.

“Okay! Okay! Good doggies! I’m just… gonna take down this plate number—”

Marc growled and crouched, as if to leap. The cop hastily dropped his pad. “Okay, okay, I get it. I’m going. Someone trained you guys to hate the police. I’m just going to back away and get back in my car and call for backup and get Animal Control or something. A couple of officers with guns.”

Marc leapt and knocked him down again, growling and barking. The cop screamed. While Marc had him pinned, Ken trotted over to the cop car. “The things you make me do.” He pulled open the door to the cop car, which was unlocked, with his teeth, and climbed in. The cop struggled as Marc licked him some more.

Ken came back with a good portion of the cop’s radio in his teeth. He dropped it on the ground next to the officer. “Oh what the fuck,” the cop mumbled, head turned toward Ken, staring at the ruins of his radio. “Someone really went all out to train you guys.”

“We need to get out of here,” Ken said. “If he flags down another human who has a cell phone, he can still contact his backup. We’re gonna be doing the rest of this on paws.”

“Yeah. Shit. We only had like ten miles to go.”

“Well, if we run all out, we can get to town in about 20 minutes.” Wolves could run thirty miles an hour, and could keep it up for around 20 minutes, but Marc was impressed that Ken had been able to do the math to figure out that meant they could run the rest of the way to town. He couldn’t quite wrap his wolf head around the equations Ken must have done to calculate that.

“We’ll be wiped when we get there, though. Dammit. I loved that car.”

“This was why you shouldn’t have taunted the cop.”

“Yeah yeah. Rub it in, why don’t you.”

***

They were both panting hard by the time they reached town. Presumably it had been 20 minutes. Marc didn’t actually quite know what a minute was when he was a wolf. He knew it was a measure of time, but he couldn’t really keep track of how long it was. 

“Damn, I’m tired. And my paws are killing me. I could use some water. Probably even more than the biscuit.”

Ken just whined, and folded his legs, flopping down on the side of the road. As rural mountain road turned into smalltown America, the road had acquired a sidewalk, but only on one side. Since humans tended to be intimidated by wolves, they were on the side that didn’t have one. 

“Oh, come on, Mayor, you can’t be that wiped out.”

“I’m dead. Leave me. Save yourself,” Ken mumbled. 

“Come on.” Marc nosed Ken in the ribs, and when that failed to produce a reaction, started licking him in the wrong direction, messing up his fur. “Let’s find some water. There’s a fountain in the middle of town.”

“Knock it off!” Ken growled, the discomfort of having his fur ruffled in the wrong direction finally seeming to overcome his exhaustion. 

“I’ll stop when you get up.”

“I will bite you,” Ken said, demonstrating by snapping at Marc.

“No, you won’t. You’re Mr. Civilization and everything. Now let’s—”

“PUPPY!”

Marc and Ken both swiveled their heads to see what looked like a six year old girl running across the street toward them. This was a problem both because there was traffic on the road, and because appearing to be a dangerous animal anywhere near a human child was usually a bad idea. “Oh, crap,” Marc said.

He could hear a car vrooming toward the girl, around the bend. Marc leapt, grabbed the girl’s T-shirt with his teeth as she screamed, and pulled her over to the sidewalk where she’d come from just as the car zoomed past where they had just been.

Then he licked her, because that was what his wolf instincts told him to do with a child who’d had a scare.

“Oh – a car!” It seemed to be dawning on the girl that she could have been hit by that car. “Puppy! You saved me!” She threw her arms around Marc and hugged him.

“No problem, kid,” Marc mumbled, knowing she couldn’t understand him.

“Do you want to come home with me? Do you have people? Mom and Dad said that dogs who don’t have people are scary and I shouldn’t play with them but I don’t think so! You’re such a cute puppy and you saved me! I bet you’re nice!”

“I’m not a puppy,” Marc growled, hoping to intimidate the child into letting him go. It didn’t work.

“You’re so soft!”

Ken limped across the road, apparently having recovered from his temporary bout of death. “Snowfrolic, you need to lose that kid. If a human sees a six-year-old hugging a giant unleashed dog with no owner around – let alone if they recognize you as a wolf—”

“I know, I know! But I haven’t got thumbs, so how do I pry her loose?”

