Final Countdown
By Jemmiah
Qui-Gon paused at the little table at which his young ward sat chewing aimlessly at the end of a writing stylus, as she inevitably did whenever distracted or in desperate need of inspiration. No doubt some particularly boring school project was the root cause of her preoccupation, especially if the unenthusiastic expression on the Corellian girl's face was anything to go by. Not particularly scholarly at the best of times it had to be noted that Jemmiah's mind tended to wander when given assignments that she didn't particularly care for.
"Enjoying yourself?" Qui-Gon asked a touch mischievously, answered by Jemmiah's special brand of Corellian death-glare. "Do I take it from the disgust on your face that it's mathematics again?"
Jemmy rested her chin heavily upon the palm of her hand, looking very bored indeed.
"No, sir. It's creative writing." She sighed, staring fruitlessly at the table and wondering if it might be more exciting to scrawl her name on the surface in fancy handwriting.
This surprised Qui-Gon greatly. "But that's one of your favourite classes, isn't it?"
"Usually." Groused Jemmy. "But this one has me beat. I have to write something in ten minutes. Just ten! How in the name of the seven Corellian hells am I supposed to do that and come up with something good? I'm telling you - it's impossible! I don't even know what to write!"
Qui-Gon sat down next to her and pondered her predicament for a moment or two.
"Write from experience." He smiled, pleased to have been of some assistance. "That way you have your memory to rely upon, rather than have to think up some elaborate back story. It's usually the best way. Besides, real life is usually stranger than fiction."
Jemmiah nodded, chewing some more on the end of the stylus. "I can do that, I guess. Okay…what should I choose? How about," she frowned, "the time where you and Master Berlingside tried to sneak out to that cantina and got caught by…."
"No!" Warned Qui-Gon with a raised finger. "Use your experience, not my own!"
Jemmy snorted, then gave a final look at her chrono. Then with a reluctant sigh she began to scratch out her humble creative effort. It most likely wouldn't be much, but at least she could say she'd given it her best shot.
The minutes ticked away.
"How's it going?" Qui-Gon asked when the eighth minute was nearly up, expecting to be shushed or waved at to be silent.
Jemmy chewed fitfully at her lip. "Nearly done…I'll read it back and you can tell me what you think, okay?" She cleared her throat a couple of times then picked up the flimsy sheet. "Once upon a time, in a galaxy not so far away there lived a padawan called Ben. He lived at the Jedi temple with his master. One day when the master was away from the temple visiting a friend, leaving his padawan behind, Ben decided he was feeling very bored and so he decided to borrow a speeder that was sitting on the temple landing pad. Unfortunately for Ben the speeder wasn't very good. In fact it was almost as useless as he was as at flying! Whilst he was weaving about dodging the traffic he managed to smash into quite a few other speeders and cause quite a bit of damage. To make things worse he was so scared that he was sick all over the seat of the speeder. But the worst thing of all happened when he…"
Jemmiah stopped suddenly.
"What!" Qui-Gon's eyes had widened dramatically. "What is it?"
The ten-year-old stood up disconsolately. "I'm sorry, I've ran out of time." She shrugged, gathering her stuff together and leaving an exasperated Qui-Gon to stare after her, clearly trying to picture all manner of horrible scenarios.
Which, if the Corellian's grin was anything to go by, was exactly as Jemmiah had planned.