Chương 441: THE YOUTH CLUB
We found the guys sprawled around my living room, snoring in surround-sound symphony. Haha.
"Wakey wakey!" Angela yelled at them, mostly into Tim's ear, but it was loud enough to cause Shannon and Drew to stir.
"Five more minutes." Drew mumbled, and rolled over on the sofa, effectively landing himself with a thud on the carpet. I blinked, but Drew simply sighed and continued snoring.
Tim might be deaf in one year, he hadn't stopped snoring above Angela's shrill morning call.
"At times like these, I wished Carlie was here." Delilah commented.
"Perhaps, now would be a good time to ask ourselves, 'What would Carlie do?'" Lizzy suggested in jest.
Good question though. What would Carlie do? The girls had different ideas.
Angela screamed louder, "WAKE UP, YOU BUMS!"
Delilah decided to use a cushion to hit Shannon. Lizzy picked up a pillow and joined in, "I'll take Ben. Savy, grab a pillow and hit someone."
Shannon sat up, raising his arm to block the blows, "Okay, girls. I'm up! I'm up!"
Delilah stopped hitting him and laughed a bit, "That just sounds wrong."
Shannon paused and then seemed to realize. He laughed a bit in return, "I mean, I'm awake."
The other guys were sleeping like logs.
Angela grabbed her brother's leg and pulled him off the chair. He landed like a dead body on the carpet.
"This is impossible." Angela complained, and then she got an idea, "Wake up guys! Sam's fighting!"
"What?" Ben was first to sit up, butting his head immediately into Lizzy's chin.
"Ow!" Lizzy let go of the arm she was shaking.
"What the hell are you doing, Lizzy? Where's Sam? Wake up guys!"
Jonah sat up, "What?"
Drew groaned, "Five more minutes."
Tim was still snoring.
Okay, that was 3 out of 5 awake. I folded my arms and leaned against the door frame of the living room and waited. Hahaha. Ben saw me snickering and growled.
"Don't make that kind of jokes, Lizzy." Ben grumbled.
"It wasn't me, it was Angela!" And then Lizzy coughed, "Oh Ben, your morning breath! Brothers are so gross."
"We should wear gas masks to wake them." Angela had resorted to standing above her brother and kicking him randomly.
"Need help?" Delilah flashed an evil grin.
"Brother, wake up." Darlyn knelt down next to Drew.
"Darlyn, you're so gentle." Angela observed from where she was still periodically kicking her brother's legs.
"Darlyn, you need to put more strength into it, like this." Delilah demonstrated on Tim, picking him up by the back of his collar and then shaking him hard.
"Not now, Mum, I'm busy." Tim said.
Delilah yelped and dropped Tim back on the ground. We held our breaths, and when Tim continued snoring, we burst out laughing. Tim's snoring was not very different from Neil's motorbike. Hahaha.
"Thank goddess I'm a light sleeper." Shannon decided from the sidelines.
Angela had another idea, "WAKE UP! QUICK! SAM'S SKINNY-DIPPING!"
I'm what now? The girls squealed and laughed.
"Let's all join her!" Delilah announced loudly.
Lizzy and Savy clapped their hands over their mouths.
"Lizzy and Savy, hurry up and join us!" Angela waved and made faces to cue them to lend their voices.
"Urm... okay." Lizzy managed.
Ben face palmed and complained, "Lizzy, that's not even sexy at all."
"That's just cos you're her brother." Jonah told him.
"What did you say?" Ben's voice dropped immediately to a dangerous growl. He grabbed his best friend by the collar.
"Uh, no. That's not what I meant!" Jonah tried to pull away.
"What's not what you meant?" Ben wasn't going to let go.
"I don't mean Lizzy is sexy..." Jonah spluttered, but seriously, he was just making things worse.
"It's too early in the morning for this." Shannon sighed. He hadn't gotten out of the large armchair he had spent the night on.
"It's cold. Let's get to the pool quick." Angela pressed on.
"Yeah, I'm getting goosebumps all over." Delilah slyly added.
Tim groaned, and then he pushed himself off the floor, "Wait, what? Seriously?"
He took a quick look around the room.
"Whatcha looking at?" Ben let go of Jonah and turned his attention to Tim.
"Yeah, don't look when girls are... urm..." Jonah stopped to figure out exactly what he was trying to say, "Don't look when girls SAY they are naked... I mean UNDRESSED... uh, yeah."
By now, Tim realized he had been duped, "I knew it was a trick!"
He flopped back down onto the nearest sofa and covered his face with a pillow, "Angela, you're the devil. Just take your minion hoard and leave me alone!"
The minion hoard responded by picking up pillows and beating Tim to a pulp.
"You girls are brutal in the morning." Shannon shook his head. He finally got up and stretched leisurely before going over to Drew. Darlyn was still shaking Drew, so gently, I was sure he wouldn't feel it under his sweatshirt.
