14)

Graunt Lois looked at her brother Gruncle Drew. “Is it gross?” She wiggled her hands around awkwardly. “When you… go wolf?”

He looked over at my Grandpa who was sitting down staring off blankly in the general direction of one of the attic ballroom windows, as was my father as until my mom reached over to take his hand and shake him a bit.

Normally she just punched him in the shoulder when he went off like that, but I guess she wanted to make a good impression on her husband's extended family. When it was just Grandpa she didn’t bother to hold back anymore.

Gruncle Drew shook his head. “Well I’ve only seen John do it, it was kind of like he was putting on a wolf shaped coat and filling it out from there with a snap. It takes me a half a minute or so and turning back too soon wipes me out for a few hours, as well as making me as hungry as a bear, so I’ll let John show you.”

Grandpa Lathe's head snapped up "What? Oh, yeah. It doesn’t hit me as hard, and no one wants to see Drew with no clothes on, even when he's covered in fur." He stood up and looked around at the family. "So, this is the time to decide for yourselves, and for your kids. Seeing is believing, do you want to see this, to know this?”

He waved his hand over at the stairway. “You can head downstairs and pack up your bags. The keys for the rentals are by the front door, and we won’t talk about any of this stuff around you whenever we get together again. This is when you decide if you want to look behind the curtain, or just stick to living in the world you know.”

Lois's husband stood up slowly, looked over at his wife with a smile, then around the room. "I have no intention of walking away from the chance to hear about everything, but I wanted to stand up so anyone who did want to pass on this opportunity didn't hesitate just because they didn't want to be the first one."

He looked around the room again. "Anyone? No?" Then he sat down while reaching over to take his wife's hand as she gave him a tolerant smile.

My Grandpa headed over to the hall closet to pull out a bathrobe. "Sara, I'm going to borrow your room, okay, the half bath's a little tight."

He closed the door to my room before I could respond. “Sure Grandpa, it’s your house. Just please don’t shed on my bed.” His response of “Brat.” from behind the door could be clearly heard by everyone in the room. I looked around with a grin. "It would only be a problem if he decided to lie down, he has to walk around in a circle three times first."

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Grandpa opened the door in his bathrobe with an "Ungrateful child, don't think you get to act up just because company is here."

Walking out to the center of the room, the old man sort of dropped forward like he was going to do some push ups, and landed on all four paws, shaking his way loose from the bathrobe.

Wolves are not dogs. A German Shepard weighs in at about eighty pounds, your average wolf is twice that om weight and size. Grandpa has about thirty pounds on your average wolf as he stood there in his mostly light gray and white fur.

So most of the family just froze in place, before Erica turned to her parents and squealed. “Can we keep him!”

I had never seen a wolf give someone a dirty look before. But I didn't think for a moment it would be the last time.

With a spring in his steps, Grandpa headed over and sat before his sister, before stretching his head forward to poke her bare leg below her knee with his nose. On reflex Graunt Lois slapped his. “Stop that, your nose…” then she stopped and blinked as she realized she had just tried to slap a one hundred and eighty point wolf on the snout.

Then Grandpa’s head snapped over to one side with his ears perked up, before he looked over at me and nodded his head off towards the direction of my room where his phone was chirping to signal that someone was at the front gate.

Unlocking his phone with the simple up down swipe showed me Nate's parents on the camera, so I pressed the button to open the gates. "Hi Mr. and Mrs Evens. Everyone is upstairs for a family meet and greet, but I’ll meet you downstairs.”

My guests had begun to arrive.

While Grandpa's family would be meeting and talking to my Mom, Dad, Sister, and Brother all day, along with some of the local adults. I had invited a few people my own age to hang out and eat dinner, and I had also asked them to invite a few more people as well.

I had got to meet a lot of people my age at the Solstice party, but it had only been in passing, there had just been too many people to meet to get to know anyone.

Now I would have time, which made me a little nervous. Dad had made a point of telling me he would not be doing up profiles for the people I would be going to school with for the next five years.

I was going to be on my own for this.

At least the first person to get here was Neal. He was a year older than me, and a natural born Werewolf, but he was nice. My Dad like to act like he was worried about me getting to know a teenage boy, but I think it was mainly an act.

He sometimes acted like what he thought people were supposed to act like from watching Tv shows and movies. Which I had been told was endlessly frustrating for my Mom, he had been way too embarrassed to talk to girls like the guys in movies and just ended up talking to them like people.

Which is what attracted Mom to him in the first place since he didn't treat her like a girl to be flirted with or dismissed. But she was nearly as socially awkward as him and didn’t know how how to make a move either.

Now that I was in any better of a position, but I was only fourteen, as of today, and I only had a couple of years of going to a normal… other than all the Werewolves, High School to develop my social skills after years of homeschooling.

So until then, I was going to let the people I was going to get to know today take the lead since they knew what they were doing.

As I headed out from the kitchen I could hear Mr Evans asking Neal “So isn’t the daughter kind of young for you?”

Only to hear Neal say. “Daaaaad. She’s just turning fourteen today, she’s like a little kid.”

As I came to stop at the top of the steps down from the veranda, Nate looked up to make eye contact with me and went pale.