Chereads / Diary of a Teenage Alpha / Chapter 410 - THE PERFECT WARLOCK WEATHER

Chapter 410 - THE PERFECT WARLOCK WEATHER

FRIDAY, 12 FEBRUARY, 9 AM

"Sam, wake up! You'd never guess what you did now!" Savy shook me quite hard so that I'd wake up.

"Oh Savy, don't!" Mum gasped.

This was followed by movment of other wolves standing up quickly. Just in case they needed to take immediate action. Wha-?

I sat up and rubbed my eyes, confused at the morning sun in my dad's office. I looked around.

Dad's office was kind of crowded. Beta Lucas, Gamma Harry, Ben, Jonah, Lizzy, Savy, and all our mums and Sabre.

The news was running in the background on the flat screen TV mounted on the wall. Something to do with the weather again.

Wait... When did I come up to my dad's office?

"Sam?" Savy ventured, "Is that you?"

"Uh huh." I nodded. Was I dreaming? I was still in Ben's sleeping bag, but on the sofa in Dad's office. The smells around me indicated strongly that this wasn't another dream, no matter how weird everyone was acting, or how I had no recollection of getting here.

There was a collective sigh of relief.

"Okay. Good." Savy nodded.

"Whew, for a moment I thought her wolf was going to show up." Lizzy said.

The guys all took their seats again.

Eh? My wolf?

"What... did I do now?" I asked. I was half dreading to hear it, but it turned out to be nothing, really.

"Remember how I asked you to use your warlock powers to stop the snow?" Savy asked.

Uh huh? I nodded. I didn't have warlock powers but thethat was probably besides the point right now.

"Well, it worked! I can't believe it!" Lizzy burst out.

Sometime last night, a mysterious heat wave hit our Green Packlands, turning our snowstorm into a hail storm. Luckily the snow cushioned most of the stuff left out in the elements, except the trees. There was a lot of tree damage.

And then the snow/hail stopped sometime predawn, and now the temperatures continued to climb with the sun rise and the snow was melting fast.

Which made the roads icy but if the heat wave continued, the Green Packlands would be up and running by afternoon teatime.

Ki brought up my breakfast at this point. I frowned at it, "What time is it?"

"A little past nine, goddess." Ki smiled.

"And no one woke me?" I looked around bewildered.

"There's no reason to risk you going... ah... Chi-Ka-Boom." Beta Lucas informed me as if testing the new word in his vocabulary, "With your Luna out fighting now, it would be no joke if your wolf took over."

"But I never Chi-Ka-Boomed in my life!" I protested, "That was Bell, not me."

"Sam, we all saw it." Mum said firmly, "You nearly killed your own Luna."

I felt bad immediately.

"Our Alpha wolves are strong and they can take over when our guard is down or emotions run high. We all understand that control laspes happen. This is a normal part of being a wolf." Dad said sympathetically.

"Even you?" I challenged.

Dad nodded, "Even me."

"Yeah man," Beta Lucas shook his head at the memory, "I remembered the time when..."

Dad cleared his throat, and Beta Lucas quickly changed his tune, "Of course that was to be expected because he had such a powerful alpha wolf."

Dad decided to continue, "Until I met your mum, the possibility of my wolf taking over and hurting someone was always there. We are wild wolves, Sam. The more powerful the wolf the more dangerous when provoked. Always remember that."

And no one thought to tell me? Like did no one feel it would be important to say, "Sam, when you become the alpha, sometimes you might Chi-Ka-Boom and lose control of your wolf. Your hair might become swords, or whips, and you might end up accidentally killing those you love, including your own Luna."?

Instead they waited for it to happen and went, "Yeah, that's normal."

Dad continued with his meeting after that because "yeah, that's normal" and I listened silently as I ate my breakfast. It didn't take long for me to realize that this was the mid-morning update meeting.

It was all good news. The roads had been cleared and salted all the way to Gate City (on both lanes), as well as to Morning Light (where Harvey had returned with men to help Beta Gerald in their snow my and minor rescue efforts). Overall the storm and hail did relatively minor damage.

Most of the pups were out in the waist deep snow right now, enjoying the sunshine and building snowmen in the wet snow.

And everyone sheltering in the pack house had happily gone home. Even the pregnant couples.

Our constant ploughing and salting, just before the hailstorm forced it to halt, helped too. Our roads were usable. Which was a very big deal.

Technically, I could go to school right now.

Gamma Harry and Jonah were down for leading the clean up and then preparing the stock just in case we had to do this again. (Nobody quite believed when the weather report said that the warm front was here to stay for at least the rest of the week - if you remembered, they said the exact same thing about the snow storm.)

