How my niece learned to see through the wolf-boy and love him too

A little sumpthin' sumpthin' I've started cookin' up:


Learning to love the wolf boy

The way I explained it to my niece, I'd found the wolf-boy alone, at dusk, howling by the side of the road. True to name, he was half boy, half wolf, a werewolf in miniature, smartly dressed in a blue sweater and slacks, no older than five or six. His mother was nowhere.

My niece, being five herself, was of an age where other children fascinated her. On the 4th of July, after I'd made the mistake of pointing out a boy playing with a handheld sparkler in his driveway, she'd cried for the entire 40-minute ride home, desperate to have us turn the car around for a better look. The children in her pre-school class, the neighbor kids across the street, strangers at the playground -- they were her universe, in parallel. Future friends, acquaintances, even lovers. And enemies too.

The wolf boy wanted to get home. How he got separated from his mother , I'm not sure, and I don't believe my niece ever asked. Fathers were irrelevant in this telling. They often are. But a boy separated from his mother -- that's a story.

We were leaving the indoor playground at...