TOOTH AND CLAW

When Nabila started drooling every time the bua served dinner, chasing cars down the street and running about in circles while trying to look at her own bottom, we all thought she was taking her A Levels a little too seriously. Our mother sat her down and told her that it was all right and she needn't push herself so hard and that going to just three different tutors should be enough to see her through Class XI at least and she didn't really need to take 8 different subjects: at the very least she could drop metallurgy. My sister responded by leaping at my mother and trying to lick her face, which my mother thought was strange but at least she wasn't selling drugs and buying sub-woofer systems like the other kids. I happened to know that she'd also just had a bad break-up with her boyfriend of two years, Yasin Afif Joarder, and that possibly that played a role as well. I realize that most teenage girls, when their hearts crack open, relieve the pain using John Green, Lana del Rey and, increasingly and surprisingly, Rumi. They do not start sniffing your trousers and gnawing through the garbage. In my defence, I didn't consider Nabila to be like most girls.

Still I knew things had gotten too far when we had to stop her urinating on the telephone pole outside the house. She's far too old to be indecently exposing herself like that; what'd everyone say? I tried to broach the topic of psychiatric help to our father but he responded with his usual enigmatic grunt, and my mother wouldn't hear of having the word spread that the loony doctor was examining her eldest daughter. What would, after all, people say? Their solution was to wait it out, food-bribe some beggars to pray for Nabila's recovery, and meanwhile keep her shut up at home. Her school called up the first couple of days, but so long as the fees were regular they didn't much care.

So I decided to go vigilante, take my sister's mental health in my own hands. Took to the internet and asked it: "So my sister seems to think she's a dog does anyone know what this is?" and the responses were many and varied. A few people suggested psychiatric help and recommended some great doctors I couldn't contact (see previous paragraph), some people asked me if my sister was acting like a b____ and I guess I'd just handed them that one, and still others told me to hang in there and sent me Pepes for good luck. Did you know that the Diamond Pepe is the rarest of all Pepes?

Though I said danke to all these memes I began to despair of finding something that'd help me among all the dross. After four days of constant searching I was ready to call it quits and console myself with some Fawlty Towers, when my phone popped. I had mail, and it was from a certain Jormundr Manflayer, and here is it in its entirety: 

"Hail, Brave Heart. Jormundr raises up his cup in toast to you, the cup cloven from the skull of Erik, Braga's son, scourge of Yvendalf and shearer of beards, long may the skalds sing of your fortune! Tidings have come to me and one need not hang himself from the Tree of Knowledge or sacrifice an eye to see what lies writ large in your account of your sister's result bearing. Your sister - that noble lady, long may she bear mighty pups! - is what the legends speak of as a werewulf! The skalds say that of old, the mightiest warriors were the wolfkin, and they would ride into battle atop their feral brethren, and all enemies would flee from their savage teeth long as knives!

O happy is the day that your sister received the moon's gift! But there is more that you must do. The hunger of the wolf knows not the sanctity of mother's blood, and your sister will soon succumb to her bestial ways and you must protect yourself and your kin from her predations. You must arm yourself with a shield of oak to parry her strikes, an ashen spear to her claws at bay, and thus exhaust her in mighty combat. Once she is at your mercy you must bind her to your will with a wand of rowan! Then, and only then, will she be yours and then you can earn the name of Wolf's Kin!"

This was a lot to take in at once, and needed thinking about. Where could I get a rowan wand in Dhaka?