March 24, 2238

Mr. Whiting,

I don't know what you're playing at, but frankly, I don't find it very funny. Clearly, my letter has gone astray, and Diana never received it, but you don't have to come up with such a ridiculous story about how you got it. It would have been enough to just "Return to Sender" without having read my personal composition.

However, as the damage has been done, I feel it is my duty to disillusion you. Boarding school is not a place for girls to practice kissing other girls. It is a place of higher learning, where ladies practice-- Drat, I was distracted from the letter by Mother, and when I came back, she had reclaimed her pamphlet. Suffice it to say that your school may have been a place where boys practiced kissing, but I have no intention of kissing any of my schoolmates. (As you've apparently been kissing other boys, I'm sure you are aware that it is fully legal, we are a civilized society, and not barbarians.)

My Father is Sir Christopher Holder, retired governor of Actis on Second Earth. As a natural, and experienced leader, Father was an ideal candidate to lead the first settlers to the newly terraformed planet Eraea. He has been gone for approximately a year now, and we expect he will be gone at least another. I thought this expedition was common knowledge. Feel free to look him up in your history book, or more likely, a news bulletin.

School is tiresome at the best of times, and having to move and make new friends is no simple task. I do not particularly like having to establish myself with new people, and vastly prefer the company of those I am already acquainted with. That being said, Miss Goddard's is a top-rate school with top-rate Professors, so aside from the distance from things I am familiar with, there is little to complain of. Even the dormitories-- which novels have suggested are the worst aspect-- are not so bad, perhaps because of my father's status, which has resulted in my own room.

I suppose it is rather nice to correspond with someone new, and is not entirely tiresome. Perhaps we can continue to exchange letters.

- Cassandra

P.S. I am not sure how to get this back to you, as the address you used is not real. I shall post it to Diana once more and hope the same mistake is made. Could you kindly give me a real address if you hope for future correspondence?

15 March 2418

I'm sorry to inform you, Cass, but you've missed the button a bit. I mean, I'm sure your Diana got some notion of this letter, but as it's been post-marked in my time, I've a sneaky suspicion somethin' squick-odd temporal is goin' on. Fantasti' right? Literally, that is, something out of a fantasy novel. Let's give it a good show and see if I can write back and we can play that old antiquated game of what can we tell each other that won't break space-time, yeah? I mean, if you want. But given that you've got Great Adventures in your past, I think you'll be savvy.

I suspect that your boarding school woes are long past in my timeline, and who knows how long it takes this tube to deliver things as far as perceived time, so maybe my advice will come too late. As a boy of sixteen whose spent all but a few summers at boarding school, it's not half again as bad as you think it'll be. 'specially if you have any interest in members of the same sex. Wait...was that still taboo in your time? I always forget what century which colonies figure out when that people are people, y'know? I mean, my folks and their parents were pretty much born knowing that ish, but it get's all mixed up when you add in the Xtian colonies and what-not. So pardon me if that's a vulgarity, but I highly recommend kissin' queer at leas' once. You gotta know somehow, right?

Who is your Pa anyway? Bet the name's in my histor-e-book...or even yours, if you grow up famous like. I don't recognize Holder as a family name off the top of my head, but then, I never pay that much attention in my history class. Do you want me to check? I won't tell you the details, just if I can find ya! I don't think that causes any paradoxes...I mean, temporal holes aren't my number one focus in school, they're just a minor interest. I haven't really picked yet, as far as what I'll do when I'm properly grown, so I'm takin' a bit of everything before I finally get to choose which school to go to.

I know my writing must be tiresome to read; you must be studying calligraphy or some ish with your careful sentences and sharp letters. But, not me-I barely ever write things by hand, 'less I need be quick. Let me know how that first day goes, unless it's been so long you don't remember, in which case, just...write again.

Your friend in time,

Keirn Whiting

March 12, 2238

Dearest Diana,

Remember how we used to pretend that we were like the girls in those classic stories? The ones who got sent away to boarding school, where they went on Great Adventures and proved to be the Best of Friends and everything was Happily Ever After? I'm sure you remember them, you certainly borrowed them enough. Well, I always thought that getting sent away was the sort of thing that only happened in classic novels. Nobody sends their daughters away for school anymore, certainly not their teenage daughters. Clearly I forgot to factor Mother into my reckoning.

"Cassandra Holder, you know full well that with your father away on the Colony, you are expected to behave yourself. Others look to us for guidance, or look at us for something to gossip about. You are not to see That Boy. He is Trouble, and your continued acquaintance will reflect poorly upon our family. Because I know I cannot trust you to stay away from him, I am sending you to Miss Goddard's School for Ladies on the third moon."

She didn't even tell me, you know. She wrote it in a letter, Di. I came home and found the letter on top of a suitcase, sitting on my bed. She was conveniently out, visiting someone. She's sending me away! Why didn't I go with you when you asked me to? I know it seemed impossible, but we would have made it work somehow, I know it!

I miss you, you know. I miss having you around when I have my Terrible Ideas (remember the Incident with Dr. Blithe's laser scalpel?), most especially because of your ability to get me out of trouble after. You never would have let me get caught with him,or if we had been caught, you'd have known what to say to Mother.

I understand that Father's away, and he took so many men with him that most of us are a little lost. I know that people are looking to Mother for leadership, and that it does matter how I behave, but I didn't do anything wrong. Tell me that things will be alright, Di, that going away to school will not be as horrible as it seems right now.

I miss you, Di. Tell me about things there, they must be better.

All my love,
Cass.