THE TASTE OF VICTORY

No thanks to me, we got a little lost.

"Where are we now?" Kendell asked.

"How would I know?" Kevin sulked. He threw the map on the ground. It was useless to us now.

This was a combined consequence of us leaving the path, and then running in random directions in a wild game of catch the runaway pups, and then being distracted by wild asparagus, and then me stalking away… and them following me AS IF I KNEW WHERE I WAS GOING.

Now we could be anywhere on the empty space on the map.

To the boy's credit, they didn't once blame me for it. They were too busy blaming each other.

"I knew we shouldn't have left the path." Kendell grumbled.

"Hey, Kev was the one who said there was the shortcut!" Trevor argued.

"Dell was the one who ran the wrong way!" Kevin protested, "I said the checkpoint was on the left! Left! Why did you run right?"

"I was being chased and I panicked okay?" Kendell yelled.

"There's no point arguing now." Shannon sounded cross too, "You guys need to stop arguing and ask yourselves what you're going to do now."

Now that was sensible advice. Unfortunately, Shannon was talking to first graders, so it didn't quite get the correct response.

"Live in the forest, eating asparagus and mushrooms, and drinking Stinging Nettle tea." Kevin answered glumly.

Hahaha. I had thought they were just brats at first, but now I was beginning to think they were pretty cute brats.

"No, Kev!" Trevor was immediately upset, "The first picnic of the year is TODAY. The packhouse kitchen is making chocolate fudge. CHOCOLATE FUDGE!"

"Chocolate fudge?" My hair actually flared at the news, "Like really?"

"Really!" Trevor said, "I heard it from Taylor, who heard it from Sabre... Isn't Sabre your sister? Why don't you know?"

Why would Sabre know? But Trevor felt very sure of it, "She has connections."

Yeah, right.

"Wild garlic." Barry pointed out, but in comparison to chocolate fudge, we were naturally unimpressed.

"I want to go home." Kendell mourned. He hit Trevor, "This is all your fault."

"It was Kev's idea!" Trevor yelled and hit Kendell back.

Even though no one had hit him, Kev hit Trevor. It was a proactive punch, "No it's not!"

"That hurt!" Trevor yelled.

"It's supposed to hurt!" Kev yelled back.

So now they were arguing AND fighting.

"You wanna try telling them to stop arguing again?" I teased Shannon.

He sighed but forced a smile, "These three are major brats."

"Weren't we all?" I asked. When the words came out of my mouth, I suddenly felt very old.

Shannon shook his head, "Never like this!"

But Shannon had only joined us around Middle School, so he wouldn't have known.

I was very sure that my gang had been just as bad, if not worse. Well, no, I didn't remember anyone threatening to take off his clothes in public as a way of introduction, but we weren't easy.

Now I wondered if it were because we were the musketeers of our time. Flynn should've listened to Dawn and gone with the divide and conquer strategy.

Wait, didn't he specifically not let me team up with Ben or Jonah? That was like double standards Sir!

Actually, I think it was suspicious that the adults were just hanging back following us. Weren't they worried? I didn't even know where the map was anymore.

I had assumed the adults would stop us if we walked off the map area too. Now, I was starting to doubt my instructor's reliability.

Ah well, I was the alpha, and we were well on Packlands with 3 Deltas and a warrior. I don't think there would be anything I couldn't handle.

Anyway, the boys argued until we came to the checkpoint.

"The checkpoint!" Trevor pointed.

"Oh, thank goddess." Kendell said.

"But this isn't the right way." Kevin frowned at his compass. (He was right too.)

But there it was - the checkpoint, an worn out gazebo, in the middle of nowhere, and Link, waving to us. It was like looking at a shining mirage.

"Hullo!" Link called as we made our way across the last of the field.

"Yo princess. Hi Shan. Hi Sirs." Link greeted cheerily, he even nodded a quick bow to Barry and Wolfgang, "Hello, deltas."

It was like we were VIPs. My bodyguards more so than anyone else in the party.

