(Author's Note: Hurrah! It didn't take me years! And many thanks to anonymous reviewer hello who pointed out that my summary was wrong. To EmbeRin, I promise you will know why they are 17 soon enough. Be patient young one…-smiles wisely- I should also mention that in this fic Sakura's dad is not an archeologist, but he works in an office and answers boring phone calls and gets yelled at like any typical parent who works. And "merde" means "shit" in French. Just in case you wonder. Here is chapter 5.)

Disclaimer: I don't own Cardcaptors characters: CLAMP does. I own their personalities in this story and any other character that I make up.

Chapter 5

The rest of the autumn passed by quickly. The students of Tomoeda High saw the leaves change colours and slowly flutter to the ground.

Before long, there was frost on the ground, and a hint of winter lingered in the crisp air. Everything changed to accommodate the cold weather. Except…

BLEEP! BLEEP! BLEEP!

"AAAARRRRGGHHH! DIE YOU STUPID BLEEPING THING!"

The "stupid bleeping thing" went flying through the air, out the open window, and could distinctly be heard smashing into tiny bits on the ground two stories below.

Downstairs, Touya whipped his head around and glared out the porch window, trying to find the source of the disturbance. He saw bits of pink plastic, tiny springs, and pieces of metal strewn haphazardly all over the brown lawn.

"Hmph. The kaijou will never change." He chuckled to himself.

Back upstairs, Sakura crawled sleepily out of bed. Meandering hazily down the hallway towards the bathroom, she walked right into the wall. Bouncing off and not registering a thing, she attempted to walk through it again…and again…and again...

Finally, after fifteen minutes, Sakura came stumping down the stairs, hair disheveled and eyes still full of sleep.

"Morning onii-chan...have you sen my alarm clock? I just had a funny dream where I threw it out the window...but it was just a dream, of course. So have you seen it?"

Touya sweatdropped and quickly stifled a laugh.

"Uh...I have seen it. It's...erm...out there..." he pointed to the porch window, determinedly not meeting his little sister's eyes. Here we go...

In spite of himself, he looked up at her, fighting a smile as he anticipated her reaction.

She was standing stock-still, staring out the window. "Okay, maybe I'm still dreaming."

Without a word, her brother reached over and yanked her hair, VERY hard. I must be suicidal, he thought immediately.

Sakura stared for a second at the clump of brown hair in his hand, then at the big hallway mirror in which she was reflected. A girl who was missing a gruesomely large amount of hair on one side of her head stared back. A red tinge appeared on her cheeks.

"Ow..."

As she rounded on Touya (who was cowering in fright), her eyes caught sight of the kitchen clock.

"SHIT!"

Grabbing a pair of chopsticks and whacking Touya hard on the head with them ("I thank my lucky stars that that's all she's doing..." he thought), she raced out ot the kitchen, hurtling up the stairs three at a time.

Two minutes later, she was streaking out the door.

"Bye 'nii-chan! Love you!" (Touya had rather redeemed himself by stopping her from eating a blob of old toothpaste that looked a bit too much like mayonnaise)

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Sakura skidded to a stop in front of her classrrom door and wrenched the door open, trying to get her breathing under control. Stumbling to her seat, she grinned weakly at Tomoyo and dropped her books with a loud thunk on the desk.

"Kinomoto!"

Her eyes snapped up to the front of the room. Terada-sensei was obviously in a very bad mood.

"What do you mean by barging into my class like this as if you owned it?"

"'Cause you obviously don't," Sakura muttered in an undertone. The people around her stifled giggles.

"What was that?" demanded the teacher.

"I apologize for acting as though I own the room," said Sakura sweetly.

"Hmph," grumbled Terada-sensei. "Well, apology accepted." He suddenly became all bright and cheery again. "As I was saying before I was so politely interrupted--" the class tittered, detecting no trace of sarcasm in his voice. "--your year has the privelege of taking a sightseeing tour around Tokyo. It will be quite an educational experience, given that there is so much to learn about our country's history. However, I am afraid the fees are quite--" He broke off abruptly as the class started laughing again. He glared at a certain brown-haired green-eyed ("Terrible eyes, that one..." thought Terada-sensei) individual who was currently staring out the window, unaware that she was exposing the bare side of her unfortunate scalp to her cackling classmates.

"Kinomoto!" He roared, ignoring the fact that most of the class had stuffed their fists into their mouths to choke back their laughter (and indeed there was more than one person who actually did gag).

"Whaa...?" Sakura spun around to face the front, her hand unconsciously probing through her hair. It ran over the bald spot. "Oh..." She turned red and lifted up her textbook to hide herself.

"Now then," continued Terada-sensei. "We will be touring for one week--" the class let out an excited cheer "--and will be staying at the various hotels around our destinations. Obviously, the school cannot afford for each of you to have a private room to yourselves, so you will have to get into groups of four. Normally, the board would have let you organize yourselves into these groups, but as of this year they have decided it best if the teachers were given that authority."

Everyone groaned.

"You wait," Sakura whispered to Tomoyo. "I'm gonna get stuck with the gayest group of nerdy nosepicking kids in the class. Either that or I'll be with a bunch of perverted egoheads who think they rule the world." Tomoyo chuckled.

"I will now post the groups up on the board. Please do not come rushing up like a group of buffalo and trample each other trying to look at the lists. Wait until recess. Now that we're through all that, on to math..."

