Little bird

Chapter 4 - The Pack

I saw the packhouse from a long distance, it was darker now and the windows were lit up by lights. The house was big and made out of wood and the alpha family spent a lot of time here, but they had another, smaller house where they slept and ate and acctually lived. There was even a big hall where everyone would gather when the alpha was supposed to announce something.

I went in to the kitchen through a smaller door on the side of the building and was immediately met by a thousand different smells and some smoke. There were a lot of people in the kitchen, not so wierd considering that there was supposed to be food for about 150 people in a few hours.

"Oh, hi honey!" Mom's head peaked up behind a big stew of some kind.

"Hi!" I answered a bit louder than my ordinary voice so that she could hear me over the loud volume in the kitchen. I was just about to ask her what to do, but someone interrupted me with;

"Bring these to the dining tables", and then said person dumped a bunch of plates in my arms, I was overwhelmed by the sudden weight in my arms and swayed a little, but was quick to catch my balance again. Of to work then!

I went up the little stairs from the kitchen to a long hall that lead to the bigger dining hall. The packhouse was cosy and had a nice, warm feeling to it that made you always feel welcome. I  really liked it and was pretty used to walk here with the smell of food in the air, it felt like home to me.

I went into the big diningroom where many people were already laying out cutlery on the tables. There were three big tables filling out the whole room. Usually the cubs got to occupy on of the three tables and then the rest were to sit on the two other tables.

After leaving the plates on a table I went back to the kitchen to help out some more and I turned out being the one to help carrying everything from the kitchen to the diningroom. After a lot of turns back and forth between the kitchen and the diningroom the guests finally arrived and everyone got ready for the announcement that we were going to recieve. Some people still didn't know that Erik was home, since the Alpha and Luna had decided to deal with it themselves before telling the whole pack, hence Erik being in school today and not yesterday.

People were talking exitedly in different groups while catching up with each other. Most of our pack lived in the town in their own houses, only a few in the group of houses that included the packhouse and the Alpha and Luna's house. 

It was starting to get more crowded in the announcement hall now, the exitement growing. Some cubs were playing with each other, some in their wolf form and some in their human form. These gatherings also allowed us all to really bond as a pack and that meant that everyone could shift and be in their wolf form if they wanted to.

I silently looked for Mike in the crowd, not knowing if he would be down here or up on the little platform in the front where the Luna and Alpha usually stod. As soon as I thought about him my hear swelled to almost its dubble size and a faint blush crept onto my cheeks. Suddently some more ... explicit pictures of me and him crept inside my head and then the blush grew so that I probably looked like a tomato instead. I can't think things like that! Or, at least not in public, since that would give me a small problem to deal with.

"Hey! Little L!" George Willer, one of Jeremys basketball friends, came pushing through the thick crowd, earning more than one annoyed look. He had come up with the idea of that stupid nickname some time ago and just couldn't seem to let it go.

"Hi", I answered a bit annoyed over the bad nickname.

"You here for the announcement too? I just think it's so stupid that some of the people doesn't even know what it's about yet. Bet everyone on the school already know he's back, he probably have already slept with like.. five girls!"