"Here, let me help." Shannon offered.
"Thanks." Darlyn moved aside gratefully, "My brother is always hard to wake up."
"I know. He was my camp partner a few times." Shannon took out his phone and dialed.
Drew's phone started ringing. Drew grabbed it, still eyes closed, and answered, "Hullo."
"Wake up, Drew." Shannon said.
We all laughed.
Drew opened his eyes, "What the..."
We laughed some more.
"Hoo, hoo, hoo." Drew laughed along with us. The two guys re-pocketed their phones.
"Works every time." Shannon boasted to Darlyn with a wink.
"Oh." Darlyn said, "Thanks. I'll try that next time."
Somebody's stomach growled. It wasn't mine, but I suddenly felt hungry too. There was the smell of fresh bread in our house. I guess the bread machine that Ki had set up last night had done its job.
"Let's go. Sunday breakfast opens in an hour. If we help them set up, we can open the buffet table earlier." Ben decided.
Sounded like a plan to me.
"I need to go to the packhouse earlier anyway." Lizzy shrugged her consensus, "It's my turn at the front desk today."
"I'll help." Savy offered.
"Oh! It's Sunday morning!" Angela remembered, "You're going to put up the new missions, right?"
"We'll come too." Delilah offered immediately, "Might as well start working for the next party."
So we all headed to the front door. There was a bit of a jam with all of us searching out our coats and stuff. Ki came to the door, wiping his hands on his white apron, "Good morning, goddess. Are you going out?"
"We're going to the pack house first." I told him.
"Understood, goddess. Have a good time." Ki smiled and bowed himself back to the kitchen.
We stopped awhile to listen to Ki's footsteps tap away. And then resumed getting out of the house. The wind on the porch was cruel. So cold and sharp today! My hair flared angrily when the wind whipped around it.
"Sam, calm down." Ben said from behind me, "Don't kill anyone now."
I took a deep breath. The cold air dried out my lungs. Anymore of this, and my lungs would freeze dry.
"Let's get out of the cold. Come one." I started down the porch, my gang huddled behind me to follow.
"Warlock weather, today." Shannon muttered.
"Someone needs to go next door and tell the warlock to to F-off." Tim said.
"It's just an expression, you know." Angela told her brother.
"A joke. I was JOKING." Tim made a condescending expression.
"A joke is supposed to be funny." Angela retorted.
"Enough!" Delilah snapped, "Shut up and walk!"
We trooped across the wood chip covered grounds, and then slipped and slid across the icy packhouse lawn, before stumbling up onto the pack house porch. As usual, the warrior on guard opened it for us.
"Whew." Lizzy sighed, "Finally warm again!"
Savy held on to her jacket a moment longer, "I need to just thaw out first..."
The guys laughed, and stripped off their coats first.
"Sam isn't even wearing her coat." Shannon noted.
"She's always like this." Ben shrugged.
"Alphas don't get cold like us." Jonah said.
Actually, I was freezing. My fingers were numb and icy. I put my hands in my pocket, "That's right! I'm the Alpha. I can take anything!"
At this the guys laughed again.
"After all these years, you're still saying stuff like that." Shannon said.
"Really?" Angela looked interested, "What was Sam like when she was young?"
"I don't know." Shannon admitted, "By the time Mum and I moved to Night Leaf, she was already like this."
"Sam was always like this." Lizzy confirmed.
"What?" Angela didn't buy it, "I mean, she couldn't have been born like this!"
Remembering the stories I've heard about Little Sam, I answered, "I was a monster."
"Yeah." Jonah could recall it, "She was incredible. She could lift me off my feet by my collar back in elementary school. She was fast too. No matter how fast I ran, she was always just behind me."
"You're just saying you're faster." I accused. I remember how Jonah was the only pup who was bigger, stronger, and faster than I was, "You could lift me off my feet by my collar too."
"But I was bigger than you." Jonah argued, "You were the one lifting more than your own body weight."
"What in the world did you play as pups?" Delilah wondered aloud.
Angela laughed at that, "It was probably safer that our grandparents were at Morning Light."
It wasn't uncommon for wolves in my generation to have grandparents in Morning Light. If their parents had to work, many of them would live with their grandparents until they were old enough to mind themselves after school.
"Actually, she's still a monster." Jonah decided, "So she's the same...Just scarier."
"What?" The girls laughed at him.
"Yeah, Sam's always been like this." Ben nodded.
The lobby of our pack house looked different today.
"And she has found the Youth Club." Ben sighed.
I had made my way to the back of the lobby where we had a few sofa sets and chairs arranged in three clusters for wolves to sit and wait when on pack business at the pack house. What Youth Club?
