WHEN I SAY JUMP

22 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, HOMEROOM

We got back to class just in the nick of time. Like seriously, Mrs Henderson just stepped into the room herself. She looked up from the armful of papers in her hands, "Ah, okay, quickly take your seats. I'm going to give out your papers in a moment."

She managed to disentangle her arms from around the papers and unload them on her desk. I returned to my seat. Fluffy and EJ silently sat into theirs. Mrs Henderson wrote on the board, "ENGLISH TERM 1 PAPER 1" in large capitals. She put down the white board marker with an air of satisfaction, "Alright, now I'm going to hand out your papers. Do not turn the paper over until I say so. Please check that you do not have any notes in your pencil cases and all your belongings are up in front of the classroom."

I looked around. It looked like someone had moved my bag to the front of the classroom. Under my desk, which was usually empty anyway, was empty.

Jasmine signaled and pointed to where my bag was sitting next to hers. I mouthed her a "Thank you."

"There would be no talking or any form of communication allowed. Raise your hand if you need any kind of help." Mrs Henderson went on... it was all the standard exam rules though.

Fluffy raised his hand, "Sorry, my phone is still with me."

Mrs Henderson pursed her lips, "Okay, go put it in your bag."

"It's over there." Marcus pointed it out for Fluffy.

"Thanks, beta." Fluffy smiled his beautiful smile for Marcus.

"Don't smile at me like that." Marcus took offence, "That's just creepy."

The class laughed a little.

"Quiet!" Mrs Henderson raised her voice a little, "I know it isn't the finals, but I want you to take this exam seriously too. Take it as a practice for your finals."

Fluffy smiled and bowed on his way back to his seat, "Sorry, beautiful teacher."

If I were Mrs Henderson, I would throw a punch at him, or at least a shoe, but Mrs Henderson made a "Oh" with her mouth. Fluffy gave her his beautiful smile.

"Ah, well, take a seat Alaric." Mrs Henderson managed to recover. She obviously didn't find Fluffy's beautiful smile creepy. Hahaha.

"Yes, well, where were we?" Mrs Henderson was still a little flustered. She quickly went to the stack of papers on her desk, "Yes, I'm about to give out these papers. Please remember to put all your things up front..."

I think she realized she was repeating herself. She quickly added, "Does anyone else have their mobile devices on them? Smart watches are also not allowed because they can be used as a communication device."

What about mindlinks? Hahaha, but I decided not to complicate things for Mrs Henderson.

"Now, I don't want any of you to be nervous, I'm sure you're all going to do fine." Mrs Henderson said. But she was lying. My alpha wolf knew this. Hahaha. Was she freaking out on our behalf?

Honestly, I don't think our class was the most studious one in this school. Or maybe it was just the classmates I hung out with.

In my defense, I wasn't the one who chose them! Our friendship just happened. Not that I was complaining.

Mrs Henderson put the paper on the first table.

"Don't turn it over." she reminded the random girl who reached out for it. The random girl retracted her hands like the paper was hot to touch.

"Don't turn the paper over till I say you can start." Mrs Henderson reminded the whole class again.

Hahaha. We were like a class of noob students suddenly.

EJ raised his hand, "Mrs Hen? Do I have to sit next to Fluffy? What if he copies my work?"

Fluffy smiled, "Then we are both going to fail."

EJ took offence, "Stop looking down on me! Mrs Henderson, I don't want to sit next to Fluffy."

Mrs Henderson looked up from handing out papers, "What? Who?"

"A-la-ric." EJ said Fluffy's name like it was a hard word, "Can I sit somewhere else? Please?"

Cue the puppy dog eyes.

Mrs Henderson sighed and looked around for a spare desk. Of course there wasn't any.

"I don't think I can take my paper in peace if I'm sitting next to him." EJ looked truly pitiful, "He always makes me feel stupid."

"That's because you are." Fluffy was unrepentant.

"Now, that's enough, Fluff- Alaric. We do not use name-calling in this classroom." Mrs Henderson said firmly, her mind made up, "Alright, I'll tell you what, EJ. You may use my desk if you like."

