The Alpha’s Mate Who Cried Wolf

Chapter 33

Without greeting Mr. Thomson, I enter the science room and place my bag on a table and sit in silence,

avoiding eye contact with Mr. Thompson and Nina.

‘Late again, Magnus,’ he huffs with his hands-on hip.

I shrug my shoulders and look away. Nina is sitting four tables away. It’s obvious she also isn’t happy to

be here.

Well, if you two think you are both going to sit here in silence, then you have another thing coming,’

Nina and I turn our attention back to Mr. Thomson.

‘I have borrowed some tools and a spare tabletop from the woodwork room. You will both spend

detention fixing the table you broke,

‘What! But I never broke it,’ Nina protests.

“Do not care, Nina, now come and take this hammer,’ he growls.

I abruptly step down from my chair and march up to the teacher’s desk, muttering and mumbling in

dissatisfaction. Nina takes the nails and hammer and I carry the tabletop. Nina kneels next to the

broken table and assesses it closely. I kneel opposite her and place the tabletop down.

Mr. Thomson walks towards the class doorway. ‘I will be back in thirty minutes. I expect the table to be

fixed.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say, waving him off.

Nina clears her throat. ‘Take the legs off the broken table, then we can nail them into the new tabletop.’

Without saying a word, I take hold of the legs and go to pull it off, but Nina interrupts me, tapping me on

the shoulder with a screwdriver

‘Just unscrew them like a normal person. Otherwise, you will either bend the legs or break them like

you did the table,’

Ignoring her suggestion, I pull the leg, ripping it off, but the leg is bent and crooked as she foretold

would happen…

‘Great one, Magnus, a broken table and a bent leg, just great,’ she huffs.

‘Well, if you think you can do a better job, then you fix it.’

‘If you didn’t break it in the first place, Magnus, I wouldn’t have to fix it.’

Our hands are on our hips as we glare at each other, grizzling in silence.

“Unbelievable,’ she says and kneels by the other leg and unscrews the good leg with the screwdriver,

as I should have done.

As she unscrews the last nail, the metal leg falls towards her. I grab it just before it hits her head. She

looks up in shock, but I’m not sure if it’s because she was about to be hit across the head or if it’s

because I caught the leg before it knocked her out. I take the leg over to the new tabletop and hold it in

place. She is still silent; her mind plays over what just happened.

‘Well, are you going to come 10 screw this in while I hold it or not?|I growl.

She shakes her head at her thoughts and kneels right beside me. Qur legs touch and I want to smile,

but I don’t. Her dainty hands twirl the screwdriver in circles until the four screws are in. I lean across her

lap to grab the bent leg, our faces so close for a moment that I smell her sweet breath reminding me of

candy. Her lips have a clear coat of lip-gloss, I guess the strawberry

flavour. Try to bend the leg back in place, but I seem to make it worse. Nina lets out a giggle, then

quickly places her hand over her mouth to hide her smile. Something flutters inside my stomach at the

thought that I just made her laugh like that. It’s a pleasant feeling, unlike the one I have had for years

that carries a sense of doom.

She finishes screwing the bent leg in and we stand back to look at the table that is on a slant. I place a

book on it and we watch as it slides off and burst into laughter,

“What do you think Mr. Thompsons is going to say?’ Nina sniggers

“Eh, who cares? It was fun making it, but then again I don’t want another detention,’ I say, picking up

the fallen book and placing ”

under the foot of the bent leg. The table is now leveled out.

We burst into laughter again and the fluttering I feel inside grows. Mr. Thomson walks into the

classroom. I hope the table is… finished,’ he trails off, looking at the bent leg propped up on a bodk.

‘Magnus and Nina, detention again next Wednesday.’

“But we both try to argue with him.

I told you both to fix it, not mangle it more! Now go home before decide to call your parents,’ he yells.

Nina and I both gulp and run out the door together. Seeing as we both live at the Packhouse, we both

walked towards home together in silence, but it was a nice silence though.

Walking along the grass, she sees a baby bird chirping near a tree and rushes over to it. I follow her

and watch as she scoops it up.

The poor thing has fallen from its nest,’ she says as she stares up at the extremely tall tree. I’m going

to put it back in its nest.’

You can’t climb up there Nina, this tree is even taller than what I would even climb,’ the bird chirps in

her hands. It’s quite cute to look at. I gently scratch its little head to reassure it. It relaxes and snuggles

further into Nina’s hand. I can feel our bodies radiating warmth and realise how close I’m standing to

Nina. I take a step back, giving her space.

Well, I can’t leave it here, Magnus. I’m going up there with or without your permission,’ she says and

grabs onto the first branch.

Fine, but I’m coming with you, only because if something happens to you, I will get the blame for it.’

Nina laughs. You won’t get the blame for my actions, Magnus,’ she says, now on the third branch.

I climb below her in case she accidentally falls. I don’t want her to get hurt.

Uh, yeah I will. I always get blamed for anything you pull.’

Her laugh echoed through the trees as she grabs the tenth branch. It was like beautiful music to my

ears.

‘Don’t be so absurd Magnus, you think too highly of yourself. I get into plenty of trouble myself each

day, although once upon a time we used to get into trouble together and we had so much fun doing so,’

I laugh, ‘Fun? Anything we did as a child was far from fun, from what I remember,’

‘Well, you remember wrong,’ she says.

I look down at the ground. We must be at least forty branches high.

‘Enlighten me then,’

Okay, remember the time the laundry overflowed with bubbles and we would play hide and seek to find

each other?’

“Yeah,’

‘Well, Magnus, that was your idea to fill the washing machine up with bubble bath and turn it on, and if

you remember, I took the blame for it’

I forgot she had taken the blame for it. She had to mop it all up and went to bed without supper. I snuck

into her room and gave her a sandwich that night

“And then there was the night we wanted to watch the moon from the roof. We went climbing through

May’s bedroom window, but when you tried to open it, it wouldn’t budge. You used such force that the

whole window fell out and crashed onto the pavers outs de You went and hid in May’s wardrobe and I

took the blame,

She saght, I remember now. My parents would have been so mad at me for wanting to climb onto the

roof in the first place, let alone breaking a window in the process of it all. I had run straight to the

wardrobe and hid inside and watched through the crack as May decided not to tude and look the blame

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Well, I got » so much vouble because I wanted to protect you, you were my best friend. I thought it

would be fun to play a couple of plants on you in return for a bit of fun, and so we would be even I

heard the warriors say the next morning they will need to felease some water from the dam You were

refusing to have your bath the day before anyway, so I thought it would be funny to have you stand

more oleek while the water washed over you I know you were twice the size of most kids, so the water

would only reach your waist, but you acted so dramatically that day as if you were going to drown when

you could have just stood up and watched a flow past you and you never spoke to me again until now

she says giving me a sad look for a moment before looking away