Nano project #5 is the first novella in a series of 8, following 8 students through their 8 years at Doomsday Academy.

Well, here’s a little something about one.

“Okay, pick a card.”

The caravan driver was being very patient, and you could tell. Then again, you’d been dropped on the caravan with two bags and a crossbow, and you were pretty sure that she felt bad for you.

And, really, you’d been dropped on a caravan with two bags and a half-sized crossbow, you were (you were pretty sure) just a few weeks away from your 10th birthday, and, while you didn’t really count the people that had just dumped you as parents, they were the only family you could remember. If you were going to take advantage of the fact the caravan driver was tolerating you, well, who could really blame you?

Besides, when you did particularly good magic tricks, she gave you an extra treat. You were a growing kid, right? Hopefully. You needed all the food you could get.

“All right, you’ve got your card in your mind, now put it right back in here, and I’ll just shuffle these up, just like this.” The guy you’d once thought was your father had taught you to shuffle, as well as several other card tricks. “And there we go. Is this your wallet?”

The cute smile was the trick. If you got that wrong, then you weren’t doing adorable magic tricks, you were a pickpocket. It was a thin line.

You held your breath. Slowly, the caravan driver smiled.

Today, you got to be a cute kid doing cute tricks.

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“What should I wear? What should I pack? Do you think they’ll like me? What do you think they’ll be like? Do you think I’ll get to dance?”

Sianna wasn’t really asking the questions. They were popping out of her mouth far too quickly to really expect anyone to follow them. But she had to get them out. There were so many questions, so many things she didn’t know. “Is it warm there, like the time we spent a year down south? Is it cold, like when we spent time in Uncle Martin’s cabin? What’s it like? What are the people like? Are they going to be mean, like those people…”

Sianna’s family traveled, they had always traveled. But they traveled together. And when they had been summering in a nice place on the outskirts of a really really big wheatfield, a spotted redheaded lady and a dark-haired man with the same nose and spots as the lady had shown up to talk to Sianna’s parents.

It had been one of those kids-go-play conversations, all hushed tones and some flailing of hands on her Mama’s part (and a bit more angry flailing of hands on her Daddy’s part, and that had been the weird part. Daddy didn’t get angry. Sometimes he got furious, but furious was an entirely different sort of thing from angry. Mama got angry).

But when it was over, Mama and Daddy, the redheaded spotted lady and the dark spotted boy had all been polite smiles, but polite-and-real smiles, not the weird fake ones. And Sianna had been going off to Doomsday Academy in the fall.

“Why do you think they call it ‘Doomsday;’ it sounds kind of mean. And why can’t you guys come with me?”

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