“Another puppy!” the girl yelled. “I wanna take you guys home with me! Do you have owners? Are you lost?”

Ken flopped down at the girl’s feet, behind her, and whined. “Oh, poor puppy!” The girl released Marc and knelt down to pet Ken, who looked absolutely miserable.

“Okay, Snowfrolic, I got her off you,” Ken said. “Let’s go.”

And then he exploded into motion, racing away from the girl, down the sidewalk. Marc followed.

“No! Puppies! Don’t run away! I want to play with you!”

The girl chased after them. The only reason they didn’t outdistance her instantly was that both of them had badly aching paws, both of them were in desperate need of water, and neither of them were city people. Rema was a small town, and very focused on integrating into nature; the few storefronts and public buildings that existed all had luxurious wild patches of green all around them, which the wolves kept trimmed with their teeth. This was a lot more like a small city, with sidewalk on this side of the road taking up all of what should have been green space, only occasional patches set aside to surround a random small tree. It was disorienting.

“We should cross the street again,” Ken panted. “There’s green over there, and trees we can lose her in.”

“Yeah, but that isn’t gonna be the direction of biscuits, now is it?” Marc replied, and put on a burst of speed, letting the cries of “Come back, puppies!” recede into the distance as he turned a corner and raced deeper into town.

“Slow down! I’m an old man, my heart’s gonna burst trying to keep up with you!”

“You’re not that old, and besides, you’re the one who said we had to lose the kid!”

“She’s six! We don’t have to run all the way to California to escape her!”

“Mayor, my biscuits aren’t gonna eat themselves! Gotta find a bakery!”

“Don’t you—” pant pant “—know where—” pant pant “—a bakery is?”

“No, why would I know that? I don’t live around here, I just come here to buy snow gear!”

“Did—” pant pant pant “—it—” pant pant pant “—not—” pant pant ‘’—occur to—” pant pant pant “—you—” pant pant pant pant “--to check—” many pants “—a map—” so many pants Marc thought that was the end of the sentence “—before we—” a somewhat smaller amount of pants than the last time “—left?”

“No, why would I do that? I can’t read maps, I’m a wolf. I figured I’d just get into town and then walk around until I smell biscuits.” 

“I can—” a lot of pants “—read a map—” many pants “—you idiot!”

“Then how come you don’t know where a bakery is?”

If Ken wanted to make a reply to this, he didn’t seem to be able to, with how hard he was panting. 

It occurred to Marc that maybe he was pushing the old man a little hard. Werewolves had normal human life spans, so Ken, in his mid-forties, wasn’t all that old, and their regenerative powers made them all healthier and stronger than an equivalent human or wolf at the same stage of life. But Ken’s job as the Mayor made him very sedentary, spending most of his life writing emails and doing math and other not-very-wolflike things instead of healthy and fun stuff like running around town or snow sports or hunting his own food. Marc wasn’t actually sure Ken knew how to hunt. Biologically he was a wolf, but he was so human he might as well be a dog. So he was probably really out of shape in comparison to Marc.

Marc started to slow down, and then a random human man pointed at the two of them and yelled, “Jesus Christ, those are wolves! Someone call Animal Control!”

Ken put on a burst of speed that impressed Marc – he hadn’t known the old man had it in him—and raced past Marc, turning down an alley. Marc followed as Ken weaved through a network of tiny alleys and parking lots and small streets barely wide enough for a car, figuring the older wolf knew where he was going, until finally Ken stopped, less panting than gasping. There was a garbage can lid full of rainwater, but Marc didn’t get a chance to drink any of it because Ken picked it up with his paws and poured the whole thing down his throat rather than lapping it like a sensible wolf.

“Hey! I wanted some of that!”

“Find your own,” Ken panted. 

Marc poked his head out of the alley. They were now well into the city proper. “I don’t see anywhere I can get any water,” he complained. “Where are we?”

“Yeah. Good question.” Ken trotted over to the edge of the alleyway and took a look.

“You mean… you don’t know?”

“Why would I know? I don’t live here either, and I didn’t have time to check a map before you dragged me on this quest.”

“Hey, you insisted on coming with me! And I thought you had someplace in mind, you seemed to be running somewhere. What’s with all the twists and turns if you didn’t know where you were going?”

