Chương 506: THE SECOND HALF OF SCHOOL
18 FEBRUARY, THURSDAY, AFTER LUNCH
The others came back to class after the the bell rang. They were lucky Mr Lark was late to class. I was, as usual, my head cradled in my arms resting on my desk. At least I had thought this was the usual for me in school, but it alarmed Fluffy and EJ.
"Alpha!" They had rushed in.
EJ knelt next to my desk, "Are you feeling sick, pretty alpha?"
I sat up to put some distance between our faces, "What? Why? I've never been sick a day in my life!"
"Then was pretty alpha lonely without us?" Fluffy suggested, his usual smile, a mask on his face.
I shook my head, "As if. I was just thinking."
"Oh... don't sprain your brain over it, Sam." Marcus said, and then he chuffed at his own very clever joke.
Henry chuckled. Boys were so stoooopid like that - even alpha and beta boys.
But they could laugh, they were used to seeing me flopped on the table.
EJ looked like he wanted to join the fun, but could not be sure enough of my well being to let himself go. I felt sorry for him, "I'm okay, EJ. I was just resting."
"Have you eaten, pretty alpha?" Fluffy asked, just to double check.
"Yes, I met some friends and had lunch together with them." I tried to sound cool about it.
EJ sniffed toward my direction, "Human boy friends?"
He was still knelt next to by desk. I kicked him lightly, "None of your business."
Henry raised a brow.
I racked my brain to think of a way to explain it so it didn't sound as scandalous as the way EJ made it to be, "Just friends from the archery club is all."
Thankfully, Mr Lark came and everyone had to go back to their seats. Even EJ.
GEOGRAPHY:
"You, boy. Why are you kneeling there? Are you from this class?" Mr Lark squinted at EJ.
"Transfer student, sir." Henry explained.
"Ah, yes..." Mr Lark mumbled, "This class is special like that."
But he didn't elaborate.
Today, Mr Lark announced he would help us revise for our upcoming exams. He told us to take out our textbooks, and you guessed it, take turns to read the pages he called out. We started on Chapter 1. I wanted to take out my phone - Geography had somehow become Social-Media-Catch-Up-Time in my mind now, but then I caught sight of Jasmine, her mouth a determined pout, as she took out her textbook and highlighter to pay attention.
I should be studying too. I put my phone back into the bag.
Today was different from the usual. Mr Lark would tap on a random table, but instead of reading the next paragraph, we were supposed to turn to whatever page and paragraph he would call out. Every now and then, he would exclaim, "Good. Now highlight this. This is good."
He was very specific, sometimes to a single particular phrase or line.
I soon began to suspect that it was code for: "This specific paragraph/line/word is going to come out in your exam."
I suppose textbook reading teachers needed a way for their class perform reasonably well in their exams.
It was a lucky thing I decided to pay attention today.
HOME EC:
Mrs Martinez came in late too. By the time she came in the boys had long left for woodwork. Terrence was complaining how it wasn't fair that the Home Ec building was the one with the sink hole, and not the woodwork workshops. By now, we were used to it. Terrence wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, so no one bothered to explain to him that having Home Ec in our homeroom class wasn't the better deal.
First Mrs Martinez scolded us for our class being difficult to find because we were tucked around the corner - as if this was any of our doing. Next she scolded us for her exhaustion from moving from class to class because her Home Ec room building was closed due to the sinkhole - as if the sinkhole was our doing.
Okay, that could've been arguably our fault, since Maria was the sinkhole, BUT Mrs Martinez didn't know that - so I didn't feel she should've made it sound like the sinkhole was our fault.
Anyway, as a consequence of the sinkhole, we would not be able to bake cookies today. Neither would we be able to have our practical cooking exam. Instead, we would be sitting for a written paper to test us our theory on cooking.
Since when did cooking come with theory? Were we supposed to memorize recipies? I was quite sure she was cooking this while theory part up, but then she told us to open up our workbooks to the pages at the back and I was quite surprised to find notes on everything, from the many nutritional values of eggs and every single way to cook them, or use them in cooking. (Did you know that using an egg white wash over breads, pies, and roast meats gave it the golden brown color we usually see on these foods? I totally learned something new today thanks to this.)
