A big thanks to Greasy Gal for helping me with this FF! ;) For all her editing and advice...and for puttin' up with me


Jewel sat there, just staring at her paper. She trailed off, and thought about the random events that happened at school that day.

First off, her English teacher had fallen down the stairs by "accident" and had to be rushed to the hospital. It was just a broken leg; she rolled her eyes at that. The teacher was crying and freaking out over nothing.

Then, the lunch lady gave her a dirty look for asking: "Do you serve anything edible in this school?" After thinking about it, she probably deserved that dirty look, though.

And then – to top it all off – she'd gotten an F in Math … again.

She came back from her daze, and looked down at the paper again. Doing homework wasn't her thing, especially when it was English.

She had to write an essay on what she thought it would be like to live during the "Romeo & Juliet time", as her teacher had put it.

She hated love and romance books. They bored her most of the time. Two people would meet, fall in love, and live happily ever after. The only interesting – and different – thing she found about it was that they die!

"You gonna eat?" A voice from behind her nearly made her jump out of her skin.

"Jeez, James, you scared the hell out of me!" Jewel replied to her older brother, who was standing in the doorway.

He gave her a look that said, 'watch the language'.

"Yeah, yeah. I'm comin'," she said, while dropping her pen onto the table.

She walked downstairs into the kitchen.

"What's for dinner?" she asked, not seeing anything set out on the table.

Her brother handed her five dollars.

She wriggled her eyebrows. "You want me to eat a five dollar bill?"

"Smart aleck." He walked over to the fridge and drank some milk out of the bottle as she made a face. "Go get somethin' to eat at the Dingo … or someplace."

Jewel sighed and decided she didn't want to starve, so she headed for the Dingo.