Author: Huckle

            “Mom! Why does Jade get the last bowl of chocolate Oh!s?”

            “Because I got up before you, bozo!”

            “Dufus!”

            I just smiled and ate my chocolatey goodness. It was the last of the sugar cereal, though, in reality, there hadn’t been much. Friday night had been a full moon run and Hope, José, T.J., and I had finished off the other cereals while watching Saturday morning cartoons. Owen always slept in and missed out on our fun.

            “Mooom, what am I supposed to eat?” Owen whined, slumping in his chair, his brown curls seeming to slump with him.

            For her part, my mom reached for her coffee, gazing into her cup as if there were something special in it. I wasn’t sure what she found in that mug, but she always was gazing into it when Owen and I fought…which happened often.

            “Owen, there are some frozen pancakes in the basement freezer. Jade, can you help him with the syrup?”

            Owen, who had run at the word pancake, stopped halfway down the steps and glared at me over his shoulder. “She’s six, I’m eight, I can do it myself.”

            Mom’s teacher brow rose, the one that meant business. “Can you do the butter too?”

            Owen froze, then stared at his feet, voice soft. “I could use help with that.” Then he slowly turned and finished making his way down to find the pancakes.

            Smiling to myself, I went into the kitchen and found the butter dish and brought it to the table with a knife and then returned to get the syrup. When Owen returned to the kitchen, he saw my preparations. “Do you want me to make you a couple too?”

            I just nodded.

            Happy we were finally getting along, Mom left to do her boring adult stuff. Finished with the cereal, I put my bowl in the dishwasher and waited. After Owen brought me the pancakes, I slathered them in butter and syrup. Once we each had a stack, we decided that eating in the basement with the TV on was a much better plan.           

            A few hours later a bunch of the pack kids came over to play while our parents did…stuff. They always seemed to need to talk. One of my best friends, Hope, hung out in my room to avoid her sister, Heather, who was only one. Her dad, Fred, was one of my favorite adults, besides my parents and my Aunt Allison and Uncle Jackson. Fred just “got” kids.

            Hope and I sat on the floor making Lego structures. She was a year older than me, but we got along great. Hope looked around my room. “Your parents are really going to let you paint your room? Please tell me you won’t choose pink.” As usual, she was wearing a pair of jeans and plaid button down. Her brown hair was cut short, and her blue eyes twinkled as she teased me.

            My lip curled into a sneer as I agreed with her assessment of the color. “Gods, no. I was thinking blue like the sky. Then I could get cloud and unicorn stickers. Maybe stars too.”

            Hopes brows furrowed. “Wait, would it be day or night?”

            “Does it really matter? Maybe the stars could glow.” Looking up at the ceiling, I smiled at the thought.

            The door swung open, and José and Owen crashed in. I glared at them. “What do you two want?”

            José flopped on the bed. “Hope’s sister is crying in the basement. We needed to get away.”

            “Owen has a room.”

            “And it stinks, chica. We need a place to be without screams or stinks.”

            Owen, who had flopped in my chair, laughed, spinning in the chair, hair flying. I’d seen my brother’s room. A shiver ran down my back; his room was just scary.

            Dillan came into my room, and I leapt up. “Aunt Allison is here!” I ran out, leaving all the boys to have my room as a hideout. Wait, Hope was there…well, close enough.

            Running down the hall, through the living room, into the kitchen, I found Aunt Allison sitting in the dining room with my uncle and parents, and Fred holding Hope’s baby sister with a bottle in her mouth. My aunt was drinking from a mug as I climbed into her lap to give her a hug.

            She put down her mug and squeezed me into a ball on her lap as she stared at my mom. “I hadn’t expected the tear on her leg, Hazel. You really need to find someone besides me to help on these calls.”

            “You know we trust you, Allison.”

            Curling tighter on her lap, I smiled over at my Uncle Jackson, who started making funny faces at me. Annie, his oldest daughter, roller her eyes at our play.

            Allison’s chest rumbled under me as she continued to talk to my mom. “If I hadn’t found the Yarrow plant, I don’t know that I would’ve gotten the blood to stop. He was out with his fiancé and she’s not a werewolf, she doesn’t heal like us. Her injury was serious.”

