Chapter 2

Hopalong trying to top his infamous ‘Hopalong and the Werewolf’ story

This is a Skull Train story from a long time back. From back before Train February.

This is how I heard Hopalong trying to tell it.

“First off, it weren’t no werewolf.

“I was looking at a were-person. The worst kind.

“A person that, under the moonlight, turned into a werewolf.

“But its worst power was that after it was roaming around acting like a werewolf, then every time a cloud covered the moon, it turned back into a person. Looked like you,”

Shrieks and peals of laughter from the crowd of girls across the fire! Hopalong was staring into the fire and couldn’t really pick out any particular girl out of the crowd but he always pointed as he said these words.

“or you, or you over there.”

Hopalong always paused before he said that next word:

“Nekkid.”

One time, I watched from across the fire when Hopalong got to this part of the story. I watched him shake his head while twisting it over sideways with one ear up and the other down. He tapped the upper side of his head until he, evidently, felt something slip out and...

Hopalong bent over and looked, searching the ground until suddenly he jumped and stamped his foot, grinding it. Then he picked something up and dusted it off.

He straightened up and looking foolishly at the Littles at the edge of the firepit and over their heads at the scowling boys and the giggling girls and then shifting ponderously to look at the parents and, maybe, all the way past the edge of the firelight to the big black shadow that was the train and the arc-lit presence of its engine.

Hopalong muttered, “Sorry. I got someone’s giggle stuck in my ear.”

What he might have said next was drowned out by the wind of mighty giggles from the girl children and all the littles. I guess the boys and men smiled. But men don’t giggle. And surely the women of the train were highly interested in the story, but they never giggle where more than one man might hear them.

“Whose is this?” Hoplang asked holding his pinched fingers up high as if a sock ... or a leprechaun ... or a giggle ... was dangling down.

All the Littles shouted “Mine!”