The Farm Girl Meets The Alpha

Chapter 1

I pull out of the farmhouse driveway on my red Farmall tractor and make my journey to the county house to help move some hay. I follow dad as I think about nothing in particular just enjoying the drive. Once I get to the county house I study it to try to see it for what it used to be. Currently, the county house is a two-story, red-brick building with a basement that is hardly visible from the outside that is falling apart. It used to have a big staircase on the front of it, but the stairs fell in a long time ago, although you can still see the doors it led to. Now only the metal balconies on the sides of the building are still there, but only barely. It's surrounded by trees and vines that cover the walls. I enter the property and look at my dad to wait for instructions. Dad gets off of his tractor and comes over to mine, "Scoot over," is what I'm told so I move to the wheel cover and dad climbs into the seat.

As dad as maneuvers my tractor around the field I think a little about what might happen at school tomorrow and whether I can rope someone into helping me next weekend. Two weeks from now is the first weekend of the normal hunting season and most of my family will come to our farm so we can establish a game plan (who will hunt when and where). My favorite cousin Justin and his dad will be here, plus a lot of my other relatives. There will be 11 people staying at our farmhouse, plus there will be other people there for breakfast and lunch. I will be cooking all of the meals, but this weekend I have it easy because I won't have to do breakfast or dinner. During the first weekend, there are people that cook breakfast for all of the area hunters in the local legion building and we have family Thanksgiving dinner at my grandparents house.

I realize that while I was attempting to mentally prepare for next weekend dad got done loading his trailer with the hay bales and was standing on the ground next to my tractor giving me a look. "Sorry, what?" Dad just shakes his head walks to his tractor yelling to me that we're going to our hay field to and using the pasture entrance so we can give the cows a bale of the hay. I follow him there and once again I scoot over. While dad has control of my tractor once again I look at the cows and start to smile because even though I might not like coming up to our farm every weekend I remember that this is my favorite place in the world. I mean it might sound cheesy, but this is where I love to be. All of my worries and anxieties from my "normal" life disappear while I'm here. I don't have to worry about what drama my friends have conjured up or whether I'm fighting with my mom. I turn to look at the direction of the pond where I love to sit on the bank and read during the summer and I see some eyes peeking out of the weeds and looking at me. I nudge dad and point while telling him what I saw.

"It's fine Josephine, whatever it was it's gone now," he responds with a weird tone to his voice. Dad drives the tractor back out of the pasture and he gets on his own, then we proceed to go to the farmhouse.

We get to the farmhouse and we go our separate ways. I go to the kitchen and make sure everything is in its place and check the dishwasher to see if there is anything in it. I start the dishwasher wondering how we ended up with five plates and about seven cups that are dirty after just two days when we don't even eat at the house. I head upstairs to make sure that I put the vacuum away after I cleaned the upstairs bedrooms and living room. I grab my farm bag from the girls' room and then go downstairs to grab dad's bags to take them to his truck. I'm heading back inside the house to do more of the weekly routine when I feel one of the cats rubbing on my legs while hissing at something in the distance. I see the eyes again and have a feeling that it might be a wolf or a coyote so I grab the BB gun from in the cat shed and start shooting around where I saw it. There's this law or something that says you can't shoot a wolf in this area and after I shot off a couple the animal turned tail. I felt a little proud of myself and then finished my routine.

I was waiting in the truck when dad finally got there and we went to my grandparents' house for dinner. We stop at Casey's and grab something to eat because they would have eaten already. I got two slices of beef pizza and a sweet tea (my favorite). We get to the townhouse (a nickname for their new house seeing as they used to own the farmhouse) and as we're getting out of the truck Lassie, the next door neighbor's dog, starts barking which is odd because she doesn't normally bark at us. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up a little bit, but I go inside as my dad turns around to see what my issue is. I take off my boots in the laundry room and walk into the dining room. The townhouse is modest considering what they're used to. It has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a dining room/den, a kitchen, and a living room. Once my grandma sees me she says, "Hi Josephine, you're looking more and more like your mother used to every week." You might think that this is a compliment, but I can assure you that it's not. My grandmother has never liked my mom and always said that my dad was too good for her, plus my grandmother called my mother fat before my mom started her diets and exercising. I just let it roll off of me and say, "Hi Grandma," as I sit down at the kitchen table to eat my dinner. Dad sits down to eat his as well and then once I'm done with my first slice of pizza my grandpa comes in and starts asking questions. "How's school going?"