There were similar notes on fruits, diary, vegetables... and then nutritional notes on the different methods of cooking, and the nutritional needs of young children and elderly humans.
We took turns to stand up and read the paragraphs. Unlike Mr Lark's random tap on a desk to signal the next reader, we had to read by index number, which would have been confusing, except I remembered we had also been seated by index number at the home ec room, and as long as I read after "Sarah Keely", I was okay.
Also unlike Mr Lark, Mrs Martinez did not bother to highlight anything at all for us to take note of. When the bell rang, she stood up. We stood up and thanked her, and she left.
It was quite an anti-climatic end to another day of school. I told you today wasn't a very interesting day.
Nothing happened. But there was one very bright side to having nothing happen - homework didn't happen either. THERE WAS NO HOMEWORK TODAY! Not a one. Wow and wow.
It resulted in a bit of commotion when Troy, speaking too loudly as usual, asked Ivan what today's homework was.
"Nothing." Ivan told him. Then he began to doubt himself, "Right guys? There's no homework today, right."
"Yeah." One of the guys told him.
"Whoot! Let's go! Football! Liam!" Another guy declared.
"I think," Liam said, a little bit awkwardly, "I need to hit the books guys. Sorry."
That's how cool kids did it. They didn't study. They hit the books.
And then Liam turned to Jasmine, "Wanna go to the library with me?"
And to my surprise (and Liam's shock), Jasmine shook her head, "I wouldn't be able to concentrate if you're around."
She was going to study with the cool girls. The cool girls were going over to Zara's to study today... and choose their friendship hams, but mostly they were going to study. Right.
"Do you want to come, Zammi?" Zara asked.
Yes. But..."I can't. I have a training session tonight."
Zara frowned, "Training?"
I wondered how to explain Thursday Night Training sessions to a human.
"It's like enrichment classes." Jasmine came to my rescue.
I nodded, "Yeah."
"Like for music?" Leia looked interested now, "Or dancing, or tennis, or some fancy thing like that?"
I nodded again, "Yeah. Kind of."
"What kind of enrichment?" Krystal asked.
"Fighting." I said.
There was a pause, which made me realize that was probably the wrong answer.
"Oh, like self defense." Krystal suddenly decided, "I read somewhere that princesses have these classes to learn how to protect themselves... or maybe I watched it in a movie."
"Is your coach handsome?" Leia asked, "I'm so jealous. Princesses always get all the handsome private coaches."
I'm not sure what Leia was imagining, so I didn't know how to answer her.
Fluffy was the one who save me, "Alpha, your car is arriving, and Beta wants you at pick up in five."
"Oh okay, thanks." I said to Fluffy, and then I said bye to the cool girls, got my stuff, and left with Fluffy and EJ close at heel.
At first I thought Fluffy was only trying to make an excuse for me to leave quickly, but I realized he was really rushing to get me to the car when we got down to the ground floor, and Fluffy checked his watch as said, "We have 2 minutes, EJ."
EJ grabbed my hand, "Sooorrriiii Alpha, but please save our butts and come with us!"
And then we ran for the student foyer. Mostly EJ ran, and I had to run to keep up because my hand was stuck to his.
"Exccuuuse us, sorry! Coming through!" EJ called out as he zig-zagged through the home-going crowd.
"Very sorry, please excuse us." Fluffy smiled as he took our rear.
We got to the student foyer just as my usual blue Porsche pulled up at the porch and I realized what the big hurry was when my beta got out of the car to meet me.
"Hi, Sam."
It was Ben.
Yes, Ben.
The impatient young black beta wolf of Night Leaf, in all his emerald eyed glory. He was even dressed in beta suit. I knew Fluffy had called Ben a scary alpha before, but weirdly enough, even Neil and Jax were subdued today. My four guards silently donned their riding gear and got their bikes into position exactly like the highly disciplined superior warriors I had heard about. The transformation was quite impressive.
It was also a little amusing to see big grown warriors intimidated by Ben.
Yes, Ben. Just Ben.
They were almost as afraid of Ben as they were of Bell, and definitely more than Ki or Harvey. Wasn't that weird?
