Doctor Thomas looked forlornly at the stack of English 
papers laying in front of him.  The stack was about 4 inches 
thick and comprised of writing assignments from all 200 
students in his 5 classes.  "You'd think that after 16 years 
of teaching at the university level," he muttered to 
himself, "that I'd be used to the quality of work that comes 
from freshmen."
	Truth was he felt the quality of work from the current 
freshman class was far below normal.  He didn't expect too 
much from them; after all, for most of them, his class was 
the first time any of them had ever had to write something 
intelligent and coherent.  He stared at the pile sitting at 
arms reach at the head of his desk, and sighed.  He didn't 
expect much, but he was still very disappointed.
	Dr. Thomas reached and pulled off the top paper from 
the stack.  He picked up the coffee cup sitting next to his 
aging computer, and sipped at it as he went over the first 
page's contents once more.
	"We was goin threw the sinner of town," the story 
began.  "We wasn't looking for no treble.  Butt with a loud 
bang, we suddenly smelled something badly!"
	Dr. Thomas closed his eyes and shook his head.  He 
dropped the paper to his desk, and wondered why he'd been so 
generous to give the young man a D.  "I must be getting soft 
in my old age," he thought to himself.  It was the only 
rational explanation.
	A gentle knock at his door caused him to open his eyes 
again.  He glanced at the clock sitting on his bookshelf, 
and noticed that it was several hours past his normal office 
hours.  That's why the door was closed.  He had a lot of 
work to do, correcting all the papers and pointing out the 
grammatical errors.  He really didn't need any distractions 
today, so he ignored the tapping, hoping the person would 
simply go away.
	The knock came again, soft, as if the person on the 
other side of the door was afraid of waking someone.  Dr. 
Thomas grumbled and pushed his bifocals back up his nose 
once more.  It had to be a student, he decided.  No other 
instructor would knock so daintily.
	"Come in," he gruffly told whoever it was disturbing 
him after hours.  "But it had better be good."
	In response, the door opened, and a young woman poked 
her head around the doorframe.  
	"Dr. Thomas?" she hesitantly asked with a trembling 
voice.  "You said you wanted to see me sir?"
	He blinked in surprise, then looked at his clock again.
	"Good heavens Miss Hall," he exclaimed.  "It is past 8 
o'clock at night.  What are you doing on the campus still, 
all by yourself?"
	Becky Hall slowly came inside the tiny cramped office 
and closed the door behind her.  She stood out in bright 
contrast against the rest of the room.  Where the rest of 
the place was filled with aging tomes and ancient books with 
drab brown and black covers, she had bright blond hair that 
reached her shoulders and wore a crimson jacket as a ward 
against the chill night air.  He watched her enter, noticing 
how bright and colorful she was compared to her 
surroundings, and wondered if she herself had noticed it.
	"I had a lab to finish," she answered him.  She looked 
at the black plastic chair sitting at the front of his oaken 
desk.  
	"May I sit down?" she asked politely.
	He nodded, still marveling at the colors and light that 
had come into the office with her.
	"By all means," he told her.  "And to what do I owe the 
pleasure of this visit?"
	She sat in the chair, folded her hands over her lap, 
and looked expectantly at him.
	"You said you wanted to talk to me about my paper 
sometime."
	"I did not expect you to want to talk about it so late 
in the evening."
	"I'm sorry.  If this is a bad time for you I can."
	"No," he said, gesturing for her to stay seated.  "No, 
it's not a bad time.  I'm just a little bit surprised 
is all."  He rifled through the stack of papers, searching 
for hers while she turned her head and looked around the 
office.
	"This is the first time I've been in your office," she 
said to him.
	"And what do you think of it?" he asked, still 
searching for one assignment out of the 200 others there.
	"I don't know," she said in a lower voice.  "It's kinda 
gloomy."
	Ah, but she had noticed after all!  Good, he thought.  
She was one of his better students, and had all the markings 
to be a great writer one day.  Writers needed to be able to 
absorb details and put them into their stories.  Perhaps the 
freshman class wasn't so doomed after all.
	"Ah ha!  Found it," he said victoriously, and pulled 
the paper from the middle of the stack.  Becky strained to 
see it, and she noticed the grade written upon it in red 
ink.
	B.
	"Is there something wrong with the paper sir?" she 
asked him, slightly bewildered.  "That's not a bad grade."
	Dr. Thomas shook his head, and carefully regarded her.
	"It has a few shortcomings, but it is a solid piece of 
work Becky.  The reason I asked you to consult with me is 
that you have a slight problem with making assumptions in 
your writing.  It's a bad habit, and I don't want you to 
keep it."
	Becky leaned forward, nervously wringing her hands.
	"I don't understand sir.  What assumptions?"
	"Well.  Take the opening sentence of your story as an 
example," he explained, laying the paper flat on the desk.  
" 'Everyone knows what a werewolf looks like.' " he quoted 
from the paper.  
	She nodded to him.
	"And what's wrong with that?" 
	He took his glasses away from his face with his left 
hand and looked toward her once more.
	"Don't you think that's a bit presumptive?" he urged.  
"I mean, not everyone everywhere gets to see American movies 
and what Hollywood thinks a werewolf is supposed to look 
like.  In Germany, in fact, they have a very different idea 
about how a werewolf appears.  So you really can't assume 
that the reader knows something like that."
	"It isn't much of an assumption," she faintly 
contested, eager to defend her position yet not so eager to 
anger the man who held her grade in the palm of his hand.
