CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: SCHOOL, DAY 1 (AFTERNOON)
After they got their lunch (well, actually, cleverly manufactured plastic deceptively referred to as "lunch") they sat down at one of the tables. Ryou, noticing the homicidal look on Raven's face, prudently arranged the table seating so Raven and Nuriko were opposite each other. Unfortunately, that just meant Nuriko gave Raven star-eyed looks which made him even more annoyed.
Lunch ended and Raven was faced with an afternoon full of Nuriko.
"I wish I was Ryou," Raven muttered.
*
The twins went to their lockers with Ryou after lunch. Neither of them was enjoying school very much, but they were dreading the next class especially: math. Poor Amiboshi and Suboshi were not very good at arithmetic, and Ryou had warned them about the difficulty of high school mathematics.
"So today we will be reviewing parabolas. How can you tell the difference between a quadratic and an exponential graph? Amiboshi?" The teacher smiled all too nicely at Amiboshi and Suboshi.
From in front of them, Ryou passed a note to Suboshi behind him under the desk. It read: "parabolas curve and have a line of symmetry. Exponential just keeps getting larger and larger by greater increments."
Amiboshi dutifully repeated that, managing not to mispronounce any of the mathematical terms. This was partly due to the fact that Ryou had actually written it "Parabolahs kurv and have a line of simetry. Exponenshul just keeps getting larger and larger by greater inkremints." He didn't entirely trust Amiboshi's pronunciation abilites (or lack thereof).
"Very good, Amiboshi!" The teacher said, excited. You see, Ryou was one of the few people in the school good at math, so the teacher was understandably delighted at the arrival of more seemingly talented students.
The teacher went on and on about equations and graphs and the twins were very bored. The teacher, however, continued to call on them.
"Suboshi, how do you tell a linear graph from an exponential graph?"
Suboshi frantically snatched the note from Ryou and read, "Linear graphs do not grow by a larger increment at each point on the graph."
"Right you are!"
Ryou was scribbling notes, all the while mentally speaking to his Yami at home.
/Ryou you should just let them get sent to the principal's or whatever,/ Bakura remarked from where he sat reading the newspaper with several bars of chocolate next to him.
/No! That would be so mean . besides, what would Hotohori do to me if I let them get set back or whatever on their first day?/ Ryou scribbled yet another note relating to exponents and handed it back to Suboshi.
/Good point. How's Raven holding up with Nuriko?/
/Not so good . he looked kind of Yami-ish at lunch. That's not good./
/Actually I think it's an improvement./
/Well, you would./ Ryou took the returning note from Suboshi ("what the hell is an expandent?") and replied, "It's an exponent, and it's like a power - if something is to the second power, it's written the number and then a little 2 which is called the exponent."
"Fine," was the reply, "but what's a power?"
/They really don't know much,/ Bakura commented, looking through Ryou's eyes at the notes. /I could teach them that./
/Along with the technicalities of tomb robbing?/
/That's a very good idea./
Their conversation got absolutely nowhere after that.
Finally the bell rang and Ryou stuffed his fistful of notes into his folder. He rushed out the door before the teacher could trap him and the twins and ask more math questions.
"Wow thanks Ryou," Amiboshi said in relief. "How do you know all that stuff?"
"Well you're supposed to know it too."
"What? You mean you can't just tell us the answers all year?"
"Afraid not . you'd better come over to our house again today, so we can help you with the homework . Hi, Raven!"
The next class the five of them had together. It was global studies. The class was then studying American history. For the sake of Raven's sanity, Ryou requested that he sit next to Nuriko and 'help' him. Raven could watch the twins for the period and be rid of Nuriko for forty-two entire minutes. Raven gave Ryou a grateful look.
When sitting down, Nuriko banged into Ryou's unique hair. "Wow that's so cool!" He said, reaching out to touch it.
Ryou remembered the many times Yami had smacked Bakura on the hand for reaching for the brownies. He did the same thing with his pen.
"Itai!"
"Don't touch the hair!"
"OK, OK," Nuriko said in disappointment, getting out his global books. Raven was at Amiboshi's and Suboshi's desk, explaining who Christopher Columbus was. The bell rang and Raven sat down behind Amiboshi, deciding to use Ryou's technique of note-passing.
The twins were actually very smart. They just didn't care about school.
"Look at the illustration on page 204," Mrs. Simmons, the teacher, instructed. "Do you notice anything out of place in this drawing?"
Ryou's hand shot up in the air. It was the only one, naturally. Being a very good hikari, Ryou always studied and did his homework, and therefore was very good at most subjects.
"Anyone else besides Ryou? No? Well then, Ryou."
"The map is labeled Virginia, but it portrays a longhouse which was not used in that part of America," Ryou said confidently.
