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Okay, class, ' Guy's teacher instructs All the children who need to see the nurse for Insulin, Ritalin, Flovent, Vanceril, please go now.' Guy, narrating, comments, Thirteen kids stand up: fat, skinny, hyperactive, asthmatic, all the kids who would maybe die if they didn't get their meds, and all of them rush out the door to the hallway.'

Guy's best friend is Matt: five inches shorter than I am and maybe thirty pounds heavier, with hair like a poodle, ' friends since we were three years old, when our mothers both dumped us off at this pre-school program at the Y, and neither of us knew what the hell was coming off.' Together, Matt and Guy face the world. At school, there is Sergeant Cassidy the security guard, armed with a stun gun to head off any potential Colombine-in-the-making, and the dreaded Mrs Tartaglia. At Guy's home, there is the little brother who absorbs every bit of his parent's attention, and at Matt's, whose mother left three years ago, there is Matt's father, jolly and rich, who can't seem to stop eating.

Meanwhile, Guy's father seeks to replicate the evolution of the dog from their forebears, wolves, by breeding the tamest wolves to the tamest wolves, generation after generation. To his surprise, after a mere dozen generations, the wolves begin not only to bark like dogs, but to look like dogs, with curly tails and floppy ears. These changes are too rapid to be genetic, Guy's father insists. We've changed our own environment, and now it's changing us.'

Guy bonds with JX104, a wolf-dog in his father's dog lab. Wolf, as Guy renames him, is one of the dogs who falls between the cracks. He never does became tame enough to breed, and as a final straw, half-chews someone's hand off. Guy's father says they're going to have to put him down. Guy yells, He's not gonna be this perfect yuppy dog. That's not who Wolf is, and it's not fair killing someone just because he can't be what you want him to be.'

But it's no use. Guy and Matt decide to break Wolf out that night, and to return him to the wilderness. Guy is able to steal a key card to get into the lab, but he can't open the lock to the dog's cage, so they are forced to bring along his brother Austin, a savant at taking things apart. They plan on first returning Austin home, but as they turn onto his street, they find the house ablaze with lights. In the end, three boys and one wolf take a ride in a stolen SUV back to the wilderness.