Lynn Loud was frustrated.
It was a wonderful sunny day out, perfect for sports. Yet here she was, heading over to Lisa's corner to get tutored.
Even then, that might not have been so bad. Lisa was good at getting Lynn to understand what she needed to do to get passing grades, and she could usually do it pretty quick to boot.
Recently though, the short tutoring sessions had become longer and longer, and Lisa no longer stuck to just the subject Lynn needed.
Lynn wanted some slight tutoring in math? Lisa had now turned that into half-hour lectures about more complicated mathematics.
At school, Lynn would usually just tone her teachers out most of the time. She had actually tried that with Lisa-and quickly realized that it was a bad move. Lisa insisted on ending their sessions with short tests that made sure Lynn actually had learned what she had lectured about. If Lynn didn't, she simply extended the session until she had.
Sure, Lynn's grades had gone up significantly since, and one of her teachers was rather stunned to learn Lynn actually knew a good bit about nuclear physics these days. But that wasn't the point. Lynn made sure to pass because she wanted to play sports. Not because she actually cared about the subjects.
These days, she was spending a lot of time inside with Lisa, instead of outside with sports and friends.
"Time to act," Lynn said to herself. "I'm not gonna sit through these boring lectures every day until I finish school!"
She hadn't really planned ahead for this, so she would have to wing it. After all, if she made sure to annoy Lisa just as much as these long sessions annoyed her, surely Lisa would accept a return to their short sessions? Lynn wasn't sure, but it seemed reasonable to her.
It certainly couldn't go worse than when she asked Lisa to stop having these long sessions.
"It's either these or nothing, Lynn. Don't you want to pass your classes?"
That was what that little nerd had answered.
"Blackmail," Lynn thought.
Lynn took a deep breath to ready herself for mischief as she opened the door to Lisa and Lily's room.
This was not a wise decision. Lynn almost fell on her back when the stench in the room hit her.
"Poo poo!" spouted Lily, who seemed to almost be brimming with pride at the reaction from her older sister.
Thankfully, Mom was already in the room, and she grabbed Lily and prepared to leave.
"Have a good time together now girls!" she called out to Lisa and Lynn.
"We will!" the sisters answered in unison.
As she left, Lily waved goodbye with a big smile, as if she hadn't just made the room a health hazard to be in.
The stench stayed, unfortunately.
"How pleasant of you to get here at such an early hour today, Lynn," lisped Lisa stoically, as she withdrew two spraybottles from her desk. "It's quite the rarity for you to be on time."
Sometimes Lynn wondered how Lisa could handle this kinda stench with no trouble, but then she'd realize how Lisa had that ongoing poop study.
Either Lisa was born with a very strong natural resistance to things that smelled putrid, or she had actually trained herself to handle it to further her scientific exploits. Lynn wasn't sure which she considered weirder.
Lisa raised the first bottle and sprayed an odd looking substance into the air. The stench almost immediately went away.
She raised the second bottle and sprayed with it as as well, and the room was filled with an aroma that Lynn was sure she should be able to place, but it somehow eluded her.
Somehow, it made her feel hungry.
"Is that... the smell of meatball subs?" she blurted out.
"Indeed it is," answered her sister. "According to my calculations, you are much more comfortable in rooms that smell like this."
"According to my calculations," said Lynn in a silent, mocking voice. "That's just because I'm eating at the time."
Lisa turned to look at Lynn with a questioning glare. The tomboy whistled innocently. Lisa seemed a bit annoyed at this but made no remark about it.
"Well, I suppose we better get started then," the short bespectacled girl stated matter-of-factly. "Take out your homework and I'll make sure you pass your classes this time as well."
"Say, Lisa," Lynn spouted as she picked her homework out of her backpack. "Didn't you always like to talk about how I'm stupid? How come you are suddenly trying to teach me nuclear physics?"
Lisa got one of those smug expressions that Lynn hated so much on her face as the four-year old nudged her glasses into place.
"Actually, I never called you stupid, as such. I may have given the implication you are impulsive and that you act before you think sometimes, but I've never considered you outright stupid,"Lisa said in a tone that seemed to both be monotone and slightly haughty."It would, in fact, be stupid to do so, because you have clear athletic intelligence," Lisa took of her glasses, and wiped them with a rag as she talked. "You take in new information rapidly, you grasp complex situations in sports with speed and ease and you are able to generate numerous solutions to a problem quickly. This intelligence can be applied outside sports as well. I have said you are a bit empty-headed, but that just means you have ample room in your head to fill with knowledge."
