Ms.Ecofreak: no more reviews? Oh well, at least i get constant reviews from my annoying little brother (who finds Zelda better than Jak2, moron)

But anyways. reviews or not. Heres the next chapter where I finally get to intruduce a cutelittle bird named Tanya, but I'm not going to say all what the chapter is about, you read for yourself:

CHAPTER 7

TANYA THE SPARROWFLUT

208, Mounth four. Same day

Cornelius

My mom must have noticed I was a bit grumpy on out way home

"Don't worry sweety" she said cheerfully, "you can become a crimson guard even without going to that school"

"Who ever said I wanted to become guard?" I asked angrily.

Mom didn't find an answer to that.

Sure, only the precursors know how long Erol has been nagging on that he wanted to become commander of the crimson guards, but that's Erol, although he is my brother it doesn't have to mean we both like the same things.

I hate Praxis! Of reasons I don't want to mention here.

He's not even my real uncle; he's just married to my dad's sister, (unfortunately)

I found only one down-part of being thrown out of school.

Almost every kid in Haven City had left so no the neighbourhood was as good as emptied for kids.

Only the poorest and youngest were left, many of these were actually looking forward to the day they too would be sent to crimson school.

Why? I don't know, some elves actually believe in all the talk of a better future, for now that "better future" seemed to involve a complete breakdown of the city's slums, half of the civil rights were taken away from the citizens, (or in the lurkers' case, all civil rights), and around every corner of the streets, you hear the barons ongoing propaganda.

Yes, big fun.

When we came home, the first thing my mom told me was to go out and play with my friends.

What friends? The four-year-olds? The neighbour's dog? What?

I stayed out anyway.

It was better than staying indoors and listen to my father complains, and my mother's attempts to calm him down and next quickly become grounded for no apparent reason at all.

Or even worse, read more propaganda in the newspapers.

I walked to the park, the only place in the city where there still was some beauty.

Even this green patch was overcrowded with crimson guards and I kept wondering, where did they all come from? Did the baron clone them or something?
I ignored the guards as usual, and they ignored me in turn.

As I walked past a three I heard a weak twittering, something small was moving around in the grass.

I bent down to see; it was a small yellow and blue bird, a sparrowflut.

It almost looked like a miniature flut-flut, no wonder really, that's where it got its name from.

I didn't know much about these birds but since it was on the ground, I guessed it hadn't learnt to fly yet.

I looked around; I couldn't see any other sparrowfluts nearby, had the parents just left their baby?

I had heard of some cases were the chick had jumped out of the nest before it learned to fly, the parents still fed it though it was on another branch or on the ground like this one.

The bird twittered again and looked at me as if I was its mother, or perhaps father.

"What are you looking at?" I asked.

The bird kept twittering. This was getting really annoying.

Perhaps I should help the poor guy then, I thought, and picked up the bird.

I put it in the three so it wouldn't be attacked by a dog or a cat before its parents returned.

Then I headed back home.

I had only walked a few steps when I heard a small bump.

The bird had jumped out of the three and was walking towards me with unsteady steps.

"What are you doing?" I asked, not like I was expecting an answer, "go back! Your parents get worried!".

The bird just looked at me,"tweet?" it said and stared at me with its large brown eyes.

"Go home" I said and kicked the bird so it fell over.

The bird flapped its wings trying to get back up on its feet but it was no use.

At leas now it won't follow me, its parents will help it when they return I thought and walked away.

"That's not very nice of you was it?" said a voice as soon as I had turned around again.

A middle-aged man picked up the baby-bird and comforted it till it stopped crying.

"Poor girl is the big boy being bad to you" he said, while rocking the bird in his hands.

"Hey! It followed me" I said in my defence, "how are the parents supposed to find it if it leaves the park?"
"I'm afraid this little girl's parents won't return" said the man.

I just looked confused at the man, and that's one of the few times I ever got confused.

"Sparrowfluts usually fly south at this time of year" the man explained, "I've been keeping an eye on this chick since yesterday. I guess she didn't learn to fly fast enough so they just abandoned her".