            Part of me followed their conversation, as always, but my play with my uncle was more fun. I twitched my nose like a cat at Uncle Jackson and he held up his hands and pretended to roar like a bigger cat and I giggled. In the background Aunt Allison described the plant to Mom.

            Mom’s voice became her teacher voice. “I may want you to hold a training session on these plants you know. It’s amazing you knew about that plant and its healing properties.”

            Aunt Allison pulled out her phone to show Mom a photo. As she pulled up the image, I watched what she was doing. I loved watching her work, she was the coolest adult in the pack. She always treated me like I was smart enough to understand. She talked to me and tried to explain things to me whenever I asked.

            With a shake of her head, Annie turned to my dad. “Will his fiancé be okay?”

            “Yes, hon, she’ll be fine. She’ll soon be the wife of our second, the wedding is scheduled next month. He’s new to the pack and just moved to Wisconsin. They decided to take a climbing trip up to Devil’s Lake and slipped while grabbing a hold on a climb. She fell part way down a cliff.”

            Annie paled but tried to look adult as she nodded. I curled in tighter to Aunt Allison. I couldn’t imagine falling from a cliff.

            After lunch we were all in the backyard playing. Fred came out. “Hope, love, Heather is getting fussy, it’s time to head home.”

            Hope and I were outside the treehouse watching the clouds telling each other stories of heroes. Owen, José, and Dillan were inside the treehouse playing cards. Ever since I learned the rules and started winning each round, they banned me from playing the game. I couldn’t help that they all had tells. They said Hope could join, but she stuck with me.

            Sitting up, she gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then leapt down. Before they went into the house, Fred yelled, “José, do you want a ride home, too?”

            José stuck his head out and gazed at me with his dark penetrating eyes, then shifted his attention to Fred. Bobbing his head, he shrugged. “Yeah, that’d be good. Better than walking.” Following Hope’s example, he jumped.

            I saw Owen flop back. “Now what?”

            Dillan started packing up the cards. “Could we play wolves and prey?”

            Owen popped back up, blue eyes dancing. “Jade can be the prey. With her black hair she can hide the best anyway.”

            Huffing, my face dropped. “I’m always the prey.”

            “That’s because you’re so good at it, sis.”

            “No, it’s because I’m the youngest.” I sighed. “Let’s go tell mom. We can’t go into the woods without someone older.”

            Dillan nodded. “Annie could come. Isn’t eleven old enough?”

            We all scrambled down and headed inside.

            They told me I’d get a ten-minute head start. I was hoping for five-minutes because they never could wait. I ran. As the smallest and the slowest, I had to make the most of this time. The goal of the game was as complicated as it sounded. I was the prey; they were the pack of wolves. None of us were really wolves yet. We wouldn’t know until we were old if we’d become a wolf…like really old…like eighteen or nineteen. Maybe not even until twenty.

            The pack of “wolves” let me out to hide, and then they’d come and find me. Though my family had a huge forest in the back yard, we limited the area I would run and hide. Small and clutzy, I knew my limitations. Sometimes I wish I could leap up into the trees like a cat or fly like a bird.

            I was jumping over tree roots and ducking under branches when I heard my brother yelp somewhere behind me. This prank of his wasn’t unheard of. He often tried to trick me into thinking he was hurt so he could catch me when I came back to help. I ducked behind a tree to wait and listen.

“It hurts! I’m not joking! Come on, guys!”

           This sounded real. But as my big brother, he knew how to fool me. Last week when we played this game, he had done something similar, and I had fallen for it. I had to learn these lessons. Not to mention, he had his “pack” where were Dillan and Annie?

           Trying to quiet my panting, I listened more carefully. Was he whimpering? Should I investigate?

           Holding my breath, I peeked around the tree. Seeing nothing suspicious, I let out my breath and slunk towards him. I tried to be quiet, but he was making so much noise I didn’t have to try very hard. Was this an ambush? My head whipped around looking for my cousins.

           After my cautious approach, I found Owen lying on the ground, clutching his leg, crying. The pain must have been bad. He was eight, a big boy, and never cried.

           Owen hiccupped. “Jade, do something. It hurts.” He sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He was lying in a pile of leaves and twigs and didn’t even seem to notice the branch poking his side.

           When I got to him, he seemed to calm down a bit. He still writhed on the ground, but his breathing slowed. His focus snapped to me as I touched him. He was obviously still in a lot of pain. His eyes glistened with tears and his was biting his lower lip. Carefully, I straightened his leg and saw exactly how bruised and bloody he was.

