A/N: Hello! Here's a Tyson chapter, that doesn't revolve all that much around Tyson. I hope the lack of response to Max's problem isn't too disappointing, but we will return to that shortly. It's just not like Tyson to notice things like that. Anyway, I could ramble on but I won't, since I'm sure you'd rather read the story than read me talk about it. Thanks for the response to my Mariah situation! Very helpful, I promise.
Thanks for the reviews; you all make my day every time!!
Ten reviews and I'll post the next chapter before the end of this week!
Ray's hair was in a ponytail that day, tied up with a (in my opinion) hilarious bow. "So after we draw a unit circle on the chalkboard, we're going to…"
"Isn't this the part with the Creed to Trigonometry?" I interrupted.
"No, that's the opening prayer."
"Which one is that again?" Kai looked lazily up from the book he'd been flipping through.
Ray swept bangs out of his eyes for the twentieth time that minute. "The one that's like, I believe in nightly homework, the sacred radian mode…"
"No, that one definitely came after the unit circle," Kai confirmed, nodding at me as if I were worthy of him.
"THANK you," I exclaimed, presently forgetting that we were in a library. Ray and the Librarian had a bit of an unspoken contest going to see who could shush me first. This time Ray won.
"Please try to control yourself," he suggested curtly before flipping a page in the book of cults he was holding. "Do we do any weird sacrifices?"
"How about our social lives?" Kai asked, not looking up from Worshipping the Anti-Christ. "That sounds realistic."
Ray peered over Kai's shoulder at the book. "Is that a whale?"
"I think it's a boat," Kai responded with raised eyebrows.
"Whale fail," I threw in.
"Humpback fail," Kai corrected. Well that was bizarre.
Before Ray could respond I had jumped out of my seat. "Max!"
"Shh!" bellowed the librarian. You'd think she did this for a living or something, she gets some great volume out of that sound. Ray hadn't been able to reprimand me this time as he'd been too busy ushering Max into the fourth seat at our table.
"How is everything? Where did you stay last night? Are you feeling okay? Did you sleep at all? I know I wouldn't have. Do you want a coffee later?"
"Ray, calm down," Kai said drily. Ray had told us about Max's parents earlier that day and had told me many times to be nice to him. As if I wasn't already.
Max seemed to have given up at the second question so his response was, "I went back home eventually."
"Oh, was your mom worried?"
"Not about me. She was more worried about her money."
"Heavens no, not the money," I said in the process of returning to my much scribbled on project outline. Ray kicked me in the shins but Max laughed.
We worked for hours. I'm not kidding, hours. I've never worked so much on anything before. There's this nice little satisfaction that goes into actually liking the work I'm doing and everyone, even Kai for pi's sake, is contributing.
And yes, I just said 'for pi's sake', because pi is the god of Trippelemism. And if that isn't hysterical enough for you, get this: the Pythagorean theorem is one of our sacred works. Like a book in the bible, only it's just an equation, written in the holy hand of Pythagoras himself. We have more, like the cosine law and stuff.
"I feel like I'm studying for math," Max put in as we made a group effort to memorize the unnecessarily complicated quadratic formula. "Now I won't have to memorize these for the test."
"You're right. On the test I'm going to be going…" I put on a bizarre chanting voice. "Negative b plus or minus the square root…" Ray and Max laughed.
"So we still need…" Ray skimmed down the list. "We need to name the followers, and create a hierarchy of religious leaders."
Kai looked at the clock on the wall. "So we're not going to be done for tomorrow."
I looked up too; it was 6:30. We still had to make a poster and other visuals, all that stuff Ray just said, and then print out the write up. Oh, and we have to somehow get a pie. I glanced at Max, waiting for him to suggest that we pull an all-nighter and finish it.
Max was looking at Kai with a bit of uncertainty. "So?"
Ray and I exchanged looks of shock, and even Kai raised his eyebrows.
"Gentlemen, I do believe we're making progress," I grinned. Ray laughed, Max blushed, and Kai punched me in the arm.
"OW!"
"SHH!" That came from Ray, Max and the Librarian, all in unison.
"Don't be mad at me, Kai started it!" I argued in a whisper.
"You didn't have to yell," Max reasoned.
"But he didn't have to punch me in the arm!"
"You got off topic," Kai justified. I rolled my eyes and started piling the stacks of books we had collected for ideas.
Max, as usual, leapt out of his seat to help me. He's admirable, I have to admit; being so helpful and nice when he's having a tough time. Granted, he could carry about half the amount I had. We brought them back to the religion shelves.
"So Max, you talk to Hilary?"
Wait, did I just say that? Who has taken over my body?!
Max gave me a small smile as he unloaded his armfuls of books onto a cart. "Yes, Ray mentioned that to me. You've got your work cut out for you, sorry."
