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PROLOGUE. "do not engage..."
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TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS ARE STUBBORN. But if you're Nova Walsh, 'stubborn' isn't exactly a word in your vocabulary — no matter how many times your father uses it to berate you.
"Nova, why won't you listen to me! I'm trying to do what's best for you! You're so stubborn!" Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, blah — she's heard it all before. (Usually when her dad catches her and Nic out in some parking lot, playing with cars, in the middle of the night. "It's not safe, you guys! What if something happened?" Um, they're bionic? What could possibly happen that they couldn't control?)
But yet. Here she is. School. And she doesn't think she's ever been more excited in her life than she is now. It took a lot of convincing (and annoying) her father, but everything was worth it because here she is! School! Nova's face hurts from smiling. She's seen the High School Musical trilogy like a million times. And yeah, she's not in high school yet — but how different can middle school be from high school? Especially if it's exactly like the movies.
God, she's so excited. She looks around at all the other kids walking into the school from all directions. All of them in different coloured clothes, backpacks and some even with coloured hair. They're all looking at her like she's some kind of freak, which, yeah, she might look like right now. But after she becomes friends with the entire school no one will think that anymore. And then they'll sing and dance about it at the end of the school year. So everything's fine. Everything's great.
Believe it or not, Nova's actually excited for school work too. Or maybe she's just excited to get away from home and her dad for once. You know what, maybe it's the second option. Apparently, Nic's made his own group of friends even before they started school and they're always talking about how much school work and homework sucks. Nova's learned to not trust Nic's judgment over her twelve years on the planet, but then again — it's not him she'd be trusting, it's his friends. Which, doesn't seem that much better. She has no idea how she'll trust him on a mission when the time comes.
