Autumn (Wolf Children)

Chapter 5 - The Wallflowers

    Yuki said her party was cute-casual, so I wear a white skirt and a yellow shirt with a navy sweater and white flats. I plait my hair into a side braid, my auburn hair shining and showing off my green eyes.

    At her party, there's a big homemade cake that's iced in pink and navy blue frosting. "Happy Birthday, Yuki!" it says in cursive.

    Whenever I get there, a few girls talk to me, but I'm a social outcast in five minutes. I don't care; it's always been this way. Instead of gossiping, I sit on a cushion on the front porch and read.

    Footsteps come up behind me, and Ame comes into view, wearing his usual white shirt and navy pants.

    "Want to go to the mountain?" he asks. I sigh with relief. "I thought you'd never ask. There's too many queen bees here."

    I scribble a note for Hana, taping it onto the small porch table. Slipping on my flats, we start our trek up the mountain.

    "Do you know much about nature?" Ame asks.

    "I try to learn as much as possible by reading library books," I say, kicking a pebble off of the path.

    "Sensei could teach you, too," Ame says plainly. I look at him.

    "How?"

    "Well, whenever you come over every day, we can come up to the mountain and follow Sensei together."

    "My dad wouldn't-"

    "Your dad doesn't know you change into a wolf anymore in the first place."

    "Mom-"

    "It's your choice," he sighs. "Nobody will know about your wolf form if you only turn into a wolf up here."

    I never really considered that.

    "Okay."

    A flash of happiness crosses Ame's face. We change into wolves and run up the mountain, back to the tree where we meet Sensei.

    I learn how to hunt, read the terrain, and read the weather. Sensei is a really great teacher. At the end, he rewards us with a view of a beautiful river in the middle of a valley.

    All too soon, the pouch slung across my back vibrates. We go back to the path and change into humans. My flats and skirt are a little dirty.

    Checking my phone, it's a text from Yuki. She says it's time to open presents.

    Before walking into the room, I stop by the bathroom and rinse off my shoes, washing my face and hands. I also clean the rest of my clothes, brushing off the dirt.

    "Where did you guys go?" Yuki asks.

    "The mountain," I reply. "We just hiked."

    "Okay," she says cheerfully. "C'mon, we just cut the cake and it's present time!"

    Navy-blue-and-pink icing taste better than I thought. Our faces are smeared by the time Yuki opens a bottle of perfume.

    I step into the bathroom, washing the frosting off of my face. When I come back into the living room, Yuki plops down a package in front of me. Aki is written across it in curvy, painted letters.

    "Yuki," I laugh, "it's your birthday, not mine!"

    "I know!" Yuki replies. "It doesn't mean I can't give you a present."

    "Thanks!" I smile, hugging her and untying the string on the box. Inside is a hand-sewn, orange dress, a photograph of Hana, Yuki, Ame, and me, a book on nature, a brown leather journal, a quill pen with an ink bottle (I figure this is the exact same ink they showed me how to make a few weeks back), and a whole family of wolf dolls. There's a large, dark blue-scarfed wolf, a slightly smaller pink-scarfed wolf, another pink-scarfed wolf, another wolf with a blue scarf, and . . . a wolf with an orange scarf.

    I don't have to be a genius to figure out who they are.

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    "How did it go?" Dad asks in the truck.

    "I had fun," I say, staring out the window, hugging the box in my lap.

    "What's that?" he asks. "Yuki gave me a present, even though it's her birthday. She said she really wanted to give it to me no matter how much I denied it was her birthday," I reply, giving a small laugh. Dad sniffs and furrows his brow.

    "You smell like a dog," he says. "You didn't-"

    "Ame and I go on hikes in the mountain," I cut in. "There are a lot of animals up there. Birds, bears, foxes, a wolf or two."

    "Do the animals ever give you any trouble?"

    "No, Father! Of course not!" I say, almost whining. "If they did, I could always-"

    "No," he says sternly, staring straight ahead. "You cannot change into a wolf. It is for your own protection."

    "What if we found an empty park or something that was abandoned? I could change into a wolf there," I suggest. "Nobody would know."

    "Aki, where would you get such an idea?" he says. "If anyone found out what you are, you would be killed or taken away and experimented on."

    "What I am?" I ask, annoyed. "When did I become a what? I'm still human!"

    "Where is this attitude coming from, young lady?" Dad asks, warning in his voice.

    "It's coming from you not letting me be me! Mom switched from wolf to human all the time! She could do whatever she wanted, and you never told her otherwise!" I snap.

    "THIS is different!" Dad yells. "I am protecting you! I couldn't give a grown woman orders! You are MY daughter! You know what happened to your mother!"

    "So she got shot in the woods when someone got scared! That doesn't mean it will happen to me!"

    "You are a child! You don't know what's out there! I'm giving you my orders to protect you because you are a little girl!"

    I glare and turn back towards the window. "You don't need to protect a juvenile wolf," I mutter.

    "What was that, Aki?" Father asks.

    "Nothing," I spit.

    "Aki, I just want to help-"

    I turn around to see bright lights as the truck does a somersault in the air, time slowing down as the beeping of a horn rings through my ears.