Cliff

Cliff is a wolf shapeshifter at Clearwater High and a prominent member of Jeffrey’s pack, where his imposing build and role as Jeffrey’s right-hand wolf make him a physical presence as well as a participant in the group’s hostility toward Carag. His confrontations with Carag end not in a settled reconciliation but in a pattern of rivalry, interrupted attacks, and public reversals.

Identity and Position

Cliff is first distinguishable among Jeffrey’s companions as the tall, blond boy beside the pack leader. Carag reads him as a second beta: broad and massively built, with strength that suggests a bulldozer, though his appearance gives the impression that he may not be especially clever. A thinner, sharp-eyed boy is identified as the omega, the pack’s lowest-ranking member, so Cliff occupies a more prominent position in the group’s hierarchy. Later, Carag identifies Cliff as Jeffrey’s blond right-hand wolf, reinforcing his standing close to the pack’s center.

The pack’s behavior is established through its treatment of other students. When Nimble protests that Jeffrey is violating the school rule against predators looking down on or harming prey, Jeffrey responds by baring his teeth until Nimble retreats. Cliff is part of the wolf group around this confrontation, and the wolves later laugh at Holly for advising Carag to avoid a fight. The scenes place Cliff within a social order that uses pack membership and physical threat to intimidate others, even though the evidence does not assign him each of Jeffrey’s individual taunts.

Conflict with Carag

Carag’s first close encounter with Cliff’s group turns a general dislike of wolves into a personal conflict. Jeffrey’s pack mocks Carag after he instinctively hisses, and Holly warns him against fighting because he could receive a school reprimand. Carag tenses, ready to transform and attack, but Bill Brighteye intervenes before the confrontation becomes a student brawl. The episode establishes the school rules as a check on aggression: students may transform during school hours only with a teacher’s permission, and fights are restricted to the combat class.

That regulation does not remove the hostility; it channels it into a supervised contest. During Brighteye’s lesson, Jeffrey wants Carag as his opponent, but the teacher assigns Cliff to Jeffrey instead. Jeffrey objects, only to be thrown down and restrained by Brighteye, who makes the lesson’s hierarchy explicit by asking who the alpha wolf is. Cliff’s assignment places him inside the pack’s combat training, although the scene does not describe a match between him and Jeffrey.

The conflict becomes physical during a later fight in the forest. Carag is already hurt and facing Jeffrey when Holly warns him that someone is coming. Cliff has taken Tikaani’s place and charges at Carag, growling with his teeth exposed. Jeffrey then argues that the agreement had limited the fight to two opponents without specifying which two—a loophole that leaves Carag facing an unexpected attacker. Cliff’s arrival turns the encounter into a treacherous numbers game rather than a straightforward contest.

The Forest Fight and Its Aftermath

The fight’s balance shifts through a sequence of abrupt reversals. During a pause in the rain, Carag doubts whether he should surrender, but recalls that his father would not abandon prey merely because a small wolf pack had frightened him. While the wolves tend their wounds beneath a tree, Carag surprises Cliff and knocks him down with a series of blows. Cliff tries and fails to seize him, then runs off whining. His retreat leaves Jeffrey and Bo to face Carag together.

Brandon’s uncontrolled fall in bison form crashes into Bo and knocks him out, changing the numbers again. Carag then gets the advantage over Jeffrey, whose surrender ends the immediate fight. Cliff’s attack has helped make the encounter more dangerous, but the account does not describe him being captured or punished there. The aftermath instead shows the pack waiting, sullenly, in the school corridor while Carag leaves the infirmary. Holly and Brandon have spread word of his nighttime exploit; other students respond warmly, and Nimble welcomes the defeat of the wolves. The shift in attention makes the pack’s former intimidation less secure, without showing Cliff himself changing his loyalties.

School Standing and Continuing Hostility

The feud remains active later in the school year. When Lissa Clearwater summons Carag, Holly, and Brandon to her office over the incident with a car, Bo smiles broadly, while Jeffrey, Cliff, and Tikaani look pleased. Carag recognizes the summons as the revenge Juanita had warned him about and suspects that the wolf pack has helped set a trap. The scene establishes Cliff’s satisfaction at seeing Carag called to account, but does not identify him as the person who reported the friends or arranged the accusation.

At the year’s fighting examination, Jeffrey competes against Berta in human form and loses; both students nevertheless pass. The result is a public check on the confidence of Jeffrey’s group, but the narrative’s concern is that the wolf pack will remain intact at school the following year. Cliff is not described as one of the examination’s individual contestants. His continued presence belongs to the wider prospect of a complete pack staying together, rather than to a recorded personal result in that match.

The Christmas Dance

At the Christmas celebration, Cliff again takes part in an attempt to target Carag. Carag notices Jeffrey, Cliff, Tikaani, and Bo watching him, and suspects that they resent the attention he is receiving, despite having stolen many presents themselves. He sees Jeffrey whisper to Cliff, who moves toward him without drawing attention. Nearby, Leroy is dancing in animal form. Carag infers that the pack intends to use the skunk’s smell to disable him; the attempt that follows confirms Cliff’s direct role in the attack, though not every detail of the pack’s plan.

Cliff reaches Carag and tries to make him lose his balance. Carag dodges, and Cliff instead stumbles into Leroy’s side. Leroy releases a defensive spray that burns Cliff’s eyes and leaves him stumbling blindly through the cellar while the other partygoers clear away from him. Ethan, the student representative, orders Cliff to leave and take a shower. Leroy, mortified, explains that washing will not immediately remove the smell; it will fade after a couple of days. Jeffrey takes Cliff by the arm and leads him away with Tikaani and Bo. The planned humiliation thus turns into Cliff’s own public embarrassment, a reversal that distills his recurring role: he uses force as part of a pack, but his attacks do not reliably control how events end.

Across these episodes, Cliff is defined less by an independent objective than by his place beside Jeffrey and his participation in collective hostility toward Carag. The forest attack and the Christmas prank both show him acting directly, while the failed outcomes expose the vulnerability beneath the pack’s intimidating presentation. The narrative does not give him a change of allegiance or a resolution with Carag; their antagonism remains part of the school’s continuing social conflict.