Chapter 3
TT
Ring Ring Ring!
The teen murmured something as he was slowly awoken from his comfortable sleeping state. Annoyance crossed his features for a second as he reached over and slammed down very hard on the alarm clock which caused it to bounce slightly in its place. It stopped making its repetitive, irritating beeping and the teen let out a sigh of relief. His mind told him to get up but his body insisted he should rest for a little longer. School didn't start in ages. At least, that's what he thought he hadn't noticed the time on the alarm clock.
After what seemed like a reasonably short snooze, the teen opened his eyes and glanced at the clock. He swore loudly when he realised he only had ten minutes to get up, get changed, have breakfast and get out the house. He jumped out bed, roughly throwing back the blanket back on his bed, crinkled. He stormed over to his wardrobe and rifled through his clothes searching for something decent to wear which wouldn't corrupt his current reputation at school.
Once he was dressed, he marched into the bathroom to brush his teeth furiously. How much time did he have left? There was no point in checking because that would waste even more time. After brushing his teeth, he rushed down the stairs and slammed some bread down the toaster. Then he remembered he had forgotten his bag upstairs so rushed up to get it. When he came back down, the toast was ready so he quickly swallowed large bites and left the house in a hurry.
TT
Ring R-!
The second the alarm went off, a spectacled, blonde haired boy sat up immediately and reached out so his hand could turn the alarm off. It neatly shut up and stayed stationary. He was wide awake and ready to prepare for the next school day. He had an important exam last period and it was against his rules to fail it. Checking the time, he got out of bed and planned all the activities he needed to do- get changed, have a shower, brush hair, eat breakfast, brush teeth, revise for the exam and leave the house.
The Boy was speedy and prompt for accomplishing these tasks, despite the fact he had much time left before it was time for his departure from his house. He made his bed with care, ready for sleeping in later that night, before he went off for his shower. He didn't really pay much attention to his outfit, just anything that was clean, ironed and was practical for the working school environment.
His breakfast consisted of toast, scrambled eggs and a generous glass of orange juice- a good breakfast to start you off for the day. He uttered a greeting to his parents who dragged themselves in the kitchen for breakfast. They were tired and half-asleep, the opposite of him. After he had finished, he went up the steps again to arrange his school bag for the day and to retrieve his textbooks, a vital element for some last minute revision. Of course, he still had revised, he was sensible and always organised his studying sessions before the exam.
He looked at the digital clock at the right moment as it was time to leave. Thrusting the bag over his shoulders, he sauntered out of the house with a smile on his face.
TT
School
Jump City High was a diverse, packed area of students ranging from different ages and was sorted out into unintentional groups. There were the drug addicts, failing gangsters, Goths and Emos, cheerleaders, Populars, players, odd people, nerds, and the people who didn't fit into any group whatsoever. Among these groups, Victor Stone was placed in the Populars as he was one of the best players in the School's Rugby Team and often led the team to victory in matches against local schools. He also had a beautiful girlfriend, Karen Beecher, however there was once a false rumour passed around that he was dating Sarah Simms. Their relationship edged to the brink until Victor explained himself. Everything was fine after that. Victor had Popularity, was sociable, was attractive but he had a downside.
He was just horrible in schoolwork.
He received terrible grades and never really tried hard in significant exams. He had other issues to be dealing with and did not seem to be capable of sparing time for some study. Along with the rumour of his two-timing, another rumour was passed around which stated he was dyslexic. He wasn't- he just read at a Grade four level. He couldn't remember the last time he read a whole book for fun. It just wasn't his thing. However, after receiving a lecture on how important GCSE's were and all that stuff, his view on study changed dramatically. He tried working harder but it was proving to be difficult to succeed in lessons.
Garfield Logan on the other hand, was the complete opposite. He wasn't popular, he was classified as a nerd, he was no use in sports, he didn't have a girlfriend (but he did have a crush on a particular girl) but he excelled brilliantly in study. He got A*s in everything and he got grumpy if he received an A minus. He read books in less than a day and his main priority was schoolwork.