I studied the new notice board on what used to be an empty wall. The unused counter top now also had a laptop and the shelves behind it was filled with snacks and candy and little signs selling them for contribution points. There was also a glass fridge with a "Free Drinks" sign above it.
The notice board was empty, it's surface a blue fuzz, except for a single print-out announcing "Next FAO Party: Pool Party at the Alpha's House. (Straight after Alpha's housewarming dinner), 13 Feb. 250 contribution points per invite. First come, first serve."
Let's see now, one tube of mini-M&Ms were 2 contribution points. If I could buy a tube of mini-M&Ms at the store for $2, then an invite to last night's party was $250 each? That was daylight robbery.
Lizzy and Savy came over to the board with fresh print outs. Lizzy changed the party announcement to a print out saying "Next Party: Stay Tuned for Announcements". Then she started pinning on mission slips - like half a piece of paper each, each with a prominent barcode, a title, and more words, and then the amount of contribution points that the task would earn. Savy helped hold all the mission slips and the jar of pins while Lizzy put them up one by one.
"Oooo.... I call dips on front desk duty." Angela said. Savy handed her a slip from somewhere at the back of the stack of mission slips.
"Hey, that's not fair." Tim complained, "At least wait for it to be pinned up first."
"It's first come first serve." Angela tossed her head and went to the counter with the print out.
"Hang on, I'll be right there." Lizzy told her.
"It's okay. I can self service." Angela scanned a card, and then the barcode on the mission slip she got.
"Thanks." Lizzy called, and then continued pinning up the mission slips.
"Got anything easy?" Tim asked.
"Is there anything from the packhouse kitchen?" Shannon wanted to know.
"Didn't you already spend all week working in the packhouse kitchen?" Delilah asked.
"Yeah, its good there. The ladies feed me well." Shannon explained.
I scanned the mission slips with interest. It was all quite exciting, "I want to do a mission too!"
"Sam, you're the alpha." Ben reminded me.
"Yes, and the alpha wants to do a mission!" I declared.
Ben sighed, "Alright, fine. Like you don't have enough pack work to do as it is."
"I'll only do small short easy ones." I promised.
"Those are what I want to do too. I called dips first." Tim said.
"Shut up, Tim." Ben said.
This whole youth club thing was too fun!
"Alright Sam, come with me, I'll sign you up." Ben brought me to the counter and then recited in a complete deadpan, "Welcome to the youth club. This is the front desk. You can ask any questions you have here. You can also connect with us online. That is the mission board. To get a mission, you need to come physically to the club. Pick a mission from this board and register at the front desk with your Youth Club card. Do you want to sign up for a Youth Club Card?"
I didn't hesistate, "Yes!"
"I was afraid of that." Ben said.
"Stick to the script, Ben!" Lizzy was obviously enjoying her brother's monotone performance from where she was still pinning up the mission slips.
"Wow, Ben, you're like the flattest front desk I've even heard." Angela said, "Sam, you should have signed up when I'm at the front desk. I do it much better - and cuter too."
Ben completely ignored her, he was too busy filling out a form on a clip board. Then he continued in his steady deadpan, "Please fill in the form, and sign here."
I took the clipboard from him. He had already filled it in for me. I signed at the bottom. (I knew how to sign my name now.)
Anyway, Ben took the clipboard back and went behind the counter, I mean, front desk.
"Please wait one moment while I process your Youth Club membership."
Exactly a moment later, the printer made a funny noise and started working. And then Ben took a small plastic card out of the output tray and handed it to me.
"Congratulations!" Ben said, still without any trace of emotion, "You are now a member of the Night Leaf Youth Club. We have a branch at Morning Light too. You may take missions from Morning Light when you register as a member at their front desk. Simply bring this card down to the Morning Light Youth Club to do so."
I accepted the shiny blue card. Ben also gave me a small booklet entitled "The Youth Club Handbook"
This was toooo fun! Too fun! Where was Youth Club all my life?
Then I headed to the board. Lizzy and Savy were done setting up.
"That was horrible, Ben." Lizzy told him, "I hope you never work at front desk."
"Ban him." Angela agreed.
"Don't worry. I won't have the time for it." Ben brushed off their concern.
Which mission should I pick? There were so many! From shoveling snow, to babysitting... painting a fence? Delivering goods to Gate City - oh no, I needed to have my own vehicle to do that one, but it paid well, 60 credits (inclusive of petrol and parking). Anyway, I couldn't drive...
"Sam, the buffet is open. You can pick a mission later." Ben said.
Oh right. How could I work on an empty stomach? I nodded and left for the buffet, "I'll come back later."
Savy came over to me, "I'll go bring some food back for us, Lizzy."
"Oh, good idea." Lizzy looked grateful, "Thanks. You always got my back."
So fun. The world around me was changing everyday, and I guess as long as I've got my family and friends behind me, change was pretty fun.
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