We got there at about noon(since I wanted to sleep in) and, once again, we went to the fountain since there was an abundance of water. Logan, like always, stood off to the side until Chuck told him what to do. Chuck sat on my right, and I was facing the fountain itself, sitting on a bench across from it. Sighing deeply, I turned to him and said,

"What ya' want me ta' do?"

He looked the fountain over and replied,

"Take the water and float it over Logan's head."

My eyes bugged out. He wanted me to do what? Logan would kill me if I drenched him.

"What?"

He smiled.

"You heard correctly. I am confident in your abilities."

"Maybe you shouldn't be," I muttered before focusing all my attention on the task at hand.

Slowly, the water began to float up and out of the fountain. I directed it near Logan, then it rose up to stay above his head. I kept concentrating, and wouldn't let anything break that concentration. Until Logan opened his big trap.

"Hey Tidepool! Ya' couldn't save yerself if ya' tried! Yer' just a freak! You'll never fit in! Loser!"

I started to growl and the water dropped dangerously close to his head. He flinched in the slightest, but kept going.

"That the best you can do? Ha! Half the squirts at this place could outdo you by twitchin' a finger!"

My anger was rising and the water dropped until it was one foot above his head. One more remark and it would drop on him like a sack of potatoes fifty feet in the sky. Then, he stopped.

"Logan, that will be enough." Chuck turned to me. I kept concentrating. "You see what happens when you are angered? Like I said before, control your anger, don't let it control you."

I realized the meaning of his words. So, not letting the H20 drop, I took deep breaths and floated it further up. Seeing Chuck nodding out of the corner of my eye, I focused all my attention on keeping it suspended in air. Logan started again.

"Freak, freak, freak! Can't ya' just go back ta' where ya' came from? Then I wouldn' have t' see yer ugly mug!"

Taking even more deep breaths, I managed to not let a drop touch the ground. It hardly moved. In fact, through all of Logan's further taunts, I never lost it.

Finally, Chuck stopped him and motioned for me to put the water back. As soon as it plopped into the fountain, I sighed the deepest sigh I had ever sighed in my life. Slumping back on the bench, I closed my eyes and started to breathe deep breaths through my nose. I heard footsteps and wearily creaked one eye open to see who it was.

Logan stood over me, his smirking face obscuring any view I would have had of the sky. I half-smiled back and said,

"Bet ya' loved that."

He kept smirking and shrugged, replying,

"That's nothin' compared t' the Danger Room."

I groaned.

"Don't remind me."

~*~



Oddly enough, I wasn't tired. Maybe that was because I had gotten practically twelve hours of sleep. But still, it takes time for your body to adjust to erratic sleep schedules. Doesn't it? Anyway, Chuck and Logan left me by the fountain. To go do, whatever they do when there's nothing to do. I just sort of stayed there because I didn't have anything to do either. What can you do on a Sunday afternoon when you're tired and bored? My answer came in a *BAMF*.

I was just going to go to the rec room and see if anyone wanted to play foosball with me when Kurt teleported above my head, once again. All I saw was this furry blue mass coming down on top of me before I dived out of the way onto the concrete, landing on my knees. Crap, I thought. Now they're probably skinned. Turning my glare onto the fuzzy elfs' swim trunk-wearing figure, I saw that he was rubbing his tail lovingly.

"What's the matter Fuzzball? Hurt your extra appendage while trying to be a kamikaze?"

He looked up at me, noticing there was someone else for the first time. He put his tail down on the bench and stretched his hand behind his head. Grinning sheepishly, he said,

"Ach, sorry Cryees. I vas just trying to get avay from Scott in a hurry. Him and zee ozzers are a leetle mad at me right now."

"What did you do?" I asked slowly, afraid that the answer might be something I really didn't want to hear. Kurt gave a weak chuckle.

"Vell......" he trailed off.

"Kurt?"

He took a couple of deep breaths.

"Vee vere at the pool, and I vas, vell I vas being me."

"Can you be a bit more specific?"

More deep breaths.

"No vun except Evan vas in zee pool because everyvun vanted to get a tan. Vell, I zought zat zey might vant to cool off."

My eyes widened.

"You didn't!?"

Another weak chuckle.

