Chương 11: GROUP WORK

I don't want to go to school. I DUN WANNA! I don't know if it's the super early mornings, the long crowded journey between home and school, the oversaturation of smells and noises in enclosed spaces, the constant assault of teachers and learning experiences, the other alpha wolf constantly on my back, or the love-sick vampire who thinks I'm her guard dog, but I woke up exhausted, and by the time I reached school, I was ready to call it a day. Heck, I was ready to call it a year!

What were the chances of an uneventful day where everyone would just leave me alone? It's Day Three, and call me an optimist, but I was seriously hopeful that everything would have settled down by now. When I reached class, Elena was there again, but she had moved to the desk next to Arlene. When she saw me enter the class, she shot me a look of disdain. I already knew she disliked me, so I disregarded her and sat down at my usual desk. Then I started feeling hopeful.

Maybe the loss of a desk buddy would result in being left alone. It certainly felt like a start in the right direction. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want to be hated by everyone. I just wanted a bit more space to mind my own business. Just a bit. And maybe the extra real estate that Elena vacated might be just the personal space I needed. Unfortunately, the desk beside me didn't stay empty for long.

The moment Liam and Jasmine came into the class, their eyes flitted from Elena to me, and without a word, Jasmine plopped herself down next to me. Liam dropped his bag where Jasmine used to sit and lounged back in his usual seat in front of her. He turned around and offered us his usual placid smile. The class quickly filled up. Some kind of musical-chair game took place during this time.

Since Elena took the seat of some other girl in the class, that other girl decided she might as well sit with her friend of choice. I wasn't paying much attention, but by the time Mrs. Henderson started homeroom, there was a human boy sitting in front of me next to Liam. Naturally, I ignored him. Mrs. Henderson stopped in confusion when she first saw us. It took her a full minute just standing there before she spoke.

"Oh, you changed seats! I thought I was in the wrong class!" She proceeded to struggle through attendance, and we found out that she had previously drawn a grid and had written our names in the corresponding boxes according to our desk positions. Even teachers had cheat sheets! I might have said Mrs. Henderson was an unremarkable female human educator on the first day of school, but I would like to revise my opinion of her. The math was boring, but she was not.

After editing her cheat sheet, she begged us not to change seats again. Then she told us that for homeroom today, we were to work in groups of six and make a presentation on decision-making methods. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. To make it interesting, we could have our group work done anywhere in the school. We just needed to be back by the last half hour to hear everyone's presentation. Liam helped her give out oversized pieces of card paper.

He handed Arlene fat markers to distribute to the groups. I saw Elena take first pick. She took four colors for her team. I'm sure there wouldn't be enough to go around now. True enough, by the time Arlene got to our half of the classroom, there was only enough for each team to get a single marker. Seeing that neither Henry nor Marcus cared about the marker shortage, Jasmine took it upon herself to head up to where Arlene was standing haplessly.

A small mob of kids had gathered around Arlene, but Jasmine managed to return to us triumphant, a purple marker in hand. She sat down and twirled her prize between her fingers. That was a neat trick. I tried with my pen, dropping it and making her laugh a bit. The boy in front of me suddenly went up to join the marker fray. I don't know why he decided so belatedly to get in on the action, but from how he was jumping up and down, arms flailing wildly, I doubted he would find any success.

Poor Arlene was swamped by the mini mob still clutching the last two markers against her chest. Liam came back to us with the last sheet of card paper and his usual easy smile.

"Let's go, I know a place." It was a good place. A wooden picnic bench next to the woods. Nice! Jasmine wrote our team member names at the top of our poster: Hen, Sam, Mars, Liam, Jas, and Troy. So the human boy was Troy. (He sure didn't look like a Troy.) Henry, or should I say Hen, lifted a brow but didn't comment on his new nickname. Jasmine could be pretty bold in her own way.

"I wish we could change colors," Jasmine sighed.

"Yeah." I had to agree. And at that, Liam reached into his pocket with a wolfish smile and pulled out three more markers: black, red, and blue. I was so impressed, I mentally promoted him to Delta. Jasmine put her hand over her mouth and squealed. I picked up the black pen and started drawing out the boxes. I tossed the other two markers toward the boys.

"Blue for general points, red for conclusions," I instructed. Then I tossed the black marker to Liam.

"You can draw in the arrows."

"I'll decorate!" volunteered Jasmine. I picked up my notepad and pen.

"Let's write the content here first before copying them out." Everyone contributed to the points. By everyone, I mean Henry — who also took pains to express how this was a waste of his time. I organized the information in my notepad, politely ignoring the alpha's personal complaints, and Marcus copied them out. After a few lines, Henry made Marcus and me swap because, while watching both of us write, he observed that "Marcus writes like s***."

So Marcus wrote the draft into my notepad, and I copied it out on our poster. Liam joined the arrows at the right places. Jasmine couldn't help much after writing out our names. Troy had snatched her marker and run away with it. Occasionally he would run back and do a kind of chicken dance, taunting her to catch him. A couple of other stray boys from a nearby group joined in the fun. At first, I didn't notice because I was busy working on the poster, and when I did notice, I left it to Jasmine to deal with it.

One werewolf vs three stupid human boys. No biggie. But it went on and on... Jasmine chasing in vain as they threw the marker to each other. I finally snapped when they decided to "join forces," which, according to them, meant standing in a ridiculous row to shake their butts at us.

"Oh, grow up!" To which Troy walked up to me — up close, the top of his head just reached my shoulder — but he looked up at me and asked, in what I presumed was his most venomous tone, "Do you know that I hate you?" I looked at the small angry human and honestly answered, "I don't care." And then I took the purple marker out of his hand and returned it to Jasmine. Jasmine received it with a quiet "Thanks." She used the purple marker to decorate the borders of our poster.

She doodled all the empty spaces with flowers and stars and hearts and crescents, which had nothing to do with our presentation — but she looked so genuinely proud of her efforts that even Henry cracked a small smile. What can I say? Jasmine was our pack's sweet baby sister.