JUST WARMING UP

If you hadn't noticed by now, I was never very good at this kind of game. Not with the straw and egg thing, nor with this ice thing. It's not like I could think of a clever idea, apply science or math, or anything like that.

Usually, since this type of game was a team effort, I let my team do most of it and don't step in till they run out of ideas.

Which was now. Just to keep the water from puddling on the floor. Link had put our unbreakable but shrinking block of ice on top of the now straightened tray, but otherwise, we were all just staring at it.

Lizzy gave an excited cry. She had gotten a marble out. Now Ben's team only had one more marble left. They made Jonah put it in his shirt.

"It's cold!" Jonah complained. But Ben was not the type who shirked from sacrifice. Even if he had to sacrifice his best friend.

"What should we do?" Lola wondered aloud.

Link made a funny duck mouth and stroked his chin as he stared at the stubborn block.

My team was good because no one had given up yet. I told you I had a winning combination.

"It's hopeless." Our princess pearl sighed.

It's okay, it's just our princess... But just to make sure the hopelessness didn't spread, I said, "It's not over till it's over."

"We needed a sledgehammer." Jay said.

"No one else needed a sledgehammer!" Angela argued.

Sometimes those two were like a pair of mates, the kind who were mated for such a long time they forgot how to not annoy each other anymore.

"Let's try to break it again." Link said.

"Yeah," Lola brighten, "it's melted quite a bit. Maybe it'll break now."

Actually, it's melted so much all the marbles had some part exposed now, and it wasn't even a rectangular shape anymore. We also had a tray of warm water... a tray of warm water!

"The buffet!" I said.

"What? You're hungry?" Shannon asked.

"No, but let's pretend we are and take the ice over there to the food warmers." I grinned.

Angela whooped, "Let's go!"

We rushed over and pulled off the first food tray, exposing the steamy hot water under it.

"What are you kids doing?" Flynn started coming over.

Plop, our block of ice went in. And all the marbles came out.

Our team cheered. Link used a serving ladle to scoop up the marbles to show Flynn who promptly told us to put the food tray back.

Ben's team was next. Jonah's shirt had a wet patch. They had lost one of the marbles. Carlie had stolen it.

There was a bit of arguing before Lizzy managed to get it back. "Arughh... We were so close!" Lizzy said.

The rest of the teams got their marbles out soon after. As Jay had said, it was only a matter of time before all the ice would melt.

"Alright." Flynn said, "Good job."

Hank passed out some cloths and six empty icecream tubs, one for each team.

"Your next job is to collect as much water as possible. The team with the fullest tub wins." Flynn challenged.

I was sure he thought he was so smart... making a second game to make us clean up after the first one.

"The buffet area is out of bounds." Flynn added. Was he worried about us toppling over the hot food while fighting to get to the water?

Angela ran immediately to our tray of water under the radiator shrieking like a banshee- for good reason too, Carlie was about to "borrow" the tray. Carlie froze, like a deer caught in headlights, then at the last minute ran away.

The rest of us got wiping while Jay and Angela went about the task of pouring the water from the wide metal tray back into the tub.

"Don't spill any!" Angela warned.

"Shhh!!!" Jay answered, "Just shush, woman. Let me do it."

Those two... I decided to just pretend I didn't hear them from now on.

Anyway, I got a fully soaked cloth and ran back happily to squeeze the water out.

Ben's team had a relay going. Some of them went around collecting water. Jonah was tasked to squeeze the water. By now, they've also stripped him of his shirt to use as an extra cloth.

By the end of the game, my team won. I think that was pretty obvious since we did get a full tray of water.

The last team was Henry's.

Henry threw the cloth he was holding down on the floor hard and stormed off.

The other guys there looked at Tim who just shrugged and raised his hands, "What? What did I do?"

Marcus and I went outside to check on Henry.

"You okay, Hen?" Marcus asked.

