Until my last howl

Chapter 3 - One last time

I awoke the next morning with a gut eery feeling, I felt almost like I wanted to be sick. I looked out my bedroom window toward the forest, it was still all misty and the weather was strange for this time of year. It was all cloudy and the clouds were dark, almost like they were going to bring heavy rain. We normally only get such heavy clouds during spring or summer, not in autumn.

"Rose!" my mother called me, "time for breakfast". "I'm coming!" I said in response.

I quickly got out of bed and dashed into the diningroom. My father was already sitting by the table eating. "Good morning peanut" my father said to me before turning his attention once again to the newspaper infront of him. "Morning dad, morning mom" I greeted both of my parents as I sat down. "I made omlettes this morning" said my mother as she put my plate infront of me and sat down to eat hers. "Delish" was my response as I dug in and finished before them.

I excused myself from the table but before I even got to my room to get dressed, my mother shouted "I don't mind you hanging with Lucy and Max today but you better have your butt home by 3 pm so that I can get you ready for the meeting!" "Duely noted mother!" I shouted back.

I quickly got dressed, sent a message to Lucy to let her know that I'm on my way and bolted out the door. I happily walked down the trail to their house wondering if their parents also told them about the alpha coming today.

"Sssshhhh, hhhhuuuusssss" I heard the whispers coming out of the forest again as I approached the turn to their house. I got goosebumps all over my body and I froze in place when I heard soft, faint footsteps behind me. I could hear someone breathing and it was getting louder...

"Boo!" shouted Max as he jumped and touched me on my shoulder. "Aaaahhh" I screamed at the top of my lungs and held my pounding heart. "Where in the world did you come from?" I asked Max. "From behind the tree" he laughed. "Max! What are you doing?" shouted Lucy. "Nothing, just scaring people" He yelled back at his sister.

"Well next time don't scare me" I said panting still trying to catch my breath.

He just laughed and I couldn't help but laugh with him, it was pretty funny, especially if I think back to the times when all 3 of us used to scare people walking by.

"Did you guys hear about the news?" I asked them. "Jip" they both replied. "Maybe the alpha will choose me" said Lucy with excitement in her voice. "He's not a very nice guy Lucy" responded Max with worry in his voice. "Maybe he will just move on and leave all of us alone" I said quite confidently.

"What you want to do today?" asked Max. "I don't really know" was my response. "How about we go to the park one last time?" said Lucy. "You know, before we are all grown up and everybody will look at us funny if we play in the park."

I laughed at how much sorrow her face had in it. "Even adults can play in the park Lucy" I told her.

The 3 of us happily trotted down the road and headed for the park. The park was situated in a beautiful meadow full of flowers and surrounded by the forest. "I pick the middle swing" shouted Max as he bolted for the swings pushing his sister out of the way and she fell hitting the ground. "Are you alright?" I asked while helping her get up. "I'm fine, I'll deal with him later" she said and skipped toward the swings.

I sat down on the swing and the 3 of us swung together in unison. There was this awkward silence between all of us, like we just wanted to remain in school for the rest of our lives, we didn't want to grow up and we never wanted to be apart.

"I got an idea!" I finally spoke breaking the awkward silence. "What's that?" asked Max. "How about we play rotten egg like we used to when we were kids?" I said with a smile on my face. "Great idea!" exclaimed Lucy while jumping off of the swing and looking for a rock that we could pretend was a rotting egg. "I'll go first!" shouted Lucy and started counting to 5 before she threw the rock while Max and I were trying to dodge it. "Ouch! shouted Max as the rock hit him on his leg. "I guess you are it" I said to Max with a wink and Lucy and I bolted for it running zig zag as we both knew that Max was a pretty good shot.

We played in the park and had fun that entire morning when Lucy spoke up. "It's almost lunch time and almost time to go home and get ready for tonight's meeting". "Don't be such a spoil sport" said Max as we sat down on the grass at the top of a hill.

"We will always be friends right?" asked Max with worry in his voice. "Of course" I replied, "nobody or nothing will ever break the 3 of us up". "If anything ever had to happen, let's all meet by our grandmothers house in the west part of the forest" said Lucy. "Great idea!" I told her.

Max looked down the hill with a bit of a naughty twinkle in his eye. "What are you thinking of doing Max?" asked Lucy. "Not much" He responded. "Was just thinking of the time the 3 of us had rolling races down this hill".

"I remember that" I laughed. "But you used to cheat, you would first start running before you dropped to roll".

"Me? "Cheat? Never! Not in a million years" replied Max very sarcastically.

I shrugged and rolled my eyes at him.

"How about one last time?" said Lucy with a glimmer of hope in her eyes. "One last time" I said with a smile on my face and the 3 of us proceeded to roll down the hill all laughing and full of joy, feeling like we were kids again...