Sorry for the wait. Hope you enjoy this chapter!

SnapShot

By Ryuu no Taiyo

Chapter Six

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Jade walked nervously through the door of the Pedestrian District Primary School. Gulping at the amount of children aging ten to fourteen she walked as confidently as she could pretend.

'I'm ten years old. I'm a big girl…'

She watched a guy three times taller than her walk by her hurriedly.

'Maybe not 'big' but…'

Jade then found her classroom. On a big board out side the school there had been the class and room number of every student. Jade was in Class 001.4 in Room 6.

And at that moment, she was standing in front of a pink door with a big multi-coloured sign saying 'Room Six'.

Jade sighed. Here it goes, she thought nervously ('I'M NOT NERVOUS!' she corrected herself mentally). Walking inside the noisy classroom, she nervously spotted Nouri in a corner talking with a few other girls.

A few heads turned to look at Jade, but they didn't give her that much notice.

Jade's heart was beating a mile a minute.

She practically ran over to where Nouri was.

"Hey Nouri!"

"Hi Jade."

Jade smiled nervously.

"So what do we do now?"

"I don't know." Said one of the girls Nouri was taking to. "I'm Seven. Like the number seven! Except not written like a number seven. You write it like 's-e-v-e-n'." Seven smiled widely.

Jade nodded.

"I'm only nine!" Seven jumped up excitedly. "I bet I'm the youngest girl in the school."

"When are you turning ten?" Jade asked curiously.

"Next year!" she smiled.

"But you're not allowed at school!" Jade exclaimed.

"I know!"

Jade nodded slowly, digesting the information. The official age to enter school was ten years.

Seven bounced around while Nouri looked at Jade and laughed.

"She's mental."

"Obviously." Jade said under her breath but smiled and nodded.

Francis must be in a different classroom, Jade mused, because at that moment the teacher came in, dressed in a frivolous, fluffy pink dress. She counted the students, more or less satisfied when she determined that everyone was there.

She had an unpleasant, thin triangular face and rather large front teeth, and she wore large round shaded glasses, covering her small beady eyes. Jade's first impression was that she was probably half rat.

She told all of the children to sit at the round tables, in any order they wished, but threatened them that if they uttered one word to their little friends, they'd be kicked out of the classroom. Jade gulped, feeling already discouraged as she sat between Seven (who could barely keep in place) and Nouri, who looked just about as nervous as Jade was.

The teacher then decided to drill the students, to test their knowledge.

Her name was Miss. Mowsey.

"You, the one with the big ears. Yes you! Come up here please. Now, answer me: what is 5 times 6?"

The boy with the large ears looked terrified. He answered in a small voice that he had never done that type of math.

Miss Mowsey looked put off.

"What?" she exclaimed in a high-pitched voice.

"I never learned that." The poor boy looked on the verge of tears.

"And you passed the Placement Test?"

"That stuff wasn't on the H.P.T.!" Jade cried out.

Miss Mowsey's pointed face glared at Jade.

"Mind your business, little missy."

Jade crossed her arms and slouched down on her chair.

"But it's true."

"Not a word." The teacher snapped.

Jade scowled behind Mrs. Mowsey's back. A discouraged feeling swept into her mind.

This was going to be a long day.

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Mrs. Mowsey was Jade's only teacher that year, and Jade knew, by the end of that course, that there was no way in all of Hillys that that woman was not at least half-rat in personality. They say first impressions are often wrong, but Jade was certain that this impression was right. Mrs. Mowsey hated school, teaching, little children, books, math, and reading and did I mention little children? She hated children period. Jade ended up wondering why she ever became a teacher.

She already made two great friends in her class. There was, of course, Nouri, but Seven was also an incredibly nice kid. She gave up half her lunch to share it with Jade. Seven's dad was a racer, and they always had money to buy expensive things. Things that Jade usually had the chance to touch or eat on her birthday or when Pey'j suddenly found some cash. They weren't poor, and the government did pay them an annual rent to operate the lighthouse at night to guide the boats and aircrafts, but it wasn't much and Pey'j often had the little odd job to do to sustain both of them.

