Kevin wasn't one for asking for help, even when he needed it. He just expected people to know, or to mind their own business. All of his friends had their own talents, their own area of expertise. Nazz was good at English and the arts, if it required the right side of your brain, she excelled at it. Nat practically had his PH.D. in human psychology and behavior, he always knew when people were lying or hiding something. Which can either make him your best ally or worst enemy. And he could charm the pants off of anyone, sometimes even literally. The new girl in their group, Shelby, was great at sign language. She had learned small bits and pieces from her Aunt growing up, which meant using it as her language credit was almost too easy.
Kevin had decided to take French. Nazz and practically every other girl at Peach Creek was always going on and on about how romantic France is, especially Paris. It seemed like easy work at first, the teacher, Madame Estelle Fuseri, who just preferred Madame, didn't spend much time actually making the students speak French. She mostly just wanted them to copy notes and quiz them on book work, which made getting a B easy work for Kevin. There was always someone willing to do his homework for him. Unfortunately this year, Madame Estelle was not the teacher. Monsieur Jacques Lafont was. And Monsieur Lafont taught very, very differently. He was from a small town in the northern rural France. He believed that notes were your choice, but that speaking and correct pronunciation were far more important. The first report card Kevin got was a C, but when he failed, miserably on the following quiz, he was forced to consider tutoring, or risk failing and being off the teams.
When Kevin sauntered into the Library after school, he was greeted by an unpleasant surprise. Eddward Vincent. He groaned, pulled his cap off, and stuffed it in his back pocket, as if he needed to give Edd any extra reasons to talk to him, or boss him around. Regrettable, still, he had to speak to him to begin with as Edd was the only person around the counter able to help him.
"Hey man, I got a question for ya." Eddward stiffened up at Kevin's voice, but turned around nonetheless, "Salutations, Kevin, and to what do I owe this….pleasure?" Kevin shrugged, "Look, I'm failing French and I don't want to put my Captain status at risk," Edd interrupted, "I do not require your life story, nor your situation, how may I assist you today?" Kevin turned red, unsure if it was from anger or because Eddward was in a situation that forced him to be civil with Kevin. "Oh, right, do we have any like, study guides, or audio books, or something for French?" Eddward suppressed a laugh. What a joke, this goon thinks he can speak French. How preposterous. Eddward set down his papers, "Which would you prefer? I can't imagine that if I actually gave you a workbook, that it would be you filling it out." Kevin turned red again, although certain it was anger this time. "Dude, fuck off, I wouldn't be a dick to you if it was your joy at risk, man fuck you," and with his temper making his face turn redder than his hair, he turned to walk out.
Eddward watched Kevin walk out and thought about what he said. True, Kevin broke his skateboard, but it wasn't as though he couldn't afford a new one, or didn't have a spare. If Kevin couldn't start passing, he would surely be benched in football and baseball. Kevin was a social butterfly and thrived on the attention sports gave him. Everyone could see that, even Edd. So Eddward grabbed one of the French workbooks behind the counter, checked out a catch phrases book, and also burned a few movies and good bands onto a thumb drive. I don't know why I bother, it's not like Kevin has good taste. Included in the movies was a particularly fabulous movie called Amélie which takes place in Montmarte which is basically attached to Paris. Eddward doubted Kevin would watch or listen to anything on there.
Eddward skated home as per usual and when he arrived, he glanced across the street and saw Kevin's dirt bike out front. Considering it was usually in the Barr's garage, Kevin was either working on it, or blowing off steam. Eddward hoped it was just some tinkering. It wasn't quite night yet, but the sun hung low. Kevin's garage light was on and while Eddward was inspecting the situation, Kevin returned outside clad in a muscle t, blue jeans, and of course his baseball cap. Eddward wasn't close enough, but he knew when Kevin looked up to see Edd that surely he had rolled his eyes. Merde, merde, merde. Pourquoi? Eddward shrugged off the looming fear of confrontation and walked across the cul de sac.
"Please excuse my intrusion, Kevin," Kevin put a wrench in his mouth so he could use both hands to pull off his dirtbike's casing and nodded at Eddward to continue. "I'm….. I apologize, Kevin," Kevin's eyes shot up at Eddward in shock, but Eddward was looking at the ground and continued on, "I can't imagine being truly deprived of something so meaningful in my life, so…. I brought you some study aids. If you do not want them, I understand, but since you know… We practically live next to each other… Anyway, here." Eddward sat down a pile of items with a small thumb drive on top and smirked, when Edd finally looked at Kevin, they locked eyes and Edd's smirk became a smile. Kevin felt his neck and ears grow warm when he looked down at Eddward's lips only to smile himself. His daze broke when Eddward closed his mouth and raised his eyebrow, "is there something you wish to say, Kevin?" Kevin shook his head, "Nah, just thank you." Kevin watched Eddward walk off in his usual slouch and wave at his thanks.