Ken facepawed. “I was trying to lose the kid, you idiot. And then I was trying to lose the humans who wanted to call Animal Control.”

“Uh, they weren’t gonna follow some strange wolves into an alley, and it’s not like Animal Control can teleport. We’d have had time if we’d just strolled, we didn’t have to run like that.” Marc sniffed the air. “I don’t smell biscuits. Or water, either. Dammit.”

“If there’s rainwater in a garbage can lid, there’s probably rainwater in something else as well,” Ken said. He went back into the alley, down one of the ones they came from, and found another garbage lid full of rainwater, and also a random storage bin. “If you like your water with some flavor…”

Werewolves didn’t worry about getting sick. Marc drank the water eagerly despite the presence of mosquito larvae in it. Extra protein!

“I’m guessing we’re more likely to find bakeries downtown, in the touristy areas,” Ken said. “There’s likely to be some in out-of-the-way places near residential neighborhoods, as well, but we’ll never find those. Whereas downtown there might be some bakeries for the day trippers. Huh. Does Panera Bread make biscuits? I can’t remember.”

The last time Marc had been in a Panera Bread, he had not been obsessed with biscuits, and so he had not bothered to observe if they had biscuits or not. “Dunno, but you know where does? Fried chicken places. So it doesn’t even have to be a bakery. We could go to a fried chicken place.”

“Well, they’re more likely to be downtown, too.”

Down at the end of the block, Marc could see the kind of enclosure that usually signified a bus stop. “My paws are killing me. I’m gonna go take the bus downtown.”

“…what? You can’t do that! Animals don’t ride buses! And do you even know if that bus goes downtown?”

“Eh, I’m guessing it probably does.” Marc hadn’t looked at a map, specifically, but he’d seen enough maps of the area in his lifetime to know that the direction the traffic on this side of the street was going in was the direction of downtown. Unless the bus veered off and did something weird, it pretty much had to go through downtown.

There was one person at the bus stop, a young woman wearing headphones. She turned as Marc approached, and whistled. “Wow. You are a big doggie. Got an owner around here?”

Marc wagged his tail and panted in a way he knew from experience looked to humans as if he was smiling. “Aw. Such a cutie. I’d pet you, but I don’t know if you’re friendly if I get up close or not.”

Still wagging and panting, Marc walked closer to the woman, who watched him warily, and then lay down right near her feet. He wasn’t going to miss out on getting some pets.

“Snowfrolic, what the hell are you doing?” Ken called from the alley.

Marc didn’t answer. His language sounded to humans like barking, and barking could startle or upset humans. Instead, he looked up at the human woman, still panting and wagging, with his eyes open as wide as he could get them.

“You’re very tame. I wonder if you were a service animal at some point,” the woman said, and reached down to his head, slowly and carefully. “You wanna sniff my hand?” Marc didn’t really, he wanted pets, but he obligingly sniffed her hand while still panting and wagging. Having gotten that introductory formality out of the way, the woman scritched his head, including behind his ears. Ah, bliss.

“Snowfrolic! What are you… no, never mind. I was going to ask what you were thinking, but it’s obvious that you weren’t,” Ken snarked.

“Wow. Another one of you. You guys look a lot alike; are you related?”

“Does she expect us to be able to answer her?” Marc asked quietly, which sounded to human ears more like a whine than a bark. 

“You’re the one who decided it was a good idea to get petted by a human.”

The bus arrived. The young woman stood up. “Well, doggos, my bus is here, so I have to leave you now,” she said. The bus stopped, the door slid open, and the woman mounted the steps.

Marc followed right behind her.

“You can’t have your dogs on the bus unless they’re service animals,” the bus driver said.

“Uh… that’s not my dog. He was just waiting at the bus stop with me. I have no idea why he’s trying to get on the bus.”

“Lady, you’re not allowed to have a dog on the bus!”

“He’s not my dog!”

Marc squeezed under the woman, making her yelp as he slid between her legs and up the stairs, where he jumped onto an empty seat and started wagging and panting.

“Lady, if you don’t get the dog off the bus—”

“How am I supposed to do that? He has no collar and he’s not my dog. Do you really think he’s gonna – oof!” This was said as Ken squeezed past her, getting onto the bus as well. He sat down near Marc, looking downright morose. “Oh, shit, there’s two of them.”

