WE HAD BEEN FRIENDS FOR A LONG TIME

Remembering my conversation with Flynn made me feel like a very old wolf commenting on "youngsters nowadays." I'm not sure why I was talking like an old wolf today. Maybe I was hanging out with too many old people - mostly Wolfgang, who wasn't really THAT old in age, just in speech.

Ah, but we were finally released for our FIRST PICNIC OF THE YEAR! Whoot! Dad promised to talk to Beta Lucas about it and here it was! That was how it was with Dad. "The Alpha's word was gold."

OMO. I'm even quoting lycan in my diary. When did that start? I'm growing OLD!!!!

The teachers were going around signing off the pup's files and as their charges were dismissed, my gang gradually gathered around me near the side porch.

Shannon showed the others his loot. He had a plastic bag in his backpack. His mum had folded it into a neat triangle and packed it into his bag with a raincoat in case of rain. Thanks to that, now he was going to be able to bring home that plastic bag filled with wild mushrooms and cattail stems.

"It's supposed to taste like cucumber." Shannon said, but he wouldn't let anyone try them, "They're for my mum."

And nobody messed with Shannon's Mum. She was like a local hero of sorts - you know the story, mated a Morning Light warrior, he died protecting our land from rogues leaving her alone and pregnant. He was sent off with his comrades with a Ceremony of the Departed, so she didn't have to pay for the funeral, but there was still the mortgage. She had to work very hard, she wanted to keep their family home for her unborn. The little home was the dream she had with her mate. But she overworked and nearly lost Shannon - he was born prematurely. Eventually, she had to give up the mortgage and her house to pay the hospital bills.

After Shannon got out of the hospital, she brought her baby up at the destitute house for a many years. As he grew older, and hungrier, there were many nights when she gave him her share of dinner because he was "still a growing pup and needed it more". There were many nights that she had to work the night shifts so that she could home with her young son in the daytime. There were many nights she cried worrying about her Shannon dying out there just as her mate did. It was about the time when Shannon was finishing elementary school when a young warrior died while patrolling - on a regular patrol! While the patrols got more dangerous, the minimum age for warrior duties kept decreasing.

When the minimum warrior age dropped down to 16 or whenever the male pup had his first shift, Shannon's Mum had enough. She came home.

Back home to her parents at Night Leaf. According to local reporting, she had stayed those long dark years hoping to save up enough to repurchase her little dream home. She was still unable to let go of her mate or her dream of bringing up her pups in that home. It was only at the realization that she might lose Shannon too that woke her up from that dream.

"My mate is gone. My dream home is gone. Even if I got the home back, my mate won't come back." She had said, "But I realized I still had Shannon, and I can't lose him too."

So anyway, they returned to Night Leaf and was welcomed like the prodigal son - except she wasn't either a son or a prodigal. She was just a daughter who had a rough time of it out there and naturally, everyone would have heard from someone or the other about her noble mother's heart.

Today, Shannon's mum worked as a trained physiotherapist. She drove a small van that was her father's (Shannon's grandpa was a handyman). And gave private sessions to patients who found it hard to travel down to Gate City hospital for treatment.

Anyway, nobody in their right mind was going to deprived Shannon's mum of wild mushroom or cattail shoots that taste like cucumber that her son had foraged for her. Not even Tim. He was like, "Okay, Woah. Fine. Just keep them for your Mum."

"Did you get any?" Savy asked me. I nodded then I shook my head. I did pick some mushrooms, but now I had no idea where they were. Who did I give them to?

"Hey, Barry, Hotstuff! Where's Sam's loot?" Ben asked. Like he totally assumed one of them was carrying it for me. I would protest. I did not need a minder, I could take care of my own things! But I didn't. It would have fallen flat anyway because Barry called back, "With me, beta! Be right over!"

And true enough, Barry produced a ziplock bag with my mushrooms, "These Alpha picked with her own hands."

"Oooo…." My friends said obligingly. It was the way if Sabre showed us her "drawing" and Savy and Mum would politely Oooohhh and Ahhhh over it. I was sure they were messing with me.

I flared, "Cut it out!"

They laughed.

Barry showed us all the other things too, he also cut cattail shoots for my friends to try.

"It does not taste like cucumber!" Tim spat out the piece he was eating.

My friends were making faces.

"It's a bit like celery." Jonah said.

"It's NOT!" Lizzy frowned, "Kind of like nutty."

So it was a nutty, celery, cucumber. It was weird.

I shook my head and politely refused it, mostly because it was green. I was never a fan of green things.

Dean's group was dismissed last. They were having trouble and Flynn and Dawn felt they had to confront the pups and straighten things out.

"Those pups went too far." Delilah told us.

"Yeah, they were very rude." Jonah said.

Dean and Drew's group had met Delilah and Jonah at Check Point 2, and they made their way to Check Point 3 together, only to realize that their maps were technically different, and Check Point 3 for Jonah and Delilah's group was literally Check Point 1 for Dean and Drew's group.

The pups blamed the Omega - which was Dean. Even the pups were calling Dean the Omega now.

They were angry enough to complain to Dawn, but what bothered the teachers more were the way the pups were so disrespectful towards Dean.

Besides calling him the Omega, they had behaved horridly. Delilah couldn't stand it.

"They kept taunting and singing stupid ditties at him, and then throwing things at his back." Delilah said. She had given them a piece of her mind.

According to Delilah, Drew was totally useless too. He was all Mr Nice Guy, and all he did was turn around and say, "Hey, don't do that."

The pups would laugh and apologize and Drew would turn back front to walk while the pups return to throwing sticks and whatever at Dean.