"Sockhead," muttered Kevin. He picked up a rag and looked at his dirt bike, "you know I love ya baby, but a man has priorities. And man, are they out of whack today." He patted his bike, rubbed away some imaginary grime out of habit, and tossed the rag to pick up the stack Eddward had left him. As he walked upstairs and down the hall to his room, Mister Barr hollered, "Who's your friend?" Kevin glared at his father and Mister Barr chuckled. Kevin sat down the stack on his desk and was slightly disappointed to not see any audio books. He eyed the thumb drive and plugged it into his computer hoping it wasn't Eddward seeking revenge and giving him a virus. When the computer recognized the device, he double clicked the notification icon and upon opening, saw 3 folders. Repetition, Movies, and Music. Wow, I can't believe music and movies never occurred to me, way to go, Edd. He explored the drive thoroughly, finding a decent amount of classical French music, mostly Edith Piaf. There were also random songs by a British national named Gregory Page. Kevin listened to one and laughed aloud when it said, "I don't really parlez vous français so well." The pleasant melody gave Kevin a sense of understanding about the appeal of Paris. Though he would never admit to anyone he had listened to something like that.
Kevin scrolled through the audio files and saw something called Le Petit Prince. He looked it up on his computer and saw that it was a children's book. He put on a chapter and laid down in bed…. "Premier Chapitre," Okay, first chapter, I got this. But before Kevin could even start to take notes about unfamiliar words, the simplicity had lulled him to sleep.
Kevin was enjoying the music Eddward had chosen, it was really helping. Some tunes were so catchy that memorizing the phrases came easy. Accordion was growing on him, God forbid anyone found out. He always made sure to have the sound on his headphones as low as possible at school so no one noticed.
By Friday, a mere four days later, Kevin already had impressed Monsieur Lafont, "Très bien monsieur Barr, très bien vraiment!" Kevin decided he would finally watch Amélie tonight. He didn't have much better to do on a Friday night until he pulled his grades up enough that his parents would let him go out again. Mister Barr was always skeptical of Kevin's friends and was a pretty good judge of character, so if he was home, Kevin rarely invited anyone over. Mrs. Barr always believed whatever Kevin said. Even the really bad, obvious lies. He supposed she figured he'd grow out of lying or tell the truth when it mattered.
Kevin put in Amélie after dinner and instantly got lost in the vibrant colors. By the end, he had decided he wanted to do something nice for Eddward. Kevin had really been harsh on the guy and Eddward still went out of his way for Kevin to bring his grades up. He thought it would be charming to show he had watched he movie, so he went to the store and purchased a small photo album, he dug through his closet and various Halloween costumes and decided on the headless horseman. He went to the local mall and stepped into the booth with a rather large bag, concealing his costume, but gaining a lot of funny looks. He put on the gnarled pumpkin mask and held up his signs, each one had a letter. By the time he was done, it didn't take up many pages, but it spelled out, "THANK YOU."
He threw the photo album into his backpack and stared at it for a while. It was Saturday. He could wait til Monday to say Thank you, couldn't he?
He could. He pulled out his phone and texted Nazz and Nat to see if they were doing anything that night or if they could get online and play some video games. Of course, they were out together, Nazz talked about Alistair so much that Nat had decided he wanted to meet this new beau and judge him. Kevin laughed at the thought of the ordeal, Nazz would end up having to separate them one way or another.
Nazz ran to Alistair and jumped into his arms, earning a smile from him, but a grumble from Nat. "This poor girl is terrible with introductions, I'm Nat," and he extended his hand towards Alistair. "Yeah, sorry about that, you can call me Alex," the boys shook hands and sized each other up, when their eyes met again, Nat winked at Alex and Alex grinned. Two extremely flirtatious boys in one spot? T-r-o-u-b-l-e. "Hey guys, check out my new fake ID, if you like, I can snag you one next time," Alex reached into his pocket and everyone checked it out. Nazz immediately bursted into laughter, "Alex," giggles, "You expect anyone to believe you're anything less than 6 foot? No way would anyone believe you're 5'6!" Alex frowned at her and looked at Nat, Nat stared at the identification studiously. "Nazz, dear, most people don't check height, or even eye color. They check the age and the photo. And I'll be damned, but this photo bears remarkable similarity." Nazz reexamined the image, "you know, this might work… We should test it!"
Nat raised a neon eyebrow at her, "On what? It's not like we have any." Nazz grumbled and slipped her arms around Alex's waist, but stared at Nat's hair as though it had the answers. "Maybe we could do a beer run?" Nazz's proposal was thought over by the boys before they both eventually caved. Alex dropped Nazz and Nat at the park before going around the corner in attempt to buy beer. He returned shortly, he had succeeded, but walked up with his arms behind his back and a sad expression. Nazz fell for it, "No luck?" Alex smiled and set the beer down on the bench between the two of them and plopped on the ground to open one. "Nah, no luck, just pure genius." Everyone had a laugh and enjoyed a beer or two until it was time to go. Since he was driving, Alex only had one and saved the other for his favorite sister, "Man, I should have bought a 12 pack, if May or Lee see this, I'm dead and Marie can't save me." Nazz laughed, "Those girls aren't that scary.." Alex glared at her, "Yeah, except you don't live with them." Nazz and Nat collectively sighed before deciding whose house to sleep at.
Nazz kissed Alex goodnight and mumbled, "see ya tomorrow," through tired blinking. He replied, "tomorrow? You're busy with your folks tomorrow, unless you're playing hooky." Nazz smiled, "it's 1 am silly, tomorrow is today. So Monday is tomorrow." Alex pouted, "but that's a long time." Nat rolled his eyes, "you two are sickening, not in a good way, run along, Alex." Alex sighed, "Alright, alright."
"Until tomorrow then?"
Nazz smiled, "until tomorrow."