Hooray for Chapter IV!!! By the by, thanks for all the reviews... If I didn't get any, I probably wouldn't have kept adding on ^^.

**Disclaimer** I don't own Outlaw Star, but whoever does must be a very wealthy (and smart ^^) person.

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Jim continued to tinker on his PDA without objection from his teacher, who sat contentedly playing solitaire, until the bell rang.

Jim's next class was math. He found his way to the classroom with improved ease-- he had passed it wandering the halls in his attempts to find Computer I. He entered with a few hall-passing minutes to spare with hopes in training his teacher how to call him Jim.

The teacher, an older woman who had indentified herself as Mrs. Miyumoto on the chalkboard (Jim found this rather peculiar since it wasn't the first day of school for the rest of the students-- later he found out that her name had been left on the chalkboard for so long it had become inerasable), sat staring at nothing in particular at her desk, a considerable amount of ungraded papers scattered across her work area.

Jim stood awkwardly in the doorway as she remained motionless. Finally, he cleared his throat. It took her a full half minute to respond.

"Oh, you're Nicole, aren't you?" she asked cheerfully. Jim thought at first that she had been joking, but after a few moments, he realized she wasn't.

"Um... no... I'm Jim..."

"Alright, Nicole. Well, deary, you can sit right over there," she said, pointing to a seat in the far front corner. Immediately after directing Jim to his chair, she began pouring a full can of gasoline on one of the chalkboard erasers.

Jim stared, dumbstruck, for a few moments, then took his seat. The bell rang not long afterwards, and Jim's classmates began pouring in through the door.

"Hey, that's my seat," a rather tall (for her age) blonde claimed, towering over Jim.

"Oh, sorry... Mrs. Miyumoto told me to-" Jim began.

"Oh," she interrupted. "In that case... she does that to every new kid. Putting them in that seat, I mean," she added, noticing Jim's confused look. She leaned close and whispered, "A bit senile, isn't she?"

Jim nodded slowly. What a screwy school this was!!

"Samuel," Mrs. Miyumoto said, pausing in her eraser dousing for a moment. "Please take your seat." She emptied the first can, peered inside it, puzzled, and retrieved another can from one of her desk drawers.

The blonde responded right away. "Yes, Mrs. Miyumoto." Then, to Jim, "She got the closest with my name out of the whole school... It's Samantha, by the way." Samantha walked away, finding an empty seat.

The tardy bell finally rang, but the class, buzzing with murmuring voices, continued. A few students, appearing to be taking their time, entered a few minutes late without repercussion. Jim remained silent.

After about fifteen minutes of class had passed, Mrs. Miyumoto (having emptied her third can) stood in front of the class, tapping the chalkboard with a yardstick. "Okay, class, we don't have any time to be dawdling. We have a very full class ahead of us!" She clapped her hands together. "Now, who can tell me what 2 + 2 is?"

A smart alec kid raised his hand and replied, "Six."

"Very good!" she praised, dancing from foot to foot. "A's for everyone! Now, get out your textbooks and work on Chapter 25, Section 7."

The class, all at once, removed their math books from their bags- although only a few were sixth grade math books. A few even belonged to the Physics teacher from the high school.

Following suit, Jim extracted a C++ instruction booklet from his backpack. After a few moments of careful pondering, he whispered to his neighbor, "What do I do?"

"Just write stuff down and give it to her."

After pondering for a few more minutes, he decided to write in random numbers. At least it looked SOMETHING like a math assignment...

Just as he had turned his paper in, the bell rang...

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Oh, come on, you just HAVE to love Mrs. Miyumoto! ^,^ I have to admit it, though, the gasoline and the chalkboard erasers was my dad's idea...

Anywho, I'll be working on the fifth chapter tonight, so expect to see it sometime on Saturday or Sunday. Au revoir!

~Nekofujin, Queen of the Midget People Republic