School was starting up. Juniper had seen signs of it everywhere. Hurried parents darting in and out of stores, buying everything; backpacks, pencils, clothes, shoes. Basically anything that any child in the whole world could possibly use, those parents were buying. School was a very important thing after all, and a child who was well stocked at the beginning of the year had the advantage…well. Of being well stocked for most of the first few weeks at least.

It was a strange feeling, not being one of the people bustling in and out of the stores. She didn’t have to worry about school this year. As if Graduation hadn’t been a big enough culture shock…this was just. It was strange. They never prepared you for this. All your life, it was school, day in and day out. Teachers were always saying how you would never amount to anything if you didn’t school yourself right and learn everything and…and now look at what was happening.

Why didn’t they have a class on living life when school was done or something dumb like that? Or maybe they did, but that was in college. And upper education wasn’t something that really interested Juniper right now. Seriously, she had just managed to escape the daily grind of high school, and there was just so much pressure…and pressure wasn’t what she wanted.

Though, she had enough of it in her life. She was fighting a war, surely that was something that was worthwhile enough to be put on a real life résumé, wasn’t it? But…no. It wasn’t. It wasn’t good enough for anything.

The green haired girl leaned her forehead against the warm glass of her window, sighing. What she wouldn’t give to go back to being a kid again, in normal school, nothing like Saint Mags, normal, safe Knightside Elementary. She had it so easy then…but…but how close must she have been to not having it easy?

There were kids in the war, just look at Goretti! She could have been pulled into it when she was his age too. What would life have been like then? A child soldier? Would she have even survived this long? Oh jeeze. Think of how her piano playing would have suffered!

Juniper pulled away from the window and walked to her bed, falling face down on it. No, her life had been easy. It had been good. She didn’t have any real hardships other than the loss of her parents, but that was another story entirely. She gave a little grin, remembering when her grandmother informed her of just where she would be going to high school. An all girls school so she wouldn’t be tempted by any of those boys in the hallways.

Well. Her grandmother would have been horrified to hear that she was so much more distracted by all of the girls at St. Mags…well. It made her happy at least.

She missed school. She missed…childhood. But perhaps the biggest thing she missed was just…just being normal. She didn’t think she could ever get that back now…and she missed it.