Excuses

"What'd you do this time?" Maddy complained, exasperation evident in her voice.

Shannon, Tom, Rhydian and Maddy had been sitting at a picnic bench near the basketball hoop, eating their lunches, until Shannon had asked if anyone wanted to go to Bernie's after school. Rhydian had muttered a negative, mumbling something about detention with Jeffries.

"I might've, you know, told him that the football championship thing was stupid, and I didn't want to go?" Rhydian admitted sheepishly.

"Oh, come on!" Tom said, rolling his eyes, "One, football is great, and we need you for the championship next week or we'll lose for the third year in a row. Two, you know Jeffries loves football, why would you say that to his face?"

"I don't know! I was trying to get out of it, you see? But he said "maybe you can rethink that decision in detention"" Rhydian scowled and kicked the edge of the table, his face as grey and stormy as the overcast sky above them.

Maddy, groaned; finally understanding, "Ohh, that's right, the championship is-," she hesitated, mind racing to cover for her mouth, "-a bad night for you, isn't it?"

As a matter of fact, it was the night of the full moon, but Maddy didn't want to give Shannon or Tom any crazy ideas, especially Shannon. Better to make up something than risk letting slip that there was a correlation between when her and Rhydian were 'busy' and when the moon was full.

"Yeah," Rhydian said, thinking just as fast, "my foster mum's got this important dinner party but the game starts at six pm! What was I supposed to do?"

"Not get in detention!" Maddy retorted, "You could've come to us; I'm sure we could've figured out something."

"I just thought it'd work, ok?" Rhydian exclaimed, throwing up his hands.

"Well yer an idiot." Maddy muttered and tore a bite out of her sandwich. "You deserve a detention!" She added, but because her mouth was full, it sounded more like "mouh-muhmuuhh-muh-muhmuhmuh!"

Rhydian rolled his eyes but didn't seem particularly torn up or anything. Maddy supposed he was resigned to his punishment. The table descended into silence.

"But that doesn't sound like Jefferies," Shannon said after a minute with a frown on her face, "He'd normally wait for you to do something really annoying before he gave you detention. You must've done something else to irritate him."

Maddy turned her accusing glare from where it had drifted to the asphalt back onto Rhydian in an instant. "She's right, what else did you do?

"Well," Rhydian looked reluctant, "You know that trick I pulled ages ago with Liam and that blindfold?" *

"You didn't!" Maddy groaned, her head briefly resting in her hands.

"It was just a bit of fun!" He protested, "And it would've been fine if Jeffries hadn't shown up!"

Shannon frowned again, disappointment clouding her features, "When are we going to have another stakeout on the Moors if you're stuck in detention!"

"Ya don't need everyone to do a steak out, Shan, and plus," Maddy paused to take another bite of her steak sandwich, resulting in another muffled ending, "who said we were goin' on a stakeout tonight? You said we were just going to Bernie's?"

"Madds, firstly, chew and swallow, before you talk; you're being disgusting. Secondly, when are you going to learn that when Shannon want to hang out, it's usually for a stakeout, or something else to do with the Beast." Tom said, turning away from Maddy's to grin at Shannon.

"Oh quit it," Shannon grumped, "I guess we'll just do it some other day, but-" She warned, raising her hands, "I want to do it soon; some sheep were killed on Saturday and I want to check out the area."

"Yeah, yeah," Tom said, rolling his eyes, "but I don't know what you think the sheep will tell you. Though, if anyone will get them to bleat, you will."

The table collapsed into laughter, even Shannon, who rolled her eyes excessively at first, but ended up grinning like the rest of them before too long.

*Season 1 Episode 11 (Eolas)

Author's Note:

So, I thought I'd try my hand at something short to see it I could do it well- you'll have to tell me how I did!
I did want to write something to do with Maddy getting Rhydian out of detention, but I couldn't come up with a good motive apart from a full moon (and I didn't want to overuse that), so I decided to leave it. Let me know if you have any ideas! I ended up thinking it would be cool to see one of the apparently endless excuses that the wolfbloods have to come up with to get out of social engagements on the full moon.

Anyway, this is much more than I usually write, so I'd better stop before I bore you all to tears. Don't forget to review!

Trix

Photo (cover) by Sebastian Unrau from Unsplash

Btw- I always forget the disclaimers, so I had to add this later sorry!
Past, present, or future, Wolfblood does not, did not and will never belong to me.