Marc Snowfrolic wanted biscuits.

It was really odd for him to want biscuits at a time like this. Also, very inconvenient, because he was a wolf, and couldn't bake his own biscuits like he could have if this had been last Thursday. Not that he actually knew how to bake biscuits, but on Thursday he could have read a recipe book, and used his bipedal stance to stand at a kitchen counter and opposable thumbs to use tools and pour ingredients and put cookware into the oven and take it out, with appropriate oven mitts on. Today, and for most of the rest of the month, he couldn't do any of those things, because he was a wolf.

If anyone in the town of Rema had been able to bake biscuits right now, Marc could have gone to that person and made his desires clear. He could read the Bisquick logo even though he was a wolf. There wasn't any in his own pantry, but he was sure someone in town had some, and had some guesses as to who. And if, say, Heather Digswell or old lady Janice Eyehowler had some Bisquick in their pantry, he could go to their houses, knock on the door, walk into their kitchen when they let him in, go grab the Bisquick out of the pantry with his teeth, bring it to them, and point to the picture of biscuits on the back, and they'd get the idea. They'd be happy to make him some biscuits. If only they weren't wolves too, right now.

Normally, he didn't want biscuits when he was a wolf. Bread products were not usually the favored cuisine of wolves. He liked steak, and venison, and chicken, and elk, and pork, and mutton, and swordfish, not that he got much swordfish because Rema wasn't particularly near any oceans but when he and his pals pooled their money and special-ordered it with 2 day delivery so they'd get it while they were still human, it was still delicious a few days later when they were wolves. About the only kind of meat he didn't like when he was a wolf were crustaceans, because it was just too damn hard for a wolf to get the good meat out of a crab, or peel a shrimp, and honestly if he wanted to eat bugs there were plenty in Rema just waiting to be hunted. But today, he was really jonesing for a biscuit.

He trotted over to Ken Mayor's house. The wolves didn't generally spend a lot of time indoors, but Ken was an exception. Inside, the older wolf had a large flat-screen television, and a gigantic keyboard that he was typing on. Marc could almost make out the words on the television, but trying made his head hurt. He could see well enough to tell that Ken was writing an email, though.

Originally, the town of Rema had been fully self-sufficient. Wolves didn't need much in the way of shelter or clothing and were quite capable of finding their own food. What little they couldn't supply for themselves, they traded for with the humans, offering meat and pelts in exchange for things like nails to make the houses they built for their human days sturdier. But once the humans invented the automobile, it had been only a matter of time before they brought a road to Rema. And with roads had come salesmen, and more exposure to the modern conveniences the humans loved, which the people of Rema found pleasant for themselves on human days as well. Freezers, for example. Freezers were great, but they needed electricity, and both the freezer itself and the electricity that ran it needed to be paid for. Then there was the government, demanding that everyone in Rema pay taxes. And so forth.

Pelts and meat weren't going to pay for all of that. But the citizens of Rema could get to places in the mountains that the humans couldn't, and never had been. They mined for gold in places the humans had never managed to mine out. Wolves could dig, and humans could put up structures that would keep wolves safe while they did it. Everyone in Rema did shifts at the gold mine, and of course, they supplemented their income with their sales of meat and pelts from their hunts. All of the funds that anyone in the town owned were pooled to make them easier to manage. Wolves were not good at math.

Ken Mayor was the mayor, and had been the mayor for forty years, not because he was an alpha wolf � he was actually smallish, and rather quiet. But he had a remarkable talent. He could read, do math, and, on a sufficiently large keyboard, even type, in wolf form. Back in the old days he'd used a typewriter, carefully, and sent a lot of letters, but he'd taken to this new Internet thing like a duck to water. He managed the town's funds, paid the electric bills and things like that, and kept in contact with government officials via email to make sure they left Rema alone, or that if they had to come here they only came on human days. He had a teletype phone, like deaf humans used, but he'd made some kind of arrangements with the company that provided the service to make it clear to them that he was mute rather than deaf, because the wolves could understand human speech just fine even though they couldn't speak it. Lately he was all excited about some kind of new software that would give him a cartoon human avatar when he talked to humans on the phone that ran over his computer, with a voice program that actually sounded human when he typed sentences into it. Mostly.

In the language the people of Rema used when they were wolves, Marc whined at Ken. "I really want some biscuits. Can I have money to go to a bakery and buy biscuits?"

Ken looked at Marc disbelievingly. "First of all, town's thirty miles away. It'll take you over an hour to get there if you run all the way, longer if you walk. Secondly, you can't walk into a bakery and ask them for biscuits. Thirdly, if you act too smart, humans might get suspicious."

"But I really, really want biscuits. Come on, Mayor."

Ken growled. "Snowfrolic, you're being an idiot. Which isn't unusual for you, but you usually manage to keep your idiocy within a reasonable range. This is a totally ridiculous request. You understand that, right?"

"Absolutely," Marc assured him. "I am being a grade A idiot here. But you can't imagine how badly I want those biscuits. I will get in a car and drive to town if I have to."

"How?" Ken asked flatly.

Marc stood up on his hind legs. He was a large wolf, six and a half feet long, so on his hind legs he was easily taller than most humans. "Trust me, I can reach the pedals and still see over the dash. And if I put my paws through the holes in the steering wheel, it's not hard to steer the thing."

Ken facepawed. "You've tried it."

"Why do you think I have a 4 by 4? The snow in the mountains sticks around a lot longer, but you can't bring warm towels to dry off in and those little hand warmer things for your paws and a nice blanket for sleeping in if you just run up the mountain." His wolf name might be Snowfrolic for good reason, but that didn't mean he didn't appreciate human conveniences for warming up after a good long day of playing in the snow.

"How have you never been pulled over?"

Marc shrugged. "I drive at night and I follow the speed limits. Not a lot of human cops around here anyway."

"And if I don't give you the money to go to town and buy biscuits, which you can't do because no one will sell anything to a wolf, how does the fact that you're willing to drive your car to town change matters?"

Marc grinned triumphantly. "Because no one will ever suspect a wolf of taking a getaway vehicle! So I'll just steal the biscuits, and then drive off."

Ken face-pawed again. It was a very human gesture; most of the people of Rema wouldn't use it in wolf form. There were always rumors that Ken's father was actually human, not one of the men of Rema. Marc wasn't sure he bought it; half-human children were supposed to be human most of the time and wolf only on the change-days. But Ken making human gestures when no one else in Rema did while in wolf form was kind of hard to explain otherwise. Also, there was that whole reading and typing and doing math thing.

"I am going to have to go with you to keep you out of trouble, aren't I?"

Marc growled slightly. "I'm not sharing my biscuits, dog. You can buy your own."

"I'm a wolf. I don't eat biscuits. Maybe you'd do well to remember that you are also a wolf. Wolves don't eat biscuits. Or drive cars."

"I'm a wolf and I drive a car, so why can't I be a wolf who wants a biscuit? I mean, it's not every day. I'm just really jonesing for one right now. One of those soft chewy ones with a ton of butter inside. Or maybe crisp and flaky. Man, I'm torn. No point in wasting honey butter on a wolf tongue but oh, man, can you imagine what a biscuit would taste like with bacon inside?"

"This is ridiculous but your mother would kill me if I let you run off in a car, and steal biscuits, and get your fool self thrown in a pound or shot by Animal Control or some overzealous human with a gun. So I guess I'm going with you."

"As long as you don't eat my biscuits, we're cool."