But Henry only turned to me and growled, "Do all the guys in your pack have f***ed up attitudes or just the ones in my team?"

"No?" I answered. I wondered who else was in his team.

"I'll talk to Tim." I promised. Because seriously? Why was he messing with a visiting Alpha?

"It's not just Tim. Marlow too - but at least Marlow pulls his own weight. And Nix - Nix is a work of art, did you know that?" Henry nearly snarled.

"Yes?" I hazzarded. Wow, what a team. It's a good thing Henry was so smart, cos his team was a pretty unlucky set up.

"They're not that bad. I'll talk to them." I said soothingly.

"Fine, but make sure you tell them that if they try to screw with me again, I won't hold back." Henry said.

Fair enough.

So we went back, and I went over with Henry to his team. The other youths have started eating pizza.

I know I was the one who said I'd talk to them, but what was I supposed to say? I looked at Tim who looked sheepishly away. Then at Marlow who was smirking at Tim, but he managed to wipe the smirk off his face when he noticed my gaze.

"Okay, you and you. I need to talk to you." I said.

"What? About just now?" Tim started arguing, "I was just joking, Sam!"

"Not here." I said. I pointed to the door.

Tim sighed, "Alright, alright."

But he didn't move towards the door.

Marlow looked around and then shrugged, he wasn't moving, "We can talk here. I want pizza."

These guys were mules. Had you ever tried to lead a mule who didn't want to follow? I had never, but now I understood the feeling.

I felt my hair flare, and I alpha commanded (they asked for it!) "Outside, now."

"Ooooo... You've done it this time." Nix goaded from the side.

"You too." I said.

"What?" Nix complained, but he grinned and followed us outside. Ethan saw his two goon friends walking out, so he jogged over to join us. Did he think this was going to be funny?

When we got out of the hall, I found Ben, Harvey, and Jonah waiting just outside.

"S***, it's an ambush!" Nix said because unlike the other two, he didn't seem to know when to shut up.

"What, you too Nix?" Harvey asked with a stern kind of calm.

"Eh, no, I'm just here to back up the Princess!" Nix said.

Oh. Wait, he thought he was backing me up? Which part of what he did was backing me up? And why would I need any backup from him?

Or were Harvey, Ben, and Jonah here to back me up too?

I narrowed my eyes at them, "And are you here to back me up too?"

Ben smirked, "Nah, I was just worried you might over-punish them because we all know you're mean like that."

Harvey raised a brow at the blatent lie.

"It's not a lie if she knows I'm lying." Ben explained.

Grrr...

Jonah raised his hands as if to ward off danger, "I'm just here cos I saw Nix come."

"So you thought you'd come try to be the bigger gamma?" Nix challenged.

"No, I just came to watch you get in trouble." Jonah answered honestly.

"Uh... I just followed you guys out for fun." Ethan said, "I'm going to go back to the party now."

Marlow growled at him.

Ethan let out a trademark laugh and called to us from the hall so everyone could hear, "You guys are so dead!"

You know what? Henry's suspicion was right. All the guys in my pack were trouble.

"Look Sam, we were just having fun. This is a party, not a drill." Tim tried to cajole me with a charming smile.

"Princess, perhaps we might leave this to Ben or I to deal with. It doesn't not seem to be worth your time." Harvey advised.

At this moment, I realised that I was truly their Alpha because birds of a feather flocked together. Boo surfaced with a smile, "You're right. It's not worth my time. It isn't worth my Beta's time either. It's a party, let them do what they want. But you know guys, just because I think your smart mouths and bada** is cute doesn't mean that other Alphas would find it so endearing. If you provoke Henry's wolf, don't cry when he hurts you."

I smiled, waiting a bit for it to sink into their brains, then I turned to leave, "Trash you at the next game."

Hahaha, I could hear them growl. I don't know about other wolves, but my wolves didn't like losing.

I went back to the party and found Henry talking to Ki. It sounded like something to do with business.

