At lunch time, Annie was standing in the cafeteria with the lunch box from home, a box of juice from the vending machine and a head full of worry from the morning classes. She briefly wondered what that reporter-wannabe was going to write in the student paper but decided that it was not worth assigning worry-time to.
She had more important concerns, like the increasing amount of homework.
Annie spotted Second Sis buying lunch from a vendor. She imagined herself buying food for lunch and suddenly remembered that she herself usually bought lunch in school. Looking down at the unicorn of her pink lunch box, Annie decided not to sit with Carrie to avoid her sister's game of pointing out her incorrect habits.
Connie was nowhere to be seen. However, she did find her classmate Sabine sitting on her own. Annie remembered the plump girl quite clearly, so she had to be someone close.
"Sabine," Annie greeted as she sat opposite her classmate.
Sabine twitched in surprise. Then she adjusted her spectacles and put on a little smile. "Hi, Annie." The girl had her brown hair woven into a single long braid. In front of her was her lunch of baked potato and beans. "Um, how's your first day back?"
Annie sighed as she started on her sandwiches. "I'm tired. I've a lot of homework to catch up on. I've got a ton of reading for history. I've got last week's homework and essay for English. And maths... I don't understand quadratic equations!"
"At least you don't have anything for gym class," Sabine offered in support. Then she shrank back when Annie glared at her. After a moment of eating in silence, the braided girl offered, "Do you want to... copy my homework?"
"That's thoughtful of you." Annie smiled grimly. "But there's nothing to copy for history. And for English, well, we can't both hand in the same essay. The exercises are easy, so it may be faster for me to tough it out rather than to copy. There's just a lot of it. Don't worry about it, it's my problem."
Sabine appeared relieved at the last statement. Then concern appeared on her face again. "What about maths?"
"Maths is the problem," Annie admitted, "I... don't think I can copy your homework. It'll be pointless if I don't understand. I don't even know where to start."
The sudden intrusion of a memory from the past brought some hope to Annie. She looked straight at Sabine. "You're good in maths, aren't you?"
"Yes," Sabine admitted modestly.
"Can you teach me?"
"If you want," the other girl replied softly.
"Will you?" Annie was grateful. "Thank you very much. I've got half-an-hour after school before Mother picks me up. Are you free then? Is that enough time?"
"I'll try to explain the basics, at least show you where to start, then we'll see."
Thus, Annie found a friend in school she could turn to for help. That was one less worry for her.
However, the tutorial session with Sabine after school was not as productive as Annie had hoped. Through the maths exercises Sabine had her do, they discovered that Annie's foundation was weak. Annie was not even familiar with basic algebra, the prerequisite to quadratic equations in maths class.
When Mother came to pick her up, Annie left for home with an even heavier burden on her mind.
***
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