“Just let the woman on the bus!” a person in the back yelled.

“Yeah, the dogs aren’t hurting anyone!”

“She said they weren’t her dogs!”

“They’re service dogs! I can tell!”

“Maybe someone called their service dogs on the phone and asked them to ride the bus to where they are!”

“That’s ridiculous, a dog can’t do that!”

“Sure it can! Dogs are amazing!”

“Uh, people, I think those are wolves…”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” the driver said. “All right. Fine. Pay your fare and get on. But if those dogs get off at the same stop as you, I’m having you banned from the bus system.”

“Whatever,” the woman said angrily, mounting the stairs. She ostentatiously went all the way to the back of the bus, head held high, not even looking at Marc and Ken. As she passed them, she muttered, “Stupid dogs.”

“Uh, I kinda think we just proved we’re really smart,” Marc whispered to Ken in a tiny, quiet whine.

“I think we just proved no such thing,” Ken responded, a little too loudly, and it came out as a bit of a bark.

“Oh, look at them! It’s like they’re talking to each other!” an old lady chortled.

Ken’s ears flattened back. Marc recognized the sign of a wolf who was scared that his secret identity as a werewolf might be endangered, and shut up.

The bus drove onward on its route. Sometimes, when the bus stopped, people who had to go past Marc and Ken to get to the door shrank away from them, being elaborately careful not to go too near the “dogs”. Some unwisely petted them or even scritched them, and one man rubbed Marc’s cheeks. Marc tolerated it. Snapping at any of these humans was a great way to turn all the humans against them and get thrown off the bus, or handed over to Animal Control.

As soon as the buildings around them looked tall enough, and the pedestrians thick enough, to be a downtown area, Marc pressed the button with his entire muzzle, when just his nose didn’t do the job. “Did you see that?” someone said. “He hit the stop button!”

“Wow, those dogs are well trained!”

“They’re wolves…” the man who’d originally pointed out that they were wolves sighed.

The bus stopped, the doors opened, and Marc trotted down the stairs and out onto the street, followed by Ken. “Do you have any idea where we are?” Ken asked.

“Gimme a moment,” Marc said, watching the bus. The young lady from the bus stop did not get off with them. Good. This wasn’t her stop, so she wasn’t going to be forbidden to ride the bus. As the bus drove off, he turned back to Ken. “No idea, but I bet there’s a bakery around here somewhere! Or at least a fried chicken place.”

He started strolling down the street, drawing numerous comments. “Marc. We need to hide in an alley. People on the street around here are figuring out that we’re wolves.”

“How’m I gonna sniff out biscuits if we spend all our time in alleys?”

“How’re we going to find your biscuits if we have to run from the cops?”

Marc loped forward, ignoring how humans all around him yelled with startlement, or shrank back against buildings, or stared. He was definitely smelling food. Not biscuits, but where there was the scent of food, there might be restaurants, and where there were restaurants, there might be biscuits. “I’ve got a scent. I’m gonna track it.”

“Oh shit,” Ken said. “I don’t think you’re gonna.”

Marc turned his head to where Ken was staring, and saw a large white cargo van stopping in the middle of the street, its hazards on. The side door slid open and the passenger door banged open, and two men in white with rifles in their hands jumped out.

“We need to run!”

“Why? You know getting shot won’t kill us. You think they’ve got silver bullets?”

“Snowfrolic! Just move!”

Ken ran for the alley. After a moment, Marc followed him – until a bright stinging pain exploded in his right rear haunch. “Motherfucker!” he howled. “They shot me!”

“I told you!” Ken glanced at the wound. “Shit, that’s a tranq. They’ve got tranq guns! Move it!”

“Do those work on us?” Marc asked uncertainly, feeling wobbly. His leg hurt, and it wasn’t regenerating, because the tranq dart wasn’t out of the leg yet, but he had to run after Ken or they’d shoot him again.

“If they hit us with enough of them, yeah.” Ken skidded around a corner. As soon as Marc followed, Ken yanked the dart out of him with his teeth. “They’re following us. Move it!”

