I'm on strike.

--

Ash sat down on his chair, playing distracted with his pen. That was the last class of the day: Chemistry. Ash rocked his chair back and forth, really nervous. A part of him was impatient to meet his new teacher, but another part of him wanted him not to come to their class.

"Ash, are you okay?" Brock asked him, patting him on the back. Brock was standing right behind him in the class.

"Yes, I am." he replied right when the door opened with a slight creak. The purple-haired young man stepped in and silence fell above the class. Ash bit his lip. Paul walked to the desk, putting his bags and the catalog on it.

"Hello, class! My name is Paul Weiss and this year I'll be your Chemistry teacher."

"Hello, Mr. Weiss." the students murmured. Gary crossed his arms, looking disdainfully at the young teacher. He had been the one who dared to interrupt him from teaching Ash a lesson he wasn't going to forget so soon. But no worry; he smirked; he was going to catch him later.

Paul opened the catalog and began calling the students' names.

"Ketchum Ash" Ash stood up, feeling his knees so weak like they were made of jelly.

"Here." he said, his voice trembling slightly. Paul fixed him with his onyx eyes, making him blush and lower his head. Why on Earth did he choose to stay in the first desk?

After the last student sat down, Paul closed the catalog and pulled some papers out of his back.

"Because I'm a new teacher, I'm going to give you a small test to see what you still remember from 7th grade."

Ash felt like the ceiling had collapsed on him. A test? But he didn't remember anything from 7th grade. Three months were enough to erase everything from his mind. He looked around and he felt a bit relieved when he saw the perplex faces of the others. Seems like they were as clueless as him, except for Brock, who had a wide smile on his face and was tapping his fingers into the desk, waiting for the test.

Ash turned around as Paul gave him a paper. Ash frowned, looking through the questions.

'What's the definition of the atom?'

'I know this' he thought and began writing frenetically the answer. His deskmate, a short boy with red hair and grey eyes lifted his head, trying to look into his paper, but Ash put his arm across the desk, blocking him. It was his problem if he didn't know anything.

However, Ash didn't know what to answer at the next questions. He knew the number 5, the law of conservation of mass and the number 8, about chemical valence.

He heard the sound of a chair being dragged as Brock stood up and put his test on the teacher desk. Ash began to feel tempted to ask Brock about the answers, he was sure that Brock would help him. But that was called cheating, and Ash hated cheating. He tapped his biro into his desk, trying to remember something. And he did. He answered two other questions. He had five answered questions.

"Time is over, please give me the tests." Ash stood up and put the test on the desk. The bell rang and Ash, Brock and Misty went outside, talking about the test.

"It was so easy. I think I answered all of the questions." Brock said, really proud of himself. Misty snorted.

"Oh, shut it." she said. "I barely answered two questions. What have you done, Ash?" she asked Ash.

"Well, I answered five questions, but I'm not sure if the answers are correct."

"What an ass, to test us right in the first day." the red-head girl said angrily. Ash frowned a bit, but he didn't say anything.

"I think he just wanted to see at what level we are." Brock said, defending the young teacher. "What do you think about him, Ash?"

Ash blushed slightly. "Well…I think…" he stuttered. He was let off from answering by a voice behind him.

"So you thought you're going to escape so easily." Ash turned around and bumped into the tall figure of Gary.

--

I have just realized that in the first chapter I said "Ms. Paul Weiss." Please don't tell me that 'ms' means 'miss'. If it does, then I have just made Paul a girl. I'm sorry for it, you know that English isn't my first language and it is impossible to not make some mistakes sometimes, no?

Please review.