Charlie Bone and the Wilderness Wolf (Children of the Red King, Book 6) by Jenny Nimmo

white blur of his head as he sat up in the bed beyond Dagbert's.
    "Billy?" Charlie whispered. "Can you hear anything?"
    "I heard the howling once," Billy said softly. "But it was very faint."
    "What did it say?"
    "I'm not sure..." Billy hesitated. "It might have been 'father. "
    They heard, then, the distant but unmistakable sound of gunfire.
    With a little moan, Billy dived under the covers.
    Charlie lay back on his pillow. J hope they haven't killed it, he thought.
    At number twelve Filbert Street, Benjamin Brown was ^still wide awake. He wished Charlie could have shared the past two days with him. So much had happened. It had all begun with a hastily arranged meeting in the town hall. Mr. and Mrs. Brown decided to take Benjamin along with them. "It will be good for you," said Mr. Brown. "You might learn something."
    Benjamin doubted it until he heard that the subject for discussion would be the Wilderness Wolf. And he did, indeed, learn something. He learned that people lied when they were afraid. Fear was rife in the large hall that night. You could see it in people's eyes; you could hear it in their hushed and nervous chatter. Benjamin sat between his parents, right at the front. The Browns liked to observe the minutest details on occasions like this.
    There were five people on the platform. They sat behind a long table; each had a clipboard and a glass of water set before them. Benjamin recognized the chairman, Mr. Marchwell, a prominent councilman who often visited his school; he also recognized Charlie's next-door neighbor Agnes Prout.
    Mr. Marchwell opened the proceedings with a short speech. He told his audience that they were all there for the same reasons: one, to discuss ways and means of identifying the "unusual utterances" (a long-winded description of howling, Benjamin reckoned) coming from across the river, and two, to decide whether the creature responsible for the utterances was a threat to the citizens.
    At this point, Agnes Prout rudely interrupted Mr. Marchwell with a shout of, "Threat? Of course, it's a threat. It's a wolf, for heaven's sake!"
    A few people applauded this outburst. Benjamin was glad that his parents kept their hands in their laps.
    "We don't know that it's a wolf, Miss Prout," said Mr. Marchwell.
    "You bet we do," Agnes retorted. "I saw it. It bit my neighbor Mr. Yewbeam. I saw the wound; a stream of blood poured from his wrist, a positive stream."
    Mrs. Brown put up her hand.
    Mr. Marchwell leaned forward slightly. "You have a question... Mrs., er... ?"
    "Brown," said Benjamin's mother, standing up. "Irish Brown. I would just like to state that Mr. Yewbeam told me he was bitten by a human, a deluded person perhaps, but certainly not a wolf."
    Benjamin felt proud of his mother. He felt even prouder when she stood her ground against a torrent of ridicule from Agnes Prout.
    "Rubbish, Mrs. Brown. Absolute nonsense! Either the poor man wasn't himself, or you're deaf. That was no human, it was a wolf."
    "If Mr. Yewbeam were here... ," began Mrs. Brown.
    "Well, he isn't," said Agnes, "so that's that." Mrs. Brown went an angry shade of red and sat down. Mr. Brown patted her back.
    "Well done, Mom," Benjamin whispered. She gave him a resigned sort of smile.
    Benjamin looked up at the bright lights beaming down from the ceiling. It would have been impossible for Charlie's uncle to attend the meeting. They would all have been plunged into darkness and covered in glass the moment he walked through the door.
    The audience had become very lively. Hands were showing up all over the place. People began to shout out of turn. In vain, Mr. Marchwell raised his hand, begging them to be civilized, to allow one another to be heard.
    "I saw it down Cruckton Avenue!" "Someone told me it was on Piminy Street!" "I heard it was seen in Cathedral Square!" "A great, gray beast, fangs like knives!"
    "It's been eating cats!"
    "And dogs!"
    "Next it'll be our babies!"
    "Our kids!"
    "It's got to be killed!"
    It took