At the park, yet again. This was my second day being forced to go outside. Today the weather was blue and somewhat oceanic with puffy cotton-candy-like clouds. I loved living in Wyoming, but only when I could stay inside. I saw on the news one day that there was a pack of wolves discovered in the woods, but I don’t believe them. The news gets stories wrong all the time.  Why in the world would there be wolves in a forest? My thoughts came to an abrupt stop as a lady started approaching my mom and me.

“Oh you pookie bear, you’re so cute,” an old grandma cooed as she squeezed my cheeks and clicked her tongue to the top of her mouth like I was a 3 year old.

“Ummm,” my mom interrupted with her face gradually turning red by the second, “She’s twelve…”

“Ohhh…” The old lady replied as she quickly sprang up at a speed that should have been impossible for her age and  finished the conversation quickly with her face being the same shade as a ripened tomato. “Yeah, sorry to have assumed that… I just thought... um, you know what? I think I need to go pick my grandson up now.” Her little stubby legs didn’t help her much, but she ran out of our sight in record time.

“I’m sorry honey,” Mom said apologetically, “I know you hate going out in public, you just needed a little bit of exercise! I mean you’ve been sitting in your lit-”

“I know, I know! You’ve told me this a thousand times already, Mom! Actually, make this a thousand and one times now.” I stomped off onto the bark chips with my hands curled into fists on either side of my stubby little body. The only reason I was like this was because of birth defects: I came a month earlier than I was supposed to.

“Awwww, she’s so cute. How old is she?” A random lady came up behind me, putting her hand on my mom’s arm as a kind gesture. “Oh! How lucky you are to still have such a young child.”

“Yeah, definitely really lucky,” my mom said halfheartedly. I was getting sick of this, and so was my mom. I started tuning out their conversation when they started trading numbers and wandered around to the trail, with a big looming sign on the gate that said ‘BEWARE OF WOLVES’.

I didn’t care if there were wolves in the forest, I just wanted to get away from everybody. I opened the gate, sprinted onto the trail and kept running until I suddenly heard growls all around me. I skidded on the dirt, trying to stop myself and spun around slowly, taking in the situation I was in. Heads were poking out of the bushes, sharp pointed ears were poking out of the heads, and paws were sticking out, as if they were ready to attack.

“Who is she?” A wolf said, raising her paw to point at me.

“I don’t know, should we tell the alpha wolf? Is she the human who assassinated Fred?” another one replied.

“Oh. Don’t remind me of poor Fred,” A wolf cried, bowing her head to her chest.

Am I supposed to be able to know what they’re saying? Was this a joke? I turned around in a circle, trying to count how many wolves there were. 13 wolves, against me? I’m not going to be able to run away. I ran the situation over and over again through my head trying to find a way out of this situation, and then it hit me. Maybe they will know what I’m saying to them because I understood what they were saying.

“Excuse me? My name is Tatum, I come in peace, and I didn’t kill Fred!” I blurted out in a frantic breath. Behind me, I heard twigs snapping and leaves crunching. I slowly turned around and in front of me was a gigantic wolf, walking on the grass, towards me.

“What are you doing here?” the gigantic wolf said, his eyes steady with determination, looking at me squarely in the eyes.

“Well, this is a public trail...” I whispered. All I wanted to do was crawl into bed and curl up pretending that none of this happened. The whole wolf pack advanced on me, closing in a circle.

I yelled at them, “You can search me for scents of Fred, if you even remember the assassinators’ smell. But, I’m saying I promise I didn’t kill Fred!” Tears were springing into the corners my hazel brown eyes, threatening to slide down my cheek.

“Sniff her,” the alpha wolf replied in a low voice, almost growling. A small wolf, nearly half the size of the alpha wolf, came and sniffed me all around before heading back to his place.

“I don’t smell the scent that we found near Fred on her, Alpha.” he whimpered. His eyes could definitely show he was scared, as could his body.

“Are you sure?” The alpha checked as if he didn’t hear what the small wolf said clearly enough.

“P-p-pos-si-sitive,” The small wolf stuttered leaning back, against the trunk of a tree, shivering.

“Fine, then you can go,” the alpha growled, opening up a way for me, “Go!” I ran the fastest I have ever run, following the path of the trail back to my mom who was running around looking everywhere for me.

“I’m sorry, Mom, for leaving I’ll never do that again!” I blurted out, as I ran full speed and collided into her legs with the tightest hug I have ever hugged anyone with.

“Where were you? When did you leave?” My mom asked as she kneeled down and worriedly pulled me back and looked into my eyes.

“Wolves,” I replied and shuddered. Almost like she knew what happened, she just pulled me close into another hug, as if worried I was going to be taken by away by wolves.

“Never do that again,are you okay?” My mom blabbered on and on through her whole 20 minutes of worried talking, boring me out of my mind! But, I knew it was all just to keep me safe and sound.

After her long lecture, we then went to the car and drove to my favorite ice cream shop to celebrate that I was still safe without one scratch on me.