Disclaimer: Neither myself or my partner in crime own Sailor Moon. If we did, the Ann and Alan saga would have gone on indefinitely.
Prologue
Serena slumped in her chair, staring at the clock above the classroom door; it was the last day of class before summer break and the final three hours keeping her from sweet freedom were going excruciatingly slow. She was so engrossed in her contemplation on whether the clock might be broken that she was completely unaware of her teacher or any other activities going on around her. Suddenly a loud thump on her desk startled her out of her musings.
"Ms. Tsukino," the instructor grated angrily. "I am aware that it is the last day of school, but I would request that you give me the courtesy of your attention while you are in my class."
Serena looked down at her desk sheepishly and immediately saw the source of the noise. Her heart sank and she groaned as she slipped lower in her chair. This was not going to be good.
"Sit up please, Ms. Tsukino," her teacher berated, then pointed at the stack of papers she had plopped down on the desk. "These are all of your uncompleted assignments for the semester. If you have any hope of graduating with your class next year, I suggest you dedicate what little time you have left to completing as much as you can."
"But," she whined. Shifting her gaze from the formidable stack to the teacher towering over her, her eyes as wide as saucers, "How am I gonna to finish all this? It's impossible!"
"Perhaps you should have thought about that when they were assigned to you," The professor said coldly. As she stared at the papers the teacher walked away, handing out more papers to other students and checking that they had completed their work.
Pouting, Serena took the first sheet from her own stack grudgingly and dragged it in front of her, glancing over it as she dug into her bag for a pencil. Word problems. She was doomed.
"Ugh, I thought it would never end." Serena stretched, her bag filled with the contents of her locker in hand as she joined her best friend on the pathway out of the school.
"It was nice of your instructor to give you a chance to catch up," Amy offered. She tucked a strand of her short blue hair behind one ear as they walked and adjusted her messenger bag. She felt both sorry for and exasperated with her friend, but she kept her feelings to herself as Serena fixed her with a baleful stare.
"How could she expect me to finish all that work at the end of class?" She threw her head back dramatically. "I mean, it was so hard, and how unfair springing it on me right at the end of the year."
"But she assigned them months ago," Amy pointed out. "If you'd done them when they were handed out it wouldn't have been so much. I didn't have any homework all week."
"That's because you're smart," Serena pouted. "You're always studying and reading things. I'm just not like that, I want to do things, not study them."
Amy held her tongue. There was no point arguing with Serena about school; as much as she loved her best friend, she was invariably a ditz. She cast about for something to change the topic and her eyes landed on a flier stapled to one of the message boards.
"You could take the summer correspondence with me," she offered. "It would be doing something, and it will be fun."
"You mean that college shadowing thing? No way," Serena grimaced. "There's no way I'm wasting my summer doing even more school."
"You never know," Amy chided, "you might like it. You could shadow anything you want, and it counts as college credits."
Serena shook her head emphatically. "Nu-uh," she said. "It's great for you, Ms. Part-Time-College, but you won't catch me there." She flipped the bag of locker items over her shoulder and firmly ended the conversation with a much more enjoyable proposal. "Wanna go get some ice cream?"
Amy smiled and let the topic die with a nod. She knew she would never convince Serena to take her education seriously. Still, she found she had to try.
Serena waved goodbye to Amy as they rounded the corner of her block. Amy had said she was going to pack for the college correspondence and Serena wanted to get home in time to watch her favorite show, so they had gotten their ice cream to go. She the last few bites of her strawberry waffle cone into her mouth as she entered the front gate of her house. She licked the last traces of ice cream melted by the warm June sun from her fingertips as she opened her front door and immediately she knew something was wrong. In the living room her mother sat in her overstuffed recliner, which had been pulled around to face the door. In her lap was a piece of paper. The look on her mother's typically calm face was enough to make her blood run cold. She dropped her bag and toyed with the idea of bolting out the door when her mother leveled her with a steely gaze.
"Serena," she said through clenched jaws.
"Hi mom," Serena said with uneasy cheerfulness. She had no idea what else to say, or if she should say anything. Her mother solved her dilemma for her after a few awkward seconds.
"I got a letter," she said with deceiving calm. "From your school." Serena's insides plummeted to somewhere in the vicinity of Antarctica. "It seems that there have been some issues with your grades." Her mother snapped the paper in the air, and giving her a pointed look began to read. "Your child, Serena Tsukino, has failed the following courses and will not be permitted to graduate without completion or equivalence of the following." She paused and Serena gulped. "English 3, History 3, Intermediate Algebra, Biology 1, Japanese 1 or equivalent language credits."
A heavy silence fell between the two of them as the list of her failures sank down and smothered her earlier joy at the freedom from school. She squirmed under the weight of her mother's gaze and the reality of her poor study skills. The silence was unbearable and she blurted out the only thing that came to mind in a desperate attempt to break through the smothering disappointed anger in the room.
"I didn't fail everything," she pointed out.
"No," her mother said, picking up a second piece of paper she had not noticed on the side table and skimming it. "You got a B in P.E. and a D in cooking. A D, Serena?"
Her heart sank even lower in her stomach, tears pooling in her eyes. She thought she had done a little better in cooking class. Yes, she had burned nearly every recipe she had been assigned, but she really had studied for that class and paid attention most of the time. Her final had even been edible. Mostly.
"I talked to your principal and we agreed the only way you will be able to graduate with your class is if you take summer classes," her mother continued.
"But mom," Serena wailed, but her mother shot out of her chair with so much fury in her eyes she clamped her mouth closed on the rest of her protest.
"Don't you dare even start, Serena Usagi Tsukino," her mother shouted. Her mother almost never lost her temper or raised her voice. She was dead. So, so dead. "You are going on that college shadowing trip, you will apply yourself and so help me you will graduate next year. Do I make myself clear?"
Serena nodded cautiously, not trusting herself to speak. The last thing she wanted was to upset her mother any more than she already had; one wrong word and she might not live long enough to get to her room. This seemed to unruffle some of her mother's feathers and she visibly calmed down and composed herself once more.
"Now," she said slowly, "You are going to go to your room and pack. I've already confiscated all of your electronics and packed the school supplies you'll need. All you have to do is pack clothes and toiletries. And don't think I'm not going to check what you pack because I am. You will study on this correspondence, do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," she replied meekly, staring at her feet.
"Good. The bus leaves tomorrow at eight," her mother folded her arms in front of her and nodded toward the stairs. "You better get packing."
Serena picked up her bag and quickly made her way upstairs to her room. This was going to be the worst summer ever.
A/N: Hello everyone! As you can see we're not dead! Yay! Gods sent angel and I are now revamping Lessons to Learn. We re-read the original and were horrified. Our muses struck and we have been helpless to save ourselves. This prologue was primarily written by her and betad by me, so please direct your reviews to her. She responds to her pen-name or just Angel. :) We hope you enjoy and please review. Your support is what got us writing again and it's what will keep us writing.
