GETTING ORGANIZED ON A QUIET DAY

By the time I reached the train station, I had to stop worrying about Keys. No one had sent me anything, so I'm going to assume everything was alright. I was not going to text or mindlink back to anyone to check. I will not be the kind of parent who couldn't let go of their kid on the first day of school.

At any rate, I had my own day of school to contend with. Today, I finally took out my phone on the train ride to school, determined to set up my calendar and task list like the kind that Harvey used. Maybe if I could get the system up, I would be more put together, the way Harvey was.

Heck, if I could be half as organized as Harvey, I would be Alpha by now, but not Beta because I don't think I could ever beat my own Beta in this aspect.

Although, now that I thought of it, I wanted to beat him at his own game. I'm competitive like that.

So anyway, I opened up my calendar, meaning to input my school hours and days, and training sessions and stuff like that. To my surprise, it was filled in for me. Looks like my beta beat me to it.

He had gotten my school hours down, Tuesday archery club, Thursday training sessions... He even blocked out the travel times to and from school! There was Sunday Pack Breakfast, and the new alpha duties... I completely forgot about that. The meeting tonight had already been added too. I scrolled down to see what else... Valentine's Day, Alpha Heir Ceremony...

I filled in my Saturday: breakie with gang, Lycan study group... I usually had something on after that, but this Saturday afternoon looked free. Or were we supposed to visit Chloe again to hear out her proposal?

I had to ask mum.

Normally, I'd just let mum announce it whenever and go. This was the first time I would be asking her. I decided to text.

YOU

- Hi mum, when are we next meeting Chloe?

Man, I felt so organized and professional.

In the meantime, I decided to block out Saturday's space. I filled it in for "Hunt Rogues" because I knew Harvey would see it. I check on the calendar settings. Ben would see it too. I grinned stupidly to my phone and retyped the event as "Hunt Rogues. (Don't tell mum.)" I set it as a tentative event.

Hahahaha. I imagined their perplexed faces. Being organized was fun.

Mum replied my text when I reached school.

MUM

- She will be coming today.

- You can take a look at the concept boards when you get home.

YOU

- Okay, cool.

I actually did want to see Chloe again, it was funny when she called Flynn and Hank eye candy. Oh yeah, I entered another event into the calendar: "Visit Flynn and Hank" before dinner today .

I really needed to get homework done on the train today. I promised Jules to go home with the guys today though. We had always met by chance, so I guess if we happened to miss each others train, I could do the homework too. I wasn't going to schedule the guys.

I got to class the usual time, the cool girls and Jasmine came over to copy their homework and chat. Abigail had also made the cheerleading team, so we have two cheerleaders in our class.

Krystal, Zara, and Leia joined the choir. This totally threw me off. Could they sing? I had no idea my friends were so talented.

Pearl told me that the choir was short on members so they let everyone who signed up in. They also promised monthly karaoke events.

That sounded like fun. When I was younger, Mum had signed me up with Florence's children's choir. It was fun singing in parts and performing at the destitute home and at the pack house hall for our parents.

I liked the singing together, hearing our different parts merge as a whole. I also liked hanging around with the other kids taking part. Dean, Drew, and Darlyn were always there. So were Ben and Lizzy. And Savy of course. Sometimes other kids would join too.

When Florence wanted to start a children's dance group, mum signed us up too. I didn't like it though. It was supposed to be a children's dance performance where the dancers were all cute and small. I was really tall, it was awkward at best. Terribly embarrassing in all honesty. Savy had looked cute in the dance dresses. I hadn't. Florence let me stand at the back of the stage at every dance.

My only comfort was Jessica, who was also tall for her age. The other kid at the back of the stage.

Also that Dean and Drew had to dance too. And wear stuff I would never be caught dead wearing if I were a boy. And make up... I would never forget the makeup. At one show, Dean and Darlyn had a dare to see who could layer on the most blusher. Dean won. And as his prize, he got to go up on stage a red as a tomato. Florence was horrified, but it was too late, by the time she saw us next, we had been announced and were all up on stage.

Looking back, I was glad my mum signed me up for these things. I guess it was fun to try it, at least just once, even as a kid, or maybe especially as a kid because I don't think I will ever want to dance on stage again, not ever.

Come to think of it, it was probably a good thing I hadn't joined the dance club.

The rest of the day went by quietly for the warlock princess. A few kids asked me for more snow so we could have a snow day tomorrow. Henry told them serious decisions like that was up to the Warlock weather committee. Other than that, I was left alone by the other students for most part.

But by now, I had already learned to identify the calm before the storm, so I did the best I could with school work and waited.

School was busy. We had to hand in our art projects today. Which were supposed to be air clay sculptures.

I did pretty well, I made little sushies all in a row. I got the idea from YouTube. It wasn't hard to make and it looked cute. I think it started in me a craving for sashimi though. Specifically the salmon and tuna ones.

Henry tried to make a brown wolf majestically howling up into the night sky. It didn't look majestic. It didn't even looked like a wolf. It looked like something else that was brown though.

Marcus made a moon. A round one. As in, it looked like a dirty white ball of air clay. I don't think he was even trying. He spent most of the class as he did every art class, typing furiously on his phone. The miserable life of a Beta. I wondered if Harvey lived like this.

Jasmine made a Jasmine flower... But it was a frangipani. I didn't have the heart to correct her though. And it did look like a flower. Unfortunately, the petals kept getting pressed out of shape whenever she put the flower down. She would have to hold it for hours.

Pearl... didn't make pearls as Marcus suggested. She wanted to make a cup. It came out sort of unevenly shaped.

"Looks like a toilet bowl. Hen could put his wolf in it." Marcus said for my ears only.

Hahahahaha.

Henry's wolf was too big though. Alpha sized.

At lunchtime I received a text from an unknown number.

UNKNOWN

- Hi goddess. Here's my number, u lucky girl. Save it. -Keys.

It was so silly, it made me smile at my phone.

"Boyfriend or beta?" Henry asked wagging his brows.

I froze, "My brother."

"We already established that you don't have a brother." Henry reminded me.

"Cousin. I have cousins..." I managed.

"Yes, but you're a horrible liar." Marcus said shaking his head.

"Then you'd know it's true that he's not my boyfriend." I said.

"Hm... Maybe you're better at lying than I thought." Marcus rubbed his chin, pretending to give this consideration. He was teasing me? How dare he!

I didn't want to say Keys was my beta, there usually was only one beta in each pack, saying I've got two or three even...might raise unnecessary alarm about sudden expansions and what not. And technically Keys was my dog, but I didn't like to call him that, since he wasn't a dog.

"Is he cute?" Pearl asked.

"Will he come to school like your beta?" Jasmine asked, "The other cheerleaders said he was hot."

"This one is old." I blurted out, "He's my urm..."

"Cousin?" Henry offered helpfully.

"Yes. My cousin." I swallowed.

The guys laughed.

"Do you have a lot "cousins"?" Pearl asked me. She made air quotes over the word cousins. I narrowed my eyes.

"Not really." I mumbled. I shook my head.

My friends were laughing at me, but it wasn't a bad feeling. Whatever, I laughed too.