HOW TO BE AN ALPHA: STEP 5 BE FLEXIBLE

By the time I got out of the room, Dad and Mum had decided that they could join the double date and make it a triple date.

At first, Dad had declined, but Beta Lucas and Mrs Beta had been really persistent. "I'll drive you and Luna there and back. Come on, let me treat everyone!"

Beta Lucas was pretty much offering to drive and pay!

Eventually, Dad accepted the invitation, although I suspected it wasn't so much Beta Lucas who convinced him than the sight of my mum's hopeful expression.

Dad sighed, "Alright, but it'll be my treat."

Beta Lucas looked very pleased about that. Almost as if he expected it.

"Sam's car isn't in use tonight, Alpha." Killion added as he poured tea for the ladies.

Everyone looked at me, "Yeah."

"I've come to the stage where I'm borrowing my daughter's car!" My dad said proudly.

"Which you paid for, Dad." I reminded him. He had no reason to feel proud of an achievement I didn't do.

"My daughter's going to be the next alpha." Dad said, unperturbed, "They grow up so fast."

"Time flies. We are just old men now." Beta Lucas announced.

"Old men who are late for the planning meeting." Dad joked.

"No," Beta Lucas shook his head, "I'm not late. As long as I get there before the Alpha."

"You asked for it." Dad left the house. Immediately, Beta Lucas ran out after him. I headed out too, Ben quick to follow. Mum and Mrs Beta were still finishing their tea.

Everyone was really relaxed tonight. I guess they were already in date mode. Or perhaps the planning meeting was rather informal. It was just our three families.

Gamma Harry, Laura, and Jonah were waiting for us in the conference room. They stood up when Beta Lucas opened the newly repaired door, "Alpha is here."

Dad stepped into the room. I followed. Ben announced with a smirk, "Princess is here."

The adults laughed. Jonah clapped and whooped unnecessarily, which made everyone laugh even more.

Ben pulled out the chair closest to Dad's for me. This was new... I knew announcing my arrival was done in jest, but Ben in Beta mode was still a strange feeling for me.

"I heard you caught our own warriors in the traps today." Jonah said the moment I sat down.

Eh, where did he hear that from?

Gamma Harry got really worked up the moment the topic came up, "It's so shameful! It was the biggest joke today. How can our warriors get caught in our own trap? Gamma Endo had been laughing at us all day! I have nowhere to hide our face."

Opps. I guess that was my bad.

Gamma Harry was not done, "And I heard two out of three of the traps had not been checked for months! I want to ask Hank why! When I was in charge of the warriors, I checked all the traps personally every week because if the trap fails or causes an accident, I knew I had to answer for it. Now that Hank is captain of the warriors, I hope he knows how to answer!"

Again, opps.

I was just fooling around, but I ended up causing trouble.

"But I saw Sam's set up, it was quite clever." Beta Lucas said, "If it could catch three warriors, I'm sure it would've caught any passing rogue."

"And I heard - correct me if I'm wrong, that it was Sam who cleared the overgrowth for the last trap. What's this? Who makes the Alpha pull weeds? What would other packs say?" Gamma Harry was no where near to calming down anytime soon.

"Who was the Delta with them?" Gamma Harry demanded.

"Flynn." Beta Lucas answered.

"I want to talk to him." Gamma Harry decided, "Jonah, tell Flynn to see me in the office tomorrow morning."

Opps, I did it again.

"Today, I had dinner with Endo. But when I heard all this from him, I couldn't even eat. I lost my appetite! I asked him: If his son and that Beta Harvey were accompanying the Alpha, why did they let her pull the weeds? Unacceptable! I told Endo to deal with them. If he doesn't, I will!"

What the... how did a simple patrol duty turn out like that? I was about to speak up when Ben answered, "What's done is done, Gamma."

What? Even though Ben addressed his statement to Gamma Harry, I felt he was directing it to me. And he was right. I did what I did, and Gamma Harry did what he did.

Still I couldn't just leave it. At the very least, Hank and Flynn wouldn't have to face a tongue lashing first thing Monday morning.

But to be honest, I had no idea what to say.