But if the weather report was right this time, then life could resume for us now.

Gate City businesses that dealt with perishables could look forward to fresh stock coming as soon as later this morning.

Schools in the Green Packlands would resume on Monday, and would be open as early as tomorrow for student club activities.

"Which means that we can go out the Gate City later and shop our dresses for the Vday dance on Sunday night!" Lizzy was near to squealing in excitement.

Savy, who had never squealed (or cackled) in front of "outsiders", was more composed about it, but I could see it plastered on her face in a big grin. She was totally over the moon.

Since everything in the pack was largely settled and Beta Lucas seemed confident that Gamma Harry and himself would be able to handle it "no problem", it was decided:

Mum and Mrs Beta were going to take the girls out to Gate City.

"The girls" included Lizzy, Savy, and me, even though I didn't want to go. It didn't include Sabre, who did want to go. But Mum felt the hours we would spend perusing gowns would bore the young girl.

I know it would bore me!

So Laura was going to babysit. Laura was enthusiastic. She planned to let Sabre watch Frozen at her place and make cereal necklaces, and maybe if the good weather persist, take her to the park to play with the other puppies after tea time.

I volunteered to swap with Sabre, but the ladies just laughed, and after I said I'd rather hang out with Laura and play at the park, Sabre decided that was the better deal after all.

The other ladies laughed at what they thought was a clever impromptu skit used to convince the preschooler to not come along.

So the adults all looked at me like I was the preschooler-whisperer to have adverted a little human meltdown, when in truth, I really did rather spend the day at Laura's.

Nooooo... I didn't feel like shopping today. Especially now that Laura was recommending a shop along the fancy side of the 16th Street, and Lizzy and Savy began talking about the upscale boutiques there.

I mean, going to the mall was okay, but little posh shops with salespersons with upper class accents and discriminate fashion sense was different.

Gamma Harry and Jonah were down for leading the clean up and then preparing the supplies just in case we had to do this again. Nobody quite believed when the weather report said that the warm front was here to stay for at least the rest of the week - if you remembered, they said the exact same thing about the snow storm.

Okay, nobody except Savy and Lizzy and probably a large proportion of New Leaf Academy female population. Youth was optimistic like that.

"Maybe I should stay and help out with the clean up." I offered in my second attempt to not go shopping.

"Oh no, my dear, no, no, no." Laura exclaimed alarmed, "Oh our Sam is such a good girl. But no, go shopping, buy a dress, and go enjoy the dance!"

Suddenly, I think Laura would have made a far more interesting fairy godmother for Cinderella. She would be a fashionable, saloon-styled hair, and well-manicured version.

I had to clarify, I actually liked going shopping, just normal shopping at the mall where I had lots of space to explore, not fancy shopping where you can't touch anything and the saleslady followed you around and gave you her opinion on everything.

And I definitely didn't feel like standing on my feet for hours waiting for Lizzy and Savy to try all variations of whichever color dress they had planned to get, only to change their minds and end up trying another set of dresses in a different color, before finally settling for a dress in neither color, but just looked good on them.

I'm not a terrible shopping companion, but I'm not a terribly good shopping companion either. I can give a thumbs up or down to your outfit, but don't expect any helpful comments.

That would be the saleslady's job. She would comment. I would sense her lies. Or the way she was all smiles until the changing room curtains were closed for the third time and she had decided that you were not going to buy enough to make this worth her while, or her continued pressure to buy more than you originally came in to get.

Let's just say Savy and I had a bad bite a couple of times at the smaller boutiques in the mall.

But in general I didn't have the tolerance to do stuff like shop, or nails, or hair, or spas, or anything that required a total stranger poking, pulling, painting, touching, cutting, or commenting on anything about me.

That's probably why the goddess gave Savy to my Mum. (Opps, sorry dear, the first daughter I gave you has a few bugs. Here's version 2.0. This one should work properly.) And then she gave Lizzy to Savy. (Oh you poor dear, here's another sister to fill in the gaps that your crappy sister can't do.)

Suddenly, the goddess talked a lot like Laura in my head.

And then I had a brilliant idea, "I have to go to school!"

Which was probably the worst brilliant idea I had ever had, because today was also Valentine's Day at Winderhill, and I couldn't show up without Vday presents FOR THE ENTIRE CLASS.

A quick mindlink to Ki confirmed that the balloons were still on the cards for pick up at 11am. He would call the shop to double check. All I had to do was bake those no bake fudge squares - which turned out to be impossible because they were no bake, so they would need to be left in the fridge for four to six hours.

WTH.

I had one hour to get something together. Then Ki and I would drive down to Gate City, pick up the balloons, and get to school by lunchtime.

