AN: Ok, I know I'm a horrible person for not updating in about two months. But good God! I swear I've barely had the time. First exams, then vacation, then stupid computer problems. I also have to share this computer with my brothers, and they like the computer—a lot. But believe me, I've been punished enough. Thanks for all of the reviews though. I hope that this time this chapter doesn't get squashed into on big paragraph because I swear I've got 52 paragraph breaks. I counted. Just a heads up: I'm going to be gone on vacation for the next two weeks with no access to a computer, but I'll update as soon as I get back.

Chapter 5: Diary

Throughout the whole day Brooke had been thinking of nothing else than how many ways she might torture Brian. She wandered how it had managed to slip his mind to tell her that he had two younger brothers—twins!—who attended this school, and were in her grade, and as she had found out, were in all but two of her classes (AP Calc and PE). Brooke hadn't been so engrossed in her hatred for Brian that she didn't eliminate five people from her list. That meant that she had four left: Liz, a guy in PE, a chick in English, and Helen. Brooke hadn't seen Helen that day, but she'd see Helen in calc after lunch. Brooke was starving, but there was something more important at hand than her growling stomach.

Five minutes later she threw open the door to Brian's class room. Brian jumped in surprise and looked up at her. Brooke glowered at him until she heard the click of the shutting door.

"Please, tell me how it managed to slip your mind to mention to me that you had two younger brothers. In this school, no less!" she hissed at him.

"Chase was supposed...."

"Don't go blaming this on Chase. You had plenty of opportunity to tell me," she glared at him. Not getting an answer she sighed and made ready to leave. "So, do you have any other relatives I should know about?" Brooke added sarcastically as she turned to leave.

"Well..." Brian started. Brooke spun around and angrily crosses her arms over her chest. "Liz is one of the pack, but I was going to tell you when she walked in that day." Sure you were, Brooke thought.

"By the way, it's down to P.E. guy, preppy-but-punk-rock English girl, and Helen." She added as an after thought as she opened the door to leave.

"Jeremy's clear. He's almost as peppy as Barney on acid," he told her as the door shut behind her and then opened again. Brian looked up, expecting to see Brooke back again but instead saw his two brothers walking through the door.

"Who was that?" Craig asked.

"Yeah, she's kinda cute," Brett added as the door shut with a click.

Fifteen minutes latter Brooke was rushing back to math when she ran into something quite solid. Books and papers went every where. Brooke dropped to her knees to collect her things. After collecting her books and papers, she looked up to see who she had collided with. It was Helen, though she was hardly recognizable. Her hair was in a very messy ponytail, her navy sweats and black t-shirt clashed, and her socks didn't match. Helen looked very pale and had dark circles under her. She looked exactly how Brooke felt. Maybe she was the stray.

"Hey Helen, Sorry about that," Brooke stood up and helped Helen to stand. "You look horrible. Don't you sleep?" Brooke asked as they walked through the door and took the only empty seats left and the bell rang. Brooke looked around the room for Liz and saw her, her head cradled in her arms. So she's part of the pack, Brooke thought. The next time she and Chase got invited to Brian's and she didn't have too much homework, she would go just to make sure Brett, Craig, and Liz were the only werewolves at the high school that Brian forgot to mention.

Brooke opened her math journal, but it wasn't her math journal. She realized she must have picked up Helen's by mistake, but this was no math journal. It was a diary. As Brooke flipped through the pages, key words and phrases jumped out at her like adopted, moon, and change. Brooke flipped to the most recent entry.

I had that dream again last night. It wasn't much different than last time. It keeps getting more and more vivid. Last night it almost seemed real, and I woke up exhausted. My feet hurt, like always, but this time my palms hurt, too. I don't know. It's really weird. I'm just running through the woods, but it's so real.

Brooke looked back at Helen. Her head was down on her desk and her eyes were only half open. Brooke wanted to know more so she turned back to the date of the last full moon.

It's only 8:20, but I feel exhausted. I'm going to go to bed.

Brooke looked at the next day's entry.

It's a damn good thing that today's Sat. I guess I was really tired; I slept until noon. I had that dream again, but this time it was a little different and a little weirder. In my dream I woke up and walked out into the back yard and unlatched the gate. I took off my p.j.'s and hid them behind the bushes (like I said, weird). Then I started to hurt all over, but it was a good hurt. Then I can't remember what happened next, but then it went into the regular dream. Got to go. Breakfast.

Brooke went back to the full moon before that one as well, just to make sure it kept the pattern. And surely enough:

I had the dream again. I know I've had it for forever, but it keeps getting more and more real...