"How do you know it's a girl?" I asked out of pure curiosity, "it's not like with ducks where the female is brown and the male is in all sorts of colours".

I did have some knowledge of birds, especially flut-fluts since my uncle ran a flut-flut-ranch, but I didn't know much about sparrowfluts.

"It's simply the size young man" said the man, "with sparrowfluts, like their older cousins the flut-fluts the female is bigger than the male. This one is bigger than even a fully grown male of the species; therefore, it has to be a female".

He took out a bag of bird-seeds which he offered to the chick, she ate it like as if she hadn't eaten for days.

"I better take this little girl home" he said, "Until she learns to fly she can't catch food on her own"

He turned to leave.

"Hey wait!" I shouted after him.

The man turned around and looked questioning at me.

"I can take her" I said, man! Why did I say that? Oh right. "I...I don't have any other you see, all my friends have left"

"To crimson school?" he asked.

I just nodded.

"Why aren't you there? Won't your parents let you?"

"No, they really want me to go, I got thrown out"

"I see" said the man, "well I'm not very surprised your alone, one by one of the kids around here are sent of to that damn school", he offered me the bird and the bag of seeds, "It's not hard knowing when she's hungry" he told me, "just feed her when she cries, after a while she might even learn to talk".

"They can talk to?" I asked surprised.

"Sure, if you train them" the man said, "if you got any question don't hesitate to call, here's my number", he gave me a piece of paper; "by the way, I haven't even said my name yet! I'm Samos Green, and you are?"

"My name is Cornelius Elfin" I said, "and this bird, I think I'll call her Tanya"

"That's a nice name" said Samos, "take care of her Cornelius; I hope we meet again sometime"

And with that he left.

I felt much happier on my way home than I felt when I left.

Finally I had someone I could talk to without being yelled at.

"We've got something in common you and me" I said to the sleepy bird, "All my friends are gone to".

Tanya yawned and fell asleep in my hands.

After being yelled at for five minutes by my dad I took her up to my room (surprisingly enough she was still sleeping).

There was one good thing about the crimson school, with Erol gone I had the whole room for myself; I doubt he would have wanted to share his room with a bird.

I took out some pillows and made a small nest for Tanya right by my bed.

Next I got out to plates, filled one with water and the other one with bird-seeds so that she could eat it when she woke up, then I carefully placed her down at the pillows.

I had to admit it, she was cute.

Only seconds after the door opened, it was my dad.

"Dinner in ten minutes"he said, "And I don't want that thing in the kitchen"

"No problem, you've already said that" I said and copied his voice, "no matter what you do keep that dirty bird in your own room! If I see it somewhere else it will become dinner!"

"Don't play games with me kid!" dad said angry, "your mom and I have worked hard to get money for your school books and you thank us by being thrown out! Erol never makes any problems at school" Not counting elementary I thought for myself.

"Erol likes school!" I almost shouted, "I can't remember having said I wanted anything to do with that... that jerk!"

Dad wasn't angry anymore, he was furious.

"That jerk is your uncle! And the ruler of Haven City!" he said, "and if you don't teach yourself some respect soon you're going straight out! Forget dinner! You're grounded!"

He slammed the door shout and locked it.

Straight out? Well first I have to get out.

He had installed the lock only days after I got expelled, I got grounded all the time but always managed to sneak away.

Dad had the only key, the few first days mom always felt sorry for me and opened the door so no he refused to let her have it.

Fine with me, I didn't want to sit around in the kitchen with that guy anyway.

Tanya twittered, the noise had finally woken her up and now she was hiding under the bed.

"Relax little one, he does that every day" I said and picket her up, she calmed down a bit when I held her.

"All since Uncle Superman took over, my brother Erol suddenly went from being a trouble-maker to dad's favourite boy, my grades doesn't seem to count for anything anymore" I told her, "not that they improved at crimson school, all they want is to make you as violent as possible. I give one teacher half of what he deserves and there! I'm stuck in here, as if Erol never made any problems at his old school"

I didn't really know if Tanya knew what I was talking about; still, it was good to have someone to talk to.

Dad never wanted to listen; mom would just start crying, and my friends? Gone, every single one of them.