"How did you come from back there?" Link asked. He craned his neck as if to see what lay on the other side of the glade. From here, the glade looked endless.

"We got lost." The boys admitted glaring at each other.

"Well, that was super lucky..." Link announced, "Because CONGRATULATIONS! YOU FOUND THE BONUS CHECKPOINT!"

Wait, what? There was a bonus checkpoint?

The older youths organizing this exercise had felt that it was too boring, so they had planted a secret bonus checkpoint. At every checkpoint, we would have collected a clue, after collecting all four clues, we would be able to figure out the coordinates of the bonus checkpoint. First team to the bonus checkpoint was the winning team, so the finish line wasn't back at the packhouse as I had assumed. It was out here, in the connected park. I looked out at the large pond in front of the gazebo. It was the one with the duck family.

We really were at the old park! Except we didn't go around the long way, collected the clues, figured out the coordinates, and then followed the trail through the woods and to the park. We sort of ran diagonally across the map.

That was some short cut.

Link showed us our prize. There were bottles of colorful Gatorade (one each, first come, first serve),sandwiches, chips, and a large tray of chocolate fudge courtesy of the packhouse kitchen.

"We were lucky, they had an extra tray." Link said.

"We were just talking about that!" Trevor gasped.

The older youths sure ran the extra mile to make this orienteering exercise special for the pups. And looking at the three boys' reaction, it was well worth it. The three boys pretty much reacted like they won the lottery.

Link gave each boy their prize - it was a large chocolate coin, "Gold medal for the winners."

The boys received it like it was a real medal. We clapped and Wolfgang made them receive the "medal" with both hands and bow.

"I had never won anything in my life." Kevin said sounding somewhat dazed.

"I can't believe we won." Kendell said.

"Link! You have to tell my brothers okay?" Trevor yelled, "Make sure you tell them MY TEAM got first place!"

"Did we really win?" Kendell asked. He looked down at the chocolate coin in his hand.

It was really just a chocolate coin, a large one, yes, but you could get those in bags at the supermarket.

After that we all drank Gatorade and ate chocolate fudge.

Barry got Wolfgang and the other guys - even Shannon and Link to help him harvest some cattail. There was half a pond of cattail - so I guess cutting them back a bit would actually be helpful. That would be enough for everyone to bring some home. When I had enough fudge, I went over to see what part of the cattail they were harvesting - I felt surprised when I saw them collecting the shoots.

"They're best harvested now when it's still early in the spring. It tastes like cucumber." Barry said, "It's great sautéed or you can also use them with your salad."

No way! Cucumber? That was a large pond weed right? What kind of magic was this?

The other teams never made it.

Kev, as in Link's training partner and best friend, not to be confused with our little Kev, or Old Kev, or Harvey's training partner - that one was called KEVY… you know, the Morning Light Goon built like a wall of bricks who was dating Lola but turned out to be Marissa's soul mate? But this was Kev - Night Leaf skinny guy who was good with numbers and was always a little on the nerdy side.

Anyway, Kev came to help Link clean up, "We need to head back. Dawn says we'll wait for the last team and call it a day. The picnic…"

The last team was us, wasn't it? Everyone was back at the packhouse.

So our team returned to the packhouse.

"We are the WINNERS! We are the WINNERS!" The three musketeers sang at the top of the lungs as we marched up to the side porch where Dawn and the rest of the pups and my gang was waiting - without Gatorade, or sandwiches, or fudge.

Link and Kev (the big one, not our little one), went around with the coolers to distribute the Gatorade to the rest.

I guess this was what the ancient lycans meant when they said, "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first."

Oh well, I felt quite happy to see the three musketeers showing off their chocolate coin and making Link swear upon his life that they were the winning team today. Their brothers needed the convincing.

After making sure we were all present and accounted for, Dawn tried to do a quick debrief. She explained the exercise and we found out that Ben's team actually got to all the checkpoints AND figured out the coordinates of the bonus checkpoint. They were so close, but they ran out of time and had to stop.

