(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

[hapan_heiress]

"Tha's a wot of paper." Allana informs him as she wanders by with her stuffed animals.

You know. In case he didn't see all the work around him.

[navyafterone]

James blinks as he looks from his work to the little girl.

"Yeah," he agrees uncertainly. She looks younger than most of the red shirts on campus. "'s my homework and books."

[hapan_heiress]

"Ew, homework." She wrinkles her nose. "I don't have to do that. Mommy wants my work done durin' the time my tutors are there."

[navyafterone]

"Well, you're a lucky little girl," James says a little wryly. "Us big kids do almost all the work outside of class. I think you've got a few years before you're old enough for that, though."

[candied_rabbit]

Ewww, homework.

Momiji, unfortunately, is similarly cursed, carrying his geometry and English books under one arm, as he flops down in a chair nearby James'.

The textbooks are promptly used as a coaster for his big, whipped cream-topped coffee drink.

[navyafterone]

James sees this and grins. It seems the other boy has about the right level of respect for textbooks.

"D'you have lots to do?"

[candied_rabbit]

"Oh...hi!" The rabbit-boy turns his head and smiles at James, shaking his head a little.

"Not a whole lot - just some geometry and some stuff to translate."

[navyafterone]

James offers a wave, still holding a pencil in his hand.

"Cool -- I've probably got a lot more."

He eyes his own pile dismally. His maths book, open to the pages on trigonometry, is propped up against the others. He shakes his head and looks back at Momiji; even maths requires a distraction sometimes.

"What languages are you doing? I've got some Russian to do, myself."

[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."