"Wait, why were they even walking in front?" I asked. I thought the guides were supposed to walk behind the group?

Delilah shrugged, but she was still fuming, "Our big gamma here didn't say anything either."

"You were already very scary." Jonah told Delilah, "I was afraid the pups will cry."

Delilah glared at Jonah, "That's NOT funny Jonah! So if those pups were bullying ME, would you have just let them?"

"No, no." Jonah said, "That's different. I will stop them."

"Because I'm a girl, right?" Delilah huffed.

"No, because you're too scary." Jonah said, "I have to protect the pups from you."

The guys laughed.

"But actually, I think you should have at least told the pups off." Jessica told Jonah.

"I can't believe you and Drew didn't make them stop." Lizzy scolded Jonah.

Jonah shrugged, "If Dean doesn't stand up for himself, the pups will just pick on him more when we're not around."

"But…" Lizzy said.

I think the girls still felt Jonah and Drew should've stuck up for Dean more.

"He's right, Lizzy." Ben defended Jonah, "Dean won't get any respect if he can't hold his own."

"Anyway, Sirs are talking to them." Shannon said. (Was it weird that we called Dawn "Sir" too?)

We watched from far as the pups were made to nod stiff bows and apologize.

"Well, let's hope they really learn their lesson." Jessica said worriedly.

The pups ran off straight after apologizing. They certainly didn't want to hang around a minute longer. Flynn patted Dean and Drew on their backs before going off with Link and the older teens to check that the checkpoints have been cleaned up.

"Speak of the Omega." Tim smirked when Dean and Drew finally came over to join us.

Angela hit him, "It's because of guys like you that the pups talk this way!"

Tim only laughed, "What? Are you saying that he isn't?"

Dean hadn't heard though. He was shaking his head as he approached us, "No respect, pups these days."

"Yeah, and some pups never grow up." Angela glared at her brother.

By now, the picnic had spilled around the Packhouse and into the side yard. As more families came, more picnic mats would unfurl and soon the packhouse was surrounded with colorful mats and wolf families and friends.

My friends and I ambled out front to check out the scene.

This year, we had the Underground wolves join us too. They were now called the wolves from Princess Town. To accommodate this expansion, Beta Lucas had opened his yard for the picnic too.

The Beta House was directly across the Alpha House, but while we had a packhouse next to us, Beta Lucas had a very large open field.

I mean, we could have just let them use the Alpha's front lawn too, but you know how pack wolves were. No one even stepped on our lawn, never mind throw out a picnic mat.

So across the road was also picnic grounds too.

It was very weird though, because on our side, the picnic mats were colorful and made from different material. On the other side, the picnic mats were olive green and looked like the waterproof sheets our warriors used to cover their trenches.

There was clearly a divide and it made me feel like I was on 16th Street again - where my side was the colorful and noisy side and the New Wolves were the designer stores... It wasn't because the majority of them were all in uniformed Betamen, or the fact that their mats were laid out in perfectly straight rows...I couldn't quite put my finger on it, but it looked like two completely different events happening at the same time.

Like on our side were pups weaving in between mats, women bustling to share food and arrange picnic mats, and men laughing and sitting in the grass, their legs stretched out in front of them.

On the other side of the road, were warriors standing in their fall-in positions in front of perfectly aligned rows of waterproof mats. It looked more like an outdoor training exercise than any picnic I had ever seen.

I frowned.

"Oh, my Mum's over there." Shannon said, distracting me momentarily from my own thoughts.

"Oh, okay. Bye Shan. Thanks for today. I had a great time." I waved him off.

"OMG, Sam." Angela laughed, "You sound exactly like after a date."

Wait what? But…

"ANGEL!" Delta Felicity screamed and waved, "TIMMY!!! TIM-MEE OVER HEEEREEEE"

"It's lunchtime and she's already drunk." Tim grumbled. He was just joking though. This was how Delta Felicity normally was.

"Who's Timmy?" Jonah asked as if he didn't know.

Tim flushed, "Shut it, Gamma."

Now was that any way to talk to your gamma? But Jonah chuffed, "Oh! Was it YOU? You're LEET-TLE TIM-MEE?"

The guys laughed because Tim turned beetroot red.

And then Angela smiled deviously at Ben, "Bye Ben. Thanks for today. I had a great time."

I ABSOLUTELY DID NOT sound like that when I said bye to Shannon!

But now my whole gang was laughing.

Angela threw me a naughty wink and then flounced off to join her family on the mat with a wave and a "Bye babes!"

I seriously envied her confidence.

"Bye babe, BYEEEE TIM-MEE!!!!" Delilah called out loudly just as Angela and Tim stepped away.

Tim turned even redder. He was so red that the back of his neck was bright pink as he walked away from us. He turned around briefly and gave us a finger.

The rest of us laughed.

"TIMMY!!!!" Delta Felicity screeched, "I SAW WHAT YOU DID THERE YOUNG MAN!"

"Oh, boy." Jonah said, "Now we've done it."

"No. He needs this." Delilah said, "We're helping him not become obnoxious… oh, here's my stop. Bye peeps."

Eventually, we were down to Jonah, Ben, Lizzy, Savy, and me… oh, and Wolfgang and Barry too, of course. They had just followed behind like good bodyguards the entire time.

"Come on, Sam." Ben pushed, I mean guided me further out front.

"Wait." I decided I couldn't quite just pretend I didn't see the fake picnic across the road, "What if…"

"Oh no." Ben groaned. He didn't even let me finish.

"I hadn't even said anything yet!" I flared.