"Yay! Thank you pretty teacher!" EJ bounced up. He dashed across the classroom to the teacher's table before Mrs Hen could change her mind and then made a face at Fluffy, "Watch me! I'll prove to you I'm not stupid."

EJ can be over-dramatic like that sometimes.

"Not like I can see you from here." Fluffy smiled, "But do your best."

"Yes, all of you do your best." Mrs Henderson nodded, "No please, no more interruptions."

"Hoi, hoi, okay!" EJ leaned back happily in the teacher's seat.

The rest of the exam went on without a hitch. When everyone received the paper, Mrs Henderson checked her watch, and then she nodded, "You may start.... now!"

The was a flurry of papers flipping over.

I turned mine over to fill in the blanks on the first page, "Name..."

Hahaha. Just kidding, yeah, I filled out my name and class and index number and turned it over to the first page. Paper 1 was letter and essay writing, so I read through everything and picked the question I would attempt. I even scribbled a quick outline for each of them before getting down to it.

If only real life could be answered so easily.

The letter writing component was really a formal letter, not to write a complaint, but a commendation. I needed to write a letter to the school to commend a student's honest actions because he had picked up my wallet and took the trouble to come down to my house to return it to me. Given that I lived all the way in the Green Packlands, his actions were truly heroic. I would never risk my life to trespass the Green Packlands just to return a wallet.

Yes, I'm just kidding again. Basically, it was a very standard and boring paper.

I chose to do the narrative essay instead of the serious ones about the importance of saving the environment. It was a choice between a factual, limited, exam essay and a fictional, limited, exam essay. Basically, the main character (me), had found a wallet at the bus stop. So I wrote about how it belonged to a vampire and how I infiltrated the coven to return it. Naturally, I included a fight scene in the climax... Okay, admittedly the entire thing was rubbish - this would never happen in real life, it wasn't even part of my outline, but I was on a roll and enjoyed the story so much that I forgot that I was supposed to be writing something standard and easy for my teacher to give me a good grade for.

When Mrs Henderson announce, "Last 15 minutes." I panicked and had to wrap up quickly. So all's well that ends well, the wallet belonged to the Coven Lord, and he realized my honest and good intentions and praised my honesty. Then just for good measure, he wrote a letter of commendation to my school in praise of me. The end.

I finished just in time to flip through the paper, count the number of words, and done.

"Pens down." Mrs Henderson commanded.

"Wait! Wait!" EJ yelled, scribbling furiously. Mrs Henderson pursed her lips, and then took his paper first. I think she had enough of his clowning. EJ pouted and flopped on the table, "Ah... its over!"

Then she walked around the classroom to collect all the other papers and reminded the rest of us to remain silent until all the papers were collected.

We had a 15 minute break and then Paper 2, which was less dicey because it didn't allow me to run off with my imagination. This one, I just had to choose the right answers, or fill in the blanks, or read a passage and answer questions to explain it. The important thing about answering these things was that you had to imagine that you were talking to a teacher who was very slow at catching on, so you had to explain everything in detail, and then link it back to the passage so that this particularly dim witted teacher would be able to completely understand you.

I wished everyone would talk to me like that. Maybe I would understand what's going on in my life better. You know, like "Why did Krystal betray me?"

ANS: Krystal betrayed the author because she was unable to withstand the temptation of the money offered. When she first sold the scandalous photo of the Author and Henry posed as a couple, she had meant to only do it "just once", but despite her friends' warnings not to do it again, once was not enough. The moment the money was spent, she started to think of a way to get more. She shrewdly reasoned that if she could sell off information that would not harm the author, she would be able to earn the extra cash without jeopardizing their friendship. Furthermore, Krystal knew the author had an open and generous nature and figured that she would be forgiven easily enough. Therefore, Krystal was unable to withstand the temptation of the money offered because the author, who was seemingly weak and easy to take advantage of, had done nothing to deter her from acting on her greedy and selfish human nature. It was my own fault that Krystal betrayed me.

Maybe that's what Henry meant about me not knowing how to control my own wolves too.

