Cain slung his backpack over his shoulder, Ness slipped his on more tightly, and they all left the parking lot behind.

"First class of the day," Ness said, standing in front of the door.

"Yours, you mean. Miserable, lucky little rat," Cain muttered.

Ness' first class was Creative Writing, while Cain went to Math. Cain hated math, and had often asked Ness to switch schedules with him. The two of them looked enough alike that if they had wanted to, they could have pulled off that kind of switch. But Ness had always adamantly refused, since he wasn't that fond of math himself. Cain sighed, walking the rest of the way to his first class with an expression of resigned annoyance on his face.

***

After the classes were over, the four of them met up at their lockers. They weren't all in a row, but they were close enough to talk when the halls weren't too busy.

"How'd your first class go, little bird?" Cain asked Raven.

"Fine."

Raven's first class of the day had been Art, something he didn't much care for. Raven preferred to read rather than draw, and he hated to get his hands dirty when they were sculpting. Today the class had been making terra-cotta bowls. They had all washed their hands at the sink that was installed in the art room, of course, but Raven still felt like some of the clay was clinging to his hands. Despite the fact that he had spent the longest at the sink.

"I need to go to the bathroom," Raven muttered, turning away from the lockers.

Cain sighed; he'd never understand his little brother's obsession with having perfectly clean hands. Just then, a familiar someone came up to the lockers.

"Hey Cain," he said, waving.

"Oh," Cain turned to his left. "Mornin' Fritz."

Fritz Wallace, one of Cain's best friends outside of his family, was a sort of a half-orphan. He'd been raised by his sister, after his father had died of cancer. As far as Cain knew, neither Fritz nor his older sister Katherine had known their mother.

"So, the last day at the yawn factory for three months. What are we going to do to celebrate?"

"We're going camping," Cain rolled his eyes. "You know how much I love camping."

Fritz grinned, he knew that Cain hated camping more than anything else in the world.

"Lovely. How long?"

"Three weeks. You and Kathy are invited, of course."

"As if there was ever any doubt." Fritz grinned, with Conrad and Katherine planning to get married soon, Ulysses had told him that he could consider himself one of the family.

"At least I'll have someone to be bored with."

Fritz had to laugh at that declaration, how anyone could be bored on a camping trip was beyond him. Then again, Cain was a 90's boy all the way. Fritz had often heard Cain say that he'd go nuts if he was separated from his Game Boy for more than three days.

Cain rolled his eyes again. "Laugh it up, blondie. You're going to be stuck sleeping on rocks and being eaten alive by bugs right along with the rest of us."

"How ever will I survive?" Fritz said melodramatically, putting a hand to his head, imitating a faint.

"Ha. Ha ha. And ha," Cain said, lips quirking in a vain effort to hide his amusement.

"Well," Fritz said, hauling the necessary books out of his locker and trading in the ones he didn't need right now. "I guess there's no putting it off any longer. I've got to get to math class."

There was a decidedly unhappy expression on Fritz's face. Both he and Cain agreed that Math was the bane of both their lives. Fritz sighed, closing his locker; it was time to bite the bullet.

***

Shara, fresh out of Home Ec, stretched her arms. I'm never going to get the hang of making a chocolate soufflé, she thought ruefully. Her last attempt had not gone all that well. Though she wasn't the only one whose soufflé had collapsed, she wasn't looking forward to repeating the class when summer vacation was over.

Cookies, now those I can do. But whoever decided we were supposed to know how to make French desserts should be dragged out into the street and shot. Shara shook her head, sighing in exasperation. At least it was almost lunchtime, just one more class and then she could go sit down and eat.

And her next class was Art, one of her favorites. Shara skipped the rest of the way to her locker, humming softly to herself.

"Well, someone's on cloud nine," said a voice that Shara immediately recognized.

"Ryan!" Shara squealed happily, turning to give her boyfriend a hug. Ryan returned the gesture, and added a quick peck on his girlfriend's lips for good measure.

Shara quickly put the rest of the books she was holding in her locker. Shutting the door and giving the combination lock a good spin; she turned back to Ryan.

"So, Ryan Makenzie, are you coming on the usual end of school camping trip?" Shara asked, giving him a sideways look and batting her eyelashes coyly.

"You're going to be there too, right?"

"Silly boy," Shara gave his chest an affectionate pat. "Of course I will."

"Then where else would I be?" Ryan took Shara's hand, and kissed her on the nose. "I'll meet you after school, Shara."

"See you there!"

Shara blew Ryan a kiss, then turned away and headed for the Art room.

What a woman, Ryan thought happily, heading off to class himself.

***

"Finally," Ness sighed. He thought that lecture in History class would never end. He'd been focused more on his empty stomach than one anything the teacher had been saying, so Ness doubted he'd do particularly well on the exams, whenever they came.

Ness yawned, pulling out his lunchbox with the foot-long sub sandwich that he'd picked up for himself yesterday.

***

In the cafeteria, Ryan and Shara were in line to get their so-called food.

"I hope they're at least serving something partly edible," Ryan said, grimacing at the memory of some of the more disgusting things the school had dished out.

"Yeah. I still can't believe I went to all the trouble of making myself a lunch, and then I left it at home," Shara sighed.

Ryan chuckled, nudging Shara playfully.

"That's just the way these things go," Ryan said lightly.

It turned out that they were serving pizza today, both Ryan and Shara agreed that that was just the right kind of thing for the last day of school. Pizza was one of their favorite foods, and one of the few things that the school cafeteria could serve that actually tasted like what it was supposed to taste like.

That was probably because no one who actually worked in the cafeteria had a hand in making the food. Once they had both gotten their pizza slices, Shara and Ryan looked for a place to sit down and eat.

"Shara! Ryan! Come on, come over here and sit with us!" Ness called, waving the two of them over.

Ryan and Shara quickly walked over to the table where their friends sat. Along with Shara's brothers, there were also Devon Connor and his sister Cindy, and Sidney McMasters. Cindy and Devon were closer to the Carter kids than Sidney was.

Fritz was the one who had introduced Sidney to the rest of his friends. Sidney was still a little shy around the rest of them, but he was slowly coming around.

"They were serving pizza?" Ness asked.

"Yeah. Pretty good choice for the last day of school, huh?" Ryan answered, taking another bite of his slice.

Ness nodded back, his mouth too full of sandwich to answer properly.

"I was wondering where Cain got his from," Raven said absently, more focused on his book than on the actual conversation.

Turning a page, Raven popped another pizza roll in his mouth. Ness shook his head. Even though he was used to his little brother's habit of reading while he ate, Ness still got a bit tired of it from time to time.

"So Raven, what are you reading today?" Fritz asked.

"The Midnight Club," Raven answered, turning another page and eating another pizza roll.

"I've never heard of that one. Who wrote it?" Fritz asked, trying to involve the silent boy in something resembling a conversation.

"Christopher Pike."

Fritz shrugged in response; he could tell by Raven's clipped tone that the other boy was starting to become annoyed by Fritz's interruptions. Let it never be said that I don't know when to shut up, Fritz thought, taking another bite of his pizza.