Raised By Wolves

Chapter 7

“Can anybody tell me what comes after the bison? Ella Mae? How about you?” the teacher inquired, gesturing to me.

“Huh?”

                I blinked twice and cocked my head to the side. The room smelled of chemicals and disinfectant. 

“What animal would come after the bison in this food chain?” the teacher repeated.

                 I squinted at the screen at the front of the room. I couldn’t read the writing at the bottom of the screen or even in the person’s book besides me. I couldn’t read or write considering I was brought up to hunt and chase. I was lucky to even have been able to adapt to human life as a human thief so fast and avoid detection from human betas.

“Erm… a wolf?” I guessed seen as it was what I was.

“Well done. Now Sophie, can you tell me how many joules of energy would the wolf gain by consuming the bison?”

“O.1,” A small brunette girl answered.

“Good. Now, get out your text books and turn to page sixty eight please and answer all questions.”

                  The boy next to me opened the thick book. The page blurred before my eyes. Pictures of cartoon animals were decorated at the bottom half of the page.

“Are you alright, Ella Mae?” the boy frowned at me.

“Sorry, I can’t read, or write,” I smiled apologetically as I admitted.

“Okay….” the boy raised his eyebrows and turned away due to the work.

                  His face was surprised as he turned to Sophie on his other side. He whispered something to her and she looked wide eyed at me. I smiled meekly in return. 

* * *

P.E was my next lesson, I knew that thanks to a blonde girl about my height but she still looked at me weirdly when I told her I couldn’t read. I wandered around the outside of the school before bumping into Devon. He looked sharply at me scolding but when he realised it was me, his eyes softened, just a bit.

“Ella Mae, I’ve been hearing some rumours round school. You seriously can’t read? Or write?” he looked at me expectantly.
“When you’re brought up in the forest, who cares about reading or writing?” I frowned, “There’s nothing to read and why write and what’s the point when you can just howl a message? And have you ever seen a wolf hold a pen?”

“Shhh! Humans are listening,” he glanced around him while people stopped, stared, whispered, then shrugged and walked away laughing.

“Devon, where’s P.E?” I asked, shrugging away the last comment and carrying on as normal.

“Follow me, but, try to not make it obvious.”

               I nodded and tried to follow Devon inconspicuously by crouching down onto all fours and trotting towards a wall. After a few minutes, Devon turned around to look at me. His face flushed scarlet as he jogged away. I carried on after him, still on all fours and picked up the pace. Once we got around the corner, away from prying eyes, he turned to me to look at me furiously. 

“What the hell do you think you were doing? Walking around on your hands and feet?!” he whispered in a harsh tone.

“You told me to follow you but not obviously,” I retorted.

“Why the hell did you do that?” he repeated, “I told you to act human. The humans of this world would report you and then you would be either executed or taken away to a lab!”