Gwen was beyond pissed. She hated working with Noah. Noah is lazy, cynical, self-centred and apathetic to the world around him. Yet Gwen was forced to work on a history assignment with him. Gwen loved history. She was fascinated by the cultures of the Middle Ages, the Stone Age, the Renaissance and many other time periods. She loved the stories of love and heartbreak, the poetry, the architecture, the ways of life and all of the historical atrocities. She was pretty much stoked to be working on the Age of Exploration as part of the assignment. She could write more than what is needed for the five-page essay she and Noah were assigned. The only problem: she has to work with Noah.
Noah, needless to say, is a lazybones. No, calling the bookworm and lazybones would be an understatement. Noah is an intelligent fellow. And Noah does in fact love reading and writing. His peers did not call him a bookworm for nothing, right? But that did not mean Noah would read every book (any fan of Twilight at Noah and Gwen's secondary school would know that). That did not mean Noah would transfer everything that came to mind into a word document or a piece of paper. In fact, Noah only reads and writes what he wants to read and write. Or what he is forced to read and write on the pain of detention, write-outs and a reduced chance of enrolling into the college of his choice. Still, if the bookworm is forced to do something he does not want to do, you can guarantee that he will be procrastinating until the night before the deadline. And then mope about it and act like the system screwed him over because "the deadline was too early" and all that other bullshit. Yeah, Noah was pretty much impossible to work with.
Anyway, Gwen sighed as she walked out of the history class and caught up with Noah. Noah noticed her but immediately returned his gaze back to the direction he was walking in. Gwen was still determined, however.
"Noah! We need to discuss the assignment," Gwen called after Noah.
Noah kept walking. "What's there to talk about? Five pages about the Portuguese and the eel's ancestors invading South America, Central America and the Caribbean, and massacring the natives, due in two weeks?" he deadpanned. "Were you not paying attention in class? Y'know what Ms O'Halloran is like, right?"
"I know what is due, asshole," Gwen scoffed. "I'm talking about discussing how we are going to do the assignment."
"Write five pages on it?" Noah shrugged. "I'm sorry, I have to go to biology class. We'll talk later." With that, the bookworm turned and corner and disappeared into the crowd. Gwen gritted her teeth. The boy was insufferable. He truly was up his own arse.
Yet for some messed up reason, this gave Gwen the butterflies in her stomach. And she was not sure how to feel about that.
The bell rang. It was 4pm. Gwen was ready to leave her maths class, but because that was the ninth period of the school day, Trent stood in front of the door. Refusing to let his classmates and the teacher out. "NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO! NO!" Trent snarled. "This is the ninth period! It should last 90 minutes, not 40!"
"Outta ma way, Math Man!" Anne Maria scowled, running up to the numerical cultist and trying to shove him aside. But Trent would not budge. He grabbed Anne Maria by the wrists and shoved her against the wall. Then he shoved her against the wall again. And again. Before Trent could do it a fourth time, Anne Maria managed to break free from Trent's grasp and run. Trent was having none of it and ran after her.
"COME BACK HERE!" Trent called out to Anne Maria, as they ran around a row of desks. "I HAVE TO BASH YOU AGAINST THE WALL SIX MORE TIMES!" Because Trent was too fixated on Anne Maria, Gwen, the rest of her classmates and her teacher were able to sneak out of the classroom. This happened at the end of every final period of the day. Gwen mouthed off bad things about Trent as she made her way to Noah's locker. Noah was about to leave the locker area when Gwen stood in his tracks.
"Just what the hell do you think you are doing?" Noah groaned.
"You are not going anywhere until we discuss the essay!" Gwen snapped. "I want a clear discussion as well."
Noah sighed. He knew when he was beaten. "Fine. If you want, you can come to my house and we can get started on the assignment there. How's that sound?"
"Perfect, we'll do that so," said Gwen.
"Good," said Noah. "Now hurry up and do your locker. I'm a busy man."
"You are in your arse," Gwen muttered, as she walked away to get her books.
Gwen and Noah got off the bus at Noah's house. As they were trotting down the driveway, Noah blankly stated: "Oh, and just a warning: I have four brothers and four sisters. They're all idiots and are annoying and they make lots of noise, so I hope you've brought some earplugs."
"My headphones will do," Gwen shrugged, as Noah opened the door and they got inside. The first thing Gwen saw was two of Noah's brothers playing with swords in the sitting room. Actual swords. They were having a duel. It was getting quite intense.
"We should probably go upstairs so we won't have to be a witness to anything," Noah flatly suggested. "Unless you're used to live scenes of black comedy."
"Nah, I'll go upstairs," Gwen shrugged. Gwen has a knack for dark humour, but not the kind that could potentially happen once she and Noah are up in Noah's room.
"I keep pop, booze, crisps and chocolate in a stash somewhere in my closet so my fellow accidents won't take them," said Noah as he locked his bedroom door once he and Gwen were inside.
"Do you keep them for Owen?" Gwen asked curiously, sitting down on a beanbag.