Lynn blanked at Lisa. She wasn't sure if the tiny genius was seriously calling her smart, or just wanted to make sure Lynn wasn't in the right.
"Either way," Lynn thought as Lisa started going through the tomboy's homework. "It's time to start bothering the little runt."
Lynn kicked off her shoes, sending one flying across the room straight into a bunch of boxes, causing several of the boxes to fall to the ground, giving off the sound of glass breaking.
"Oops, sorry Liz!" she shouted with panic in her voice. "I didn't mean to do that!"
Honestly, that was true, she had just wanted to rattle the boxes a bit.
The second shoe bounced of the wall, missing Lisa's blackboard by a smidge. The shoe then went sailing out the window. Lynn swore under her breath.
"OOOWCH!" someone yelled in a high pitched voice. Lynn winced. If that was Lori, she'd be in serious trouble. If it was Lola... she didn't want to think about what would happen.
"Like, wow. I didn't know soccer shoes rained down from the sky! Lynn will be so amazed when I tell her!"
Leni! Thank goodness. Lynn felt a pang of guilt at feeling happy about that, but at least there wouldn't be any big trouble.
"Lynn, you most definitely need to stop being so careless," Lisa said, snapping Lynn back to her current predicament. "You're lucky I have a good partnership with the producer of these vacutainers, because you may just have destroyed about seventy-eight point fifty-five dollars worth of them."
Lynn turned pale. That was quite a bit of money, and she really didn't mean to do that. She sat very, very still as Lisa looked through the boxes.
"Lisa, I-I didn't mean to..." she spoke in a whisper.
Lisa didn't seem to hear her as she spoke, "It seems you have only destroyed about seventeen point seventy-nine dollars worth of equipment. We'll sort this out later."
The color finally returned to Lynn's face.
She quickly decided that whatever mischief she got up to next would not be this catastrophic.
By the time Lisa had gone through the homework like usual, Lynn felt ready to make another attempt at bugging her.
Lynn settled on a simple but effective method: interruptions. If she could intercept just about any pass in any sport, she could do the same with Lisa's lectures.
As Lisa was rambling on about binomial distribution, Lynn let a big belch rip.
"So sorry sis!" she said in a weak attempt to sound sincere.
The effect was quite a bit less than she had hoped. Lisa barely flinched at the whole thing
"So as I was saying, if X ~ B(n, p) and Y ~ B(m, p) are independent binomial variables..."
"This could be tough," Lynn thought. Then she noticed that the letters Lisa had just drawn on her blackboard were wobbly.
Lynn smiled. Lisa's handwriting wasn't necessarily the prettiest, but it was sharp and precise most of the time. If she was writing wobbly letters... Lynn had gotten under her skin.
Now she just had to keep at it.
Every minute, Lynn would come up with a different way to interrupt Lisa, and each time, Lisa would react a slight bit more noticably. After 8 minutes, Lisa was looking rather worn out.
Lynn had a cruel grin on her face as she spoke, "You look shook, Lisa. I thought your 'may-may' poster said to keep calm?"
"THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT!" yelled Lisa in a shrill voice. "NO MORE TUTORING! EVER!"
Lynn reeled back. She might have pushed a bit too hard.
Lisa ran out the door, slamming it shut with all her strength.
"Foomph." was the mighty sound it caused.
Lynn rose from the chair she was sitting in to go after her little sister, but then the door flew open again.
Lisa poked her head in with tears in her eyes and yelled "And it's pronounced meem, not may-may!"
Then she slammed the door shut again.
Lynn froze up in shock at what just happened, only to hear an all too familiar voice outside.
"Lisa, why are you in the bathroom? You literally never use it!"
There was no response.
"Lisa. Did someone pick on you again?"
"Better make a run for it while Lori's busy," Lynn thought.
She gently pushed the door open and prepared to dash, but Lori was on her in an instant. Lynn was always amazed at the speed and strength Lori seemed to possess when she entered full on Mama Bear-mode.
"Did you do this?" Lori hissed at Lynn.
"I DIDN'T MEAN TOO!" Lynn yelled as she panicked.