Brooke stared down at the diary in amazement. Was it possible, if Helen was the stray, just to disregard the whole thing as a dream? Brooke looked over at Helen. Was it possible she didn't know what she was? She had to talk to Brian and let him read what she had found. Though, she realized, she'd have to copy it. Helen would want her journal back.

When the bell rang Brooke had finished copying down the three sections she needed. She knew they'd have to wait until the next full moon to be sure, but the more she thought about it, the more she convinced herself that Helen was, indeed the stray. Brooke would talk to Brian at the end on the day. Brooke quickly shoved her stuff into her back pack and waited until Helen was near her desk. Brooke got her attention.

"Hey, Helen. Can I have my math binder?" Helen looked confused until her eyes spotted the diary in Brooke's hands. Helen's eyes grew wide, but she recovered herself and fumbled around in her backpack for Brooke's binder. She found it, and the girls traded notebooks.

"You didn't read this, did you?" Helen clutched the journal to her.

"No, I didn't even open it when I didn't see my name on it," and for a moment, Brooke silently thanked the moon that Chase had made her write her name on all of her binders.

"Ok, I'll see you in art," Helen called out as she slinked out the door. Brooke made her way to English.

In art they were learning how to weave intricate pictures on an afghan. Evidently, Ms. Greene had taught weaving last year and the year before in her previous art classes. But Brooke, not having taken the art classes, was having plenty of trouble. She'd had to start over twice: once because her design was too complicated and again because she had turns her afghan into a big knot. She had finally come to a design of the night sky that only required five six colors. Brooke was now about ½ an inch into her afghan. She looked around; most people were at lest three inches into theirs. This is hopeless, thought Brooke as she sighed.

Ms. Greene came around to inspect her students.

"Very good Michael," praised Ms. Green. "Excellent, Helen. Staying with the wolf theme, I see?"

"Oh, I'm...uh...redoing my bedroom," Helen muttered as her fingers flew across the loom.

Ms. Green made her way to Brooke. "Have you ever done this before?" It was a rhetorical question.

"What does it look like?" Brooke was rather frustrated at this point.

"Hmm...Helen, why don't you come to a stopping point and help Brooke," Ms. Greene smiled and then continued her tour of the class. Helen left her loom and came to Brooke.

"How much time until this torture session ends?" Brooke huffed and Helen laughed as she checked her watch.

"Ten minutes." Brooke groaned.

"So, you're redoing your room?" Brooke asked as she made another knot in her afghan.

"Huh? Oh, yeah," Helen answered. "Cool theme. Your parents don't mind?" Brooke asked, and a dark looked fell over Helen's features.

"My parents don't even know I exist." Brooke gave Helen a questioning look. Helen offered an explanation. "I'm adopted. My real parents were killed somehow. I don't know. Well, anyway, my adopted parents couldn't have kids, so they adopted me. I guess they just see me as the-next-best-thing. After I turned 13 they stopped caring, I guess." Helen just shrugged. "So, what are your parents like?" Brooke swallowed hard.

"They were great," Brooke said in a small voice. Helen's eyebrows rose at the recognition of past tense. "They were killed when I was 11. Well, I've got 10 brothers. The oldest, Jack, was in college, so he took Chase, Blain, and Trent; they're older. And since Wyatt, the second oldest, was married, he took the youngest five."

"Oh," Helen plainly hadn't expected that answer. "Well, um, are you still living with...um...what's his name?"

"Oh, no!" Brooke exclaimed as she untangled her afghan. "He's got two kids of his own plus Dustin and Nate, the two youngest. Kevin and Ben are with Jack. They're both younger than me. Rick's at college, and so is Trent. Blain just got married over the summer. I'm staying with Chase here. He's the new English teacher—Mr. Whyte. He just graduated last year from VU."

"Wow. Ok, let me get this straight. You have six older brothers, four younger brothers, and you're an aunt. How do you keep up with all of those birthdays?" Helen looked at her with an over dramatic face of questioning and shock.

Brooke smiled. "Wyatt's wife Morella calls everybody two weeks ahead of time and then again a week before. She's so organized she scares the living crap out of me."

"Five minute warning! Clean up!" Ms. Greene called out to her students. Helen and Brooke cleaned up their stuff and waited for the bell to ring.

"Hey, what are you doing this Friday night?" Brooke asked Helen. "Nothing. Why?" "Why don't we go to the movies or something."

"Sure! Sounds great!" Helen exclaimed.

"I'll call you to sort out the details," Brooke said as the bell rang.

"Where are you going?" Helen asked. "I gotta go see Mr. Brian for extra help on this one problem," Brooke answered as Helen rolled her eyes.

"Perfectionist," Helen mumbled under her breath.