The funny thing was; they were friends.
TT
"Gar! GAR!"
Victor Stone was calling his friend's name for help, right from the other side of the corridor. Gar shut his locker door and looked to his left to see Vic rushing towards him. His glasses, which were skimming to the lower end of his nose, were pushed up to the right level with the aid of his fingers.
"What's wrong, Victor?" asked Gar. "And please do not call me Gar. My name's Garfield." A couple of sniggers erupted nearby but Garfield paid no attention. Neither did Victor, he was too stressed out.
"Look man, did ya hear 'bout the exam today?" asked Victor frantically.
"I heard about it two weeks ago." Garfield said, matter-of-factly. Victor blinked.
"Really? I probably wasn't paying attention...look, see, I need help! My parents are gonna kill me if I get another F! You know I'm useless at Math!" Victor exclaimed.
"All right, all right, calm down Victor. I will help you. Now, give me your Math Textbooks." Victor obeyed and started rummaging through his school bag. After a couple of minutes, he couldn't seem to find it.
"Must've forgotten it..." he murmured.
"Give it here." Garfield ordered. Victor handed him his bag and Garfield peered inside. He looked horrified.
"What on earth! This bag is a pigsty! And is that...apple core?" Garfield picked out an apple core by its stem, looking very disgusted. It had browned and even had some bits of fungi on it. Victor looked very sheepish.
"Yeah...I think that's been in there for a couple of days..." Victor admitted.
"I doubt that, my friend." Garfield said. He pushed up his glasses once more and started examine the apple core up close. "Due to my scientific knowledge on mouldy food varieties, I can calculate that this apple core is two months and eight days old." Victor, unlike Gar, didn't seem very blown away by that. He seemed faintly surprised.
"Oh. Right." Victor took the apple core and threw it backwards, and it ended up perfectly in the bin.
"Anyway..." Garfield looked through his bag and eventually found his math books. "What do you have trouble with? Advanced Algebra? Exponential Equations? Algebraic Graphs?"
"Erm..." Victor leaned against the lockers, using his fingers to count. "I have trouble with err...eight different topics." He held up nine fingers.
"You're holding up nine fingers."
"Whoops. Sorry."
"Victor, we've only studied four major topics this year." Garfield pointed out. Victor didn't reply, expecting Gar to figure out himself. He facepalmed though in the process his glasses went lopsided. He fixed them hurriedly.
"You should've asked for help a long time ago. Never mind, we can sort out most of the topics during lunchtime and lessons. But we'll have to be breaking the rules..."
"What rules?" Victor asked.
"Talking in class!" Gar exclaimed, a bit excited. He hadn't ever broken any rules before, even when they were minor. Victor deadpanned.
TT
Geography Class
Students wandered in the classroom, one after another with different time spans in-between. Some people arrived early, some late while some were on time. Victor and Garfield were one of these people. Garfield sat down at one of the desks near the back, carefully extracting his books from his bag while Victor messily slammed his bag down and his backside on the seat, roughly retrieving his books. Garfield stared at Victor, shocked at his manner of treating his books.
"Be careful, Victor! Those books are very precious as they provide you a vast range of knowledge in the geographical area." Garfield chastised. It was Victor's turn to stare at Garfield, but he was confused.
"Erm...could you repeat that?" asked Victor. So Garfield did.
"No, I meant with English words." Victor said after the second time Garfield had repeated. He sighed, rolling his eyes. Then he dug into his bag to get out his math text book so he could secretly teach Victor Math in a Geography lesson.
The teacher arrived at the point where Garfield was tucking the math text book behind the geography one, leaving a thick and bulky looking book. But it was hardly a noticeable feature. The teacher greeted the class and started the lesson. Garfield already knew all of what the teacher was saying whereas Victor was not but forgetting that, Garfield started teaching Victor.
"So, we'll start off with quadratic functions." Garfield whispered to Victor.
"What?"
"I said, we'll start off with quadratic functions."
"What?"
"I said we'll start off with quadratic functions!" Garfield said more loudly than he intended.
