Page 98 of Game of Destiny
‘Jake, you are our expert, We will take our lead from you,’ I said. I was happy to turn the leadership over to him for this.I thought we would spend some time following Jake’s direction and that would be it. I was wrong. After the first fumbling tries to set up the first stages, we all got into it. We started looking around, finding new things to add, giving new ideas to each other, debating colour choices. We started having fun. When we ended up using the only ladder as a ramp for our cookbook domino stage, Amie got onto my shoulders so we could build up to reach the bell in the corner of the room. When we were happy and took a step back from our build, it looked impressive. I walked up and knocked on the door.
“Please trigger your machine,” the speaker said. I nodded at Jake, who walked up and blew on a paper. It swung to cover a fan, which made a pendulum swing back. The pendulum pushed a toy car down a ramp. The toy car bumped a marble that fell into a funnel. After going round and round a couple of times, the marble dropped onto a plate that stood just on the edge and tipped it over. The plate pulled a string which dislodged a wedge from below the first cookbook. It tipped forward, hitting the next cook book and so it continued until the last one. As the last cook book fell on the floor, it hit a wooden spoon. The spoon flipped a switch, turning on a heating gun. It burnt through a string, causing a toy plane tied to another string to swing forward. Then the toy plane hit the bell and the clear sound was heard, we all cheered.
“Congratulations, Blue mountain pack. You have succeeded with the game. Your time was one hour and thirty-seven minutes. You may join the rest of your pack.” We all smiled at each other. This hadn’t felt like part of the Games, it had just been fun and relaxing. As we got to the viewing room with the big screens, I could see not all packs had a relaxing time as we had. Some seemed to not know what a Rube Goldberg machine was. I didn’t blame them. They were trying to figure it out, but failing. Others tried to get things in order, but then ended uptriggering a part of their machine, causing it all to trigger and them to have to start over. We were lucky that we had Jake who had experience and who had told us to put in blocks between the stages before we were ready. So when we had triggered a stage, it hadn’t triggered the rest.
“Good work today, Jake,” I said out loud.
“Thank you, Alpha,” he said and looked proud. I remember that I had doubted Amie’s plan to go with a diverse team on our second day here. I should have known she would be right. Jake and Amie, two wolves that wouldn’t have been picked in a team focused on strength, had been very useful and we would have failed, or done a lot worse without them.
‘This was fun,’ Amie mindlinked me.
‘It was,’ I agreed as an Alpha on the screen threw a chair at the bell before furiously going over to bang on the door.
“Slow Creek pack gives up. No points will be awarded,” the speaker announced.
‘I feel a little sorry for them. He looks like he is about to lose his mind,’ Amie commented.
‘I have a feeling I would have been the same if Jake hadn’t explained it all to us,’ I confessed.
‘Maybe,’ she said and handed me a bag with roasted nuts. I looked at her. ‘Focus on the screens, this is fun,’ she told me.
‘Really Red? Gloating?’ I asked and started eating.
‘Not gloating. Making the best of the situation. I’m excited to see how that pack does, they seem to have things under control. That pack doesn’t, but it’s amusing to watch the small temper tantrums their Alpha is throwing.’ I followed her pointing finger, and she was right. They were all amusing to watch, all for different reasons.
Chapter 49
Finlay
The playful mood stayed with us into the next day. Sam suggested we all go for a run in the woods and since none of us, except Amie, had shifted since we got here, we all agreed. As I shifted to my blond wolf, I felt the joy he felt at being free to run. The fifteen of us stretched our legs in the woods and after an hour of exploring, we found a large meadow with grass and wildflowers. A brook ran across it and it made me think of our pack land. Amie started a game of tags with Sam and soon most of the others had joined in. My aunt came to sit next to me as we watched the other wolves zoom across the meadow.
‘They are having fun,’ she remarked.
‘Yes. It will do them good,’ I agreed. After a while, they seemed to have had enough of playing and went in search of a good place to rest or went off to hunt a rabbit or two. Amie came walking over to us and sat down next to me. Her tongue was hanging out and her eyes glowed with happiness.
‘You should have joined us,’ she told me.
‘I had more fun watching,’ I said.
‘Coward, afraid that I would beat you,’ she corrected me. My wolf snorted.
‘In your dreams.’ I could swear she was laughing at me. My aunt rolled her eyes and walked away. Amie found a comfortable spot in the grass and lay down. I lay next to her and we both looked out over the brook.
‘Take a nap,’ Amie told me in our private link.
‘I don’t do that,’ I said.
‘Nap? Because I know that you do.’
‘Nap on unknown land,’ I clarified. She rolled her eyes at me.
‘I will stay awake and keep an eye on things,’ she promised.
‘Why don’t you take a nap and I will keep watch?’
‘Because you always keep watch, you make sure the rest of us can play while you keep us safe. But you need to relax as well. We don’t know what is coming in the next few days. So take this opportunity to relax,’ she insisted.
‘I can relax when we get home.’