"That's quite the opposite impression you gave to me" Lisa piped in from the bathroom.
"Lisa, get out of there" Lori said in an imposing voice. "Don't make me have to get Lana."
The lock on the door opened with a click, and the bespectacled little girl walked out.
"Both of you are staying right here" Lori said while rushing into the bathroom to relieve herself. "You guys are gonna have a serious talk, and you both know better than to run."
Lynn and Lisa stood there in an awkward silence as they waited for Lori to be done.
Lori wasn't in the bathroom for longer than a minute, but to Lynn, it felt like hours.
"My room" Lori said as she came out. "Now."
The two younger sisters dutifully walked with her as she led them into the room. Lori motioned for them to sit down on her bed, and both Lynn and Lisa did so. Lori cleared her throat and started her interrogation.
"Lisa, what happened?" asked Lori. As Lisa was about to start talking she added on "The short and concise version, please."
"Lynn decided to taunt and jeer, and physically inconvenience me at intervals of about 58 seconds during her tutoring." Lisa answered, clearly annoyed at having her full account cut short.
"Lynn?" Lori sternly stated.
"Well, I- I mean… I guess I actually did that." Lynn stuttered.
Lori's eyes narrowed.
"I was only trying to give her a hard time so I didn't have to put up with these long tutoring sessions anymore!" Lynn yelled.
Lisa visibly flinched at this.
Lori looked at Lynn with a questioning glance. "Why didn't you just tell Lisa that instead?"
"Because last time I tried, she blackmailed me into continuing!" Lynn finally shouted, her frustration reaching a peak.
Lori turned to look at Lisa. The young girl was fidgeting with her fingers, as she slowly but surely stated, "I suppose that by certain definitions of the term, I did blackmail her..."
Lynn felt vindicated, almost ready to gloat. Lori seemed rather incensed.
"But that was only because it was the only way I could go on doing these tutoring sessions." Lisa spat out. "Those short sessions where Lynn would just come, have me tell her what she needed to do to just pass and then instantly forget it the moment after she passed was torture on me" Lisa flailed her stubby little arms about. "Especially since she had the capacity for learning it properly in the first place!"
Lynn was a bit taken aback at this. She hadn't realized Lisa actually minded the short sessions- as far as she could tell, Lisa had never shown a single sign of that.
But then again, Lisa was always hard for Lynn to read.
"The two of you do realize I volunteered to do these sessions, correct?" Lisa let out. "I almost turned down the opportunity when our parental units were considering getting Lynn a tutor, but I realized I almost never spend time with Lynn, so I decided to put aside my schedule to fit in these sessions!"
Lisa then stopped her little rant, seemingly embarrassed at how emotional she had allowed herself to get.
"But I do understand blackmailing Lynn was wrong." she said as she slumped. Then she turned to Lynn and said, in a rather quiet voice, "You don't need to spend time with me if you don't want to."
"But the tutoring..." Lynn started.
"I've taught you enough to easily navigate through anything your current grade puts out." Lisa sniffled. "You just don't take the time to do so. At all."
Lynn wasn't sure how to fix this situation. She looked to Lori for guidance, but the eldest sibling seemed to have no more answers than she herself did.
"May I leave?" asked Lisa.
Lynn just threw out the first thing that she came up with. "Lisa, how about we... try to hang out more outside the tutoring? In fact, let's forget the tutoring. I'll just do my homework properly from now on."
Lisa perked up a bit at Lynn's attempt at reconciliation, but her answer was a flat "We share very few interests, Lynn."
"Well, maybe if we hang out more that'll change" Lynn exclaimed. "We can test out new stuff every day!"
"Did you say 'test'?" Lisa said with a twinkle in her eye.
"I did!" Lynn laughed. "Come on, lets go get something to drink."
As they left Lori let out a deep, but happy sigh.
"It's great when they get along." she said to herself. "Sometimes the simplest solution really is the best solution."
As Lori sat there on her bed, Leni walked into the room. Lori could not help but notice a pretty big bump on her head.
"Like, Lori, you won't believe this! Soccer shoes rain from the sky! We should totes go out and try to catch some for Lynn! They're just her size too!" Leni said excitedly as she waved a soccer shoe about.
Down in the kitchen, Lisa and Lynn almost fell over as Lori let out a loud
"LYYYYYYNNNNNN!"
Lynn tensed up. "Crap."