Chapter 36: Assignments

Assignments

Evan

I wake up at dawn to the sound of the door softly closing. Opening one eye, I see that it is Dominic returning after his third night out. Apparently Amelia hasn’t gotten tired of him yet.

I pull the pillow over my head while I hear him heading into the bathroom and taking a shower, but it’s too late. I won’t be getting back to sleep.

When he finishes and comes back out of the bathroom, wearing one of the plush robes River Moon left for us, I’m laying in bed scrolling through my phone. I have some text messages from my family asking if I’ll be able to make it home for Christmas. Honestly, I know I still could. Most of the pack is going back, and we don’t have anything that we have to do until the day after Christmas, when we are going to explore the lava tube.

But I would just as soon miss the drama. My family is all drama, all the time, my sisters constantly bickering and griping about their boyfriends, my brother and his rivalry with me, my parents and their frequent hints about why I haven’t settled down yet. I’m not even 25 yet, folks, give me a break.

I kind of wish that the pack was just staying here, so I’d have an excuse. Spending Christmas Eve surfing, then Christmas Day just by myself, maybe taking a hike, sounds so perfect. But my family will know that almost everyone else went back, and I’ll have to explain myself if I don’t show up.

Dom goes over to his suitcase and starts pulling out some clothes. He looks over at me as I hold the phone’s screen over my face and flick through texts with my thumb. “You going surfing still?” he asks.

I sigh. “I want to. My folks want to know when I’ll be home today though.”

“You don’t want to go home for Christmas?” he asks. “I would, if…” he doesn’t finish his sentence.

I sit up. “Yeah, what’s your excuse?” I ask him. “You have a family back at Dark Woods. Won’t they miss you?”

He shrugs. “Luna asked me to stay and help Amelia get the New Year’s ceremony put together. I have to drive her into town today to do some shopping for it.” He starts pulling on his jeans. “Then I’m going surfing with Theo. I thought you were too.”

“I just don’t know how much bother it will be to deal with my family if I bail on Christmas.”

He is pulling a shirt over his head. “Get Beta Nolan to give you something to do here,” he suggests. “If you really want an excuse to stay. Like, maybe, I don’t know how much cave gear River Moon has, so probably somebody needs to look into that today?”

My phone drops onto the bed. “Dom, you’re a freakin’ genius.”

He grins. “I’d be willing to bet there’s a sporting goods store in Eureka. Theo would know. Everything should be open today for Christmas Eve, with late shoppers and everything. You could surf for a couple of hours, then go and pick up some supplies.”

This is my ticket to staying here rather than suffering through another stressful family holiday gathering. I jump out of bed and go into the bathroom. I have to catch Nolan before they head out, and suggest that he give me this assignment.

Theo

Turns out we have quite the surfing group this morning. Five from River Moon, and two from Dark Woods. The weather is pretty clear, it might even be sunny down at the beach while we are surfing. We’ll have to take two cars to fit everyone - three if you count the car Dom is driving to take Amelia to Arcata.

After Dark Woods pulls away in their cars, all of them going home for Christmas except Dom and Evan, the rest of us head into the kitchen. The staff is off for the holiday, so we are just scrounging up some breakfast for ourselves. The leaders are all off doing their own thing, spending time at home with their families, so there aren’t many of us left in the pack house, and nobody of high rank. Our leaders are really great and all, but it is a relief sometimes to just have the grunts together. Just us plain wolves.

Amelia gets out some boxes of cereal from the cupboard and puts them on a table, along with a couple of cartons of milk. There are already bowls with fruit there, apples and oranges and bananas that the kitchen staff left out. I find a box of individually wrapped pastries, and yoink a cheese danish for myself before I add the rest to the little informal breakfast buffet. Someone gets out a big bowl of hard-boiled eggs to add to the selection. We’ve busted out some paper plates and bowls and plastic spoons so that there won’t be dishes to wash.

Evan asks me, while he’s putting some fruit and eggs and pastries on a plate, “Hey, Theo, Beta Nolan asked me to figure out what sort of cave equipment we’re going to need to get, for the day after tomorrow. Do you guys have any stuff here?”

Hm. “We have, like, flashlights, but I think we should check to make sure the batteries are all fresh. What else do you think we’ll need?”

Dom, who is right next to Amelia as usual, says, “It was really chilly in there, and the floor is very rough. If we’re going in our human forms, everyone needs sturdy shoes, and jackets. We should bring water and snacks, I don’t know how long it is so we might be down there for a while. Um, there aren’t any roads close by so we’ll have to hike in. Too bad we can’t just shift and run, since we’ll be carrying gear.”

Amelia says, “Actually, we have some carrying bags that we’ve designed for that. We can wear them in our wolf forms to carry stuff. It only works in places where there is no way humans would see us, but if you make sure to stay away from roads and stuff, you could carry everything out as wolves.”

“Oh!” he says, and looks at her with this adoring expression on his face like he thinks that she just this minute invented our bags. He gets a little grin. “You have packs? For your pack? Like, Pack Packs?”

Everyone busts out laughing.

“Well,” I point out, “we wear them on our backs, so they are really Back Pack Packs.”

Amelia snickers, and adds, “We’ll put food in them, so they’ll be Snack Back Pack Packs.”

A couple of other people have started looking up information on their phones about caving equipment, and one of them says, “There’s other gear we’ll need. Tack for the trek. To put in the Trek Tack Snack Back Pack Packs.”

We’re all howling with laughter by now, sounding like we’ve shifted and are pointing our noses at the full moon.

“Oh man,” I gasp, waving my hands and laughing helplessly. “Enough Dr. Seuss!”

We manage to get control of ourselves, and settle down to eat. While we’re having breakfast we start to make a sort of list of items to put in the TTSBPP’s, as we started calling them during the outburst of hilarity. Helmets are recommended on some websites we’ve checked, and ropes, harnesses, maybe headlamps. We’ll have to think about how much to bring to use in our human forms.

Dom says that there are really tight spots - the entrance he could barely fit into as a human, and their Alpha definitely could not squeeze in there. But he also says that once he shifted to a wolf down there he could see more. It’s possible we’ll have to shift back and forth, depending on the circumstances, and it’s going to be complicated to figure out how to gear up for that.

“There are a couple of sporting goods stores in Eureka,” I say. “Why don’t we plan to go there after we’re done surfing to check out the equipment. We’re going to have two cars, so Evan, you can ride with me.”

Amelia asks, “Will there be room in your car for the caving equipment you’ll buy, since you’re going to have all the surfboards and wetsuits and everything with you?”

Oh. “Um….”

Dom says, “My SUV will be empty. We can use that for the caving equipment.”

“Great,” I say. I point over at Evan. “Now, if everyone is done eating, we have to take this Grom out and teach him how to surf!”

“What?” he says.

We’re all laughing as we explain that a Grom is a surfing noobie. We clean up the breakfast, tossing out all the used plates and stuff, and put the rest of the food away, making sure not to leave a mess for anyone else. Then we head out to the cars.

Christmas Eve surfing and shopping, and not a leader in sight. This sounds like it’s going to be the perfect day.