OUR NEW CLASS RULE

25 FEBRUARY, THURSDAY, AFTER LUNCH

I couldn't wait to go home and introduce Lucky to my family, but the rest of the day took so long, which meant that we had four cups of hamsters to keep safe until the last bell.

I hadn't realised how difficult that would be. I'm quite sure Zara didn't expect high school to be so dangerous for her babies either. She kept bemoaning, "I should've asked you to come over and collect them from my home after school."

After the episode where my white hamster got lost and found, a lot of the kids in class came over to take a look at what they were helping to find.

"Oh, it's so cute." Some of the girls would say.

"All that trouble for a tiny thing like that." Ivan had said, but he added, "I'm glad you found it."

"Next time, don't throw your hamster out of the window." Terrence advised.

"Of course she didn't throw it out herself!" Zara sputtered indignantly, "Henry was the idiot who threw it out!"

Henry had just been demoted from stupid to idiot. Haha.

"He didn't mean to." I said, feeling a little guilty about leaving Henry to take the rap, "And it was my fault too..."

"No. Don't say that." Zara said, "Sam, as a hamster mummy, there would be many times that you blame yourself, but it's not your fault!"

"It's Henry's fault?" I asked then, because I knew the boys were listening in on us again.

"Yes!" Zara answered without hesitation.

I nodded, "Okay. From now on, everything's Henry's fault."

Marcus coughed suddenly.

"What the hell, Sam." Henry grumbled. But he seemed relieved that Lucky was back, even though he didn't care to look.

"I'll take your word for it." He had said when I held up the cup to show him, "Just keep it in the cup."

It was a really happy ending at this point, but school was only halfway through.

The kids in class all realised by now that the four coffee cups all held hamsters. Some of them started to check out the other three hamsters.

And then one of the random girls in Abigail's group wanted to hold one, just for a bit.

Jasmine was too nice to say no, so her hamster got passed around. Unlike its owner, Jasmine's hamster was less nice about it and bit Abigail who screamed and dropped it.

So Jasmine screamed.

And suddenly all the girls were screaming like the hamster turned into a rat or something. EJ tried to help catch it, but he got tripped by Troy who was screaming louder and higher than all the girls put together.

The hamster escaped out into the hallway.

"Now what?" Someone asked when everyone stopped panicking.

"Your hamster bit me!" Abigail lashed out at Jasmine. Jasmine started to cry.

"Can you girls keep your stupid hamsters at home next time?" Ivan snapped.

"Can you be more sensitive?" Zara scolded back, "She's crying already!"

"All girls do is cause trouble and cry!" Troy commented, too loudly to be ignored.

"Shut up, Troy!" Pretty much the majority of the class yelled.

"Maybe we could clean the hallways?" Fluffy smiled, "And build class rapport and serve the school?"

But Fluffy said it in a way that made me think he didn't like Abigail very much.

"I don't want to look for a hamster that bit me." Abigail pouted.

"My hamster only bit you because it didn't like your bad character!" Zara defended her baby, quite forgetting that it was Jasmine's hamster now. Or perhaps in her heart, they were all still her babies, just on loan to us, the way the moon goddess gave pups.

"I hope the hamster didn't get poisoned." Leia said, "Poor hamster, having to taste something so bad."

Abigail was so livid, she turned dark red. If she were a wolf, I was sure she would be growling.

"You girls are going too far!" One of the random girls accused.

Liam came back into the classroom with the hamster. He had gone out on his own and caught it while the girls were arguing.

"Thank you." Jasmine smiled tearfully while holding her cup with her lost and found hamster.

Two periods later, Leia's hamster went missing too. She had taken off the cover because she was afraid the hamster wouldn't have enough air.

"I thought the cup would be high enough." Leia said. She didn't cry, but she looked quite close to it.

"Hamsters are very good at climbing." Zara the hamster expert thought to inform us now.

The guys had pretty much had it with us by now, they grumbled and groaned, but to my surprised they searched the classroom. We all did.

Especially after Fluffy remarked he wouldn't want to be the one to find a dead hamster at the bottom of his bag.

I doubled checked my bag just to make sure.

Some of the guys even "cleaned" the hallway outside.

And then we found Leia's hamster. In its cup. Exactly where it should be. Because it didn't climb out, it didn't even try. Quite the opposite, it had snuggled deeper into the bedding and buried itself inside.

I half expected Krystal to lose her hamster next. I wasn't the only one.

"Check your hamster!" Ivan ordered.

"I told you, my hamster is fine." Krystal tossed her head at him with a self assured smile.

"Just check it." Ivan said.

"Someone write on the board, no more pets in class." Henry ordered.

"But what about dogs, scary alpha?" Fluffy asked with a beautiful smile, "Should EJ and I sit outside the classroom?"

Fluffy was enjoying himself a little too much today.

So now, under all the dumb rules our class already had, we had a new one, "No small pets allowed."

And so we made it, hamsters and sanity intact, to the last lesson block of the day, Home Ec.