"What do you mean?" I started to pile books onto the cart as well. "Like I know she doesn't like me, I mean, why would she? But…"
Max raised his eyebrows. "I never thought I'd hear that from you, Ty. Okay, well she thinks you're a bit arrogant, that's all. You'd just have to break the stereotype wall before she'll talk to you. She's a bit…"
"Feisty."
"I was going to say assertive," Max said apprehensively.
"Feisty sounds like more fun."
"Feisty sounds like a misbehaved puppy or something."
"Max, you need a girlfriend."
"I definitely don't," he replied without looking at me. He sounded cheery enough so I didn't have to let it go. "You're going to have to do some pushing, anyway."
"I don't mind a challenge," I shrugged. "So about this Emily girl…"
"She is the last thing on my mind right now." Max wasn't trying to get away; in fact he had started thumbing through a scary looking book about cults.
"She's not a thing, she's a girl."
"Whatever."
"I mean I understand if you're not into that sort of thing…" Max just laughed, and some sort of alarm went off in my mind. "Hey, you didn't deny it."
"What didn't I deny?"
"Well I just implied that you don't like girls."
"Yeah…" Max was using his 'you're not as smart as me' tone now, as if I was missing something obvious.
"And you didn't deny it."
"No, I guess I didn't."
"So we're on the same page here?" I asked.
"Ty, I have no idea what you're getting at," he grinned.
"Max, you're weird."
"So are you," he shrugged. "Anyway, are we going to stand here questioning my orientation or are we going to help Ray and Kai pack up everything else?"
"Um, yeah, but I have to ask you one thing."
"Go for it."
I'm not one to avoid forward questioning. "Why are you telling me this?"
For once, Max didn't seem to know the answer. He thought about it for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip. "I don't know," he said finally, shrugging. "I guess because you're the first person who ever cared enough to ask."
"Alright, fair enough."
"And don't worry, it's not like I'd ever be interested in you."
Max had started walking toward our table before I recognized what he'd said to me. "HEY!" I shouted, running after him. He was laughing near hysterically as half the library started making stupid shushing noises.
"Can we leave before we get kicked out?" Ray asked graciously enough. The four of us (we make a pretty awkward crew) plodded out of the library.
"Well Max seems alright," Ray said as soon as we'd split in twos, setting off for different bus stops. "I'm glad, it must be tough."
"He did seem okay," I agreed, not entirely worried.
"But he's really good at pretending to be okay, so who knows?"
"If he wanted us to know anything, he'd tell us." As soon as I said it I realized how bizarre that was. Look at it this way: If Max was really upset and needed someone to talk to, I just know that he'd come to Ray, Kai and I. The picture perfect student will bring his problems to the foreign kid, the menace to society and me, the obnoxious one.
Ray seemed to have the same ideas as me, since the next thing he said was, "wow, this is messed up."
"Yeah, really," I agreed. We smiled at each other, not really minding.
When Ray got off the bus, Hilary got on. I think he may be magical. I flagged her down.
"Hey, Hilary," I said with my best smile.
"Hi." She seemed to be looking around desperately for another free seat, but no such luck. The bus moved and she quickly flung herself into Ray's deserted seat, refusing to look at me.
"How was your weekend?"
"Not bad, you?" She still didn't look at me.
"Pretty good. I spent the whole time working on a religion project."
"And that's pretty good?" she asked doubtfully, finally looking at me.
I remembered what Max had said about breaking the stereotype wall. "Yeah, I don't mind sitting down and getting some work done once in a while. Also the guys are pretty fun to work with."
"Really." Hilary seemed unimpressed, and I sighed. Is this really worth the effort? I mean she's cute, and really… different. But maybe it's one of those cases of only wanting what you can't have.
"So what did you do?"
"Oh, not much. Okay, this is my stop, bye!"
"Bye."
"Where have you been all day?"
Dai Chi causes many headaches for me, let me tell you. I only just walked in the door and already he has called my cell to harass me. And I was not in the mood to be harassed.
"The library." Wow, never thought I'd say that honestly.
Apparently neither did Dai Chi. "Yeah, okay. Seriously, where were you? I've been calling since noon."
"I was at the library," I repeated, lolloping up the stairs, effectively ignored by anyone else who might have been in the house. "Working on religion."
"Oh, that," Dai Chi finally clued in. "Wait, you're actually working on it? You never work on things."
"I know, but it's kind of funny," I replied, pretty much honestly. "Anyway, it's Sunday, it's not like anything else is going on."
"I guess not." And the topic is officially dropped; as if any of my friends would get caught talking about school on a weekend. Except Max, I reminded myself, taking a moment to appreciate how weird it is to think of him as my friend.
