Wolf's Creek (Book 1 of the Wolf's Creek Trilogy)

Chapter 2: Just Another Day

Chapter 2:

Just another day

            “Dad’s gonna kill me!” Albert exclaimed from where he sat next to his brother, a bottle of Gatorade clenched in his hand.

            “This is the third time this month now!” Paul exclaimed as he took a bite of his sandwich.

            “And what gets me is that A.J, once again, doesn’t get detention! How does this happen when she gets here at the same time we do!?” Albert exclaimed his finger pointing down a row of bleachers from where he sat next to Paul.

            A.J shrugged from where she sat, the straw from her juice box tucked neatly between her lips as she sat there staring at her enraged brothers. “Cause I booked it down that hall the minute I heard the bell ringin’ while the two of you stood there like a pair of fish with your jaws hangin’ open,” she stated simply, the comment earning a laugh from her best friend, Heather Wallace, who sat next to her on the bleachers.

            It was lunch time for A.J and her friends and Wolf’s Creek Senior high. Like always the, group of five teenagers were sitting on the bleachers of the football stadium eating their packed lunches instead of risking contracting salmonella from the slop the school attempted to pass off as food. Also true to their typical lunch break, A.J’s brother were groaning and griping about the detentions they received for, once again, being late for school that morning. The only reason A.J had managed to evade receiving a detention slip was her fast legs. The fact that she seemed to run faster than any of the members of track team has come in really handy.

            “That and A.J’s the fastest person in the whole school,” Elmer Harris, one of A.J’s close friends, stated from where he sat on the bleachers near the two Smith brothers. “And if that’s not true then she’s got to be the strongest girl. My butt still hurts from when she tackled me during that game of football in the eighth grade.”

            “That’s my Artemis!” Heather declared proudly as she wrapped an arm around the other girl’s shoulders, a smile on her tanned face as her brown eyes looked over what A.J was wearing that day. With a scowl she quickly withdrew her arm from her friend’s shoulders and crossed them in front of her pink blouse. “I thought I told you to wear that new blouse we bought this weekend?”

            “I gotta work at the garage after school,” A.J stated with a shrug. “It’d get ruined.”

            Heather sighed and flipped her golden curls from her shoulder. Despite growing up together Heather Wallace and Artemis Smith were complete opposites. While A.J was playing in the mud Heather was playing with her dolls and trying to force the tom boy to play dress up. To this day Heather still attempted to dress A.J up in more feminine attire but her efforts would always be in vein.

            “Honestly Artemis how are you going to get a boy friend if you continue to be one of the guys?” Heather asked with another dramatic sigh. “You’re going to grow old, all alone, with a million cats living in your house!”A.J said nothing in response to her friend’s concerns and continued to sip the remaining juice from her juice box. This made Heather roll her eyes and sigh once more. “You are so frustrating.”

            “And I’m your best friend so what’s that tell ya?” Artemis asked with a smirk as she crumpled up the useless box and placed it into her empty brown paper bag.

            “Well if all else fails she could marry Elmer.” Paul stated simply as he pointed to the buzz cut hulk they called their friend.