LITTLE HUMAN PROBLEMS

25 FEBRUARY, THURSDAY, CONTINUED

"We'd better head back." Savy decided when Lizzy returned, "Before Mum starts mindlinking me every 5 minutes."

"At least your mum gives ample warning." Lizzy rolled her eyes, "My mum thinks I'm a magic genie that should appear immediately when she summons me."

Hahaha. I wanted to say just block out the mindlinks, but if everyone did that, Mum would probably make a family rule so NO ONE could do that. So I kept quiet. Wow. I've been getting sneakier lately. #imsosneaky

"Come on, let's go." Savy tried to help Sabre down from the barstool at the counter.

"But I wanna stay till the dessert is ready!" Sabre protested.

We all laughed, and Savy's mouth pouted at that, "Why are you laughing? What's so funny?"

"Oh, Sabre." Savy patted the little girl on her head, "We weren't laughing at you."

Yes, we were.

"Yeah, we laughed because you're so cute." Lizzy affirmed.

"We need to go back before mum starts to miss us too much." Savy continued, "Anyway, the Tiramisu would take all night to be ready."

"Then can we come for breakfast?" Sabre asked.

Smart girl. I totally would.

"Well, how about coming down after school with Savy?" Lizzy asked, "Then we can all eat together."

"Yeah," Savy nodded, "We could have a Tiramisu Tea Party."

Sabre's eyes lit up, "With tea cups and everything?"

"We'll have to ask Ki about the tea cups." Savy considered it.

"I can just bring the tray over to your place tomorrow too." Lizzy offered, "It'll be less troublesome to carry than the entire tea set."

"I want to use the one with blue flowers!" Sabre declared triumphantly.

"We have to ask Ki first." Savy maintained.

"Don't worry! I'll ask him really politely so he will definitely agree." Sabre was far more confident.

Actually, I couldn't really recall Ki ever saying no to anything, so I didn't see a problem either.

We waved our goodbyes and ran out to the street.

The snow was still falling like magic across the landscape.

"It's the garbage truck!" Sabre pointed as it rumbled loudly from behind us. We crossed in front of it quickly.

"Hurry, Sabre. The smell from behind it is worse than in front of it." I told her.

"But you need to stop and look both ways first..." Sabre whined while Savy tugged at her hand. We were already halfway across so I picked up the little girl and ran for it, "Come on, Savy!"

Savy didn't need to be told twice.

We got across just as the garbage guy stopped the truck in front of the Alpha House. I put the little girl down on the pavement.

"Good evening, Alpha." He nodded a polite bow.

Our garbage guy was this old guy. He had been our garbage guy ever since I could remember.

"Good evening!" I gave him my usual wide smile.

For some reason, this surprised him so much he just stopped in his tracks.

"Ah, thanks for the hard work!" I quickly waved and followed my sisters up the driveway to the alpha house porch before things got awkward, because you know, I was bad at things like handling awkwardness.

Savy had the card key with her so we could let ourselves in through the front door and get out of our jackets.

"You shouldn't talk to strangers." Sabre scolded me as Savy helped her hang up her coat.

"Oh good, you girls are back." Mum came into the hallway to meet us, "Dinner is ready."

She automatically checked Sabre's gloves - just to make sure that both of them were tucked into her coat.

"Mama, Sam talked to the strange man outside." Sabre reported.

"What strange man, baby?" Mum looked up.

"I just said hi to the garbage man." I mumbled, to Sabre, I tried to explain, "He wasn't a stranger. He's one of my wolves."

"Do you know his name?" Sabre challenged.

Grrrr.... Of course not! That wasn't even how it worked!

"He called me alpha." I said.

"Everyone calls you alpha." Sabre retorted without missing a beat.

"She got you there." Savy grinned.

"Mama!" Sabre tugged on Mum's skirt and pressed her case because this little human had to be relentless like that.

"Do you mean Old Roger?" Mum asked.

"I don't know." I said. How was I supposed to know his name? It's not like he had a name tag!

"Ahha!" Sabre pointed, "You don't know him!"

"It's not fair!" Sabre pouted, "Sam is always breaking the rules!"

"That's because I'm the alpha!" I told her, because I was such a good explainer like that.

Mum totally ignored me.

"What do you mean, baby?" Mum asked as she straightened Sabre's little gloves and folded them as a pair together to slide neatly back into the jacket's pocket.

"Sam ran across the road without looking!" Sabre's voice rang out an octave higher now, "And she never puts away her plate when she's done, she doesn't have to clean her room, she..."

"Because I'm the alpha!" I explained a second time.

By now, Mum was distracted enough by our bickering to check Savy's pockets for her gloves. Our coats were hung neatly in a row so it was right next to Sabre's coat.

"Then I want to be the alpha!" Sabre yelled.

"No! I'M THE ALPHA!" I yelled back.

"No! I'M THE ALPHA!" Sabre parroted.

Mum reached out to check my coat too... and then she realized what she was doing and stopped. Mum would know I usually went without gloves, so there would be nothing to check there.

