Chapter 6:
13 January 2019 (1 1/2 years later)
Piper turned ten that morning, and her room was filled with laughter.
"Surprise!" her friends shouted as they piled onto her bed, dropping gift-wrapped packages in her lap.
Over the past year and a half, Piper had transformed. She had progressed well, now wearing a green martial arts belt, her seventh, and thriving in all her classes. The traces of her accent were gone, replaced with an unremarkable British one. Her friendships had blossomed. Henry, Lillian, and her had become especially tight, united in their love for reading.
Henry, Jonah, and Lillian gave her a hoodie from a fair-trade shop, printed with a sleek ermine and fun facts about the animal. Emilia, Reuben, and a new addition to their group - Imogen, a math whiz - had gifted her the movie Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, knowing Piper loved emotionally layered stories. Holly's crew—now including Malik, a quietly brilliant boy with a love for sketching—gifted her a very comfortable fountain pen.
Her handler, Emiko, dropped off a small stack of novels and nonfiction books.
Because it was a Sunday she didn't have any classes. She was now at the levels of Maths 7, ELA 8, Natural and Life Sciences 7, Social Sciences, Politics and Human Geography 8, History 8, Arts 7, IT Level 3, Martial Arts Level 7, French C1.1, Dutch B2.2, German B1.2 and had training for basic training. She had been teaching French from 8 to 10 on Saturday mornings since the beginning of the year.
Piper and her friends didn't have to do any extra training that morning, so they played paintball and went swimming together. In the afternoon Imogen and Piper went out to play tennis. Later, in the evening, they all watched the movie Emilia, Reuben and Imogen had given Piper.