The Curse of the Wolf Girl by Martin Millar

Vex hadn’t brought all these strangers to their table. The whole experience of being at college was proving even more painful than she’d anticipated. She wondered if she should just leave. But then everyone would be annoyed at her—her mother, Daniel, Moonglow, Vex. Kalix bridled. Why was she bothered if these people were annoyed at her? She was Kalix MacRinnalch, daughter of the Thane of the MacRinnalchs. She shouldn’t have to care what anyone thought of her.
    “What conditioner do you use?”
    Kalix sighed and shrank further down in her chair and worried again about the house meeting.

Chapter 22
     
    Kalix arrived home to find Daniel in the kitchen, making tea.
    “What’s the house meeting for?” she asked.
    Daniel didn’t know. “Just some whim of Moonglow’s.”
    “I don’t want to come. Have the meeting without me.”
    “Moonglow insists,” said Daniel. He didn’t want to attend a house meeting either but had resigned himself to his fate.
    “But I didn’t do anything wrong.”
    Daniel attempted to calm the young werewolf’s agitation.
    “No one’s accusing you of doing anything wrong. We just have to talk about, eh…whatever Moonglow wants to talk about.”
    “I need to go to my room.”
    Daniel smiled. “If you fill yourself up with laudanum and pass out, Moonglow will know.”
    The young werewolf sighed. She didn’t like the sound of this at all and imagined she was about to be blamed for something. During her upbringing at Castle MacRinnalch, any time she’d been summoned to a meeting, it was to receive some serious telling off from her parents. Her shoulders drooped as she followed Daniel into the living room. Moonglow and Vex were already sitting at the dining table, which Daniel had recently stopped from tilting by folding up a music magazine and putting it under one of the legs, a home improvement of which he was rather proud.
    “It’s a bit cold in here,” said Daniel, and he went to turn on the gas fire.
    “Leave the fire alone!” exclaimed Moonglow.
    “But it’s cold.”
    Moonglow held up a bill that had an alarming amount of red ink on it. “We can’t afford to pay the gas bill.” She swept her hand through a pile of paper in front of her. “We can’t afford any of these bills. That’s why we have to talk.”
    “What’s a bill?” asked Vex.
    “It’s the money we have to pay for gas. And electricity. And council tax. And rent. And the water bill. And the TV license. And our broadband connection and cable TV. And the phone.”
    Daniel felt himself weakening and hastily sat down. “Are we behind with everything?”
    Moonglow held up a series of bills, all saying final demand. Several of them threatened swift action by collection agencies.
    “Why do we have to pay so much council tax?” asked Daniel, mystified. “The place is a dump. What does the council do for us?”
    “Collects the rubbish. Maintains the sewers. Provides schools for our children if we had any. It does seem like a lot, but we have to pay it, and quickly, or they’ll send around the bailiffs. As will the electricity company.”
    Vex looked disappointed. “This house meeting isn’t as much fun as I thought it was going to be.”
    Moonglow had organized the bills in order of the most urgent. “We shouldn’t have let ourselves get into this position. We’ll need to see what money we have now and pay the most important ones. Then I’ll phone the others and work out some sort of payment schedule. But we’ll all have to start budgeting better, and we’ll have to start saving money around the house. Kalix, why have you just turned into a werewolf?”
    “No reason.”
    “Being a werewolf doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay bills.”
    “Oh.” Kalix changed back to human. “I thought it might.”
    “Hey, I’m a Fire Elemental, and I pay bills,” proclaimed Vex.
    “No, you don’t,” Moonglow corrected her.
    “Don’t I?”
    “No.”
    “I thought Aunt Malvie took care of things