"Is there a problem, Garfield?" The teacher looked at Gar expectantly.
"No Mrs. Gregory." He flushed with embarrassment. Said teacher continued with the lesson.
"Gar, I don't know what quadratic functions are." Victor said. They spoke in very quiet voices.
"Garfield." Garfield corrected him.
"Whatever. Just explain them to me!" As instructed, Gar did just that, indicating the different parts of equation, explaining each part in detail. Victor nodded, seemingly understanding it. Gar was impressed. Perhaps this was going to be a turning day for Victor.
So he handed him a piece of paper and pencil with an equation on it.
"Explain the equation." Garfield whispered, hoping his twenty four minutes of teaching had worked. Victor studied the equation, making 'hmm' sounds every so often as if he was figuring everything out. But then Victor dropped a bombshell.
"Hey, would you mind explaining it to me again?" Victor asked. Garfield stared at him. He didn't understand at all! He was just faking it! He was ready to tear his hair out. Victor looked sheepish, oblivious how angry Garfield was.
"WHAT!" Garfield shrieked, standing up and pointing accusingly at Victor. "Why didn't you tell me!"
"Ahem." The teacher coughed loudly and distinctly and Garfield cringed. A sickening feeling was in his stomach as he faced the teacher.
"Principal's office. Now." Mrs. Gregory ordered. Head hung low and feeling ashamed, Garfield trailed out of the classroom.
TT
Victor raced up the corridors, hurrying to find his Garfield to see what became of him after a visit to the Principal. He waited outside impatiently, tapping his foot on the dirty floor. The sooner Garfield came out, the sooner the tutoring sessions could continue. He needed to master his quadratic equations otherwise; he was going to fail his exam big time.
Garfield looked different than before when he exited the Principal's Office. It was a rather obvious change. He had a paper bag over his head with two big circles printed on them with a sad mouth which was simply an upside smile. It was very poorly drawn portrait of him but that was most likely the whole concept of the bag. Victor raised an eyebrow despite the fact Garfield couldn't see it.
"What's wrong, Gar?" He asked him. Garfield didn't even bother to correct Victor as he was much too upset.
"I have got Lunchtime Detention!" he wailed dramatically, throwing his hands up in the air. He received a couple of odd glances from people in the vicinity but obviously, Garfield couldn't see that was so.
"Why?" Victor asked.
"Because I yelled in class... twice!" Garfield spoke as if what he just did was crime.
"Dude, seriously, that ain't bad. I get detentions all the time." Victor said nonchalantly.
"But you're different Victor! It doesn't matter for you! I have never received a detention since I was born!" Garfield exclaimed.
"Whatever, man. And why do you have a paper bag over your head? How are you meant to teach me quadutic equations without you seeing anything?" Victor asked.
"Quadratic Equations." Garfield corrected him.
"Whatever." Victor repeated. He ripped the paper bag off Garfield and ripped it to shreds. He watched Victor commit the act of murdering the bag, eyes wide and fingers tense, like they were enclosed around a ball.
"Victor, why on earth did you do that!" Garfield cried.
"Because you don't need it." Victor answered. "Anyway, I just got a great idea of getting good teaching time!"
"What is it?" Garfield asked wearily, expecting to hear a useless plan.
"Well, since you've got Lunchtime Detention, I'll get myself detention too so you can teach me during detention!" Victor explained. Garfield was right in his predicaments.
"Victor, you can be rather stupid sometimes." Garfield sighed.
"Please? I need to get at least a B on this math test!" Victor begged. He looked near to begging on his knees, hands clasped. Garfield gave in before Victor started making a scene.
"I will meet you at G45." He told him reluctantly, the place of detention.