Sakura felt her attentiveness slipping away...as usual...

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The bell rang and everyone dropped their math books, rushing up to the front. Sakura elbowed her way up to the front, followed by Tomoyo (who apologized to them and handed few people bandages). Her eyes ran over the lists until she found her name under Group C.

Hmm...me(who else?)...Tomoyo-chan (yay!)...Yamazaki-kun (Chiharu-chan will hate me forever)...and Syaoran-kun. (Oh merde.)

"Hey look Sakura-chan!" Tomoyo's cheerfully loud voice sounded from behind her. "We're in the same group! We're a bunch of nerdy perverted egoheads who pick their noses! And look!" Her voice got louder. And higher, thought Sakura. "Yamazaki-kun is with us too!"

Out of the corner of her eye, Sakura saw Chiharu whip aroun, a slightly disappointed look on her face. She hid a grin, then grimaced as Tomoyo's voice became positively shrill.

"And LOOK!" Tomoyo squealed with delight. "Li-kun's also in our group! Isn't that just wonderful?" Sakura sweatdropped and edged away, exchanging I-don't-know-her-either looks with everyone she bumped into.

"I'm in your group?" asked a slighly bored voice.

"Uh...yeah. Fun eh?" said Sakura, meeting Syaoran's gaze shakily. Damn, what's wrong with me?

"...Sure."

There was an awkward pause.

"Err...I gotta go now." Sakura quietly sidled away, thinking, Okay, this has got to stop. This could lead to something I don't wanna deal with right now. Then again...I always thought Yukito-san was too old for me. Still... She sighed.

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"Onii-chan! I'm home!"

Nobody answered her. "Hmm...he should be back by now." She wandered into the kitchen to fix herself a snack.

Grabbing a box of cookies, she plopped down in front of the tv and turned it on. (A Japanese version of) Friends (just pretend it exists) was on, and she started laughing.

The phone rang. When she grabbed the receiver, she was surprised to hear her father's voice on the other end.

"Hi honey, how's it going?"

"Hey dad! I'm great. How are you? You don't call very often from work."

"Well I called today to tell you that we'll be having guests over for dinner. I already sent Touya to pick up some stuff, so if you could just clean up the house a bit that'd be great."

"Sure thing dad. How many people are coming?"

"One person, possibly two. She just arrived in Japan a couple ofdays ago, and joined our department today. Since I'm head of office I thought I should make her feel welcome by inviting her over."

"Who might she be bringing?"

"Her little brother. From what I heard she doesn't trust him at all around the house."

Sakura laughed.

"Okay dad, I'll clean up. You just worry about stuff at your end. See ya later."

"Bye sweetie."

Sakura hung up and looked around. Cookie crumbs were scattered all over the floor, cushions were thrown haphazardly around the room, drops of melting ice cream were sinking into the furniture and carpet, and a terrible blotch that looked like bloody coffee stained the table. Something tinkered behind her.

Sakura looked around just in time to see a tall pile of unwashed dishes waver and fall over with a resounding CRASH into the sink. She winced.

Glancing outside, she saw the plastic remnants of her poor alarm clock lying around, the pieces stretching over half the lawn. She thought of her empty unmade bed and cluttered desk upstairs, and decided to start cleaning. Now, where's the vacuum?

Then she remembered that the only working vacuum cleaner in the house was in the basement, currentlybeing suffocated by five years' worth of dust and unwanted Christmas presents.

"'Clean up a bit'", she muttered to herself. "I wish."

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"Finally..." With a tired groan, she flopped down onto the couch and surveyed her work. The living room was spotless, the kitchen shining, the lawn alarm clock free, the basement tidied up (which, in her opinion, was a terrific accomplishment) and upstairs, her room was a bit TOO clean.

"Ahh." sighing, she stretched out and turned the tv on again. But she was really tired. And the couch felt so soft...Maybe I'll just rest a bit. I have plenty of time before they get here. Her eyelids drooped and she fell asleep.

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"Here we are." A silver Mercedes pulled up into the Kinomoto driveway. A tall man with brown hair and large glasses climbed out, followed by a young woman and her brother.

The man led them up the pathway and onto the porch. He reached into his pocket and fumbled around.

"Oh dear...I think I've left the house keys at the office. I always knew I should have put them with the car keys. No matter, Sakura is home."

The young woman started. "Sakura? Is that your daughter Kinomoto-san?"

Fujitaka chuckled. "Yes it is, Ms. Li. Is something the matter?"

"Oh no, no no no of course not. It's just my little brother here has a girl in his class named Sakura. Why, he talks about her all the time." She laughed.

"Really?" Fujitaka smiled at the boy, who was turning steadily redder. "Well in that case, I'll just have to let her introduce us." And without further ado he rang the doorbell, and turned back to the boy. "It's really a nice surprise that you two are already acquainted. It's a small world after all, right Syaoran?"

"Right." Syaoran mumbled.

(A/N: I have a thing against alarm clocks, in case any one wondered. They are annoying little things, aren't they? But my parents would kill me if I smashed even one, so I was reduced to taking my frustration out in this story. Now, I'm not that clear on the names of Syaoran's four sisters. I know Fanren, Fuutie, and...uhh yeah that's it. So could someone give me the other two names please? That would be much appreciated. I also need a list of all the honorifics...as you can see here I've left some out. If someone could give those to me too, that would also be much appreciated. Thanks a bunch! And review please!)