LITTLE BEN'S POV PART 2/2

So getting his own bedroom had to wait a little longer. Dad spent the next month cleaning out the basement (and throwing out their underground lair cardboard tech). Mum bought beanbags and went around garage sales and now the pups had a safe playroom in their basement complete with a big dollhouse like the one Lizzy had always wanted.

"This is amazing, Mrs Beta!" Sam had told his Mum when the two alpha daughters saw the place, "I didn't know you had such a cool place in your home."

Mum beamed like it was the best compliment she ever received.

This was also what used to be their locked storeroom with the groaning sounds in the night and Dad's alleged collection of skeletons. It was also their secret underground lair with the cardboard super computer... But nevermind what it used to be. Sam probably forgot. Sam was not someone who dwelled in the past.

"Come on, Ben! Let's go treasure hunting." Sam decided, "Today, we will be the first wolves to find the lost treasure of the Tyger!"

"There's no such thing as the Tyger." Ben said, "It's just a lullaby."

"Have you ever looked for the Tyger?" Sam asked.

Ben, Lizzy, and Savy shook their heads.

"Then how would you know he doesn't exist?" Sam challenged.

So they left the newly renovated basement behind in search of new adventure in their backyard. That's the thing about Sam... She always made Ben feel like there were infinitely far more possibilities than what he was living with. And also, it was never boring.

That day they discovered that the packhouse kitchen's cat could talk.

"My name is Peony, not Kitty." It told them when Sam gave it a piece of sausage, "I thank your pack for your hospitality. I came with my companions through a space-time passage and was separated from them. But I know where the treasure that you seek lies. I can bring you there if you know my name."

"Your name is Pony." Sam told it.

The cat licked her paws, "My real name."

"Your name is Kitty." Sam tried again.

"No." The cat said.

"Idiot." Ben guessed.

"Poochie?" Lizzy tried.

"Flower? Peonies are flowers right?" Savy asked.

"No, Savy. Ponies are horses." Sam said.

The cat stopped talking after that. Maybe it realized it was talking to idiots. And then a week later it disappeared.

Naturally, none of the adults believed the cat could talk.

Determined to prove it, the four pups made countless journeys around the Packhouse woods in search of the missing packhouse kitchen cat.

"Bless their hearts." Mama Rosa had said, "But the woods is a dangerous place this time of year. Damn those foxes!"

The other adults felt the woods was dangerous for puppies too (but more on account of the rogues) and as their search expanded further and the autumn got colder, it was decided that it was too dangerous and the puppies were confined to playing in their backyards.

By then, Sam had already come up with a new game of catching leaves.

"If you catch a falling leaf before it touches the ground, you'd be lucky for a whole day!" Sam informed them, "Let's catch a whole year's supply of lucky days."

"That's 365 leaves." Ben told her.

"Huh?" Sam sounded like the concept of numbers just occurred to her.

"But there are four of us." Lizzy pointed out, "We'd need way more than 365 leaves."

"1460 leaves." Ben said automatically.

"I know! We'll just give Dad the leaves. If our alpha is lucky, then the whole pack would be lucky." Sam's mathematical logic seldom added up.

But 365 leaves were easier than 1460 leaves so Ben and the other girls got to work. It was much harder than it looked. The leaf had to be falling naturally, you couldn't pluck it off the tree or even shake the tree to make it fall. It had to be a naturally falling leaf, and it must be caught before it landed on anything else. When dinner time came, they only had 321 leaves. Ben had kept count.

"What should we do?" Lizzy asked.

"It should be fine." Sam assured her, "Thanks for the hard work!"

But later that night, Ben looked out the window and caught Sam outside barefoot in her PJs chasing falling leaves on her own.

He put on his shoes and jacket and climbed out his bedroom window. There was an old tree with a swing just outside. The girls used the swing, but the rope was all Ben needed.

He grabbed a few fistfuls of leaves on his way down.

"Hey, Sam." He jogged up to her just as Sam jumped for a leaf. They crashed and the leaves flew all over.

"Are you okay?" Sam got up and dusted off.

"Here." Ben handed her the leaves still in his hand. There were only two left.

"Oh, lucky!" Sam beamed, "That's all 365!"

Ben didn't tell her he cheated. Those were not lucky leaves.

The next morning, their alpha was presented with a garbage bag of leaves. It sat in the corner of Alpha's office all year... And probably well into the next year too because everyone forgot about it.

The year went pretty well for their pack. It was the year high-speed internet came into their pack town. It was also the year their Beta Dad decided to take the family for a short vacation to the next continent. But their trip got canceled because of a sudden and unexplained typhoon that grounded the ships. The typhoon lasted all of two days and by then, Dad gave up on the trip and gone back to work. Ben blamed himself. Two leaves were his.

At least there was no one to blame him. Sam herself had long forgotten about the leaf mission.

The next time she came over, they played in the basement playroom. Normally, Ben wouldn't play with the doll house, but Sam explained that this was the packhouse and they were planning the security patrols for when she was the Alpha, so Ben had to be there.

They used an assortment of Barbie and Ken dolls. Mum got a lot of those because they were cheap at garage sales. The My Little Ponies represented the wolf patrols.