TT
Lunchtime Detention
Garfield felt a sickening feeling of his stomach, similar to the feeling when one knows she or he has does a bad deed. Of course, Garfield wasn't used to such punishments in his entire time on earth so this was a new experience. He nervously knocked on the door of G45, what he remembered to be his English classroom but now a place of cruel punishment. At least, that's what he assumed. The door was already ajar so it opened slowly, revealing a teacher sitting at a desk with a sour expression. Garfield looked inside and saw two people were already seated: a student with messy, long, black hair, black eyeliner, black nail polish, black mascara and tight, black clothing. He was sitting faraway from a girl in cheerleader's clothes and she was filing her nails. He decided to sit far away from them so he headed to the back of the class and sat there, acting diminutive.
The teacher excused herself to go to go the loo but it was obvious she wasn't going to return. The Goth Boy took his chance to converse with the newcomer.
"So, you new here?" he asked Garfield with a monotone voice. Garfield had a little shock there because he wasn't expecting to be talked to. "Never seen you in detention before. Huh. Never thought I'd see the day when a Geek gets detention."
"I probably can't go to medical college anymore!" Garfield burst out suddenly.
"Like, what's like the point of that?" the cheerleader girl snorted. "I mean seriously, like, a waste of, like, time!" Garfield disliked the two of them (not hate, that word is much too strong) and he prayed Victor would hurry up.
"Are you waiting for someone?" the Goth boy asked Garfield.
"Yes, how did you know?" Garfield said.
"Because you're bouncing up and down in your seat and you have a weird expression on your face." The Goth Boy replied. Garfield stopped bouncing up and down. He expected them to laugh but instead, the Goth Boy had a monotone expression and the cheerleader chick was busy painting her nails.
Victor finally came in and Garfield suppressed a sigh of relief.
"Over here, Victor!" Garfield called. Victor spotted him along with the other two.
"Hey y'all!" he grinned and waved at them.
"Hey, Victor." They replied. They returned to what they were doing while Victor sat next to Garfield. Garfield stared at him and hissed: "You know them?"
"Yup," Victor said. "Now can we start? Sorry I was late, I got distracted by the meaty steak, it had this excellent gravy and you could just the juices spurting out from the steaks. Too bad it was for the staff only though."
"Victor, you know that do not like meat!" Garfield exclaimed.
"Yeah, yeah, what's that got to do with anything?" Victor scoffed. "Let's start this math tutoring thing cuz otherwise; I'll be grounded for the rest of the year." Garfield decided not to point out, reluctantly, that it was the end of November. He pressed on with the math tutoring- at least, was endeavouring too when the Goth Boy spoke.
"You're tutoring him?" asked the Goth Boy, the first hint of actual feeling (i.e. surprise) Garfield had heard from him. "Math?"
"Yes I am. Now, Victor-"
"Hey, could you help me too?" asked the Goth Boy, getting up and walking over to them. Garfield flinched at their close proximity. "I'm great at English but I spend all my time reading poems so I never bother with Math Homework."
"Don't think so. I can only teach one pupil at a time. It would not be efficient." Garfield said. The Goth Boy shrugged nonchalantly. Then he started eyeing Garfield's neck. He noticed him doing so and watched him. He reached into his pocket and slowly drew out a knife. Garfield started internally panicking. The Goth Boy held it up and brought it closer and closer to Garfield's neck and he started sweating. He swiped fiercely and Garfield cried out.
"Okay, okay I'll tutor you!" Garfield cried. "Ow! The pain and agony!" The Goth Boy stared at him.
"Your price tag was still on. I took it off." He said. Garfield stopped panicking and hyperventilating.
"Oh." He was relieved. "Erm, I guess I could tutor you too." The Goth Boy brought up a chair and sat down opposite Garfield.
"So, what are doing?" The Goth Boy asked monotonously. "Are we doing quadutic equations? I have trouble with those." Garfield shook his head, silently tutting.
"Quadratic equations." He corrected. "And yes we are. Victor's having some trouble with it."
"Like, oh my gosh, are you like paying him to tutor you?" The cheerleader girl with a nasal tone squeaked at them.
"No." Victor said. "Why the heck would I pay him? He's my friend and it's only for my math test last period!"
"You like, have that math test too?" the cheerleader gasped. "Shoot! I don't know a thing like, about Math!" Garfield let out a deep groan. He might as well tutor the cheerleader too, I mean, how hard could it be? With his high intellectual ability he'll be able to teach everyone the wonderful realms of math.
