Max's Furry Little Problem

Max Hayes sat in the closet of the headmaster's study peeking out of the keyhole. After hearing rumors about a secret room in the headmaster's closet, Max had taken it upon herself to find out if the rumors were true.

The mission took weeks of planning. After countless nights creeping around the boarding school after curfew, writing down and memorizing the headmaster’s schedule, tonight was the night. Max knew that this evening, like all Thursday evenings, the headmaster would be leaving school grounds at precisely 5:15 pm to go to a local bar with his friends. He would stay at the bar until 8:35 pm in order to be back at the school before curfew.

Sure enough, Max peeked over the top of her book she was pretending to read and watched the headmaster, with his jacket flung over his shoulder and his ring of keys jingling in his pocket, take out one special key. Max knew that this was the key to the headmaster's office. After locking the door and placing the key back in his pocket with the rest, the headmaster walked away leaving Max alone in the empty hallway. After carefully hiding her book away behind the bench, Max got up, walked over to the door and extracted a second key from underneath the doormat. She had made a duplicate key and hidden it here months ago.

Once inside, Max slipped the false key into the pocket of her flowery night gown, locked the door behind her and looked around the room. Being a rather well behaved student Max had never been inside the headmaster's office before.

It was a big, dimly lit room with high ceilings and many frames on the walls with pictures of former students and teachers. On one side of the room there was a big desk and across from that was a tall narrow door which Max could only assume was the door to the closet.

Her plan was finally coming to life. After all these months of planning and preparing she had made it. She started towards the door when suddenly she heard voices coming from the hallway. The voices got louder and louder until they were right outside the door. Max gasped as she recognized one of the voices as the headmaster's. She sprinted to the closet praying that the door was unlocked. Thankfully it was. She reached the door and flung it open just as she heard the jingling of keys and a second later the headmaster and whoever was with him walked in. 

Max peeked through the keyhole and watched the men. The headmaster had his arm around the other man who looked to be about the same age as him, but was very hunched over. The man seemed very distressed. The headmaster was trying to calm him down while leading him to a chair and offering him a seat.

As the man turned to sit down, Max caught a glimpse of his face. She gasped and covered her mouth in an attempt to not scream. The man's face was not human. His nose was long, his eyes as yellow as the sun, and his hair seemed to be growing longer by the second. He was not talking anymore. It seemed as if he couldn't.

The headmaster was panicking now and to Max's utmost horror, he started walking quickly over to the closet. Max jumped away from the keyhole and curled up as close as she could to the wall as the closet door swung open. Luckily the headmaster was in a rush and seemed to know what he needed and was able to grab the bottle before spotting Max. He rushed away and Max let out a huge sigh of relief. She returned to the key hole and watched as the headmaster poured the liquid from the bottle onto a spoon and fed it to the other man who had begun shaking.

As soon as the liquid touched his tongue, the man began returning to his human form. It was like magic.

"What were you doing out on a full moon?" asked the headmaster.

"I forgot to check the calendar," said the man.

"You idiot! How could you forget? You could have been killed! I could've been killed!"

"I'm sorry! It was an accident. I'm usually very careful, but I've been busy, I don't know what happened."

The man slumped in his seat full of guilt as Max tried to figure out what was going on. She had read many fairy tales that involved werewolves, but she knew they were fiction. It couldn't be real.

The headmaster kept talking. "You better not let this happen again. I could have you arrested, but no one would believe me," he said.

"It won't happen again." said the man, "I promise."

"Well you'd better get going then. Go home and rest. I don't want any of the children to find out what happened."

"They won't. Even if they saw me they wouldn't know what they saw. They just wouldn't believe it," said the man.

He grabbed his jacket and thanked the headmaster as he left.

Max didn't have much time to process what happened before the headmaster started walking back over to the closet to put the bottle back. Max didn't have enough time to get out of the way before the door opened and she was face to face with the headmaster. They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity before the headmaster pulled Max out by the sleeve of her night gown.

He leaned down and said with barely a whisper, "You will never tell anybody what you saw, you will see me first thing tomorrow morning for detention, and you will never come into my office without permission again.”

Max nodded shakily and ran out of the room as he released her from his grip. Once she was out of the office she didn't stop running. She ran until she was safely underneath the covers in bed. 

The next morning Max awoke early. She didn’t have an appetite and wanted to get to the bottom of what she had seen as quickly as possible. She skipped breakfast and ran straight down to the headmaster's office. 

To Max’s surprise, the headmaster greeted her cheerfully. 

“Why hello there Max!” said the headmaster, looking up from his paper.

“Hello,” said Max quietly. “You told me to come to your office first thing this morning. For detention.” 

The headmaster did not reply right away but looked at her a bit confused as she stood there anxiously waiting. After a moment, the headmaster spoke.

“Now, Miss. Hayes, why would you get detention? I do not remember asking you to come see me, and I can not think of any reason why you would need detention. You are a well behaved student, are you not?”

Max didn’t see any reason to argue. After all, it seemed like she might’ve just had a bad dream.

“Oh,” said Max. “I thought I remembered you saying something to me.” 

“Must’ve just been a dream.” she muttered looking down at her feet.

“Yes, yes, just a dream. Well then, you don’t want to miss breakfast. You can go.”

Max left the office without another word. She stood in the hallway thinking. She was there last night. She remembered it so clearly, but it seemed impossible. As she looked around helplessly, her eyes landed on a wooden bench a few yards away. It was the bench she remembered sitting on just last night.

She started walking quickly down the hallway.  She reached the bench and after making sure no one was looking she reached behind the bench. Her hand brushed against something. It was the book she had left here the night before. She was definitely not dreaming.

Horrified, Max took off running down the hallway once more. She couldn’t stop. Her legs felt as if they were no longer attached to her body. She kept running until she reached her bedroom at the end of the hall. With one last look down the hallway she slammed the door shut. 

. . .

Years later, an old woman in a flowery night gown sat in a chair reading an old book. Her grandchildren had gone off to bed and she was alone in the living room. She checked her watch and, as it was getting rather late, decided to go off to bed. She stood up from her chair and walked slowly over to the front door to close it before going to sleep. Reaching the door she looked out at the quiet street. All the houses lights were off but the street was well lit by street lamps and the full moon outside. She looked up at the moon as she took the small key out of her pocket, locked the door, and went off to bed.

Max never knew if there was a secret room in the headmaster’s office. After all, the closet seemed just like a normal closet to her. She never truly figured out what she saw that night either. She wasn’t quite sure if she should believe it. And even as she got older and the memories slowly faded away, she still never went outside on a full moon again.