"Ooh, can I see?" Nuriko asked, leaning over Ryou to look at his textbook. "Where?"
Uncomfortably aware of the fact that Nuriko's arm was around his shoulders, Ryou shoved the other boy back into his seat and hissed, "Pay attention!"
The sulking Nuriko turned back to his textbook.
"Ooh, Ryou's got a boyfriend!" An annoying classmate whispered gleefully.
Ryou slowly reached into his pencil case and drew out the special mechanical pencil Bakura had made him. It looked deceptively innocent. Carefully aiming, Ryou pressed the eraser in on the pencil. A small, sharp piece of lead flew out of the tip and into the offender's hand. He yowled in pain and jumped up.
"Whatever is the matter, George?" Mrs. Simmons asked mildly.
George held up his palm, exhibiting the lead stuck in it and the blood.
"You probably stabbed yourself with the pencil again," Mrs. Simmons said, "which means you weren't paying attention. You can go to the nurse, but I'm taking a point off your average."
George ran out the door.
"I like her," Raven whispered from their left. Ryou smirked.
/That pencil of yours works really well,/ Ryou thought in a smug tone.
/You used it? You?/
/Yes, see./ Ryou replayed the entertaining event moments earlier in his mind.
Bakura laughed. /How's Nuriko?/
Nuriko was currently peering at Ryou's notes, his hand over Ryou's.
/You have to ask?/
/Hey, I found a job./
/Great! What?/
/I am working in the training sector of the University of Evil Platypi./
Ryou absently smacked Nuriko's hand with the eraser. /Only gym, and then last period left./
/Which is?/
/Spanish./
/Have fun.oh, wait, you get the twins back, don't you?/
/Yes, thank Ra./
Ryou went into another flurry of note-taking, wishing that he had his laptop with him. He didn't want it stolen, though.
/I wonder if there's a way I can bring my laptop here, but I don't want it stolen./ Ryou mused.
/Seto and I could probably devise some kind of tracking system or whatever-no, wait! I'm supposed to hate you!/
/Right...that's the bell!/
"Do you have gym with us today?" Ryou asked Raven as the five of them left.
"No, I had it this morning." Raven lowered his voice. "It was ghastly."
"I'll see you at the bus then, you should come home with us."
"OK."
With Amiboshi and Suboshi in tow, Ryou went to gym, his least favorite subject. It wasn't that he objected to exercise in general; it was simply that he disliked most sports in existence. That day they were walking across beams, possibly for the single reason that the evil gym teacher enjoyed the discomfort of the students. Fortunately, Ryou had good balance so there wasn't that much trouble.
Amiboshi and Suboshi, however, refused to go one at a time and crossed together. Had one not been there to counterbalance the other, they probably would have fallen several dozen times. Ryou made it across without incident, however.
"Last class!" Suboshi said with relief as they went toward the Spanish class.
"Um do you know any Spanish?"
"I can say 'hello'," Amiboshi said cheerfully, "and that's about it."
"Uh this is a kind of hard class guys."
"I know. You can just pass us notes or whatever."
The classroom was very strange. It was composed of small groups of three chairs and desks. Ryou quickly herded the twins toward one of the empty chair groups.
Mr. Jones, the teacher, entered and sat down, looking bored. Everything Mr. Jones did was bored and boring. He walked in a boring, bored fashion. He was one of the most unremarkable people Ryou had ever met.
"Today," Mr. Jones said in a boring voice, "We are working on the tener expressions. What is one of them? Ryou?" For as usual Ryou's hand had shot up in the air.
"Tener frio," Ryou said.
"Yes." Mr. Jones wrote it up on the board. "What does this mean? Amiboshi?"
Mr. Jones had an annoying habit of calling on anyone, whether their hand was up or not. Therefore Amiboshi had been caught unprepared.
"To be cold" Ryou scrawled on a corner of his binder paper.
"To be cold," Amiboshi said quickly.
The class went on with no sound but Mr. Jones' droning voice. Suboshi, however, had not gotten much sleep the night before and was very tired. He finally fell asleep in the last ten minutes of class.
"Suboshi, what does qué mean?"
Ryou frantically stepped on Suboshi's foot.
"What?" Suboshi said in annoyance, waking up.
"Yes, good. Qué means 'what'."
Suboshi looked astonished. The bell rang. The twins and Ryou almost ran out the door and to their lockers.
"Suboshi that was really lucky!" Ryou said as they went toward the bus.
"Yeah I know . we have a ton of homework. You'll help us right?"
"Sure, we're going back to my place."
Meanwhile, Yami settled down on his bed with a book, safe in the belief that the students would be so exhausted that they would simply go home instead of hanging out forever at the Yugioh house.