	"Okay," he began with a sigh.  "Let's try this a 
different way.  Suppose I wrote a story for you and started 
it off by saying 'Everybody knows what a Kitsune looks 
like.'  What would you say to that?"
	"I'd first ask what a Kitsune is."
	"Precisely!  The audience may or may not know what you 
are talking about, much less what it looks like.  When you 
say Werewolf, you may envision razor sharp claws and 
dripping fangs.  Some may envision people suffering under a 
tragic curse.  Still others my envision Satan incarnate, 
covered in blood and standing 50 feet tall.  
	"So you see miss," he concluded, leaning back in his 
old leather chair, "you can't assume that your reader knows 
things like that.  We have an axiom in writing: show me, 
don't tell me.  Have you heard that one before?"
	Becky nodded.
	Dr. Thomas smiled at her.
	"Good. Your paper was very good other than that one 
little thing, so it gets a B.  Don't feel bad about it 
Becky."  He made an ugly face at the pile of papers on his 
desk.  "Most of your fellow students will probably never 
even see a B in English."
	She nodded again and stood up out of the chair.
	"I was kinda hoping I could rewrite it, and make it 
into an A," she asked him hopefully.  
	"You'd rewrite a paper that got you a B?"
	"It isn't an A.  I can do better, if you'll let me try 
please."
	He regarded her for several moments, mulling it over in 
his mind.  She was so alive.  So full of energy.  So eager 
to do her best and to grow.  If only his other students had 
but a tenth of her drive and ambition.  A hundredth even!  
	"Well miss, tell you what," he began.  "Rather than 
have you rewrite a good paper, I'd rather you did something 
else."
	"Like what?"
	He leaned forward in the chair once more.
	"Describe this room," he slowly and carefully said to 
her.  "Describe how it looks.  How it feels.  How you 
contrast with everything in it.  Make me smell the binding 
glue and the spilled coffee in the amber carpeting when I 
read your paper.  Make me feel the claustrophic tightness of 
the bookshelves crowding in on me.  Capture my glasses 
sliding down my nose.  
	"If you can do that, then I'll certainly turn this B 
into an A.  Fair enough?"
	She nodded, quickly, excited at the prospect.
	"Yes!  Thank you!  When should I turn it in to you?"
	He chuckled a bit at her eagerness.
	"Take your time miss.  Writing isn't a race.  Anytime 
before finals will be okay with me."
	"Thank you sir!" she exclaimed as she happily spun on a 
heel and reached for the door.  "I'll have it to you in a 
week!  Thanks again!"  With that she pulled the door open, 
took a last quick glance at the room as if double checking 
on its appearance, then  headed back out, closing the door 
behind her.
	Instantly the only sound left in the room was that of 
the old mechanical clock on his bookshelf, ticking away the 
hours.  The only color that of the red ink on the papers 
before him.
	He picked up her paper, and walked around the desk and 
across the room.  He slowly made his way to the door, and 
pushed the button in the middle of the knob to lock it.  
	Dr. Thomas looked at the first line of her paper once 
more.  'Everyone knows what a werewolf looks like.'  He 
smiled to himself...
	...and changed.  
	His nose and jaw extended about 6 inches from his face, 
forming a muzzle.  His ears remained on the side of his 
head, but grew progressively larger, becoming more and more 
sensitive as they did.  He knew from looking in the mirror 
that they looked less wolflike than elflike, but he really 
didn't have much of a say as to how he looked.  
	His skin, normally pale and white, quickly grew a 
thick, coarse mat of black hair about 2 inches long.  There 
was no tail, unlike in the movies.  Pity, he thought as his 
fingernails grew thick and long.  It would have been fun to 
have a tail just like a real wolf.  
	In less than a minute, Dr. Thomas, esteemed member of 
the English department had changed into his native form.  An 
ancient form; one that people had been writing about for 
centuries.  One that inspired dreams and nightmares in 
readers and writers alike.  A being whose description had 
made countless horror writers rich beyond the dreams of 
avarice.
	And  yet, out of all those stories,  not one of them 
ever got it quite right.  They never noted that a werewolf's 
feet shrank and that the toes spread out like a paw.  They 
never commented on what it was like to suddenly be able to 
smell a fly on the wall.
	Ah, that wonderful sense of smell!  He took a deep 
breath, gathering up Becky Hall's scent.  It hung there in 
the room, sharp, stabbing his nostrils with its vibrant 
feminine presence and reminding him over and over again that 
she had just been there.  
	She was so young and strong and full of life he 
thought, her scent lighting a long-quiet flame deep within 
him.  In an earlier time, he probably would have gone out 
the window after her, seventh floor or no.  He probably 
would have chased her down and made her his, for life.  In 
one quick violent moment, he would have taken her humanity 
and her heart for himself.  Maybe she would turn into a 
werewolf like him.  Maybe not.
	But he was growing soft in his old age.  Those days of 
his youth when he was more animal than human were centuries 
behind him.  Not that that was a bad thing; his current life 
was far more comfortable, if somewhat less exciting.  It was 
a tradeoff; comfort for excitement.  Instead of chasing 
people down in the dark, he now rented "Wolf" and laughed at 
all of the technical errors.  It was a decision that he was 
now quite comfortable with.  Excitement was better left for 
the youth so they could have something to look back on one 
day, he figured.
	Dr. Thomas slowly walked back around to his desk and 
picked up his glasses once more.  He placed them carefully 
upon his muzzle, and read her opening sentence again.
	'Everyone knows what a werewolf looks like.'
	He let out a short deep chuckle and put the paper 
aside.   "No, Miss Hall," he said aloud, reaching for 
another paper to grade.  "I don't believe that you do."