Chương 278: PREPARING GRANDPA'S EULOGY

1 FEBRUARY, MONDAY, 7: 30PM We walked down the corridors lined with yellow and blue lockers until we reached a large sports hall. The hall had two of its large doors wide open and was full of students in dark-colored outfits with a single red paper poppy pinned on. That's right, New Leaf Academy students didn't wear uniforms. The paper poppy was about as uniformed as they would get—and even with that, the students had those poppies pinned in different places.

One would wear it on his shoulder, while another would wear it properly on his chest. Some of the girls wore them in their hair, which I had to admit was cute. Ben entered the hall without a moment of hesitation. The hall quieted in a heartbeat.

"Alpha Sam is here," Ben announced to the hall. What the heck was this? If Ben thought I wanted to prepare a speech by practicing in front of all these kids, he was officially stoopid.

"Greet my Alpha!" Ben ordered. The order was like a whip. Immediately, the students bowed and said together in unison, "Good evening, Alpha." I realized my gang was here among the students, so were Savy and Lizzy.

"All right, fall in! It's almost time we made our appearance," Ben shouted. The entire hall scrambled into sections of straight lines.

"Where the hell is Jonah?" Ben, the scary beta, wanted to know. Jonah ran into the hall late. He was perspiring. He ran directly up to the stage.

"Sorry, I had to come from the high school section."

"Go check if the hall is ready," Ben ordered mercilessly. Jonah did an about-face.

"Oh, hi, Sam, bye, Sam." And he was out of the hall again. When Beta Lucas said the Gammas were the legs, he wasn't joking. Some of the students had laughed at Jonah's comical entrance and exit when he greeted me with a hi and bye, but they were quickly hushed by their friends. The students here, some of them were from Night Leaf, some of them were from Morning Light, but there was a large proportion of them who I had never met in my life. They were from neither pack.

Were they all the students we accepted from around the Green Packlands? Actually, I've heard that some of the students came from even farther parts of the continent. Dad said that many of these students wanted to get into a full Lycan school, but due to placement constraints at Black Forest Academy, would apply for both but end up here. New Leaf Academy was the second school of choice for most Lycan families. Why were we second? What's so great about Black Forest Academy?

I'm not sure why it bothered me; this wasn't even technically my school.

"How many of you want to be here?" I asked just to pass the time. The hall suddenly went quiet. All right, let's try again.

"How many of you would rather not be here?" I was starting to think I wasn't going to get an answer.

"Answer the Alpha," Ben ordered. A few hands tentatively reached out. I smiled.

"Really? So the rest of you wanted to be here?" I spied Tim standing with his arms crossed.

"Really, Tim?" I had to ask. Tim smiled and raised his hand.

"I didn't want to be rude," he said in his defense. I laughed.

"So this is the Middle School Section." I appraised it with my wolf. Yeah, okay. I didn't hate them.

"I don't want to be here too," I said, "but I need to make a eulogy later. So it'll help a lot if you like laugh at my jokes and be supportive and stuff, okay?"

"We love you, Sam!" Shannon shouted from the back of the hall.

"We'll follow you forever!" Now more of the kids were laughing. My hair flared. What the hell was that, Shannon? Suddenly, the laughter stopped. Oops, my hair freaked them out. I smiled my widest smile.

"Yeah! Just like that! Thanks, Shannon." Oh... and the kids here thought this beta was scary, so naturally, his alpha would be scary too. Who knew? Ben10 was the hot and scary beta in school. Hahahaha. Suddenly, Angela, Carlie, Delilah, and Darlyn were screaming, "We love you, Sam!"

"We love your betas more, though!" Carlie shouted. She slapped her hand to her mouth as if shouting it out loud had been an accident. I totally had to laugh at that.

"New Leaf is the best school in the world," I told them.

"Do you know why? For me, it's because you're here." The kids started clapping and whooping—most of the whooping was from my wolves. And then they suddenly quieted. Ben had lifted a hand, and they obeyed. How many times had I seen my gang respond like that to me? None. Zero. Zlitch. It was like magic. Beta magic. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

"All right, move out!" Ben ordered. Everyone turned to face the doors and filed out, row by row.

"See you guys later!" I waved. Ben sighed and looked at me.

"We should go too."

"How was that supposed to help me prepare my eulogy... It just distracted me!" I complained. Ben smirked.

"Well, you've won over half the school in attendance tonight."

"I'm delivering my grandfather's eulogy, not running for election," I grumbled. Ben laughed lowly, but his laughter didn't go unnoticed. The students filing out had slowed and started to hum in low whispers. Ben stopped laughing.

"Hurry up! Move!" The hum stopped and the line sped up to leave the hall. Ben gestured towards the door.

"Let's go before you completely wreck my cool reputation in front of the school." I laughed again at that.

"Tempting, but I shall refrain." Ben smirked. I guess he wasn't about to laugh out loud again. I shrugged. I liked Ben laughing a lot better than Ben the scary beta. No wait, that was a lie. I liked the scary beta side of him too. It suited his wolf. I felt Ben's hand on the small of my back and an impatient nudge toward the door. Why do all my Betas push me around like this? They act like they were being gentlemanly, or simply guiding or protecting their Alpha as I moved forward, but seriously! Especially Ben!

He pushed, I mean, guided me by the back closer to the nearest open door, which was at the moment blocked by the students filing out! And then suddenly, the line stopped for us to go through. Just a split second, as if someone had stopped to tie his shoelace, and we were outside of the hall. The line continued moving again. Suddenly, I remembered how Matt and Jules got me out of the school gate this afternoon. Beta magic again. It seriously made me wonder, with all this power, why the betas weren't the alphas.

