(Untitled)

[navyafterone]

Saturdays aren't as exciting for James as they are for most school kids. He still has morning classes, for one.

This Saturday is particularly unexciting. He's still doing laps before breakfast, and most of his afternoon was still spent mowing the lawns on campus, and now he's still got a pile of homework half as tall as him to complete

Comments

[not_on_her_own]

Maria swallows the last bite of her chocolate biscuit as she nears the table where it appears someone is engaged in their studies. Not that she would want to purposely disrupt someone trying to get work done, but distractions are nice. At least, that's what she's always thought.

"Maths? Been giving me trouble lately," she mentions. "Well, Maths and French."

She rolls her eyes at the mere thought of French.

[navyafterone]

Chewing on the end of his pencil, James looks up from his sines and cosines to peer at the girl. Hmm. Not bad.

"I don't do French, thank God," he says with a smile. "Russian, which is all right now I'm used to it, and Spanish, which is crap. My nine-year-old sister's better at it than me. I'm always pretty safe with Maths, though."

[not_on_her_own]

"Russian?" She grins. "I'd trade you any day to have that instead of bloody awful French. I'm usually not too bad at Maths, but my GCSEs are coming up, and I'm tired of everything right now. Science is always fun, but my friend, Luke, is a genius at everything."

Maria shrugs with a smile. "Can't compete with him, really. Anyway, I'm Maria, what's your name?"

[navyafterone]

James nods sympathetically. "Got a few years before my GCSEs, 'cept for Maths, which suits me. I hate exams.

"Maria's a nice name," he says with another smile, smoothest twelve-year-old in the world. "I'm James. And I know what you mean -- my friend Kerry's bloody brilliant at everything when it comes to school stuff. Still, she lets me copy sometimes, so it's not so bad."

[not_on_her_own]

Maria smiles softly at that. "You like my name? Always thought it was kinda ordinary."

Then again, she supposes the name 'James' isn't exactly unique; she's already met quite a few people with that name, just in this Bar.

"Luke would probably let anyone copy because he doesn't know better. He's not...uh...like everyone else."

[navyafterone]

"Well, you're the first Maria I've ever met," James tells her, shaking his head.

He frowns thoughtfully. "Why, what's wrong with him? Can't be too bad if he's that smart."

[not_on_her_own]

"Well, you're not the first James I've ever met, but you're definitely...you're own James," she quirks her brow, because even though she knows what she meant, the words sound a bit strange.

Then, Maria grins. This is the part she's grown to like, because it's the perfect segue into her rather strange and exciting life.

So, calmly, she says, "Luke looks like he's my age, but he's actually only a few months old. He wasn't born, he was grown. By aliens. In a Bubbleshock Factory."

She's still quite nonchalant.