Disclaimer: I still don't own Fullmetal Alchemist, holy christmas, it appears as if I'm getting nowhere in life.

A/N: So the last one was a strange error on my part, that I gave Ed an automail arm (because I was focused on that being the main line of the story) and then made it post-manga canon. Guess it wasn't! Whoop! I'm officially declaring that last chapter, "barely AU"! With all the power I possess in my being.

Okay, so we're going back down to young Ed. I don't remember if I've transitioned there yet in this oneshot series, I always get the nature of the stories in IWK and Blood Brothers mixed up. Anywho...

I Wouldn't Know

Chapter Four

Outspoken

When the door to her home was suddenly thrown open around noontime Trisha jumped in fright. The apple she had been busily peeling, her skilled hand curving around each corner without break, flew from her hand and onto the kitchen floor.

Edward and Alphonse ran inside, backpacks and jackets flying all around, excited chatter like bird song on their young tongues. Trisha held a hand to her heart to steady herself, taking a deep rattling breath as her kindergarteners and first grader darted out of the room. They seemed intent to accomplish something, but then, it seemed as if they always were.

She opened up her mouth to call them back, but was interrupted as a small light brown head of hair peaked around the corner at her.

"Apple pie?" he squeaked out, sounding pleasantly surprised.

"Yes Alphonse, but remember, we have dinner before desert." she reminded him off-handedly. While his manners weren't as bad as Edward's rapidly deteriorating ones – for who knows what reason – he was still influenced by his brother. Who had inadvertently admitted to "maybe, maybe not" convincing his younger sibling to sneak a newly baked pie away and bring it upstairs to the study before dinner only two weeks ago. Alphonse had cried for an hour with guilt when he thought she was angry with him. "And tell your brother to come back here!"

"Eddddd...!" AL called out, merrily skipping off into the adjoining room and searching for his brother. Trisha smiled fondly after him, picking up the soiled apple from the floor and moving over to the faucet to rinse it.

In a few minutes, albeit slightly loud ones, both of her sons stood before her. Look at Edward, she now understood what it was he had been in such a hurry to do. Avoid me,she mused, looking on at the mischievous and proud, but slightly guilty look in her eldest child's eyes.

"Why are you two home so early?" she demanded, forcing her smile away and tucking it under a difficult to manage frown. Her hands met her hips, and she struck "The Mom Pose".

"School got our early," Ed quickly supplied, "we ran out of water because there was a problem with one of the larger wells in the town, so they had to send us all home." he answered so honestly and matter of fact that if it had not been for Alphonse she would have immediately believed him.

He clasped his hands behind his back, shuffling anxiously and leaning precariously forward on his toes as if words were stuck in his mouth and pulling him toward her, and he sucked his bottom lip in to stay beneath his teeth as his cheeks tinged a flushing rose.

"Al..." she ventured, leveling her gaze with his own gray eyes.

He let out a little yell, as if he had never considered she might address him, "Yes!" he shouted, "That's why!"

Edward rolled his eyes, letting out a sigh of frustration. "Way to go!" he mumbled harshly, elbowing the littler boy in the ribs.

"Boys? Is there something you want to tell me?"

Edward parted from Alphonse upon entering the small school house, pushing his younger brother's hand out of his own with an embarrassed flush, but making no comment regarding it. Al was confused, he held Ed's hand all the time, mom said that was how he could make sure he never ever got lost. Ed placed a hand on his back, steering him in the direction of their classroom door while carefully eying a group of older boys who glanced their way.

"Go on Al!" he whispered, "I'll see you in a minute."

Al's brows furrowed, he didn't like those boys that Edward hung out with before class and during recess. The other day one of them had pushed over his friend Bell, and she had come out of it with skinned knees and tears on her cheeks. They weren't very nice at all. Why did he even bother with them?

Edward understood quite well the makings of the school social structure. He was smart, and he was rude – he had been told, though he hardly thought that expressing your well thought out opinion should be considered an unfavorable trait – and he was... small. Smaller than the other children, dare he say it, although that was perfectly reasonable. The other children were all just freaks, it probably had something to do with all the unnatural cow secretion that they all seemed to adore. Like a flower overloaded with fertilizer, they were lanky and long and all wrong. He was, obviously, the only normal, healthy boy in his grade.

