Wolfblood
Chapter 3
I sigh tiredly, staring up at the old house before me, nestled between the trees. It's a large stone building that's been standing for probably hundreds of years. It belonged to some great-great-uncle or another, I think.
Probably only a few hundred years younger than grandmother's childhood home in the UK. It looks similar, even though I only remember ever visiting it once.
Ivy crawls wildly up the side of the building and the yard is an overgrown chaotic mess. It will take hours to get it into some form of order.
"I can't believe you lost control," my brother snickers, passing me to enter the house. I scowl at his retreating back.
"I can't believe they gave me detention and let that squatch off with only a warning."
"You did physically assault him," my brother points out, dropping his knapsack just inside the door and immediately going to the kitchen for a snack.
"He assaulted me first," I defend, picking up his dropped bag and moving it to the chesterfield. "With his words."
"You broke his nose. He had to go to the hospital."
"I warned him," I scoff dismissively.
Noah wordlessly stuffs almost the entirely of his ham sandwich into his mouth. His brown eyes accuse me of almost blowing our secrete, and the fact that he's right is irrelevant to my frustration.
"Dust all the hard surfaces and sweep the floor," I tell him, moving to head back outside. "I'll clean up out here and then we can work on the den tomorrow. There are probably tunnels like the house in the UK."
It takes three hours to clean up the yard enough to clearly see the gravel driveway, and all the broken branches I have dragged away almost make a low wall between the yard and the forest.
I can probably drag a few of the bigger ones into the cellar to make the den more comfortable to a wolf. Being locked in there was torture.
After clearing off all the gravel, the rest of the yard is forest and there is no point trying to clean that away. So, I make my way inside to check on Noah's progress.
It looks good. Instead of smelling dusty and unlived in, there is a faint scent of lemon floor cleaner and soap.
"It looks good," I say approvingly to my brother just as he wrings the mop out in the sink. While he goes to put the cleaning supplies away, I go the refrigerator and drag out an entire roast to cook. Between the two of us, there won't be any leftovers.
…..
"So, what are you doing after detention today?" Jo asks, sliding into the chair beside me. If forces the twins to sit next to each other and allows me to keep an eye on them. "How long do you have that for anyway?"
"Three weeks," I sigh morosely. "And I'm going to finish up cleaning the house today. It's been in my family forever, but no one's lived there in nearly just as long."
"Why don't you not do that," Joshua says, flicking a piece of pepperoni at me, "and come hang with us down on the res?"
It's tempting. More so because I actually like my new friends. They tried to defend me to Mr. Greene who caught me fighting but, because of the way I look, he automatically decided I was at fault. He would have tried suspending me but because of all the witnesses hearing the squatch call me a dyke and getting in my face, the Vice Principal intervened.
"I have to watch my brother," I deny reluctantly, shaking my head.
"Bing him along," Isaac shrugs. "We're just going to the beach."
"Alright, then," I grin. I've never been to the beach before. It's one of the reasons we chose to come here rather than the UK. That, and there are actually real wolves out here and we won't have to worry about being seen as much.
"Noah," I call as soon as I see my brother. He comes out of the school alone again, and I wonder with a bit of worry if he's made any friends. "How would you like to skive off a bit of work and go to the beach?"
Like I knew it would, his face immediately lights up. "Oh yea, no, for sure!" he agrees enthusiastically.
"Well, then, hop on in, kid," Joshua says, opening the back door of the car.
Once everyone is in, I turn to my brother. "This is Joshua, the clone is Isaac, and this Beauty is Jo." Jo blushes a bit, leaning around to give a small wave. "Guys, this is Noah."
"The kid genius who skipped a grade," Joshua praises as he pulls out onto the main road.
"Our schooling is a little ahead of yours," I scoff lightly.
"Then why didn't you skip a grade, Ry-Ry?" Isaac retorts, probably trying to get me back for calling him the clone.
"Please, I beg you, don't ever call me that?" I grimace.
"Please," his brother agrees, looking completely disgusted. "That sounds like some sort of STD."
The car swerves a little as Jo leans forward and smacks him in the back of the head.
"What's an STD?" my brother asks innocently, watching as three pair of eyes widen and "Nothing!" is shouted, panicked, from all three of my friends.
My brother and I double over laughing.
"He knows what an STD is," I gasp quickly in explanation. "He was messing with you."
The twins immediately grin at each other, and I know that my new friends and the most important person in the world to me will get along just fine.
After about a twenty-minute car ride, we pull into a gravel lot, and I scramble out of the car hoping for my first view of the ocean.
It's very grey, is my first thought, before thinking how very big it is. I strain my eyes, searching the seam from where the grey sky meets darker grey water, and I see no end no matter how hard I look. Even though there is no sun out, reflections of light flicker over the bumpy waves as they rise and fall.
The water is calmer than I imagined, and an overwhelming scent of salt hits my nose. It's not an unpleasant smell.
"Wow," my brother, mumbles beside me, taking in the same view. Light grey clouds tumble overhead, looking as if they might part a bit if you just said please.
"Well, come on then," Jo says, nudging me slightly in the back, and making me realize the I'm keeping her from exiting the car.
We make our way onto the beach (I pause when I first step on the sand that shifts under my feet) and settle on a random spot. There aren't many people out and about yet. A mother and young child stroll near the waves to my left. The child giggles and runs away every time the water chases at her heels before returning to her mother when it recedes again.
"Most of the Forkians don't come out here until the weekends, but it's a nice place and locals, once they get used to you, are pretty friendly," Joshua says, laying out some towels that he brought from the car. "We usually come out once or twice a week."
I smile a little as I realize that I'm being invited into this tradition.
"You called this place the Res?" I ask.
"The Reservation, yeah. The Quileutes have lived here since before America was America. This is La Push beach."
I wonder, curiously, if my ancestors lived here before America was America, but probably not. It's likely they came with the western expansion. Maybe even with the first explorers.
"I'm going to go play in the water," Noah says excitedly, shrugging out of his school clothes until he is just in his gotchies.
"Don't drown," I say offhandedly.
"Don't drown," he mimics me, before darting into the grey waves. I feel a flash of homesickness for the clear Canadian lakes that are so clear and blue you're not sure that you're not looking at the sky.
I shake the feeling off as Isaac, carrying an ice cooler, tosses me a bag of ships. I grin at him before claiming the towel farthest on the right.
A/N: So, I already have the first 11 chapters written for this story, but I have not idea about an actual plot. I think this just might be a story were the plot is finding out each other's secrets... hmm. Anyway, I'm going to try and update once a week with this story, at least until I catch up.
Please review!
chesterfield- couch or sofa
Oh yeah, no, for sure- just means yes
gotchies- men's underwear; so like boxer briefs
~Silver~