This time Marc didn’t argue. He and Ken wove in and out of alleys, pursued by the men with tranq guns, until they finally came upon a dead end – an alley that ended in a tall wire fence with brown plastic slats inserted into it to prevent anyone from seeing through it.

“They’re cornered! Stay back, watch out for them to charge!”

Ken and Marc, whose leg had healed, looked at each other. They both nodded. And then they turned toward the fence and used their werewolf strength to leap over it… landing in a dumpster on the other side.

“Shit! They jumped the fence!”

“Do we climb it?”

“Too slow! Go around, go around! Cut them off!”

Something under him smelled good. Marc started to pull at one of the black garbage bags he was sprawled out on.

“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but… Snowfrolic. Biscuits?”

Oh yeah! Marc had been so enticed by the smell of the garbage, he’d almost forgotten his mission for a moment. “Right! Let’s get out of here!”

They jumped out of the dumpster and ran straight out of the alley they were in – into one of the guys with the tranq guns. “Shit!” Ken spun around and ran the other way, Marc following. Two tranq darts sailed after them, but didn’t hit.

There was a parking lot full of small trucks, folding tables, and tents. The smell of a variety of produce, and also, some scented soaps and candles, struck Marc’s nose. “Is that a farmer’s market?” he howled at Ken, and didn’t wait for an answer – he split off and ran into the parking lot, heading straight for a couple of hipsters holding hands. They shrieked and let go of each other to let Marc go racing through.

“Okay, great! The Animal Control guys can’t shoot at us if they’re risking hitting humans!” Ken followed Marc. More screaming ensued. The piercing shrieks of children, the high-powered cries of women, the deep terrified howls of men filled the air. Also, barking. Quite a lot of barking. Apparently many people had brought their dogs to the farmer’s market.

One of the guys in white had a weighted net. Marc saw it, saw him coming around the side of a truck that sold hot food, and made a decision. He angled himself directly for one of the tables selling produce, ducked under it – and then came up, fast and hard, before he was out from under it. This tipped the entire table over in the direction of his pursuer. Zucchini and tomatoes and apples and he really didn’t have time to notice what else went rolling across the pavement of the parking lot.

Ken joined him as they broke out the other side of the farmer’s market. “That was clever, with the vegetable table. Maybe you’re not a complete idiot.”

“I know, right? Every movie where there’s a chase scene on foot, a fruit cart ends up getting knocked over!”

Ken huffed. “I take it back, you’re every bit as dumb as I think you are.”

They ran down the nearest street. Touristy shop. Touristy shop. Fancy sandwich shop that did not smell like biscuits. Movie theater. Bookstore – wait, movie theater?

Marc opened his mouth, but Ken beat him to it. “Into the movie theater! Quick!”

They went through the spinning door. The ticket taker called out to empty air. “Hey! Dogs aren’t allowed! You gotta get your… the fuck? There’s nobody there!”

Since he was looking at the spinning door and not at the two wolves, Ken and Marc were able to slip past him. Ken pulled open the first movie theater door with his teeth, and he and Marc slunk in, hiding in the darkness.

There was some kind of very loud action scene going on, with car chases and bullets. Ken whined directly in Marc’s ear. “We can’t talk at all unless the movie’s being loud, and we have to whisper. That usher’ll be able to put two and two together if someone tells him there are dogs barking in one of the theaters.”

“Okay,” Marc whisper-whined back. 

Movies were not that interesting when you were a wolf. The sounds didn’t have the depth that real life did – wolves could hear in ranges humans couldn’t, and humans only bothered to replicate the sounds they could hear. Wolf vision wasn’t really very good. And there were no smells. It was about as engaging as a cartoon from the 70’s with a low frame rate and lousy acting. Marc quickly grew bored of sitting quietly at the end of one of the rows, and padded over to the trash can.

“What are you—” The scene abruptly changed to a woman in a kitchen, much quieter than the explosions from the last scene, and Ken had to shut up. Marc stood on his hind legs. Jackpot! There was a large popcorn in there, one of those huge jobs movie theaters were famous for, barely eaten. He grabbed it with his teeth and carefully lifted it, stepping back, and lowering himself to the floor with a small enough jolt that most of the popcorn stayed in the tub.

He set it down at Ken’s feet. “Want some?” he whisper-whined.