Seven had given her and Nouri a very rare type of food that originated from a very, very far-away planet. It was called a Berri. Because of the war, there were impossible to get. Seven's dad was a hovercraft racer, and he had recently been to a championship in Stella City, where he had found them off the Black Market there.

Berri's were delicious, but Seven didn't have any more. She promised excitedly that next time her father was in Stella City, he'd buy more.

She went home that day excited, chatting a mile a minute to Pey'j about her day and how wonderful it had been. Pey'j just smiled and nodded, happy that she was going to be fine.

There were four days of school, followed by three rest days. The rest of the school week was very interesting, and Jade realized how advanced she was compared to the rest of her class. Seven was also quite advanced, but that was because her parent's hired a tutor for her.

Mrs. Mowsey soon grew very annoyed with the outspoken ten-year-old with her little bit of an attitude. Jade also grew frustrated with her teacher who didn't seem to comprehend how Jade knew all of the things she knew. She knew the name of all the stars you could see at night and the planets in the Solaris System (Astronomy was an important subject, it was included in the Geography curriculum), she knew the name of most of the wildlife on Hillys, and she could read and write at a fairly advanced level.

Jade realized that she should have pretended to be ignorant when she unintentionally show'd off her skills during class. It would have saved her from Mrs. Mowsey's wrath, who although hated ignorant children, hated children who knew already what she was about to teach them even more. Thus she drove Jade harder than the others, to the point where Jade really wanted to kick her.

When the fourth day rolled around, Jade could see why many older kids hated School so much. It wasn't always boring, Jade decided, but it was annoying to be trapped inside a schoolroom for more than nine hours, plus the lunch and break times.

She saw the boy from Ming-Tsu's shop again. He smirked at her and Jade gave her best 'Jade-is-not-happy-look' back. This only resulted in a even wider smile from him and Jade stomping off.

Nouri and Seven became her very best friends. Seven lived in the more rich districts of the city, and was often not allowed down by the Akuda Bar or the Fountain Square because of the family's fear of her disappearing on them. Her family seemed to take the war quite seriously, even though there had been no attacks since the one in the summer.

Nouri worked with her grandmother Kyura after school, and sometimes Jade offered her help, but most of the time they just parted with a friendly goodbye and Jade went to the Akuda Bar to meet Pey'j.

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It had been four weeks since the beginning of school, and Jade and Nouri were sitting there backs against the Fountain doing there homework together. À

"Jade, I really don't get this!" Nouri almost whined, throwing her math papers on the ground.

"I hate math too." Jade agreed, but she picked up the calculations sheet (there were more than thirty multiplications) and noticed that Nouri had only finished about five of them, while she was almost done.

"Here. Just copy off me. There probably all wrong, but who cares?"

"Thank you!" Nouri hugged Jade quickly before picking the pencil back up and scribbling down the answers. "I hate Mrs. Mowsey. She never explains anything."

Jade nodded.

"How long is the year?" Jade asked.

"Um…It finishes early spring for us."

"You mean the Primary school?"

"Yeah. Secondary finishes in the middle of summer and begins middle of fall."à

"That sucks." Jade said.

Nouri smiled.

"I'm not going to Secondary school."

"What?"

"Grandma Kyura says that she might not be able to pay, and she needs someone to take over the market. You don't need a Secondary School diploma to do that."

Jade looked terrified.

"You mean I'll enter Secondary school alone?" she exclaimed, truly unhappy about the idea. School without Nouri? Separate the new trio of friends that she, Seven and Nouri had become? The idea disturbed Jade greatly.

"That's in a long time though." Nouri answered. "We have plenty of time." She smiled.

Jade nodded.

She noticed that Nouri had quickly scribbled down each answer from her paper.

Jade took back the paper. Sighing, she heard Pey'j call her from the passerelle across them that lead to the Akuda Bar.

"Jade. We're goin' home now!"

"Ok Uncle Pey'j!"

Saying a quick and cheery goodbye to Nouri, she grabbed her things and put them in her SAC before running to meet Pey'j. They walked to the parking and started the hovercraft, drove into and out the Main Canal and zoomed towards the lighthouse.

Jade looked out the front window and saw in horror as the sky started darkening prematurely.

They were under attack.