Ben opened the passenger door for me and shut it just after me, so I had to scoot in just a second quicker. Then he got in beside me without a word and started the car. Immediately, the warriors outside, kicked up their bike stands, on the ready.
"I thought you aren't allowed to drive outside the Green Packlands?" I hissed at him while he buckled up.
Ben smirked, "You know that, and I know that. But this is an Alpha's car, and unless I drive like something stupid, its very unlikely anyone will stop me to find out, is it?"
Our car pulled out, the bikes following in their usual escort position. On the outside, everything looked perfectly in place. But on the inside...
Ben was so dead.
"I'm telling your mum." I threatened.
"You wouldn't." Ben was unfazed.
"I'll tell your dad." I conceded.
"I have a really good reason." Ben immediately tried to explain, "'Ki's overloaded, and Harvey's exams are coming up, so I took over for Ki. No one else knows. We didn't even tell Harvey yet."
Only because I was quite sure Harvey would never had let you drive out of packlands!
"If you get caught and this gets onto the news, Ki would be even more overloaded." I told Ben, "And we'd never be able to hide this from your dad or mum."
"I know, but I won't get caught. Trust me." Ben boasted, "Ki isn't stupid. He wouldn't have agreed if it'll get you in trouble."
"What about you? Don't you have exams too?" I was still completely unconvinced that letting Ben drive outside the packlands was the right thing to do.
"Yeah, but I'm smarter than Harvey." Ben answered smugly.
You're also only in middle school... but even as I thought it, I had to admit, Ben could pretty much pass off as older now. Like all the other wolves, Ben had been maturing in leaps and bounds ever since his first shift, growing taller, broader... If he were human, he'd pass off for a 16 year old.
While I guess its normal for humans to grow year by year, for wolves, we matured in tandem with our wolves, which didn't follow the normal human growth chart. Which was probably why the fact that my wolf was so puppy-like could be a worrying sign to the adults.
Omo was that why I wasn't growing up like everyone else?
Wolves aged by phases, not years.
First we were pups, then from our first shift, we evolved quickly into young wolves. (Which was the phase I was supposed to be in.) Young wolves were very much like adult wolves, just quicker and leaner, and with less responsibility because we were only just learning to hunt and take our places in the pack. Our human forms would mature quickly in the first year of shift.
That's why Henry and Marcus and Liam were considered cool. They were towering to near their adult heights, and becoming broad and muscular like strong wolves should... meanwhile, human boys like Troy continue to struggle with cracking voices (I noticed because he was so loud all the time), and boasted heights that came up to my ear. Ben had shifted early, but he was growing exactly the way he should in his young wolf phase. The changes were harder to notice in female wolves, but I think we were supposed to get curvier or something. Don't look at me! I told you, my wolf was defective.
On our 18th birthday, we become fully matured adults, able to bond and mate and have young, that sort of thing.
After our first 30 or 50 years, we enter an "elder" stage and hover there (Like Mum and Dad). And then the age gaps sort of blurs out, at some point we enter an ageless state till the end of our life. It's a little like Alpha Gunter and Alpha Solomon.. and as much as I hate to admit it, kind of similar to very old vamps, except the vamps will never die, they were already undead.
Wolves will die, we just become too old to run, and then we lie down and never wake up. Like my Grandpa Alpha did, except he wasn't even a century old yet. He paid a very high price to protect his pack during the Great War.
In the plains, a wolf's expected lifespan was slightly more than two centuries. In the mountains, wolves were known to live of hundreds of years.
Wolves were born of magic and prayers. Out here away from the mountains of our origin, the magic is too scarce to sustain our wolves for longer.
But that's okay to me. I mean, look at the humans. It's not uncommon for them to pass on before their 80th year. The human newspaper had described Grandpa Alpha's life as "long and full". He didn't even pass the halfway mark though. In fact, he never reached the ageless state. He started aging way before his time.
But remembering our late history teacher, humans seemed really fragile. And the way they died usually seemed to require some amount of suffering. If I remembered right, it wasn't just their deaths, their births were also painful.
If wolves were born of magic and prayers, I wonder what humans were born of.
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