"How did you guys know about the bonus checkpoint?" Tristan asked, "Was it because Sirs told you?"

"We did not tell them anything." Flynn raised his hand to assert his integrity, "We just followed behind. We even harvested some salad ingredients on the way."

He proudly showed them his loot. He had taken off his t-shirt along the way. Like right in the middle of the field, he had stripped off his warrior jacket to remove his t-shirt. You wouldn't know looking at him right now. He had put his warrior jacket back on and zipped it up all the way. BUT his loot was now wrapped in a bundle with this t-shirt.

Which was a personal lesson for me. It was not the one who announces to the world that he was going to take off his clothes who would actually strip (Kev). Those who would really strip in public (Flynn) would just do it.

That's a Night Leaf warrior for you.

"Yeah, we found it all by ourselves!" Kendell boasted.

"Oh yeah?" Kenneth (Kendell's older brother) challenged, "How exactly did you find it?"

"Yeah, how did you find it?" Tristan (Trevor's older brother) asked.

"We got lucky." Kendell was forced to admit, "We got lost, and then it just appeared in front of us."

Yeah. That was really lucky.

Dawn, who was trying to end the debrief with a good lesson said, "I'm sure we can all learn a lesson from this."

That was the lycan teacher way (no thanks to the Great Teacher), "Every experience is a life lesson and a gateway to understanding."

So it was the teacher's job to point us to the right gate.

This translated in practice to every activity debrief ending with a takeaway lesson or piece of wisdom.

I'm quite sure it wasn't "Slow and steady wins the race", or even "hard work and diligence pays off". Today's lesson just seemed to be, "Sometimes you just get lucky."

The teachers were looking to each other. I bet they were on a desperate minklinked discussion to figure out what piece of wisdom the ancient lycans would say regarding today's experience.

Naturally, Wolfgang had to step up, "If I may."

"Yes." Flynn was barely able to hide his relief, "Yes. Pups, listen here. Teacher Hotstuff has something to say."

Teacher Hotstuff. Hahahahaha. Good job Flynn!

So everyone turned their attention to Teacher Hotstuff. The pups all recognize the name. They whispered among themselves, "Teacher Hotstuff, that means he's the fire wolf right?"

Wolfgang straightened and I worried for a moment that we were about to receive a half an hour lecture, but he only said, "Why did this team win? It was simple. They were running with their alpha. Heed these words of wisdom young ones: The Alpha is the head, those who run headless, run to their destruction."

Technically, if you ran headless, you were already pretty destructed. But Lycan quotes were like that.

"Thank you for your guidance, Teacher Hotstuff." Dawn was quick to close, "I hope all of you got that. Now we're going to dismiss you by your classes. Your family is probably already out front. Please go straight to your parents before doing anything else… We will be holding the debrief for the teens straight after the picnic. Meet us in the big classroom on the third floor after the picnic clean up."

While Dawn was releasing the pups, Flynn came to stand by my side, "You did good Sam. I knew you could do it."

Do what? Find the Bonus Checkpoint? I was totally lost too… but Flynn was talking about something else.

"Those three boys… they needed this." Flynn said.

"Needed what?" I asked nonplussed.

"This." Flynn said, "This was the first time they ran together as a team."

Apparently the three musketeers had trouble cooperating with anyone - especially with each other.

"Now that they've had a taste of victory, I think they would be cooperating a lot more." Flynn grinned.

"But I didn't have anything to do with that - they ran together and won all on their own." I told Flynn honestly.

Flynn seemed to feel differently, "No Sam, Hotstuff was on point there."

Where? Like with his lycan quote about running headless?

"You did good Sam. I knew you would." Flynn told me, "You're right. You could handle them. I knew you could. If you could take a bunch of ex-fightdogs and make them run together, I was quite sure you would be able to show those three musketeers how to run together too."

I'm not sure you'd want those three together, Sir. They were really triple trouble together. Strong wolves usually were. But I found myself smiling at the thought, "The brats in our packs are strong."

"They are monsters." Flynn agreed.

Yeah. But they were cute monsters.