Ken just glared at him, plainly not interested in popcorn. More for Marc, then. He shoved his face into the popcorn and gobbled as many of the buttery exploded kernels as he could fit in his mouth. They didn’t taste quite as good in wolf form as they would if he was human, but on the other hand, the smell was incredible and wonderful and mostly made up for it.

Now he was thirsty. The water fountain was unfortunately in the hallway outside the theater; there was no way a wolf could stand up and work the water fountain control lever and drink from a stream in midair without someone observing and realizing that went way beyond what a dog could be trained to do without supervision. He strolled back over to the garbage can and found what he was looking for – an almost full Pepsi, one of those super large ones.

Obviously he couldn’t drink from the straw. Wolf mouths wouldn’t do that. Just as obviously, he wasn’t going to be able to get it out of the garbage can with his teeth; it would spill everywhere, and then he wasn’t going to get to drink it. So he leaned into the trash can, carefully pried at the lid with teeth and tongue until he’d successfully pulled it off, and began lapping at the Pepsi. 

The usher chose that moment to come back inside. Startled, Marc looked up at the man – more of a boy, really, a gangly teenager – as the light from the lobby of the theater shone through the door behind the usher, directly onto Marc. Who was a huge wolf on his back paws leaning on a trash can.

“AAAAAAAAAAH!” The boy turned around and ran for the door. “Fuck! Fuck! There’s a fucking wolf in Theater 3 getting into the trash can! Get Animal Control!”

This was not exactly quiet. Even over the sound of the movie’s action scene, theatergoers obviously heard it, because they all looked at each other, murmuring. “Did someone say—” “He said a wolf—” “Oh my god there it is!” This had to be them noticing Ken, as no one was positioned to see into the walkway from the theater door to the seating area, where the trashcan and therefore Marc was.

“They’re going to stampede! We need to get out of here!” Ken yelled.

“But I never got to drink my Pepsi!” Marc barked back.

“Take your Pepsi and shove it—” Ken described an activity that was technically possible for a wolf, but vastly easier for someone with opposable thumbs.

The barking set off the rest of the humans in the theater, filling the air with shrieks as they ran for the exits. Ken grabbed the scruff of Marc’s neck and dragged him toward the door out into the theater lobby. 

“I knew there were goddamn dogs!” the ticket taker yelled as they ran out through the lobby.

The usher shouted back from somewhere, perhaps a back office, “They’re fucking wolves, Julio!”

Marc didn’t hear anything else, because he and Ken had just gotten themselves into the revolving door again.

Outside, they ran pell-mell down the street, trying to outrun any Animal Control officers that might be showing up. “I’m smelling biscuits!” Marc howled.

“Great, wonderful! I’ve got a plan, follow me!”

Oddly, Ken’s plan did not seem to be “follow the scent of biscuits”, but “follow a well-dressed middle-aged lady who was walking into a hotel.” Marc was willing to give Ken the benefit of the doubt, though; the mayor was a lot smarter than he was, so if Ken had a plan, it would be better than one of Marc’s plans… as long as it ended in biscuits.

The doorman glared at the woman. “Ma’am, this hotel doesn’t allow dogs.”

“Dogs?” The woman sounded completely puzzled. “What dogs?”

“The dogs behind you. The ones following you. Your dogs.”

She turned. Marc opened his eyes wide, panted in a way that looked like he was smiling, and wagged his tail.

“Those aren’t my dogs,” the woman said. “Are those even dogs? They’re huge, are you sure they’re not wolves?”

“I—I don’t—”

Ken barked at Marc. “Come on! We need to hide!”

Marc looked around the wide, open hotel lobby. “Where?”

“Follow me!”

So Marc did, his claws skittering and sliding uncomfortably on the polished floor. Ken shot past the elevators, drawing stares from various humans waiting for it, went around a pillar, and dove into a dim, partially enclosed area with a lot of tables covered with tablecloths. Ken went under a table, and Marc followed.

“So what’re we doing?” Marc whisper-whined. “This is a restaurant, right? Are there biscuits here?”

“There are no goddamn biscuits at a fancy hotel restaurant.”

“How do you know?”

Ken sighed a very human-sounding sigh. “Do I need to get you a goddamn menu to prove there are no biscuits?” he asked quietly.

