Bonnie Woods- They never stop

Plans for the better

As I exited the van, I realized that my whole pack were awake and waiting for me to join them.

"Morning, sleepy head", I heard my smart arse brother, Damien, say.

"I would kick you in the nuts right now, but we've got work to do", I said, walking over to the coffee machine. Can you believe it, this van has a coffee machine. 

"I didn't sign up for this crap", we all whipped our heads over to Mimi.

"Mimi, your six, not eleven. Anyways, we have to do this. How are we going to get Click back? And what if, by the time we reach her, it's too late and she's already moved on to a different pack? Look, I'm not saying we need to find her today, because we have no information, what-so-ever, but we need to make a huge leap forward. What if... we didn't make it in time and we lost our sister?", I held down tears at the thought of losing Click. I've only cried once in my life and that was when we lost her. 

Scar banged on the table and lifted himself up with increased enthusiasm, "Guys, you know Bonnie's right. We need to stop running and start working. Working to plan. Working to get out sister. Working for test subject rights. Get I get a hallelujah". Scar finished his speech as if to be one of those hell-yeah speeches, but that didn't work. At all. 

Scar sat down, a little embarrassed with his efforts. 

"Okay... So you know what we've got to do. First thing I thought we should do was train", they glanced up at me, "Yes. Practice our fighting skills. One of us was kidnapped because of this. We didn't have the strength or the skills to defend ourselves. Look, I know it's different to the usual but we've got to do this. Lock the car. Come with me". Solio locked the car and they all followed me. I didn't really think this would be training but it would at least give us something.

We were walking through one of those deserts with all those trees and I told them to stop and allocated a tree to each of them.

"What on earth is this? How is this meant to help us?", Damien

"What we are going to do is take off all of your trees leaves", they all snorted and giggled at, my apparent, witty behaviour.

"It's not a joke. This is going to test your skill and thinking tactics and how you handle a challenge that you are faced with and how, in that split second you deal with it".

"But Mimi has less leaves than me", Solio whined.

"Solio cut it", I snapped, "I spent my whole night counting and making sure people had the same amount of leaves so I wouldn't have to listen to your snivelling. On your marks-", Mimi cut me off.

"How come you're not doing it".

"Because Mimi. You and I both know that you guys have always been resting on me for solutions. Anyways I was doing it last night and I did it in less than a minute. You really want to compete with that?".

"I guess not", Mimi moped back to her tree and I began the countdown.

"Three... Two... One..."

Surprisingly the others looked energetic and up for their challenge.

"GO".

I saw that Damien and Scar were climbing to the top of the tree and were going to pull them out from there.

Mimi was working on a boomerang with a blade to chop them all down in about three or so shots. 

Solio, however, was shaking the tree and letting the loose leaves fall at their own will. 

Ten minutes later, none of them had got anywhere near close to finishing, so I called them in.

"'Kay guys. When I said get them out of the tree, I was looking for speed over skill. If it was skill over speed it would be very close. I was also meaning to get the leaves out of the tree, I didn't say only the leaves. What I did was I grab all the twigs with the leaves on them and throw those out of the tree. Kind of a trick challenge really. So now what we are going to do is to see who can know their tree fastest. Once again this is about speed. I'm going to give you an hour, as you may need tools. I hidden, I guess you could say, puzzle pieces that you need to collect, and there hidden in the bushes and trees and nearly everywhere else, you need to collect one of each and that will lead you in the direction of completing this task. Questions?".

"Do you need to do the puzzle crap?".

"Firstly, Scar. I just told Mimi off for her language and now I know why a six year old is saying impolitewords. But yes. They will lead you to something that must be accomplished in this task. Oh, nearly forgot, these pieces are only hidden in your sections. See the lines I have drawn in the sand, they are your sections. OK. GO!".

Scar and Damien looked like savages the way they darted up the tree, hungry for those clues. Yes, clues. They will lead them to something that will, then, help them complete the task. Mimi and Solio were way smarter than my brothers, they changed into their wolf forms and sniffed out their clues. They had both found two out of the ten already.

***

It has been twenty minutes and Mimi and Solio both only have one more piece to go before they rearrange them. I wrote a clue across a piece of paper and hid them in. They have to put the puzzle pieces together and do what it says. Anyways, Damien has six where as Scar has only four.

As I was studying their techniques I heard scuffles off feet running up to me. You guessed it, the youngest of the pack was first to complete the task. She whispered in my ear the words written on the paper: You don't really have to do this task, make it look like you're working so that the others continue to work. I know I'm a devil, but I want to see how long it takes them to find these pieces.

Next minute, Solio is there, whispering the words in my ear. He then scuttles off and does as the paper wishes. About five minutes later Damien told me the words written on the paper, whilst Scar is still on only four pieces. Just to aggravate him even more I shout:

"Scar. Is the only one without a piece of paper. The others are all onto the second, and final stage of the task.

After another thirty minutes I called them all in, and Scar only had six pieces of his puzzle. 

"Can you three please read to Scar what was written on the piece of paper", I stared Scar down, making sure I saw his reaction in perfect detail. 

And in unison the sung: "You don't really have to do this task, make it look like you're working so that the others continue to work."

Scar's face turned bright red and his hands went into fists so tight that they turned white. 

"Okay Dokey. End of training kids. Get a drink of water and then meet me at the table so we can think of ways to find Click".

***

I placed my map on the table and stuck it on a pin board and put pins in the places we’ve searched. 

We studied the map for ages when Damien snapped.

"Uhh... Pass it to me", he snatched the map and fingered it, almost as if he were playing the piano. He finally stopped after about ten minutes of that weird piano-ism. "Here. We have to go here". He said pointing to a small town in California.

Scar looked closer and read the town’s name, "Oh, that's one place you want to go to soak up the California sun. Bummerville".

"Scar, stop. Damien, how did you know this?".

"I don't really know. I, kind of, just had a sweep of energy flush through me, but I can guarantee that is where we need to go".

"Okay. Guys pack this stuff up. We're going to Bummerville".