Things That Go Bump In The Night

There are lots of mysteries in the universe, but one we never solved was the mystery of “The Wolf”. At the time The Wolf first appeared we were quite young and I think my brother and I were convinced The Wolf really existed, creeping through our rooms at night. On several occasions we could have sworn we saw his green eyes glowing in a dark corner of the room.

We decided to lay a trap for him before he could get us (we were certain we were on his list of things to eat) and set up a plastic booby trap our folks bought us (this was the good old days where it was ok to play with guns and not so ok to be playing with dolls, even if they do look like they are in the Army). It was a cool trap; if you tripped the string it launched a plastic grenade. To make sure we did a thorough job we also had our toy bazooka (try to find one of those nowadays, unless Barbie is holding one it can’t be done) primed and ready. We hid up on my brother’s bed watching closely for any sign of our prey. Suddenly in the dark we heard the click, click, click of wolf claws on the wood floor. I launched a rocket in the general direction of the sound (this is in fact a technique Illinois deer hunters use when they hunt in Wisconsin, so if you are out in the woods during the season wearing red or not try not to make any noise). The clicking grew in intensity so we thought he was about to spring, I was out of rockets for the bazooka so we decided yelling might scare it away.

This immediately brought our parents on scene. Dad flipped on the light and we saw marbles lying all over the floor by my brother’s shelves. It wasn’t the wolf this time, just his marble bag slowly tipping off the edge of the shelf were he’d placed it and dropping marbles on the floor a few at a time. Well it sounded like “The Wolf”. My parents weren’t too pleased about the whole thing if I remember right, but don’t get too comfortable Mr. Wolf; we are still on your trail…