“What, you can read a menu?”

“Yeah, if you get my glasses out of the pouch on my back.”

Marc stared. Somehow, this whole time, he had never noticed that Ken had a pouch strapped to his back. “…how did you get that thing on in the first place?”

“With difficulty.” Ken lay down. “Don’t break my glasses getting them out.”

Carefully Marc nosed the flap of the pouch up. When he had enough of it up that he could get the flap into his mouth, he pulled it open. It was Velcro, so it came easily. He managed, with difficulty, to get his paw into the pouch, where he managed to snag the glasses and pull them out. “How’re you gonna get these on your face?”

“Give me a moment.”

Ken stuck his head out from under the tablecloth, just a little bit. “You stay here,” he said, and then he bolted. A moment later, he was back, with a menu in his mouth. He dropped it on the floor under the table. “There’s not enough light under here, hold the tablecloth up with your nose.”

“Uh, okay, is that all right? Are we not worrying about getting caught anymore?”

“There is no one in this restaurant but the bartender and he’s not paying any attention.”

Marc obligingly held the tablecloth up, and thus had enough light to see Ken pick up his glasses off the floor like he had thumbs, using both his front paws. Ken set the glasses on his snout as Marc goggled at him, because wolves really could not do that, generally speaking. Then Ken peered down at the menu. “Okay. We have breakfast here. Waffles. Eggs. Sausage. Bacon.”

“Can we get some bacon? I’d love some bacon.”

“Focus, Snowfrolic. Fruit cup. On to lunch. Cold sandwiches: roast beef, BLT, club sandwich, reuben, turkey, ham, Italian cold cuts. Hot sandwiches: hamburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger with bacon, vegan patty, chicken patty. Entrees: not a biscuit, not a biscuit, this one’s not a biscuit either, can you just take my word for it there are no biscuits anywhere on this menu?”

“Then why are we here? You said you had a plan.”

“I do have a plan, I just needed people to stop yelling about the big dogs. The heat’s died down; I want you to walk, not run, behind me, calmly, and look as harmless and friendly as you can. Like we’re two dogs who are trained to run around and get stuff for our owner or something.”

“You’ve got a thing that looks like a harness with that pack on your back, but I don’t have one. I’m not gonna look like a service dog.”

“You’re not a service dog. You’re an emotional support dog.”

“I don’t need a harness for that?”

“Just stay calm. We’ll get you your biscuit.”

The two of them slunk out from under the table and started walking, calmly, down a hallway. “Mayor. Your glasses are still on!” Marc growled at Ken, low enough to make it hard for humans to hear.

“Shit. I don’t have time to take them off and put them away, and if I put them in my mouth I won’t be able to see through them,” Ken muttered. “All right, I’m just gonna brazen it out.” 

They continued to walk calmly down the hallway. No one but a small child noticed the glasses. “Mommy, that dog is wearing glasses!”

Mommy, on her cell phone, said, “Oh really! Very interesting!” without looking at the wolves at all, and then continued her cell phone conversation. 

Ken pulled a door open by the handle, with his teeth. “Good,” he said, his voice muffled by the handle in his mouth. “No people in here. C’mon.”

Marc followed him in. There was a computer on a table, next to a printer. “Block the door. We don’t want any humans coming in,” Ken said.

“What are we doing?”

“I’m writing you a note,” Ken said. He pulled the chair for the computer out, jumped into it, and sat in it wolf-style. With his right paw, he maneuvered a little thingy around – oh, right, they called that a mouse. Marc didn’t know why. It didn’t smell anything like a mouse.

“You’re what?”

“Writing. You. A. Note.” Ken started typing, supporting himself with his left paw while he delicately used the longest digit on his right paw to peck out a message on the keyboard. “Please. Give this dog. A bag. Of biscuits. In exchange for. This bill.”

“Is that what it says?”

“No, Marc, it says rubber baby buggy bumpers.”

“I feel like you’re being sarcastic.”

“What was your first clue?” Ken did something with the mouse again, and the printer whirred to life, a piece of paper slowly feeding out of it. “Now go back in my pack and get out my ten dollar bill.”

“You have money in there?”

“Just hurry up! While you’re away from the door getting the money out of my backpack, people could come in!”