"I offer him some snacks sometimes, but he can't fit in the closet, so I'm not too worried about him stealing my food," Noah shrugged. "Actually, that's not the reason why I'm not worried. Owen is always full when he comes over. Must be the family next door that are like the Duggars; they keep popping out babies every year because of Owen."
"That's horrible!" Gwen commented, disgusted.
"I'm only messing with ya," Noah smirked. "Owen likes to watch Bear Grylls on TV and follows all of Bear's survival tips whenever he's away from food he's allowed to eat. Sounds disgusting, but he does it in the bathroom and cleans up after himself, so I couldn't care less."
"At least he's reducing his carbon footprint," Gwen shrugged, as Noah sat in front of the desktop and logged in. She was still grossed out, albeit mildly. "By the way, is there actually a family in this neighbourhood with more kids than your family?" she asked.
"Yep; they have twice as many kids," Noah replied as he opened up Chrome and Word. "Most of the time anyway. Clumsy people. So anyway, I have a desktop and I presume you have a notepad or copy, correct? Would you need to borrow my tablet?"
"Yeah," Gwen shrugged, as she plopped down on a beanbag. "And I can get information on my phone so I'll be fine without a tablet."
"Mildred said no Wikipedia, that bitch," Noah scoffed.
"Well she didn't say anything about using the references from Wikipedia," Gwen smirked, as she opened up Chrome on her phone.
"You can't argue with that," Noah chucked. Suddenly he remembered. "Hey, you want something to eat from the stash?" he asked.
Gwen considered. "What crisps do you have?" she asked.
Noah rose up from his chair, walked into the closet and opened up a metal crate. "I have salt and vinegar, sour cream and onion, cheese and onion, smoky bacon, prawn cocktail and barbeque," he called out.
"That's a lot of food you're stashing up," Gwen noticed.
"When you have eight siblings to avoid you gotta stash up."
"I'll take barbeque," Gwen shrugged. Noah emerged from the closet and tossed Gwen the crisps. He helped himself to a Hershey's bar as he sat on his chair.
"Okay, so other than the fact that Columbus was obviously a tool, what do we know about the Age of Exploration?" said Gwen, as she grabbed a notepad and pen from her bag.
Noah grinned. "For starters, European aristocrats wanted spices to spice up their meals. Religious leaders wanted to spread Catholicism. Prudes wanted to find new land to set up a nanny state so they won't have to listen to their European neighbours shagging one another."
Gwen chuckled.
Half an hour later, Gwen and Noah got enough notes to write a page. Noah had the notes in bullet points on the Word document. When he was done, he connected his scanner to the PC so Gwen can upload her notes from her notepad to Noah's computer.
"Hope you can read my fancy writing," Gwen shrugged.
"I'm sure I'll be able to," Noah replied. "I'll email the stuff to you. Think you can expand on the points for the first page? You're way better than English than I am."
"Sure, why not," said Gwen. "I brought a USB stick, so no need for email."
"You've come prepared," Noah commented.
"I always carry USBs with me so I can get some work done on the computers in the school library," Gwen explained. "On days when I have all my homework done, sometimes I write fan fiction or short essays while I wait for the day to be over."
"I bring a USB as well," Noah revealed. "Though whenever I'm free of homework, I just browse Reddit."
"I'm on Reddit as well," Gwen smiled, as she inserted her memory stick into the computer.
"Hmm, maybe I'll find you on Reddit," Noah shrugged.
"Maybe," Gwen smirked. When the files were transferred to her USB, she ejected the stick and removed it. "I should be heading home now," she informed Noah, as she put the USB in her schoolbag. "Think we can do this again? It was fun."
"And more productive than I thought," Noah agreed. "Tomorrow is Saturday. You can come over after midday. Two of my sisters and one of my brothers will be at sports practice, one of my sisters will be down town with her girlfriend, one of my brothers has Saturday detention, one of my sisters will be at drama class, and my two other idiot brothers will be at the hospital."
"I'll bring my laptop," Gwen proposed.
"Good; we'll get more work done," Noah smiled.
"Well, I'll see ya tomorrow so," Gwen shrugged.
"Yep. See ya Gwen," Noah replied, as he held the door open for her.
"Thanks," Gwen smiled. Noah led her towards the front door. As they descended the stairs, one of Noah's brothers was sobbing uncontrollably in pain and the other was freaking out while Noah's mother was attending to the situation at hand.
"I won't even ask," Gwen muttered, as Noah opened the door.
"I won't even tell," Noah mused. He waved to Gwen as she walked down the driveway. Gwen turned and waved back before heading to her house. Noah couldn't believe he was thinking this, but he was looking forward to Gwen coming over again tomorrow. In fact, he was so excited for it, he could not care less about the commotion in the sitting room.
This is my birthday present for ThePessimisticRainbow. Her birthday was two months ago, so it's a late birthday present. Sorry about that.
Anyway, my exams are over. I'm getting out of my writer's block and I'll be working on my other fics. My first story in 2015, and we're almost five months in. Hopefully I'll be more frequent this time.
Happy late birthday ThePessimisticRainbow.