"No! I AM!" I yelled.

"No! I AM!" She yelled.

Which was the point where Mum had enough, "That's enough, girls."

"It's not fair!" Sabre crossed her arms, "Why does Sam always get to be the alpha?"

Mum sighed and looked at Savy. Now it was Savy's turn to sigh, "Sabre, you don't know what you're asking for. Actually not being the alpha is better than being the alpha."

"No way!" I flared. The alpha life was THE BEST!

Savy glared at me, "Not helping, Sam."

Oh.

"I mean, Savy is right. You can be alpha." I decided. #imsosneaky.

"Oh no, Sabre. Don't take it." Savy warned, "Once you're alpha, you can't stop being the alpha until you pass it to someone else!"

"Like tag?" Sabre asked.

"Yes." Savy said, "You don't want to be IT for the rest of your life, do you?"

At this point, I was just amazed at how Savy was saying all these things without me detecting a hint of lie. Could it be, that this was the truth?

"I'd never want to be the alpha!" Savy said with a dramatic roll of her eyes, "If you're the alpha, you'll have to deal with big bad wolves everyday."

"Like the scary one that lives in Lizzy's basement?" Sabre asked.

"Yes." Savy nodded, "Especially that one, because he would be your beta - so he will always be around you."

Who knew Ben could also be useful this way?

"Let me tell you a secret. It's better to be the Alpha's daughter than the alpha." Savy told Sabre.

"Really?" This was me, not Sabre.

"Really." Savy nodded with all seriousness.

Again, without a single whiff of lies.

It was convincing enough for me to feel I should reconsider my career path.

Mum was smiling at us now, as if she saw something amusing.

Ki came to see what was taking us so long, "Welcome back, goddess."

To my mum, he said, "Dinner is ready, luna."

"Ah, yes. Thank you, Ki." Mum smiled, suddenly snapping back to the present reality, "Come now, girls. It's time for dinner."

"Where's Dad?" I asked.

"He will be having meetings till late." Mum said.

"See." Savy whispered loudly to Sabre, "Alphas can't even come home for dinner."

"I'm home for dinner!" I protested.

"You're a grounded Alpha." Savy pointed out, and then she cackled, "Welcome to the princess life!"

So grounded alpha = princess?

If that's the case, I had to admit, the princess life wasn't too shabby.

Dinner was really nice. Pineapple fried rice turned out to be surprisingly good. Ki explained that while the packhouse could have cooked our meal, he hadn't wanted the food in our refrigerator to go to waste, so he had Barry come help use up the cold water shrimp, chicken, and eggs.

Barry turned out to be a pretty decent cook. Too bad he had already left to rejoin the rest of the special team for their dinner at the packhouse. Even though they lived in my tower now, none of the new wolves would come over to the main house. They had their meals at the pack house dinning hall, and entered from the poolroom.

I guess that was good too, since Sabre didn't like big male wolves.

The little male pups were a different matter though. Today, Sabre finally finished breaking up with all six of her boyfriends - technically, four of them were exes, and one of them was just a potential suitor, but Sabre wanted to make sure they all knew clearly that whoever wanted to date her had to challenge me to a fight, and also that they could only challenge me after defeating Gamma Endo. Her ability to repeat the message with such clarity and accuracy impressed me. It seemed the little human was quite a reliable messenger.

"Taylor said it took forever!" Sabre told us.

However, now her main squeeze - I forgot his name, Mandrake? Mooncake? No, it definitely had a "drake" in it.

"Kendrake!" Sabre yelled at me, "I'd never date a guy named Mandrake!"

Wait, so Mooncake was alright?

Anyway, the drake guy has vowed to fight me to his death. For a six year old, he sure sounded pretty determined to meet his grave.

And the other five boyfriends, even though Mitch wasn't really counted because he hadn't been able to defeat Drake, and Derek, who originally realized Sabre was more of a sister to him, all wanted to fight now too. It was like the requirement to fight just rekindled their love.

Not only that, a few more of the male pups (whose names were reported with clarity and accuracy, but I can't be bothered to list them here) had decided that they too would defeat Gamma Endo for a chance to be Sabre's boyfriend. WTH! What's wrong with these pups? The fight was supposed keep them AWAY from my little sister. How did my genius plan backfire?

"Boys!" Savy rolled her eyes, "They're always like that."

"Like what?" I asked. Keen to get themselves killed?

"The harder they have to work to get you, the more they want you." Savy answered sagely.

Wait, so all I did was make them want my little sister more?

"We'll see about that." I decided, "Let's see which pup manages to take on Gamma Endo and live."

"Sam!" Mum admonished, "Please give the poor gamma a break."

Surely Mum didn't actually think any of the six year old pups would pose a threat to a great and experienced warrior like Gamma Endo, right? I bet they'll just take one look at the uncle gamma and run home crying with their tails between their legs. Stooopid boys.

But wow, I didn't remember my preschool life being so complicated.