1994
7 yrs old
September

It was the first dag of her new school. Her fifth school in the past two years. Kindergarten she had gone to two different schools and same in first grade. Mom promised they'd be staying here for as long as possible, but she was doubtful. But also, maybe she’d be able to make some friends. Also doubtful. But hey, this was Gotham. Anything could happen. Anything usually happened here anyways. Even for her age, she was quite intelligent. Higher English than most kids her age, that made it much harder to talk to them since they usually they didn’t understand a word she said.

The school building was all on one floor, ranging from grades one to five. The doors were big, at least for her being small for her age. She was only about three feet tall, most her age were about a full foot taller than her. She was kind of early to class. klok, bell hadn’t rung yet. She was early to her first class: English of course. With a bunch of fourth graders. She sat down in the back of the room, setting down her backpack beside her on the floor. Quietly, she pulled out her notebook and pencil, then her book. The top, boven of her notebook was a pale yellow color, her name written along with the subject. The teacher wasn’t even in the room yet, it was only her.

A boy walked in. His hair was a shaggy and brown, parts of it covering his face. He looked around, then looked over Rene. She immediately put her head down, looking back at her book. He began walking over to her, and sat down in the zitplaats, stoel volgende to her. He looked over at her, just for a moment, before pulling out his notebook and book.

“Hi,” he said, twirling a pencil in his hand. She looked over to him, then back down.

“Hi.”

“I’m Jake.”

“Rene.” The boy looked over at her, trying to meet her eyes, smiling a little.

“That’s a pretty name.” She looked to him, his blue eyes sparkling.

“Thanks.” Her face was still blank as she looked at Jake.
“So, you’re a fourth grader?”

“No, I’m a seconde grader.”

“Really? Wow me too!” That caused the ends of her mouth to turn up into a slight smile.

“I guess I won’t be the youngest for once,” she replied as soon as the klok, bell rang.

“Nope!” Rene smiled a little bit bigger as the klok, bell for class rang and the classroom flooded with kids and the teacher.

“Alright class. Take out your notebook and open your textbook to page 30…”