UP AND GO TIME

I never got to the end of the debrief. I mean, there was a lot to discuss. Because it was just our seniors fronting it, my gang was quite chatty, and since Link was too nice to shut anyone down, everything from the candied cars and gyaara meat got discussed too. Jonah hoped the ladies would make gyaara hamburgers.

That made me a little bit excited. If they didn't, I wondered if Ki would? If I left Ki to it, what if we ended up with gyaara pâté?

Anyway, we just got back on track - or at least closer to track. We were still discussing food, but Flynn and Teacher Cal were very impressed by Barry's forest foraging tour during the orienteering exercise. Since the next orienteering exercise had to include an element of survival, they wanted to include some foraging skills.

"Maybe I can invite Barry to do a workshop or something." Flynn considered aloud, "For you teens, the younger teens can have a go guiding the pups to learn some of it, and then the seniors can plan the next orienteering exercise with foraging as part of their survival component."

"Like a scavengers hunt?" Link asked.

That sounded like fun!

"Yeah!" I was all for it, "Like if they found certain herbs or mushrooms, they can exchange it for good stuff like sausages for their cook out."

Because it was one thing to forage a bunch of cattail, it was quite another to only have that for dinner.

Link's eyes brightened, "Idea! I like that!"

Me too. I wished I could play too.

But my time as a pup was over. I remembered my orienteering survival exercise. It didn't go all that good. I brought my own paper bag of tinder, so my team had the biggest fire, but it was too hot. I learned a valuable lesson that training exercise - the biggest fire wasn't the best one when you mean to cook on it. We burnt the chicken.

And then Dean, who was supposed to make the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches somehow managed to add an extra ingredient. It was the sandiest sandwich I ever had a bite of.

We survived on chocolate bars which I had also brought because I had happened to overhear Dad and Beta Lucas discussing the standard rations for warriors - and Dad was adamant that every warrior's rations included a bar of Snickers.

So yes, I packed a large fun pack of snickers along for "survival." I know now that my friends all thought the things I brought were weird, BUT you should have seen their faces light up when I produced it from my backpack.

We ate some, and then exchanged some for chicken that wasn't burnt. I think Jonah ate the burnt chicken. He said his mum made it every Tuesday so he was used to it. I felt sorry for Jonah and gave him the last snickers bar.

It was very exciting. Our orienteering survival exercise ran overnight to the next morning.

I never realized until now, how much effort was put into these training exercises. I mean, it just happened a lot when I was a pup, but now that I was seeing it happen to the pups in our pack, and how Link and our seniors were organizing them, and how Flynn and the other instructors were guiding them step by step… One day, I would be one of the seniors organizing these training sessions. And one day, though I can't even imagine it, I might be one of the instructors guiding the senior youths.

So that with each new batch of Night Leaf pups, there would be trained seniors and instructors to guide them. That was cool. I always knew I rode on the shoulders of giants, but this made me feel grateful to have grown up in Night Leaf.

I was very lucky.

Ben stood up suddenly, "Up and go time, Sam."

What? I stood up without any idea what Ben was talking about. He just sounded so sure about it.

"Me too." Jonah sprung up, "Take me with you."

The rest of the wolves stood up too.

"Thank your Alpha for her guidance." Flynn ordered.

"THANK YOU FOR YOUR GUIDANCE ALPHA!" Everyone yelled grinning because they thought it was so funny. Okay, it used to be funny, when we were blasting in the adults' faces. Not so funny when it was turned on me.

I flared and covered my ears, "Not funny!"

And for some reason, they thought it was hilarious. Even Flynn and Teacher Cal and Dawn were laughing like something fun just happened.

Ben pushed, I mean, led me out of the room.

"What's the hurry?" Yeah, I was a little annoyed.

"Where're we going?" Jonah asked.

Why did he follow us? He didn't even know where we were going? Then again, neither did I. Part of me was still in wonder that Flynn just let us go without asking questions.

"Mimi and Alpha Mike have checked in." Ben kept pushing on the small of my back so I couldn't even slow my steps, "We've got just this one chance to get in and out without your Dad ever finding out."

Oh.

"Who?" Jonah frowned, but he kept step with us.

No, wait! I didn't really want to see them! What would I ever say to Mimi?