That being said, he was, sadly, currently all of those things. Things that – despite being intelligent, useful qualities – made him less approachable, less likable, in the naïve eyes of his freakishly tall, brain dead peers. So he had found these boys, who were older and crueler than the other children. He had had some difficulty finding a way in which he could get on good terms with these three individuals who were so intimidating to all the other kids. Third graders. Big. Tough. In charge.

In the end it had frustrated him to no end, coming up with some extravagant and strategic way to impress them.

Which had led to anger – as many things did as of late, he could notice his temper increasing, it seemed as he grew older and smarter, his fuse grew shorter, his patience had all but disappeared – anger that was their fault. They might not know it, but it was true.

So he acted accordingly, took it out on them. He wasn't frightened by their presence like most of the other kids. Annoyed at them, bothered by them, and curious of them, maybe, but Edward Elric wasn't scared of anything, and that was a fact. He had done what he believed, previously, to be the wrong thing to do, but in the end, found that it was the right thing.

They were shocked by the young boy who confronted them, spouting out harsh words and easily laying out scathingly true insults. A proud acknowledgment had followed, and suddenly Ed had a bit more respect.

That was beside the point really, they were insignificant to him, and only served as means to further themselves. Because as people, they were rather disgusting, honestly.

The Resembool school house was small and poor, with only three classrooms. This led to something good for Ed and Al however, as they would be in the same classroom all but a few choice years. When Ed moved out of the young class in third grade, and then moved once more in sixth.

Ed and Al were the most learned children in the entire school, he was sure, and would admonish such a fact flippantly with a roll of his eyes and a wave of his hand. The teacher, a kind woman – who was not completely without fault, she would snap into an angry beast instantly upon provocation – named Mrs. Bentley, loved Alphonse. However, she had begun to do more resenting of Edward than liking him. She knew it was unreasonable to dislike such a small child, but he acted in a manner beyond his meager years. Not only was he incredibly smart, both Elrics were, but he was, unlike his brother, clever and cynical enough to consider this fact often. He knew he was smarter than the others, and instead of using his advantage to progress and please, he promptly declared that he was bored, all of this was beneath him, and he would be wasting his time if he even really bothered at all. She would have tried hard to convince him otherwise – he wasn't an unpleasant child, he was possibly one of the warmest, sweetest little boys she had ever met, but he did not present himself this way often. He was a genius, clearly, and he was not easy to reach socially. But he loved his brother more than any siblings she had seen in most of her lifetime – if he had no become tired of the children as well, and set his sights ultimately on her.

"That's wrong." a voice chimed from the middle of the room. The brothers always sat together, they were the cutest pair of children she had ever seen.

"Excuse me?" she asked, clutching the chalk tightly between her fingers and moving her gaze to his amused golden eyes.

"That's wrong. You should probably know, you're the teacher." he quipped, and shrugged off Alphonse's hand that gripped nervously onto his sleeve.

"It's not wrong," she amended, looking at it once more for good measure.

"Apparently you don't understand the concept of a run-on sentence," he continued, punctuating the end of his own sentence as an example.

Her gaze lingered over her words once again, and she frowned at her mistake, placing a comma where it was appropriate. Mrs. Bentley took a deep, calming breath, and turned back to Edward with the most polite smile she could manage, "Well. Thank you, Edward."

Edward scowled at this, and she wondered at that. What about the situation did not satisfy him. She had told him he was correct, and hadn't even mentioned his blatant disrespect. His eyes lit up now, and he shifted forward in his chair, "A semi-colon would work better." he commented, pointing to the comma she had just placed on the board.

She grimaced, "Well, Mr. Elric, we haven't began to learn semi-colons yet. So we very well can't use them in a sentence."

"If we're not going to learn properly, then why the hell are you bothering to stand up there and teach?"

Mrs. Bentley gasped, dropping the chalk in her hand, "Edward Elric! Where did you learn such language?"