After they got their lunch (well, actually, cleverly manufactured plastic deceptively referred to as "lunch") they sat down at one of the tables. Ryou, noticing the homicidal look on Raven's face, prudently arranged the table seating so Raven and Nuriko were opposite each other. Unfortunately, that just meant Nuriko gave Raven star-eyed looks which made him even more annoyed.
Lunch ended and Raven was faced with an afternoon full of Nuriko.
"I wish I was Ryou," Raven muttered.
*
The twins went to their lockers with Ryou after lunch. Neither of them was enjoying school very much, but they were dreading the next class especially: math. Poor Amiboshi and Suboshi were not very good at arithmetic, and Ryou had warned them about the difficulty of high school mathematics.
"So today we will be reviewing parabolas. How can you tell the difference between a quadratic and an exponential graph? Amiboshi?" The teacher smiled all too nicely at Amiboshi and Suboshi.
From in front of them, Ryou passed a note to Suboshi behind him under the desk. It read: "parabolas curve and have a line of symmetry. Exponential just keeps getting larger and larger by greater increments."
Amiboshi dutifully repeated that, managing not to mispronounce any of the mathematical terms. This was partly due to the fact that Ryou had actually written it "Parabolahs kurv and have a line of simetry. Exponenshul just keeps getting larger and larger by greater inkremints." He didn't entirely trust Amiboshi's pronunciation abilites (or lack thereof).
"Very good, Amiboshi!" The teacher said, excited. You see, Ryou was one of the few people in the school good at math, so the teacher was understandably delighted at the arrival of more seemingly talented students.
The teacher went on and on about equations and graphs and the twins were very bored. The teacher, however, continued to call on them.
"Suboshi, how do you tell a linear graph from an exponential graph?"
Suboshi frantically snatched the note from Ryou and read, "Linear graphs do not grow by a larger increment at each point on the graph."
"Right you are!"
Ryou was scribbling notes, all the while mentally speaking to his Yami at home.
/Ryou you should just let them get sent to the principal's or whatever,/ Bakura remarked from where he sat reading the newspaper with several bars of chocolate next to him.
/No! That would be so mean . besides, what would Hotohori do to me if I let them get set back or whatever on their first day?/ Ryou scribbled yet another note relating to exponents and handed it back to Suboshi.
/Good point. How's Raven holding up with Nuriko?/
/Not so good . he looked kind of Yami-ish at lunch. That's not good./
/Actually I think it's an improvement./
/Well, you would./ Ryou took the returning note from Suboshi ("what the hell is an expandent?") and replied, "It's an exponent, and it's like a power - if something is to the second power, it's written the number and then a little 2 which is called the exponent."
"Fine," was the reply, "but what's a power?"
/They really don't know much,/ Bakura commented, looking through Ryou's eyes at the notes. /I could teach them that./
/Along with the technicalities of tomb robbing?/
/That's a very good idea./
Their conversation got absolutely nowhere after that.
Finally the bell rang and Ryou stuffed his fistful of notes into his folder. He rushed out the door before the teacher could trap him and the twins and ask more math questions.
"Wow thanks Ryou," Amiboshi said in relief. "How do you know all that stuff?"
"Well you're supposed to know it too."
"What? You mean you can't just tell us the answers all year?"
"Afraid not . you'd better come over to our house again today, so we can help you with the homework . Hi, Raven!"
The next class the five of them had together. It was global studies. The class was then studying American history. For the sake of Raven's sanity, Ryou requested that he sit next to Nuriko and 'help' him. Raven could watch the twins for the period and be rid of Nuriko for forty-two entire minutes. Raven gave Ryou a grateful look.
When sitting down, Nuriko banged into Ryou's unique hair. "Wow that's so cool!" He said, reaching out to touch it.
Ryou remembered the many times Yami had smacked Bakura on the hand for reaching for the brownies. He did the same thing with his pen.
"Itai!"
"Don't touch the hair!"
"OK, OK," Nuriko said in disappointment, getting out his global books. Raven was at Amiboshi's and Suboshi's desk, explaining who Christopher Columbus was. The bell rang and Raven sat down behind Amiboshi, deciding to use Ryou's technique of note-passing.
The twins were actually very smart. They just didn't care about school.
"Look at the illustration on page 204," Mrs. Simmons, the teacher, instructed. "Do you notice anything out of place in this drawing?"
Ryou's hand shot up in the air. It was the only one, naturally. Being a very good hikari, Ryou always studied and did his homework, and therefore was very good at most subjects.
"Anyone else besides Ryou? No? Well then, Ryou."
"The map is labeled Virginia, but it portrays a longhouse which was not used in that part of America," Ryou said confidently.
