For notes, warnings and disclaimers see chapter 1

Scene 9: Do You Hunger for This
(Age: 13)

The good news was that her mom had managed to land a job waiting tables at a diner in the afternoons and she had even been able to keep that job for more than three weeks. The great news was that, because of her mom's new schedule, Kara could easily go for several days without seeing her at all. She was usually asleep by the time her mother came home after drinking away most of her tips for the day and her mom was never up by the time Kara was out the door. The bad news was that her mom had managed to land a job waiting tables at a diner in the afternoons and she had been able to keep that job for more than three weeks.

Yes, Kara was aware that the bad news sounded remarkably similar to the good news but the truth was that she was getting more than a little desperate. The fact that her mom was waiting tables meant that she was getting two full meals a day and as a result she hadn't gone grocery shopping since she'd first landed that job. That was a problem.

Kara had been trying to ration whatever groceries had been left for over a week but that had only gone so far and even those had finally run out so she hadn't had anything to eat in well over twenty-four hours. Her stomach was really starting to cramp, she was feeling like crap and the only thing left in the apartment was her mother's supply of ambrosia. Unfortunately, even though she knew what the problem was, she didn't really know what to do about it.

Sure, at least in theory Kara was more than capable of going shopping on her own, there remained, however, one major problem with that particular theory: in order to do some shopping she would have needed money and Kara didn't have a single cubit to her name. In other words --while buying something to eat would have seemed like the logical thing for her to do-- realistically speaking it wasn't much of an option. For a moment she even considered the possibility of pointing the situation out to her mother but she dismissed that idea almost immediately. Asking her mom for anything was a dangerous proposition and she knew it, besides it never really helped. That left desperate measures.

Figuring out that she had to find a way to either get some money or to get something to eat was the easy part, the hard part was figuring out how to pull it off.

She knew shoplifting wasn't an option. It wasn't so much that she was worried about it being wrong, it was mostly that she knew she couldn't run the risk of getting caught. Kara knew she had to keep a low profile if she didn't want a bunch of busybodies asking a ton of questions she wasn't willing to answer and getting caught shoplifting definitely wouldn't have qualified as keeping a low profile. Unfortunately the need to keep a low profile also ruled out the possibility of her trying to get a job... not that anyone would have hired her anyway.

She went over her options in her head for the umpteenth time but no matter how many times she did that, those options remained almost non-existent. The most she could come up with was that her best bet was to try to make some money while she was in school. That way, even if she were to get caught, she probably wouldn't find herself in too much trouble. Kara knew her teachers had already written her off as a lost cause so they probably wouldn't make a big deal out of whatever she did... at least not as long as no one got hurt.

Well, if she was going to have to come up with a way to solve her problem at school that would probably mean figuring out a way to get some of the other kids to part with either their lunch or their lunch money... besides, it wasn't like they couldn't afford it.

Having made up her mind in that regard, Kara was left to struggle with a couple of questions: who and how... especially the how. The fact was that she was in the eighth grade. That meant she was at the bottom of the pecking order and besides, even if that hadn't been the case, one thing she wasn't was a bully.

That meant that she was going to have to figure out a way to fleece some of the older kids and that was likely to turn out to be a bit of a challenge... not to mention that pissing them off probably wouldn't be the safest of ideas either.

In other words, Kara knew she was going to have to be very careful, but that didn't necessarily mean that the whole situation was hopeless. In fact she suddenly realized that --if she played her cards right-- it could actually turn out to be like taking candy from a baby... with a strong emphasis on the playing her cards right.

She had seen some of the older kids playing triad and that was something she figured she could do, heck, she knew she could beat them with her eyes closed. After all --if nothing else-- the one thing she'd learned by watching some of her mom's boyfriends over the years was how to play triad and win. Her mom's boyfriends had never been particularly fond of losing and as a result one of the things she had learned from watching them was how to play dirty. Besides, seeing how she was younger --and a girl-- she was pretty sure she could fool some of the older kids into thinking she was an easy mark.

Well, that was definitely something she could work with, or at least it should have been. There remained, however, one seemingly insurmountable obstacle: to play triad with the older kids she needed a few cubits and if she'd had that money she wouldn't have been in such a mess in the first place... okay, so maybe that wasn't entirely true. Kara knew she would need a lot less money to get herself a place at the table than she would have required to solve her current problem --and, unlike shopping, getting a place at the table would basically be a one time deal-- however, seeing how she didn't have those few cubits to begin with, the distinction was mostly academic.

In other words, while playing triad could turn out to be a pretty reliable option to avoid another mess like the one she was currently facing, it was not a solution this time around. This time around she had to figure out a way to get her hands on someone else's money without risking any of her own.

That left her with no choice but to go with plan B, and plan B was bound to be dangerous. She had seen more than one of her classmates get in trouble by falling for a dare from the upper classmen, some of whom seemed to get their kicks out of getting freshmen to try something dumb, like stealing the picture of the principal's wife that the man kept on his desk. Now, while Kara wasn't willing to risk her neck on something as stupid as a dare, she figured that if she could talk them into transforming that dare into a bet things could actually work out.

Besides, what was the worst thing that could happen to her? Getting caught? It wasn't like anyone would be surprised to catch her doing something dumb or anything like that. She was a screw up so screwing up was pretty much what was expected of her anyway.

Yes, that should work... maybe.

Author's notes: Hi guys, so Kara is now a teenager. Anyway, one thing I had to figure out for this part was how the Colonial school system was going to be organized. I decided to go with seven years grade school and five years high school, just to make it a little alien. I hope that wasnít too confusing.

Now, would I sound to pathetic if I were to say 'please review'?

Thanks for reading,

Alec