I had never told anyone the reason why I hated Praxis that much, why should I? They would never believe me anyway. Dad would ground me for life and my mom? Only the precursors know what she would do.

"Can you keep a secret?" I asked the bird, "but you must promise never to tell a living soul"

Ms.Ecofreak: what is Cornelius' big secret? Find out later in the story, for now you can read about the insede of the "beloved" Crimson school

CHAPTER 8

THE WORST SCHOOL EVER

208, Mounth five

Ashelin

"Hey you! Aim properly!"

When I first got to this school I thought it looked like a prison, I was wrong; it was more of a death camp.

After missing the target for the third time the teacher walked up to me.

"Listen lady! I don't care if you are the barons daughter. Here we don't tolerate mistakes like that!" he said angry.

"It's not that easy!" I yelled, "I have never done anything like this before!"

"Tell the metal heads when they come" the teacher said, "perhaps they will lay down and die just because you are a rookie"

And with that he walked away to torture someone else.

Tetra, who was standing next to me, rolled her eyes, "I envy Cornelius" she said, "sometimes I am tempted to aim this at every teacher at this schools heads, all the other employees as well"

"So why don't you do that?" I asked.

"Cause I can't hit a damn thing" she said, missing for like thirteenth time or something.

None of the teachers ever stopped to yell at her.

The thing about not caring whether I was the baron's daughter or not was a lie, it only made them expect more of me.

Tetra didn't do well in any of the subjects at school; personally I think she gets it all wrong on purpose.

Once she was even closed in a small hut for failing a test she passed with glory at home.

After the shooting practice we had to listen to some high-ranked crimson guard talking about how great my father was, not half of it was true of course.

In the past I didn't understand why he sent small children of to military school, no I knew. It was to feed them with propaganda from a young age so that they would become faithful helpers as adults.

The scary thing was that it seemed to work.

Many of the students talked about my dad as if he was the biggest pop-star or something.

Erol kept talking about himself, and Tetra was the complete opposite from the kids who liked my father.

"Sure he made the city a better place" she said as we walked out of the classroom, "you know what they used to call Haven City before? Heaven City. No, if you take a trip to the slums you'll want to call it Hell City"

"Have you ever been to the slums?" I asked in surprise, Tetras parents would never have allowed her that would they?

"Sure, lots of times" she said, "Mom and dad didn't know it of course; I took a cab down there".

"Why?" I asked, "What do the slums have that we don't have?"

"Cute boys?" suggested Tetra, "someone who's not completely brainwashed, or someone like that kid"

I turned around to see who she was looking at, just in time to se a boy with long brown hair quickly turn around and look up in the sky.

"That boy's been watching you since we left the intern this morning" Tetra whispered, "and all the days before to, I think he likes you"

"Right he's probably just one of the baron's fans who can't believe he's in the same class as Praxis' daughter" I said quickly.

"So he's not a little cute?" Tetra asked.

"Hey, if you like him why don't you talk to him?" I asked her.

"Cause he is staring at you silly" said Tetra, "come on, let's go talk to him"

Before I could protest, she dragged me along towards where the brown-haired boy was standing.

"Hi" said Tetra, the boy jumped up, as if he hadn't seen us coming.

"Uh, hi" he said and continued staring in the sky, "interesting class wasn't it?"

"Not really" said Tetra, sounding rather bored.

"No, not much" the boy said and looked at a duck that flew over the wall, "a bit boring maybe"

Tetra stepped on my foot; she wanted me to say something.

"So err... have you been here for a long time?" I asked.

"A while" said the boy, for once he was looking at me, but the annoying thing was he didn't move an inch, "my parents sent me here a couple of months ago"

"My name is Tetra" said Tetra, reaching out her hand, "And this is my friend Ashelin, but you probably know here already right?"

The boy didn't take her hand, (I doubt he even saw it) he just kept staring at me.

"My name is Torn" he said, "but I... err... I got to go"

He ran towards the door at the intern, straight into the door, he looked in our direction again as he got up and closed the door, slowly.

"Now? Still think he just sees you as the baron's daughter?" Tetra asked.