Marc was pretty sure that if people shoved hard enough they could have gotten in even if he was leaning on the door; he was a big wolf, but a human had better leverage than he did. But there was no point in arguing with Ken about it. He stuck his paw in, felt around, and pulled a piece of paper out. “Is this your money?”

“Yeah. Okay, can you get the glasses back in?”

Marc considered the possibility of picking Ken’s glasses up with his mouth, and then tried to imagine how to get them into Ken’s backpack without breaking them, and came to the conclusion that it was not happening. “Nope.”

“Shit. Well, they’re readers, they’re cheap. I’ll get more from the drug store when I’m on two feet again.” Ken was for some reason sticking his tongue into a plastic dish full of little metal things, next to plastic dishes full of pens and plastic dishes full of rubber bands.

“What are you doing, Mayor?”

Ken glared at Marc, since with his tongue fully extended he could hardly talk. He withdrew his tongue. Oh, that was a paper clip! Marc recognized it now. 

Using more dexterity in his paws than Marc could have imagined a wolf was capable of, Ken got the bill, the piece of paper that came out of the printer, and the paper clip together somehow, so that the bill and the paper were now clipped together. “Carry that in your mouth, but gently. Try not to slobber on it, we want humans to be able to read what it says.”

“I’m gonna have a hard time not getting slobber on something in my mouth, Mayor.”

“Yeah, but it’s not like you have hands to carry it with, so you’ll have to make do.”

***

Outside, Marc picked up the trail of the biscuit smell again, and followed it down the street, Ken trotting behind him. They had to switch who was carrying the note, because all of that biscuit smell was making Marc salivate.

Marc traced the delicious smell to a glass window, which he pressed his face up against before realizing that he couldn’t actually go through the window that way. Ken pulled the door open with his teeth, which caused the note to fall down. Marc picked it up with his mouth, figuring that in the ten seconds it took him to get it to the counter, it couldn’t get too much slobber on it.

No one was at the counter. He dropped the note there. One of the bakers came out of the back, saw him do it, and stared. “Wow. You are a well-trained dog. Is that a ten dollar bill?”

Marc almost nodded, and then remembered not to do that because humans would freak out at the sight of a wolf nodding “yes” to their statement. Instead he made his eyes big, panted in a smile-like shape, and wagged his tail.

The baker picked up the note. “’Please give this dog a bag of biscuits in exchange for this bill.’ Oh, wow, someone trained you to go fetch them food! I wish my dog would do that.” She peeled the note away from the bill. “Ugh, dog slobber. Well, I guess there isn’t any other way for you to carry it, is there. But how about I give you a bag with handles, that way you don’t slobber on your owner’s biscuits.” She looked over at Ken. “Do you want some biscuits too?”

Ken whined and pawed at the door. “I guess not. You want me to let you out? How about I do that after I get your buddy the biscuits he came for?” She went into the back briefly, and came back with a tray of biscuits. “Fresh out of the ovens just fifteen minutes ago.” Marc had to resist the temptation to just grab one and run when she set it down on the counter and the smell wafted over to him. So close. So, so close to biscuit time.

The baker put several biscuits – more than Marc could count, but that didn’t prove much since he couldn’t count higher than five – into a plain white paper bag, and then put the bag into another bag, a shopping bag with handles that was made of a better, tougher quality of paper. Marc grabbed the handles with his teeth as the baker rang up the transaction, and put the change into a jar full of coins on the counter. “Pleasure doing business with you, sir!” she said, laughing. Ken shoved the door open, and he and Marc both trotted out of the bakery.

Within less than a minute, Marc was in the closest alleyway, hidden from casual human view. He dropped the biscuit bag on the ground, nosed into it, and pulled one of the crispy, flaky, buttery wonders out with his teeth. Biscuit time!

“Well?” Ken asked. “Was it worth all this?”

Marc chewed the biscuit thoughtfully, and then lowered his head, his ears going back a bit. “That’s disappointing. It doesn’t even taste very good.”

Ken’s ears flattened, he growled, and he crouched back in an obvious attack position, preparing to pounce. The body language was clear as day. Before Ken could jump him, Marc ran down the alley, leaving the rest of his not-very-good biscuits behind, as Ken chased him barking insults, curses and general imprecations the whole way.