NOT STRAIGHTFORWARD

16 FEBRUARY, TUESDAY, SCIENCE LAB

It turned out that Terrence didn't drink all that much limewater after all. He came out of the backroom after a while and croaked that he was better and didn't need to see a doctor.

"Are you sure?" Mrs Dawson looked Terrence up and down skeptically.

Terrence nodded, red faced, and croaked, "Yeah."

The class laughed at the croaking sound and Terrence turned redder and then started coughing.

He didn't look or sound right at all.

Mrs Dawson gave it  a moment's thought and then sent Terrence off to the school nurse. The moment Terrence coughed himself out the door, she turned back to the rest of the class, "Alright, let's not waste any more time. No one is allowed to touch the counter. I can't have any more disruptions to my class."

She went on to demonstrate the experiment with her larger "teacher size" portion of limewater and disposable straw.

"I want all of you to look carefully. Are you looking? Make sure you're looking. Look at the limewater." Mrs Dawson held up the beaker in her hand. Then, without putting the beaker down, she used the straw to blow bubbles in the limewater, "Do you see that class? See it! It's turning! It's turning!"

Then she resumed blowing into the limewater, until it was chalky.

"Do you know why the limewater turned chalky, children? Do you know?" Mrs Dawson asked.

"Because you blew chalk into it?" Troy guessed.

"No! Why would I? No!" Mrs Dawson sounded completely offended, "The limewater turned chalky because I blew into it."

At that moment, there was a knock on our door and a couple of uniformed paramedics called from the door, "Where's the patient?"

Mrs Dawson had to step outside to redirect them to the sick bay.

When she next stepped into the lab, the last bell had rung, the class got up to leave.

"Wait! No!" Mrs Dawson shouted above the bell and the sounds of her students noisily scraping stools and slamming books, "You are not to leave until you complete the experiment on page 32 to 35. I want your workbooks on my desk before you go!"

Oh no! Great panic and more slamming of books and bags as everyone scrambled to pull out their workbooks and finish the experiment. I hurriedly opened up my book to the right page and scanned the printed instructions. On the side were the warnings to not drink the limewater or get it in our eyes etc.

Anyway, I carefully used the straw and blew into the limewater. It turned chalky. Magic.

I drew the "experimental set up" in the space provided. It looked like a glass of water with a straw.

Then I filled in lines under "Observation". The water turned chalky when I blew into it with a straw.

And I completely forgot about page 35 until Jasmine asked to see it.

I was in a huge hurry to get it done. Today was archery training and I was late, late, late! At the back of my mind, I was remembering that I already got my "last warning" from missing practice.

I think we were given a full page to explain what happened. I wrote, "I blew into it and the water turned chalky."

Then I handed in my workbook.

Jasmine took one look at my answer and decided to go copy the answer from someone else.

I grabbed my stuff and made a run for it, normally I would be careful to keep my speed at a humanly acceptable level, but I was really late. 20 minutes!

I dodged a few other wolves (or they dodged me), dashed past a vamp, I'm not sure which one, but he flared his flame at me as I hurtled past. Down three flights and then across the parade square instead of around it, and then up two flights of stairs at the next building.

Just as I reached the second floor landing in front of the hall entrance, I crashed.

"Watch out!" A familiar voice shouted AFTER I crashed into... I looked up to see what I ran into.

It was River, "Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow..."

Uh oh. For a moment I worried that the school might need to call a second ambulance today.

"River! I told you not to run!" Keanu (the familiar voice) scolded.

He came over to check, "Are you hurt anywhere, Sam? Can you get up?"

Shouldn't he be asking River that? I got up to my feet and dusted off, "It was my bad."

"What's going on here?" Captain came out to check on the commotion.

River got up immediately and bowed, "Sorry, sorry. I was running too fast and ran into Sam."

I shook my head, "No, I was the one who was running."

Priya popped out from behind Captain, "Who ran into my precious junior?"

"Sorry. Sorry." River apologised and bowed all over again.

I hit him on the stomach with the back of my hand, "Don't apologize. I told you it was my bad."

"Oh. Sorry. Sorry." River said before raising his hands quickly to fend off another hit from me, "It's just a habit, sorry."

I flared, "How are you going to be an alpha if you keep apologizing for every single thing?"

River just looked contrite, "Yeah. My dad says that too. But I'm just a human, you know. I can't help it."

I regarded my friends plight and nodded, "Yeah, I guess."

Captain cleared his throat, "Sam, you're late. And both of you were running in the school building..."

River and I nodded and waited for our punishment, but quick footsteps approached us and Captain stopped. Priya's eyes shone with excitement.

I didn't have to turn around to know who was behind me though, Fluffy and EJ! I have totally forgotten about them!

"Alpha!" EJ scrunched his face at me, "Why did you run so fast?"

I winced a little and too a quick glance at Captain.

{Shush, EJ! I'm already getting punished...}

"Punished?" EJ's eyes widened, as he said very aloud, "Who dares punish my Alpha?"

Well now that EJ, AKA blue demon warrior in disguise, had asked like that, I was also begining to wonder.

Especially since Fluffly was wearing his smiling mask... The particularly unfathomable one that I could never see through.

I grabbed both guys by the arm and pushed them back in the direction they came from, "Why don't you guys go...somewhere else?"

Anywhere else would do.

"But what if you get punished?" EJ asked.

"I'm the alpha. I can take it." I said while pushing them harder because neither of them were budging from where they stood.