"It's just a patrol exercise, Harry." Beta Lucas said, "The kids were just learning to patrol together."

"Someone needs to teach them how to patrol with the Alpha." Gamma Harry would not let it go, "Even when we were young, did we ever let our Alpha pull weeds? Never! We pulled the weeds, we threw the trash, we took the crap! Not our Alpha. Our Alpha is the head - who uses their head to pull weeds?"

By now, Gamma Harry was so livid, his arguments were taking a strange turn.

I pressed my lips together to keep from laughing. Ben pretended to be thinking with his hands folded together in front of his mouth, but I knew he was trying to respectfully hide his amusement. Jonah was the least subtle, shaking silently behind his father.

{Beta approaches}

The other adults looked pretty serious though. Even Laura was frowning.

A knock on the door temporarily disrupted everyone's internal struggle to not laugh out loud or whatever thoughts the adults were dealing with.

Killion entered, "Luna is here."

Mum and Mrs Beta entered, "Sorry, we're late." Mum said.

Mrs Beta nodded her head in a bow towards Dad.

Dad simply smiled at Mum, "It's fine. We haven't quite started on the meeting. Lucas, perhaps we should wrap up our previous discussion and start the meeting."

"Yes, Alpha. Ben and Jonah! We will leave it to you." Beta Lucas decided, frowning at them sternly, "Next week, your Alpha duty would be patrolling on Morning Light Borders. I trust your fathers have trained you to be better than that."

The two guys suddenly didn't feel like laughing anymore.

"Since it was a more dangerous route, Gamma Endo himself will be your guide." Beta Lucas informed us, "You will prove to him what the second gen of Night Leaf leadership is capable off."

"But the Morning Light Borders - Sally's boy was attacked there just this morning!" Mum protested.

"Our sons aren't even shifted yet." Mrs Beta added.

"This is a matter of Night Leaf's pride." Gamma Harry started, "If we back out, they would call us cowards!"

"Well I will call us fools to send our boys there just because of our pride!" Laura scolded her mate.

"Actually, we should tell them to send their own Beta and Gamma on that route!" Gamma Harry suddenly swerved to his mate's side of the argument.

Gamma Harry argued the same way that he drove.

"Yeah, tell Harvey and Nix to join us." Jonah said, "I want to rub it in their faces when we win the bet."

"What bet, son?" Laura suddenly asked.

"Uh, nothing much Mum, just that we would score better at the alpha duty than they would."

"That's my boy!" Gamma Harry said, "Very good. Tell Endo to bring Harvey and Nix too."

"Well that should be safe enough." Beta Lucas said, "The patrol would be Sam, Ben, Jonah, Hank, Endo, Harvey, and Nix."

Safe enough? It was overkill.

"Nix hasn't shifted yet either." Mrs Beta remembered.

"How about Killion?" Mum asked, "I would definitely feel much less worried if Killion could join them."

They were going to burn out my betas. All three of them at once.

"That sounds like fun, goddess. May I come? I can drive you to Morning Light." Killion actually looked like he wanted to.

"Yeah okay. But let's leave Harvey and Nix out." I tried to compromise. Harvey because I didn't want to burn him out, and Nix because I didn't want to deal with his attitude.

"Why?" Jonah asked, "I want them to watch us show off."

That made me smile, but I shook my head, "If you guys can't play nice together, we won't play together."

"Harvey's okay, but Nix is a jerk." Jonah told me.

"Alright, then let's leave Harvey and Nix out, Dad." Ben said, "They were only included for us to show off anyway."

"I think that's good enough, they will be well protected with Endo, Hank, and Killion." Gamma Harry decided.

Yeah, we had to be the ONLY patrol in the whole world who needed an equal number of bodyguards.

"Let's start the meeting before the bowling alley closes for the night." Dad said.

This got the ball rolling.

Dad was about to go on a triple date. And I've got an overblown patrol duty lined up for next week.

These things weren't our ideas, but they weren't bad ideas, plus everyone was happy, Mum, the Betas, the Gammas, their mates...

And that's good enough for me. I can be flexible like that.