This is chapter 14. Wow! 14 chapters already! Anyway, read and don't forget to review.

Disclaimer: STAR WARS belongs to George Lucas. (sigh)

CHAPTER 14

Maia returned with a plateful of stew and as she slid into her seat, Jeran pushed her datapad over to her, together with her stylus and a datasheet covered with writing. She set aside her plate for a moment and studied the datapad and datasheet.

"What's this?" she asked waving the datasheet at him.

"The solution."

"Huh?"

She looked back at the datasheet, then turned it upside down, just in case she was holding it the wrong way. When it still did not make sense she handed it back to him.

"Is this Basic?"

He glared at her. "Are you trying to be funny?"

"No, honest, I can't read your writing."

"Who can?" Arianne mumbled under her breath.

Jeran sigh exasperatedly and snatched the datasheet from Maia. "This is a nine," he said, stabbing at the figure with the stylus. "And this is a ten. So nine plus ten is nineteen."

"Wow," said the girl sarcastically. "I never knew that. You must be a genius." Her expression turned pleading. "C'mon, Jeran, please. Okay, I can read your writing, well, parts of it anyway. But I still don't get it. Why is the answer hundred and twenty-one point oh two seven? My answer is different. And what formula is that?"

As her friend patiently explained the solution to Maia, Arianne turned to her Padawan. "Don't you have homework too?"

Sabie'nhra looked up from her meal. "It's not that much. I can finish it later." She glanced at her friend. "Maia got extra stuff because she forgot to do her homework."

She sighed, making it clear that this was a usual occurrence. With one more glance at her friend she return her attention back to her food.

"Okay," said Jeran as he watched Maia frown over the astromath question for the third time. "Do you get it now?"

"Uh, I guess."

"What do you mean 'you guess'?"

"I, uh–"

He sighed and pulled a datasheet towards him, plucking the stylus from the girl's hand. "Here, I'll write you similar question and you solve it, okay? Then we'll see if you understood or not."

"Uh, okay," she replied as she watched him think for a moment and then begin to write. Five minutes later he returned her stylus together with the datasheet. This time his writing was easier to read.

For the next five minutes there was silence at the table, except for the occasional sighs from Maia as she worked on her question and the scrape of a spoon against a plate. Arianne and Sabie'nhra were still eating, and because Salis had looked bored, Jeran offered to play a game of dejarik with him.

When Maia finally looked up from the datasheet, Jeran's yellow herbivore, floating a few centimetres over his datapad's holoprojector along with the other holographic figures, was just having its head ripped off by Salis' red carnivore.

It took a few moments for her to get his attention; she had to wave her hand energetically in front of his face for quite a while until Jeran finally turned to her.

"What is it?" he asked a little irritably, his eyes flickering back and forth between the datasheet that she held out and the miniature holographic field. "Are you done already?"

"Yep."

He took the datasheet and quickly scanned it, doing calculations in his head and on the datasheet, making sure it was…

"Correct." He handed it back to her. "See how easy it is once you understand?"

"Yeah…" Sighing Maia took up her datapad, her stomach somewhat sinking at the sight of more astromath questions.

Jeran must have heard he sigh because he turned to her and asked, "What's your favourite subject? Not astromath, I'm sure."

She watched his yellow monster trample one of Salis's red ones. "I like sparring practice. And history."

"Who's your astromath teacher?"

"Master Ceres."

Recognition gleamed in his eyes. "Master Ceres. She was my astromath teacher too."

"Really?" Her stomach rumbled so she put aside the datapad and reached for her plate.

"Yeah. She's not that bad. She's just strict, that's all."

"That's all?"

"Jeran," Salis interrupted. "Your turn now." One of his carnivores had moved next to Jeran's herbivore, which was quickly moved away.

"You don't like her, hmm?" he asked turning back to Maia.

Maia glared at her datapad and said bitterly, "She hates–uh, dislikes me."

Salis suddenly laughed. "She doesn't like you, eh?" he asked Maia, who was starring at him in surprise. "Don't worry," he added, smiling. "She hated my guts too. Just because I once asked her why we had to learn astromath …"

Arianne look shocked. "You really asked her that?"

"Hey, I was just asking her a question."

Maia looked at Jeran. "What was your favourite subject?"

Jeran smiled. "Astromath."

She made a face.

"C'mon, it's not that bad. Maybe you and Master Ceres just have to re-establish your relationship."

"What relationship?"

"Your teacher-student relationship."

Maia snorted. "The best thing would be to not have any relationship at all."

"You haven't even tried." He stood up.

"Where are you going, Jeran?" Arianne asked.

"Somewhere," he answered evasively. When he had been talking about relationships to Maia, he had caught Arianne winking at him and mouthing a word, "Padawan.". Why could she not just drop the subject and let him decide without her nagging him? Right now he wanted to be as far away as possible from that annoying female.

"Do your homework, be good," he found himself telling Maia as he briefly tousled her hair.

"Yeah, yeah," she muttered, but he did not hear her, having left the table far behind him.

Please read and review.
Since school is starting again, regular updates will be rare. Sorry.
The school system in my country is weird. We do not have summer hols (the long hols are during November-December) and the school year starts in January. So its back to school for me on Monday until the next term break in September...sigh.

May the Force be with all of you. To those whose summer holidays have already begun or are going to begin (when do they begin?), have fun.