"Can we watch?" Fluffly asked.

What was wrong with these two?

"Is there anywhere else you could be right now?" I nearly begged. Nearly, but I was the Alpha, so of course I didn't.

And because I was such a lucky alpha, it turned out they did have somewhere they should be.

"Henry's band is practicing right now. We could go there." Fluffly suggested mildly.

I felt my hair flare at that, "What? Then why are you two standing here? Quick go!"

I'll never hear the end of it from Henry if my two wolves skipped his new pet project, "Go, go!"

And then I remembered Captain was still here and added, "But don't run. It's against the school rules to run along the corridors and stairs."

Haha... Cos I've learned my lesson, Captain. Any chance you'd let me off with a light punishment?

I looked back at Captain, expecting him to dole out the number of laps or whatever punishment he would give to club members who broke the rules, but Captain just stood there. Priya prodded his arm before he said, "Right. Since you understand, go get changed Sam. You two, come in and warm up. Let's not waste any more time."

"Yes, Captain!"

I quickly put down my things by the side where all our bags were. In my hurry, I didn't bother to put my bag with Keanu and River's like I usually would. I just took out my gym clothes and chucked my bag randomly with the other bags. Then I ran out, before remembering not to run. I fast-walked the rest of the way to the girls washroom, and hurried into the first cubicle.

I felt like superman. I was reaching to pull off the bow around my collar even as I was still entering the stall.

The moment I entered though, a group of girls came into the washroom. They were in no hurry, laughing and chatting as they entered.

I froze.

None of them actually entered the bathrooms. They were here to preen.

"OMG, there are so many hot guys outside our school right now!" One of them said.

"It's like we died and went to hot guy heaven." Another one said. All of them giggled. Girl talk.

I went back to getting changed.

"I wish the reporters would hang around forever!" One girl sighed.

Wait, the reporters outside the school were hot guys? Wow... Was that some kind of new ploy? Did they find out Madam Principal's weakness for eye candy?

"Too bad the warriors in our pack don't look like that." Her friend commented.

"But I heard the Blue Demon Wolves were dangerous." One girl lowered her voice to inform her friend, "There is a death god behind them."

"Green Packland Wolves are so scary." Her friend agreed.

"But hot." The first girl said.

"It's unnatural." The other girl said, "My dad said they were hybrid wolf demons created by the vamps in the fight dog labs."

I wondered how a lab where vamps cross bred wolves and demons together would look like? White and modern or like Mrs Dawson's science lab?

"Did you see Kurrie's vlog? Who is this Beta Ki guy? Is he a blue demon wolf too? He is from the Green Packlands right?"

"Not all wolves in the Green Packlands are demon wolves." Her friend informed her, "My Aunt mated a wolf from the Lorent Pack there, and she says they are very posh."

"Wait, like THE Lorent Pack? Wow. I didn't know the Lorent Pack was in the Green Packlands."

"Please, you thought the Colored Mountains was on this continent!" Her friend huffed.

"It IS on this continent!!!" More than one friend yelled.

"OMG. How are you going to pass your Geography?" One girl exclaimed.

I only realized I had been distracted when Priya shouted into the girls' washroom, "Sam? Sam? Are you there?"

Opps. I scrambled to finish changing, "Yeah."

I rushed out of the stall, nearly crashing the door on her.

"Sam!" Priya yelled.

Opps. I caught the door in time though.

"What took you so long?"

Urm... I was evesdropping on the crazy things those girls were saying about my wolves?

Priya gave the other girls in the washroom a hairy eyeball.

"Let's go." I decided it would be best to leave, I literally pulled her out with me.

"That's her." One of the girls whispered too quickly and loudly, "Yuunie's nemesis."

Who me?

"You!" Priya poked me in the shoulder, "Why did you run away? If those girls were trash talking you, you need to walk right up to them and give them a piece of your mind! Wait, were you hiding from them? Is that why you're late? Come on. I'll teach them not to trash talk my junior!"

"No, wait Priya!" I quickly sidestepped to block her way, "We're late. Let's not waste club time."

I tried our Captain's rallying speech, but it didn't work to steer Priya off.

"No. Sam. Aren't you the Alpha Princess? Is the Alpha Princess going to just hide in the stall while some Muunie fans trash talk her?"

"I think there's a misunderstanding." I tried again, this time I simply walked back to the hall. Priya hesitated before chasing after me.

"Where are your blue demon warriors when you need them? I'd like to see those girls b**** in front of them! Even Captain didn't dare to speak just now... I had never seen Captain so tongue tied..."

"Priya!" Captain suddenly appeared at the hall entrance. We had been crossing the second floor landing to the hall, and Priya was talking way too loudly.

Priya merely laughed.

"Priya, what took you so long?" He looked at me, and then back at Priya.

"There were some girls in the washroom talking trash, so our Sam didn't dare to come out till I went in and rescued her." Priya boasted.

Wait, what? Was that what happened?

"Oh, I see." Captain nodded seriously, "Are you alright, Sam?"

The rest of the hall had stopped warming up to watch so I quickly nodded, "I'm fine."

"Alright! Everyone get back to position 2. Let's go!" Captain shouted. Priya and I quickly slipped in with the other girls.

Sometimes I wished everything else could be more like shooting an arrow. When an arrow flies, it always flies straight and when it hits the target, the lines are clearly drawn and you knew exactly what it hit.

Once upon a time, my life was straightforward like that. I wonder what happened?