Free Children of the Wolf by Jane Yolen

truth, I saw him every day. We studied together and slept in the same room. But since the arrival of the wolf-children, all between us had changed. I wondered if I had the proper words to tell him so, but I never got the chance to try.
    “Mohandas,” he said to me, his words tumbling over one another in Bengali, “Mr. Welles tells me that in a year I am to be apprenticed to a storekeeper in Midnapore. He sells cloth and woven goods and needs someone with a strong back and a head for figures. He will teach me how to tell good cloth from bad. I will live there as well, and I will have a trade. He is a Christian man, Mr. Welles says, and is doing this out of duty and love.”
    I wrinkled my nose, and Rama laughed, and it was so much like our old times together that I felt a great rush of affection for him.
    “Indira says that I should be a soldier, not a shopkeeper, with a uniform of red and gold. But what does she know? I will be in the city and will be treated as a man there, not a boy or some Englishman’s lackey. And I will have money for rice beer and sweets.”
    I clapped him on the back, for I knew that being on his own was his greatest wish. Then I looked at the ground as if the words I wanted were growing there at my feet.
    “I will miss you, Rama.”
    He grabbed me by the shoulder. In English he said, “It is not for a year. And besides, you have your dirty little wolf-girl. You will not miss me.” He laughed when he said it, but there was an edge to his voice.
    “You…you have been jealous !” I said, amazed that I had never realized this before, never realized that I had been as much Rama’s friend as he was mine.
    “Of that ?” He pointed through the door and out into the compound where Kamala waited for me.
    For the first time I saw her as Rama did. Bent over, with legs and arms as gnarled and crippled and thin as those of an old, old woman, her eyes were focused on a lizard crawling up the wall. Her fingers twitched as she watched it. I remembered with burning shame how, in the past, she had occasionally pounced on lizards and eaten them alive. Her skin was still like parchment stretched over bone, and the deep hollows of her cheeks matched the hollows of her eyes. How could Rama have been jealous of my attentions to such a creature?
    Kamala turned and saw me then and gave her inhuman smile, just lips pulled away from sharp yellow teeth. There was no mirth or humor in that grimace. It was a dog’s baring of fangs.
    “Mmmmdas,” she cried out, holding up her arms.
    I wondered that I had ever thought such a mumble was really my name.
    I turned from her and said, “Rama, I am sorry…” but he was already gone.
    Mr. Welles came out of his study. “Ah, there you are, Mohandas. I thought that today you could take Kamala out for a walk on the maidan for the first time. She trusts you enough so that I doubt she will run away.”
    I nodded sullenly. I wanted nothing more to do with her.
    “Be sure to fill your pockets with some sweets,” he added. “You know how she has developed a taste for such things. And take her on a leash.”
    Because I had been ordered to do so, I went to Cook and got a few of the biscuits she had made for afternoon tea. She was not pleased that they were for the wolf-girl.
    All the while, Kamala waited for me at the door. I made a face when I saw her there, for I was seeing her now through Rama’s eyes: a pathetic parody of a girl.
    “Come on,” I said, gesturing with my hand. She came readily. I put a dog collar around her neck and attached a leash. She did not seem to mind.
    Then I opened the great wooden gate, lifting the latch and pushing hard with my shoulder. Kamala paid no attention to the process but capered around my feet on all fours, grunting and panting and making animal noises.
    When I finally pushed open the door and she could see outside for the first time, she hung back.
    “Come on,” I shouted at her, and started out, tugging on the leash.
    Reluctantly