Buck Duckett CYOA 3A

“I’ll talk to him,” you say. You decide that Moods will run interference and keep the other players partying and away from him so you can draw Wump into a private conversation and figure out what he’s up to.

“Very good,” Duckett says. I’ll be in touch. We’ll debrief after the party. You lads have fun. Skulking around will just make you look suspicious.”

You and Moods are tense in the days leading up to the party. You don’t know if you can trust Duckett with the specter of a pants suspension hanging over you. In practice, you keep messing up a basic Trencherman’s Spat and Coach’s head and neck turn purple as he screams invective at you about Championship Execution.

The night of the SqabBall, you and Moods put on your sequinned headbands and elbow guards and climb into “Werewolf” Eddie Tufetti’s car. The Werewolf part was new. Over the summer, the Junior Mid Braggart had taken a course called “Transformations: The Literary Werewolf” and showed up to camp referring to himself in the third person as “The Werewolf” and saying things like “The Wolf’s gonna howl tonight, boys!” and “first game they’re not getting Tufetti on the field, but 100 percent wolf.” The team had tried to stop him and in fact held a formal intervention to get him to cut out the wolf stuff, but nothing could persuade him to stop. Eddie rolled down the window and bellowed “AWOOOOOO” into the night air. “Eddie, you can’t do the wolf puns in front of girls, man,” Moods says.

But while Eddie was howling and drumming on the steering wheel to the tune of a 1950s novelty song called “That Fella’s a Werewolf” that he found at the library, you and Moods are tense. The SquabBall is a job, and there’s work to do.

You arrive at the mansion. Eddie runs off to hand a burned CD that has “Werewolf Favorites” written on it in black sharpie to the DJ. You and Moods start scanning the party, exchanging some friendly fist bumps with the team and well-wishers and trying to make small talk, but you don’t see Wump anywhere. You start to panic. What happens if he doesn’t show up? Will Duckett live up to his end of the bargain or will he not believe you and torch you. You and Moods huddle in the corner.

“Do you see him?” you ask.

“No, dude, dude’s not around.”

“Well, what should we do?”

“We gotta just wait, bro. Just wait.”

After making yet another loop around the mansion and sneaking looks at the photograph Duckett gave you, you see Moods down on the dancefloor trying to get your attention and nodding to a dark corner before getting swept into a shoving match between Wolfman Eddie and his roommate Marcus “Mummy” Lintongh.

You look in the corner and there he is: Wump. He’s sort of lurking by a display of squabbling equipment, adjusting his tie, and trying to look aloof although you notice that he is scanning the room. There he is, and he’s all alone.

Approach him to talk
Wait for him to come to you