"Your mother will be fine," Soubi replied, lying through his teeth. "She deals with you being gone all day at school, she'll probably just think school went longer than usual or she lost track of time when you do get back."

He pulled out the PDA again and scrolled through the various functions, "Ristu may not have been allowed to tell us. If it's a special thing like graduation or some big test. Though I think we'd know if we were doing well enough to graduate early. Could be a test."

Soubi pulled his arm away from the shorter boy and shut the device off for now, digging into his book bag with his free hand. He pulled a pencil out and tucked it between his teeth, then fished out one of his sketch pads. The PDA was dumped in his bag and he set to work making a (currently) very crude map of what they'd already explored.

"The pocket device doesn't have a map function. And if we're going to find our way around, it's best to have some checkpoints. We'll start with the river and this playground and once we find shelter, we can do more extensive exploration. We'll have to see about getting food, too. If we're going to be here a while."