"Ooh, can I see?" Nuriko asked, leaning over Ryou to look at his textbook. "Where?"
Uncomfortably aware of the fact that Nuriko's arm was around his shoulders, Ryou shoved the other boy back into his seat and hissed, "Pay attention!"
The sulking Nuriko turned back to his textbook.
"Ooh, Ryou's got a boyfriend!" An annoying classmate whispered gleefully.
Ryou slowly reached into his pencil case and drew out the special mechanical pencil Bakura had made him. It looked deceptively innocent. Carefully aiming, Ryou pressed the eraser in on the pencil. A small, sharp piece of lead flew out of the tip and into the offender's hand. He yowled in pain and jumped up.
"Whatever is the matter, George?" Mrs. Simmons asked mildly.
George held up his palm, exhibiting the lead stuck in it and the blood.
"You probably stabbed yourself with the pencil again," Mrs. Simmons said, "which means you weren't paying attention. You can go to the nurse, but I'm taking a point off your average."
George ran out the door.
"I like her," Raven whispered from their left. Ryou smirked.
/That pencil of yours works really well,/ Ryou thought in a smug tone.
/You used it? You?/
/Yes, see./ Ryou replayed the entertaining event moments earlier in his mind.
Bakura laughed. /How's Nuriko?/
Nuriko was currently peering at Ryou's notes, his hand over Ryou's.
/You have to ask?/
/Hey, I found a job./
/Great! What?/
/I am working in the training sector of the University of Evil Platypi./
Ryou absently smacked Nuriko's hand with the eraser. /Only gym, and then last period left./
/Which is?/
/Spanish./
/Have fun.oh, wait, you get the twins back, don't you?/
/Yes, thank Ra./
Ryou went into another flurry of note-taking, wishing that he had his laptop with him. He didn't want it stolen, though.
/I wonder if there's a way I can bring my laptop here, but I don't want it stolen./ Ryou mused.
/Seto and I could probably devise some kind of tracking system or whatever-no, wait! I'm supposed to hate you!/
/Right...that's the bell!/
"Do you have gym with us today?" Ryou asked Raven as the five of them left.
"No, I had it this morning." Raven lowered his voice. "It was ghastly."
"I'll see you at the bus then, you should come home with us."
"OK."
With Amiboshi and Suboshi in tow, Ryou went to gym, his least favorite subject. It wasn't that he objected to exercise in general; it was simply that he disliked most sports in existence. That day they were walking across beams, possibly for the single reason that the evil gym teacher enjoyed the discomfort of the students. Fortunately, Ryou had good balance so there wasn't that much trouble.
Amiboshi and Suboshi, however, refused to go one at a time and crossed together. Had one not been there to counterbalance the other, they probably would have fallen several dozen times. Ryou made it across without incident, however.
"Last class!" Suboshi said with relief as they went toward the Spanish class.
"Um do you know any Spanish?"
"I can say 'hello'," Amiboshi said cheerfully, "and that's about it."
"Uh this is a kind of hard class guys."
"I know. You can just pass us notes or whatever."
The classroom was very strange. It was composed of small groups of three chairs and desks. Ryou quickly herded the twins toward one of the empty chair groups.
Mr. Jones, the teacher, entered and sat down, looking bored. Everything Mr. Jones did was bored and boring. He walked in a boring, bored fashion. He was one of the most unremarkable people Ryou had ever met.
"Today," Mr. Jones said in a boring voice, "We are working on the tener expressions. What is one of them? Ryou?" For as usual Ryou's hand had shot up in the air.
"Tener frio," Ryou said.
"Yes." Mr. Jones wrote it up on the board. "What does this mean? Amiboshi?"
Mr. Jones had an annoying habit of calling on anyone, whether their hand was up or not. Therefore Amiboshi had been caught unprepared.
"To be cold" Ryou scrawled on a corner of his binder paper.
"To be cold," Amiboshi said quickly.
The class went on with no sound but Mr. Jones' droning voice. Suboshi, however, had not gotten much sleep the night before and was very tired. He finally fell asleep in the last ten minutes of class.
"Suboshi, what does qué mean?"
Ryou frantically stepped on Suboshi's foot.
"What?" Suboshi said in annoyance, waking up.
"Yes, good. Qué means 'what'."
Suboshi looked astonished. The bell rang. The twins and Ryou almost ran out the door and to their lockers.
"Suboshi that was really lucky!" Ryou said as they went toward the bus.
"Yeah I know . we have a ton of homework. You'll help us right?"
"Sure, we're going back to my place."
Meanwhile, Yami settled down on his bed with a book, safe in the belief that the students would be so exhausted that they would simply go home instead of hanging out forever at the Yugioh house.