"You're right, Henry." I said.

"I know I am, but what exactly am I right about?" Henry asked, and I knew his good mood had been restored.

Good food and good conversation does that.

"The guys in my pack... Can be tricky to manage." I admitted.

Henry just shook his head, "You know, you're going to be their Alpha one day. If you're too soft on them, you won't get their respect."

I flared, "What makes you think I'm soft on them?"

Henry laughed, "Sam, we run together in school. You don't have a mean bone in your body."

"Doesn't mean I'm soft!" I argued back.

"It's fine, Sam." Henry brushed it off, "James and your betas will keep your guys in line."

I flared even more, "I can keep my own pack in line!"

Now the other wolves around us were looking over.

"What's up, Sam?" Link came over with Shannon who grinned and echoed, "Haha, what's up? Hahaha."

Eh? What's so funny?

The guys milled around and chuckled.

"It's a hair raising moment!" Ethan announced and the three goons who were reunited now laughed like Hyenas.

"Don't laugh! I'm being scary!" I flared again.

"Oh wow, Sam." Lizzy said, "I didn't know your hair could do that."

Savy covered her mouth to keep from cackling out loud.

"Sam, you're not exactly the scary type." Shannon tried to explain.

"I am too, scary!" I argued back.

"Hahahahaha" the hyena brothers offered me their best sacarstic laugh. The other teens around laughed too. Some of them went back to eating and continuing their conversations. The atmosphere was generally fun and relaxed.

I crossed my arms and then decided, "They laughing from fear."

Henry laughed at that too and shook his head, "Give it up, Sam."

And then Ben came into the hall, "Alright, break time's over! It's time to hunt!"

He paused, my hair had already started to settle, but he considered it for a moment before he continued, "Look for your princess and get into your teams."

Harvey, Flynn, and Hank pushed in trolleys, one with a few large baskets of protective gear, and two racks of air rifles.

"We're going to the dungeon. The guns are real. Hank will brief you on safety. Listen up to the instructions. F*** up and I'll shoot you myself." Since it's Ben who said this, I had no doubt he'd actually do it.

Hank started the briefing on safety rules and equipment. It was quite exciting. Each team had two riffles. Only those who had experience with firearms were allowed to carry them. The other members got small torchlights or a wooden staff used in some of our fight drills.

A wooden staff was just a stick about the length and width of a broom stick. There is grip tape wrapped at parts for easy handling. Long ago they wrapped them with strips of cloth of leather. But now we used grip tape from tennis rackets.

Anyway, it was the first weapon a wolf pup would learn.

I actually quite liked using it. Nothing beats the feeling of hitting a hanging sandbag right in the guts and watching the sand pour out. (It's pretty hard to clean up though.)

One time, Ben, Lizzy, Savy and I made a super strong pinata. It wasn't on purpose. I just thought magazine paper would be easier and cleaner than newspaper to work with. And then just to be safe, I decided to increase the glue to water ratio. No one could break it with the newspaper roll, so we borrowed one of these babies to have a whack at it.

Jonah smashed at it till the pinata broke off the tree. Then the guys used the sticks and beat up the poor thing into the ground.

By the time the pinata opened and we got out the candy, the sweets were all broken. Some of them were literally reduced to dust in their individual plastic wrappers.

I've since learned that glue and magazine paper could make a surprisingly hard shell. Also, just in case, wolf pinatas should be filled with gummies and chocolate instead of hard candy.

Sometimes softer was better.

We all got on our gear, eye goggles and everything. Link took a gun. No one took the other. Lola looked at Shannon, Shannon looked at me. Oh yeah...

While Morning Light teens handled a gun from the onset for patrols (the year they shifted) our teens didn't pick up a gun till Link's age. Which meant Link was probably the only male wolf in our team who had experience with firearms.

"Lola, do you want the gun?" I offered. Did she know how to use one?

Lola didn't look sure.

I guess I could take it...