It was complicated. Some of the warriors were soulmates and had to always patrol together. This was solely Lizzy and Savy's fault, but Sam was just as bad. Sam wanted to always be the blue pony with pink hair. She refused to shift back to her human form so she wasn't allowed into the packhouse even though she was the alpha.

"You can't come indoors in your wolf form, Sam! That's the rule." Savy told her firmly.

"I'm the alpha! I'm the rule!" Sam insisted.

"You're going to ruin the carpet." Savy said.

"I'm the alpha! I will not!" Sam said.

"Look, let's just have the meeting outdoors." Ben decided.

"Let's run!" Sam decided.

"You're the alpha." Lizzy decided.

"Fine." Savy decided, "But after this, all our wolves would need a bath."

So the four ponies ran through the meeting quite literally, and then they filled up a shallow washbasin with water from the sink next to the washing machine and bathed the ponies.

Ben's tail came out halfway through the bath. This was when they discovered that My Little Ponies could be converted to water guns. Sans tails, the ponies could be filled with water and when squeezed, water would come out from its butthole.

Because of this, four ponies were now tailless. A necessary sacrifice for the power-up ability.

Luna was most apologetic when she found out about it. She came over with four brand-new My Little Ponies to make up for it.

"You really didn't have to, Luna." Mum said, "I picked those up from one of the garage sales for just a dollar or two."

"Oh, but the poor ponies." Luna shook her head, "I can't believe Sam had their tailed plucked out!"

Sam had to apologize. And then they played with the tailless ponies in the bathroom so they could have a real bubble bath. (The new ponies were excluded because Savy was quite sure it would upset the Luna if they lost their tails too.)

"Oh, Sam!" Luna gasped when the two ladies found their four puppies covered in suds. By now the game had turned into a pretend carwash business.

Ben had no idea what was it about Sam.

"I don't know what it is about Sam, Luna." His mother confessed over tea after the two women cleaned out the bathroom and got their pups dried and dressed. Ben wanted to know too. He stopped crunching on his Oreo to listen.

"But whenever she's here, Ben becomes a normal kid again." His mum confided.

"Is Ben still having trouble in school?" Luna asked kindly.

His mum turned to check that the puppies were busy eating their Oreos. Luna had brought some hot chocolate for them. Ben pretended to drink his hot chocolate. His mum lowered her voice, "He's better now. At least he turns in his homework, but his teacher is worried because he doesn't talk or play with the other pups."

"Why not?" Sam pipped in. Sam was never good at being discrete.

"Oh." The women looked surprised at being overheard.

"Why don't you play or talk with the other kids?" Sam turned to Ben.

"Cos they're stupid." Ben answered flatly.

"That's what he always says." His mum sighed, "His teacher says I should consider engaging a counselor."

"It's just his first year of elementary school." Luna said, "Ben's a bright boy. Just give him time."

"He's been like this since preschool, Luna." His mum bemoaned, "Do you think he's autistic?"

"I'm quite sure he isn't, Willow." Luna said, "Maybe he's just shy."

"You know what I think, Ben?" Sam interrupted, "It's probably just you."

"Sam!" Luna gasped, but Sam was quite sure.

"It's not that everyone's stupid. You're the problem." Sam pointed directly at Ben, "You're too smart."

"What?" Lizzy asked.

The adults looked baffled. It was the effect of Sam's logic, but Ben was used to it by now.

Sam continued, "What you should do is not think so much when you're with people. You can do lots of thinking when you're alone."

"Yeah, you get grounded every other day anyway." Lizzy quipped.

"Yeah." Sam nodded to her own advice, "Just let yourself be stupid outside."

Was that what Sam did too?

The next day, Ben tried it out on the boy seated next to him, and by the end of the day, they were best friends.

"Let's exchange lunch again tomorrow!" Jonah said.

"No way. Your lunch sucks." Ben answered. It was the stupidest thing he had ever done. It was a miracle. Ben found the one woman who was a worse cook than his mum, and her son sat next to him in school.

"Let's lose our lunch boxes on the way home. Then our mums will have to give us money to buy food at the school cafeteria." Ben told him.

"Oh. Good idea." Jonah nodded enthusiastically, "I know a good place."

They skipped the school bus home that day and buried their lunch boxes in the rogue graveyard. Ben had never been there before. That was cool.

His mum wasn't happy when he got home. It was nearly dinner time because it was a long walk home.

"Benedict Excalibur Kane! We've talked about this." His mum said sternly, "You can't skip out on the school bus!"

"But I had to help my friend with something." Ben said.

"Yes, but..." His mum stopped with astonishment, "Your what?"

"Jonah. Gamma's son." Ben said, "We lost our lunch boxes too. Can I have lunch money instead? I want to eat lunch with Jonah at the school cafeteria."

His mum wordlessly went to her purse and gave him a five.

And then she forgot about dinner and went to call Luna, "Luna? It's me, Willow. You'd never believe what happened..."

Sam happened. That's what. Ben knew and Ben never forgot.

He never knew what to expect whenever Sam was around, he couldn't quite figure her out at all. But he knew one thing, as long as Sam was around, the usual logical sequence of events didn't apply. And as far as his memory served him, it was never ever boring.