Our Home Ec building had completed its renovations and the damage done by the sinkhole named Maria had been rectified, so we went to the cooking class to meet Mrs Martinez.

I picked up Lucky's cup gingerly. Lucky had woken up sometime in Mr Lark's lesson and shuffled about. Maybe it was hungry. I had dropped a grape into the cup with Mr Lark wasn't looking, which wasn't hard. Mr Lark had brought in a stack of exam papers to mark. He told us to sit down and be quiet, "See here, I'm marking your papers. Be quiet and I will give you a higher grade."

We were quiet all through Geography, until one of Abigail's random girls who sat in front announced, "He's marking Troy's paper now!"

And then there was a small commotion, most of the noise came from Troy though, "Hey! That's no fair! Keep quiet! QUIET!" There was a certain irony.

He tried to make noise throughout the rest of the lesson to drag everyone else down with him, but Mr Lark had him sent out so all he could do was glare into the classroom at us.

Anyway, Lucky was quiet now, I hoped it would sleep through Mrs Martinez's class. I felt sure she would screech at the sight of Lucky until my ears would hurt. I wasn't the only one worried. Jasmine double checked that her cup was properly sealed outside the classroom.

Mrs Martinez noticed our tall coffee cups immediately.

"I'll let you bring those in," She allowed grudgingly, "But if I see any of you take a single sip from that cup, I will confiscate it and drink it myself."

Since all of us knew that the cups contained hamsters, we giggled.

"I really will." She warned us darkly, "This isn't an empty threat."

Part of me wanted to pretend to drink, just to see what would happen, BUT the other part of me convinced myself that it wasn't worth having Lucky thrown out of the window again. I was a responsible pet owner like that.

We put our cups carefully on our counters, and Mrs Martinez returned our exam scripts, "I stayed up all night marking them."

Now Mrs Martinez had to express her disappointment, "The other classes have at least two girls with full marks. You're supposed to be the top class of your cohort, but only one of you got full marks."

"Wow, someone could get full marks on that?" Zara whispered to herself.

"Samantha. I don't know how you did that." Mrs Martinez handed me my paper. She had arranged them according to score. I was the only girl with full marks on the paper, but instead of praising me, Mrs Martinez took the opportunity to criticize everyone else, "If even Samantha could do it, I don't know why the rest of you couldn't."

"How could you possibly all the answers?" Zara looked at me with wonder.

How could anyone not know the answer? It was one-word fill in the blanks and the sentences were lifted right out of the textbook.

"Did you read your textbook?" I asked.

It turned out that no one knew about the key notes printed at the back of the textbook.

"Who reads recipes?" Krystal huffed at the thought of reading the home ec textbook.

"Who reads textbooks?" Leia added.

Right. Just me. And Fluffy. Maybe Ivan too. I wondered if the great Alpha Henry had ever read our humble textbooks, or did he just know everything from birth?

After that, Mrs Martinez told us to sit at our places and do our corrections. My paper got passed round and I was left bored and staring at my coffee cup. I was really tempted to take a peek, but I resisted in case Mrs Martinez should think I was drinking my hamster. Mum should come applaud my self control.

I tapped lightly on the cup. Lucky kicked back and then it was quiet again. Sigh. So boring.

I wished something exciting would happen. I've often wished something exciting would happen. I remembered wishing it all through middle school... school was so boring! If only I could have an exciting adventure, just like the kind in those lycan tales. I've spent most of elementary school running through every possible imaginary adventure right in our backyard and its surrounding trees with my gang.

Of course in those adventures, I was always the hero. I was always the most daring, the most cunning, the most stupid, really. I'm not sure why the other pups followed me.

By the time I reached Middle School, I kind of realized that I won't ever be able to talk to woodland creatures, or summon snow monsters, or discover a lair of magical treasure, or anything remotely exciting like that. I think that was when I decided to become the alpha. I got tired of just imagining it. I wanted to do something real.

I didn't know real was going to turn out like this.

I sighed quietly into my hand. I wanted the live the life of adventure, just like a lycan legend, but then it got too real. I wanted to take a break from the complicated things at home, but now I was bored to tears.

I don't know what I want anymore!

I wish somebody would just tell me what I wanted!

{The first step of the journey is deciding on the destination.}

I always knew exactly what I wanted, whether it was that perfect blue dress, or a hamburger and fries. Savy had always said I was straight forward like that. I wanted to be the alpha. I wanted to protect everyone's happiness. I wanted to give ex-fightdogs and lycan slaves a second chance to life - a full life, running in the protection and security of a real pack. I wanted the Princess Town with the Wild Red Plum Trees. I was always clear and sure about what I wanted.

So what changed? Why was I suddenly lost?

Because it was hard. It was so, so, hard. And because I was afraid. I've already lost Bell's arm. What if the next mistake I made cost me more?

I looked at the coffee cup in front of me. Was Lucky happier sleeping in its coffee cup or running towards Old Black's kibble bowl? Would it be better to just let Mum and Dad lock me up in a tower forever?

I'm not sure why, but suddenly the answer wasn't all that clear to me anymore.