Oh right, if they were the alphas, then they wouldn't have beta magic now, would they? They would be like me, barreling through each day with brute strength and a purely lucky sense of direction. Ben led me along the corridor, past the blue and yellow lockers to the central auditorium. I recognized this hall. Many of our larger-scale pack events were held here.

"We sit in front on the school's side," Ben informed me. I nodded. Okay, I needed to seriously prepare for my eulogy now. Ben ushered me to my seat, but remained standing next to the stage in front of me while the rest of the middle school section entered. Finally, Jonah reappeared.

"We're all in. Lola will be leading the high school section in now." Ben nodded.

"Where's Harv?"

"Last I heard, he was stuck in Principal Charlie's office," Jonah said. What should I say? What should I say? But my mind could only draw a blank. I tried to remember something about Grandpa Alpha, but I could only remember the dumb everyday things. He promised to take me fishing last summer! I wondered if he meant it. But stuff like that, I couldn't really talk about it to a hall of general acquaintances and strangers. What should I say?

It was too late to research about him and talk about all his accolades and fancy titles like the eulogies presented at his funeral. I should have taken notes last weekend! And I was the last speaker tonight. What if everyone said everything there was to say? What should I say then? Ben had taken a mic from the stage but was still standing in front of me. He just stood there, his eyes distant. He was on mindlink. Dad and Mum were near. I could sense them.

Now I would no longer require Wolfie to annoy me with the constant alerts. I was able to annoy myself.

"Alpha Kingsley and his Luna are here. Alpha Louis and his Luna are here," Ben announced in monotone into the mic. The students in the hall stood up and bowed, even as the high school students behind the hall continued to file in. The other wolves from Night Leaf were also beginning to enter the hall. Principal Charlie rushed into the hall. He looked somewhat panicked that the guests of honor had arrived before the general public.

Harvey walked in quickly behind him, calmly following the principal to my parents to greet the guests. Uncle Louis shook his hand and patted his shoulder, and then he turned and looked at me. Oh no. Wait, no, I can't let Uncle Louis get to me now. Focus on the eulogy. The memorial service would be starting soon. Principal Charlie and Harvey came over to our side of the hall next. I stood up to accept Principal Charlie's outstretched hand.

We shook, and Principal Charlie said how he was sorry for my loss and honored to have my first public address at his school. That's true. This would be my first public address. Well, it wasn't on TV or anything, but it would be on a stage in front of the members of Night Leaf and Morning Light, as well as other Green Packlands wolves, aka... the public. Alpha approaching. Alpha James and Edith Luna, and Lady Amber and Beta... Lorent? Or his son Anthony? It wasn't Ki... I was going purely by my internal wolf radar.

And more Alphas. The driveway must be busy now. I could actually hear the traffic from the road that ran around the school building. This was terribly distracting. I couldn't think with all the Alphas coming in and their cars driving out.

"Alpha Lorent and his Luna are here," Ben announced. Good luck naming all the Alphas from the minor packs. Hahahaha. To my surprise, Ben managed. All 11 packs. He could recognize them all the way from across the hall and announce them. I only recognized two of them. A very fat one that I didn't know the name of, but he had a loud and unique laugh. When I was a pup, I felt sure he was the person the humans called Santa Claus. And Alpha Jude, who was the youngest full Alpha right now, at 25.

He had less than 50 wolves in his pack, about 4 large extended families. They lived very close to our pack town and often frequented our local businesses. Alpha Jude was supposed to be a rather good-looking Alpha. He hadn't found his mate yet, though. That's the main reason how I've heard about him. From gossip. I didn't know him personally. Of course, every Alpha would come up front to shake Dad's hand and give their condolences.

And naturally, my dad would thank them for coming, unlike my Uncle, who would tell them not to be sorry. Oh well, to each his own. Principal Charlie would personally usher the visiting Alphas to their seats. He looked rather flustered. Perhaps he did not expect the large turnout. Of course, Alpha James and his Luna sat up front with my parents and Uncle Louis. We were the major packs. But major or minor, an Alpha was an Alpha.

They were all of Alpha bloodlines in varying degrees; they were all Alpha-sized wolves to varying extents. In the Green Packlands, we didn't fight over territory and eliminate smaller packs. We rented it out. All the minor packs had land. They paid a tithe every year to the Green Packland Council. Their Alphas also all have votes and seats in the council. But each Alpha had 1 vote for every 50 wolves. That would mean someone like Alpha Jude had 1 vote. And my Dad had about 6.

Only the Lorents and Night Leaf didn't pay a tithe because we owned their land. Morning Light was built on the land Dad bought. Their late Alpha Daniel did not have the capital to buy land of his own, and he rented the land from his good friend, my dad. That was actually the start of this tithe system. Because of it, our minor packs had been preserved. In most other packlands, minor pack wolves were often pushed out and forced to live too close to vamp covens or rogue lands.

Either that or they were absorbed by the larger packs. Dad said we had enough space in the Green Packlands to share. And it was this tithing system that collected enough resources to build up Gate City to what it was today.

"Alphas and Lunas, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for coming. The memorial service for Alpha Silas Kingsley will begin in five minutes. Please be reminded to keep all electronic devices on silent mode," Ben announced in pure monotone. Oh no! What should I say?