I neither deterred nor rewarded them to run according to my will. If they ran with me, I was their alpha. If they didn't, then I wasn't. It was completely up to them.

Was that wrong? To give my wolves a free choice? I frowned as I thought about Bell's underground army, they chose to follow me. I felt it, their allegiance rising that night. But then again, Bell had also offered them a second chance to pack life with us, and in exchange they did exactly as Bell wanted - whatever, whenever, and however he wanted. If he said, "Jump." They would ask, "How high?"

If I said "Jump." I wondered what my wolves would answer.

The bell rang and Mrs Henderson dismissed us. School ended early today - just for today though. We had multiple subject papers for the next three days. History and Geography, Science and Maths, Science Practical and Home Ec/ Design and Craft. Maria drifted out without a word the moment we were dismissed. The vamp didn't bring anything besides her writing pen to school today. Someone dumped my bag on my table for me, and then someone else put down the small stack of books that usually resided under my desk. I took my time to put them back.

None of the cool girls approached me. And I didn't smile at them either. It wasn't that I was mad at Krystal or anything. She was absolutely right, I didn't hold it against her at all. But I figured I wasn't going to make it that easy for her either. If she wanted to make up, she would have to apologize properly first.

The class emptied out steadily.

"Sam, you going down yet?" Henry asked as he got up to go.

I shook my head, "You guys go on ahead."

"Are you sure?" Marcus worried, "Do you want me to wait for you? Ah, not that I like you or anything... I mean, I'm just doing my job, not that I'm your beta or anything..."

I laughed and waved him off, "Just go on. I need to sort my notes for tomorrow first."

I pulled out my history notebook. There. All sorted.

"Yeah, okay." Marcus bobbed a quick bow as he disappeared through the door. Henry slapped him on the back once outside. They laughed about something as they went away.

"Sam, do you want the last cookie?" Janice came over hesitantly. She had her bag slung on her shoulder and the other "nice girls" in our class waiting at the door for her.

"Oh." I accepted the cookie, "Thanks. Exams make me hungry."

Janice laughed a little, "Ah, the girls and I are going to the library to study together, do you want to... urm... I mean... "

Was she inviting me? I nodded, and then remembered I had to go down to the Black Packlands tonight, "I can't today."

"Ah, sorry!" Janice said, "Urm... I mean, that's okay."

"Maybe next time." I said because I felt bad.

"No, urm. I mean, yeah, next time is great." And Janice fled. Like seriously fled the scene. The nice girls followed her out. One of them patted Janice on the back encouragingly.

I looked around. I was suddenly alone in the classroom. Now this was a first for me. Usually, I was the first out of the door.

"Alpha, you're still here." Fluffy returned to class in his warrior gear. EJ popped his head in through the door, "Hoi, hoi, Alpha! Beta Harvey's waiting."

"Is something the matter, Alpha?" Fluffy asked.

"Jump." I said.

"What?" Fluffy paused nonplussed.

EJ bounced his way into the classroom and over to us, "Me! Alpha! Me! I'm a good jumper."

"Why are you asking me to jump?" Fluffy asked.

"I'm testing you." I told him.

"I'm the best jumper! Test me!" EJ demonstrated by hurtling over two rows of desks. He cleared it too, but rammed into the third desk and everything crashed over.

"Owwiieeee..." EJ rolled over.

Ah...

"Don't mind him, he's fine." Fluffy waved it off, his smiling mask firmly in place, "But you, alpha, are not."

"I'm fine!" I insisted immediately.

"If you say so, Alpha." Fluffy bowed, but I've been with my betas long enough to recognize that was code for "I don't agree."

"Okay, then you tell me why I'm not fine!" Even as I said the words, I knew I was being just a little unreasonable.

Fluffy smiled, but this time, it was not his mask, "What Alpha is thinking, I do not know. But if there is anything at all I can do to help, please feel free to say it."

EJ got up and dusted himself off, "Uh-oh, I think the table is broken."

We went over to check it out. One of the legs were bent. Fluffy and EJ switched it with Troy's desk and then we ducked out of the classroom snickering like elementary school kids.

What was there to control if I felt my wolves were perfectly fun to run with just the way they were?