"That was weird," Michi said, keeping her voice low. "I thought Cathy said the aliens were really smart. And that they had their own civilisation that we were only starting to understand, not that they were animals."
"That article didn't seem like they were overestimating anything either. They were pretty cautious, from what I read."
"Why did you get that article from the library anyway? It seems like more the kind of thing Cathy would check out for a bit of light reading."
"Just researching my article on Velfard. That one actually turned out to not be useful for the article."
They walked into their next class, and collected their notes.
"You should do an article about the aliens, not for tonight's deadline, don't worry. But, say, compare what the teacher is telling us with that article, and others."
Sherry frowned. "l don't know."
"C'mon Sherry. No 'teacher's discretion' remember?"
"Yeah, so we won't get in trouble with John, but that teacher will hate me."
"Ok, so don't say anything about history class. You really should do an article about it though."
"I'll think about it." Sherry put her notes on the table and sat down.
Michi sighed and sat down beside her.
#
Sherry rubbed her forearms then her eyes as she read over her article one last time at dinner. It was better than it had been at breakfast, but she could do better. When she wasn't so tired--tonight she'd definitely go to bed early.
Michi was checking over her article with Cathy's help, and Kara was whispering with Jess, from the look on their faces plotting something.
"Alright," Michi said, snapping her bookreader's cover around and over the screen. "Let's get this newsletter published. Watch for it tomorrow morning!" She waved at the others and led Sherry away.
"I can do better," Sherry said, waving her bookreader ahead of them. "I won't try to write at 2AM again, that's for sure. I wound up rewriting the entire thing anyway."
Michi laughed. "What, haven't you ever written a last-minute essay at 2AM before?"
"Yeah, but never after such busy days. I never did the after school sports thing and evening club thing before I even get to my homework. Besides, the families I stayed with always had super-strict lights out times. They'd even watch for the bookreader's screen light."
"Lame. I had a few families like that. But l had one that only made me be in my room and quiet after bedtime."
"Lucky you."
"Not really. They would wake me up at the usual time and never give me a break if I was tired. I learned pretty quick not to stay up too late unless I really had to."
"Bleh. No wonder you always go to bed early."
Michi shrugged. "Hey, it works for me."
Sherry pushed the door open. "Hi John," she said. She looked around at the computers. "Hey, we're the first ones here for once."
"Well, let's get started." Michi dropped her bag on the floor and her bookreader by the keyboard. "Get your article up, we'll trade and proofread for each other."
As the rest of the newsletter club trickled in, Michi had them all proofread each other's articles, then loaded them all onto the main layout computer as they were finished.
John stayed out of their way, reading something on his bookreader.
As each page was finished, Michi uploaded it to a piece of paper, and handed it around for final proofing. Everybody sat quietly, marking up any problems they noticed on the page then handing it on.
Finally, the last-minute changes were put into the computer, John had read them over briefly and nodded, and they started duplicating the entire newsletter onto sheafs of paper. They were well into study time by the time they locked up.