"I can help." Savy offered, "We can make chocolate chip cookies in an hour with premix, and then go shopping an hour later. You can join us after school."

(We had cookie premix as a staple at the alpha house now, for whenever Sabre "needed more friends".)

Wait, no Savy. The only reason why I was going to school was to NOT go shopping. But awww... She was going to postpone shopping for her dress to help me bake.

I guess I could join them shopping after school.

Dad dismissed us from his office, and we grabbed our things from the lounge and left the packhouse.

Stepping out onto the porch, the sun was shining and the roads were cleared. It was a beautiful winter morning. We walked along the sidewalks our home - it was the long way around, but I wasn't cutting through the mess of white snow. I mean, I wanted to, but we had a tight schedule. I had to resist the fun. Ki was waiting for us in the Alpha house. When I had mindlinked him earlier, he was already "on it" with an urgency I had never imagined a grown beta would have to use to confirm a helium balloon order and set up the kitchen for last minute cookie baking.

The mess of snow sorely tempted me though. All along the sides of the walkway, you could see where the carefree kids had trampled off the road to romp about on the packhouse lawn. I even spied a couple of snow caves. Puppies liked to make snow caves.

Once upon a time, I used to be a carefree kid too. Those were the days.

Once I made a nice round snow cave, like the inside of an igloo and tried to camp outside, but Dad found me before dinner and I had to go home. It was getting too cold in my snow cave anyway. Snow caves were not the same as igloos, no matter how alike they look from inside.

"I'll go put down my stuff first, then I'll come over to help too." Lizzy said when we were across the street from her house.

"Are you sure?" Savy looked concerned, "Won't you have stuff to do for the dance decor?"

"Yeah, but I've already made the tissue flowers and Lola said that we only need to meet tomorrow morning in school to hang everything up." Lizzy said.

"Okay, I'll drop by tomorrow to help too." Savy promised.

"Cool. Thanks." Lizzy shrugged, "We can do our nails after that at my place so we don't ruin them while working on the decor."

Listening to Savy and Lizzy talk made me feel like I was the one in middle school struggling to bake chocolate chip cookies for her class, while they were the cool highschoolers who were preparing for a school dance.

Once settled with their "cool teen" conversation, Lizzy waved and crossed the street to the beta house while Savy and I continued our way back home.

It was just the two of us. It's been a while.

"We can add extra ingredients to the cookie mix, like nuts or dried fruit." Savy suggested, "That way they won't be just premix cookies."

"I want to add M&Ms." I decided.

Savy made a face, "You're making Vday gifts for highschoolers, right?"

"But M&Ms are magic!" I insisted, "Cookies need magic!"

Savy shrugged, "Okay, they're YOUR friends."

It was a lot like how Mum would say, "Okay, it's YOUR school project." Or "Okay, it's YOUR cactus." Or "Okay, it's YOUR sandwich."

In which she means it's NOT okay, but since it's mine, I can go ahead and gain some life experiences.

Thus I had experienced failing to complete a project because it was too ambitious to build a model of the entire Gate City out of ice-cream sticks. I did manage a few skyscrapers though. And then I ran out of sticks and time.

I was also experienced in removing and disposing a dead cactus safely.

And I now never added random satchets of sauces I found in the fridge into my sandwiches, particularly the type labeled wasabi. That green thing was evil.

This might make you wonder what would happen to MY friends. But I was going to give them cookies with M&Ms, not wasabi, so I felt quite confident I wouldn't mess up this time.

-----

Who else has a sudden craving for home baked cookies? Just me?

Sam's fave cookies:

1 packet of choc chip cookie premix

Whatever else your premix needs to be mixed with

Crushed nuts. (Find a few handfuls of whatever you have, mix in small ziplock bag and smash with heavy pan, rolling pin, chair, whatever)

Small pieces of dried fruit (raisins, cranberries, figs...if you liked it on its own, you're gonna love it in the cookie.)

A bit of oats if you are the healthy type (but I'm not).

M&Ms (or white and dark chocolate chips/broken baking choc if you are more of a Savy than Sam kind of girl. Do not use the normal chocs u eat cos no matter how magical they taste now, they will probably burn in the oven. Only M&Ms can survive because their magic only melts in your mouth, not in your oven.)

I make ALL the extra ingredients about the size of the M&M or smaller.

Follow premix instructions and make the batter. Add the "magic" (aka extra ingredients). Follow premix instructions to bake. Make cute bite sized balls (bakes faster) or large monster cookies (bakes longer).

My perfect blend is 50% dough, 50% magic. If it sticks, it's a cookie.