"Fine, I shall tutor you also." Garfield said. The cheerleader looked a little relieved and brought her chair over as well as her nail polish. She sat furthest away from the three boys as possible while still being able to listen. Garfield then started rambling about the rules of quadratic equations and the formula everyone needed to remember.
Unfortunately, all of them had an attention span of a squirrel.
"Man, how can you write plus and minus in the same place?" Victor complained. "That makes no sense!"
"If you were listening¸ then you would know!" Garfield exclaimed. "Goth Boy, explain it to him."
But Goth Boy was reading a book.
"Goth Boy!" Garfield shrieked, slamming his hand onto the table. Garfield truly detested it when people did not listen to him. "Stop reading that book!"
"It's Shakespeare," Goth Boy said simply, as if the wonderful writings of the author was an excuse not to pay attention to Garfield's pointless and unhelpful ramblings. Garfield turned to the cheerleader who, to his surprise, was staring at him intently.
"Ah, cheerleader! Can you explain how?" She blinked.
"What? I wasn't listen-"
"AHHHH!" Garfield shrieked, throwing his hands up into the air. "But you were staring at me! Does that not mean you were indeed listening!"
"No! I was staring at your disgusting zit and was wondering what would be the best way to pop it. Zits lead to blindness you know. No wonder you wear glasses." The cheerleader scoffed. Garfield paused. Then, he started shaking. It was hardly noticeable at first but then it started to get more violent. More and more violent and vigorous. He was so seriously shaking that Victor stopped him by planting his palm on the top of his head.
"Whoa, what's your problem, Gar? D'you think you need a bit of air?" Victor asked cautiously.
"NO! NO I DON'T!" Gar shrieked. He pointed accusingly at Victor. "I'VE BEEN TRYING TO TUTOR YOU MATHS ALL DAY! I'VE BEEN TOLD OFF FOUR TIMES, GOT MY FIRST DETENTION AND NOW I HAVE MORE STUDENTS! TO TOP IT ALL OFF, NONE OF YOU ARE LISTENING TO ME! THAT'S IT! I GIVE UP!" Gar was breathing heavily and was inches away from Vic's face. Vic was wide-eyed, stunned. Garfield then raised his hands and then curled them up slightly, as if he was holding an imaginary ball.
Then, the teacher came in.
"I really shouldn't have had that chilli dog at lunch..." then she spotted Garfield. She looked at him from such a way that it seemed like he was about to strangle Victor.
Uh...
"GARFIELD LOGAN! I knew you were nothing but trouble! Go to the Principal's office NOW!"
TT
Victor sat down on a chair beside the door to the Principal's office, a little timidly. He was still a bit shocked by Garfield's rant earlier but nevertheless, felt terrible when Garfield was sent to the Principal's office yet again. Garfield wouldn't live with himself if he got another detention. Victor groaned, his head in his hands, trying to think of the best apology he could come up with. However, Garfield exited the Principal's office. He wasn't wearing a paper bag. He wasn't wearing anything to conceal the shame in his face. He was walking slowly, as if his limbs were frozen.
"Hey, Gar...field." Victor said. Garfield turned around, eyes blank.
"What." He said, voice monotone. Victor gulped.
"Look, man. I'm sorry. I've been a pretty rubbish student, haven't I? Y'know what? I got my punishment. I failed my Math Test. My parents have grounded me for the rest of year. So, yeah, I hope that makes you feel better." There was a silence for a moment.
"Y'know what, Vic." Garfield said through clenched teeth. "That would've made me feel loads better if I didn't get a even worser punishment." Victor blinked.
"Wait a second...are you using contractions? Did you just call me Vic? Did you just say 'worser'?" Victor said, eyes wide.
"I did. I thought I should be a rebel as this is my last few minutes here." Garfield said.
"What? You're not committing suicide, are you?"
"No, worse!" Garfield said. He paused for a moment.
"I'm expelled."
TT