           What a mess. I didn’t think the bone was cracked, but he had obviously scraped his leg on some of the rocks and pebbles. I gently rubbed down his leg. He moaned in pain. Nodding, I thought it may be a small fracture at worst. Listening to Aunt Allison any chance I got had taught me a lot. I also watched her work whenever she had a pack member in the pack medical room.

           The blood made me cringe. I sent my eyes up to the sun and thought of Sonnara, the sun god. Give me guidance and strength. I didn’t know if it would help, but that’s what Mom always did.

           Organizing my thoughts, I wasn’t sure Owen could walk home on his own.

           Biting my lip, I tried to think of what to do first. I remembered what Aunt Allison had told my mom about using a plant earlier. It had a name like a crying cat… Cry? Yowl? Yarrow. That was it! I closed my eyes and thought about their discussion. Uncle Jackson had made a face like a panther…and…that’s it, I could remember the description Aunt Allison gave of the plant after Mom asked her. Then I thought about the phone and that image she showed Mom. Bingo!

           I searched around for the small, white-flowered plant. It didn’t take very long. When I found it, I stripped the leaves from the stem and covered Owen’s leg with them. As I worked, I focused on him. He finally stopped wiggling, allowing me to really work on his leg and the injury. I asked him for his shirt. He took it off and I wrapped his leg with it to hold the leaves against his skin.

           My hands were shaking, but Owen needed his leg healed.

           It was then I remembered we weren’t alone in the woods. “Annie, Dillan, Owen’s really bad off! We need your help! Where are you?”

           Turning, I realized they were standing behind me watching. They had watched me fix up Owen. Their eyes were wide, and their hands were shaking. They must be nervous…unsure how to help.

           I set my jaw in determination. We had to get Owen home. “Dillan, grab two sturdy branches, at least a foot long each. Annie, I’m going to need your belt.”

           Dillan came back with a stick longer than Owen was tall. Grumbling, I rolled my eyes.

           “Dillan. It has to fit his leg.” I heard the exasperation in my voice.

           He walked off and I heard some snapping. When he came back with the pieces, I lined them up on either side of Owen’s lower leg to make a splint, then got everything secured with Annie’s and my belts.

           “Annie, do you think this is tight enough?” She checked the belts and the sticks. She tightened the lower belt.

           “There you go, squirt. But he’ll still need help walking. Dillan take the other side, Jade’s too small.”

           I bristled at her words, but knew she was correct. After a few minutes of walking, Dillan got tired, and I took over. We switched out, taking turns with the squirming and panting Owen.

           The three of us did our best to support Owen home. When we got there, Dillan was under Owen’s arm, so I ran in to find my mom.

           “Come quick, Owen’s leg…he got hurt.” That was all I got out before a stampede of adults were running out to find him. I don’t think they expected him to be right there in the back yard.

           Before I even turned around, Dad was carrying Owen into the medical room. I followed.

           Aunt Allison looked over his leg. “Annie dear, who did this?”

           Annie’s eyes grew wide as saucers. Her gaze shifted from Owen to Aunt Allison to me. “It was Jade. The bandage was done by the time me and Dillan got there. Then she told us what to do for the splint.”

           All the adults looked at me and my shoulders hunched as I bit my lower lip. I wasn’t sure what I’d done wrong, but there were a lot of eyes on me all of a sudden. Then Aunt Allison knelt in front of me. “Jade, love, tell me about what happened.”

           For a minute, my mind went blank, then I searched the faces and gulped. Before I could decide how much trouble I was in, and figure out why I was in trouble, Aunt Allison said, “Just look at me, love, talk to me. Tell me about the game and what happened.”

           Staring at just her, I took a breath and started talking. When I got done, Owen and Annie both made sounds of agreement.

           Dad came over. “But pumpkin, how did you know about that plant?”

           “From today, Aunt Allison was talking about it.” Wait! Am I not in trouble?

           Aunt Allison eyes shone. “Jade, you have the gift.”

           Everyone in the room froze, then a sense of pride burst in my chest as I was engulfed in hugs.

           From then on, whenever there was a need for anything medical, I was called in to travel with whomever was going out, to help and to learn.

           I was to become the next werewolf pack healer.