Ed smirked, standing up and placing his two angry little fists on either side of his hip bones, "Who cares," he replied nonchalantly, "you didn't answer my question." he reminded then, raising up a single finger.

She was... Flabbergasted. She would be angry, if she had the words to say in reply, but she was much too astonished. How old was this boy? Seven? Was that right?

"Well? Do you have something to say? Or are you just going to stand up there and not teach? School is already pointless, It doesn't need to be more so."

Al stood up now, trying to pull his brother back into his seat, but Ed was resistant.

She snapped, "How dare you talk to me that way? I am the teacher and you do not–"

"I don't need the 'I'm the teacher not you' spiel, I 'll teach to prove my point if I have to. Better than you, I'm sure." he replied quickly, and Mrs. Bentley stomped her foot angrily.

"Do you want to be punished? I think you've earned it?" infuriatingly, he smiled, and it occurred to her that maybe all he had wanted was a good argument. Something to break the monotony. In that case, she was giving him exactly what he wanted, which made her even angrier.

"Go out in the hall, you can sit there until class is over, and then I'll address the principal and you'll be dealt with later, after class."

She was trying hard to retain some semblance of calm. The yardstick beside her desk was looking more appealing with every word, however.

Ignoring her command, Edward turned himself around, laughing, and climbed atop his desk. He raised his arms up into the air, like a great speaker, the Fuhrer, maybe, addressing an entire city that was hanging on his every word, and the quiet muttering that had overcame the other children stopped suddenly. They observed him warily, yet they were attentive. His presence had a certain way of demanding respect from the others.

"Are you going to settle for this third-rate nonsense?" the classroom was quiet, but this did not deter the little boy at all, "No! You don't need this. We don't need her."

Mrs. Bentley raged, "Edward! Sit down right now!"

"No!" He whipped around, pointing a finger at her, "I won't!"

"Ed!" Al cried, at a loss, from where he sat.

"Come on Al, we're leaving." Ed finished, jumping from his desk and stumbling only a little as he landed beside his brother's. He grabbed Al's wrist, pulling him up and out of his chair and started moving him toward the door.

"No Ed!" Al hissed, "You're gonna get me in trouble!"

"We're not gonna be in trouble Al. We're going to be home." Ed replied stubbornly, and before the teacher could reach her yardstick and then reach for him, he had already fled the room with a wave of goodbye.

The classroom was quiet for a long moment, the students all staring up at their teacher who was quaking with silent rage. Then, they started talking, loudly, and some even stood up, walking towards the door.

"SIT DOWN!" She screamed at the children, some of whom obeyed her enraged tone immediately. While some merely granted her a passing glance, learning by example and following the Elric boys from the room.

Outside, Edward hit a solid palm against Alphonse's back, "See? They can't punish all of us!" and then, pleased, he grabbed his younger brother's hand and turned away.

Trisha stared wide eyed at her boys, struggling to regain her composure. The stern face she was providing was becoming more difficult to maintain by the second, and it wasn't long before she crumpled all together.

Her hand flew to her mouth, trying to cover up the force of her bubbling laughter, and she lectured them half-heartedly, "Boys! That's... Horrible! I – Edward Elric, you are in so much trouble!"

Al looked horrified, but Edward was completely nonplussed. He pointed a finger at her, the corner of his mouth twitching in the smallest of smirks, "You're laughing." he deadpanned.

Trisha smiled, "Yes, I am." she let out another giggle, and then crouched down in front of her sons, "But listen, you can't do that again okay? I might not be angry, but I should be, and you could get in big trouble with other people. You know you're going to be in trouble at your school right? Promise me?"

Alphonse, as expected, immediately help up his pinky, "Pinky swear!" he all but shouted, "I'm sorry!"

Edward, however, crossed his arms, giving a huff, "Sure. Sounds good."

Trisha locked pinky's with her youngest boy and gave the other a small shove, he came back up hugging her, and she laughed once more.

A/N: The end part there was a little forced, I wanted to end at "Yes, I am." but then I felt like she should at least tell them that they shouldn't do things like that anymore, haha!