"If you're zinking zat I splashed everyvun, zen I zink I did. But zee zing vas, ven Scott got splashed, his glasses fell off. So he kinda took a chunk out of zee pool. Almost got Evan too. Jean couldn't react fast enough to deflect zee water so she got wet. Neizzer could Keety. Rogue just came because zere vas nozing else to do. Now everyvun is kind of coming to get me. Zat's vhy I couldn't concentrate on vere I vas going and almost landed on you."

I groaned.

"Next time you do that, please try to figure out where you're going before you go. It would help if I didn't have to look out for flying fuzzballs all the time."

He grinned and started stroking his tail again. That peaked my interest.

"Didja' land on yer tail?"

He nodded. I grinned and said,

"That's what ya' get for pissin' people off. You'd think you would have learned that from your encounter with me. Doesn't anything penetrate that fuzzy skull of yours?"

Kurt shook his shaggy head and bounded up off the bench onto the balls of his feet, like he always walked. Turning to me, he asked,

"Do you zink zey'll be over it by now?"

"Why don't you go and ask them?"

He nodded and teleported away. Five seconds later he reappeared with a wooden spike making a hole through his trunks. Grinning sheepishly, he said,

"Guess zey still have some hard feelings."

I shook my head from side to side in exasperation and got up from where I had been on the ground, my previous position because of having to dive away from Kurt. Turning toward the house, I called over my shoulder,

"They don't have any hard feelings against me, so I'm goin' t' play foosball. I'll see ya' whenever ya' get hungry. Buh-bye now!"

I laughed at the groan I heard from Kurt's direction. Chuckling still, I jogged up to the huge mansion that had become my home in the last twenty-four hours or so.

Unfortunately, my foosball expedition was interrupted by the weirdest thing that had happened to me so far.

Crys, can you come to my office please?

I jumped, then relaxed as I realized it was just Chuck.

Sure, I'll be there in a sec.

Thank you.

I felt his presence leave my mind. Leaning against a nearby wall, I put a hand up to my rapidly beating heart and started to breathe deeply.

"Jeez, Chuck's gonna give me a heart attack doin' that. Why can't he just get an intercom system? Not like it would make a dent in the never-ending supply of money he has."

"Just get a telepathic message, Tidepool?"

Jumping again, I whipped around to find Logan standing, smirking, in the door of the entrance hall. I growled and turned back around to start walking again, heading for Chuck's office.

"What's it to ya', Badger?" I carefully enunciated his nickname. He growled back at me and followed. Stopping abruptly, I made him run into me. Without turning around, I asked,

"Are you following me?"

I heard a mumbled 'no' that sounded very unconvincing, so I continued on my way. This time I didn't hear him. Then again, in the Xavier Institute, that doesn't mean nothing is there.

~*~

Soon I reached Chuck's office. I held my hand up to knock on the door, then thought better of it and simply swooshed it open. After all, he was expecting me. As usual, he was sitting behind his desk with his fingers steepled and his eyes serious. I wondered what I had done this time. Plopping down into a chair that he motioned for me to sit in, I waited for him to begin.

"You are in tenth grade, a sophomore, correct?"

I nodded. He sighed. Uh-oh. If you hear Chuck sigh like that, it's never good.

"What is it?"

He looked out of his office window.

"Crys, I'm afraid you'll have to be home-schooled until you can control your emotions."

This shook me. Well, look at the bright side. At least I can sleep in and not worry about being late for school.

"That's not so bad, is it?"

Another sigh.

"Logan will be your teacher."

"WHAT!"

I started to pace the office.

Chuck kept looking out the window, shaking his head and sighing.

"I knew you would react this way."

"Why can't Ororo teach me, or you? Why him?"

He smiled and turned back toward me.

"I'm afraid that we're both too busy Crys. But Logan always has some free time. Now, your first day of home-school will be tomorrow."

Ushering me out the door, he closed it. But as he closed it, he muttered something that I could barely hear, but amazingly, could make out the words.

"Besides, I'm the one who arranged it. You two need to work out some differences."

My mouth opened wide but quickly shut again as I knew that yelling wouldn't help me. So, having some pent up rage, I set off to look for a certain blue boy, who I wanted to work out some frustrations on. All the while I was mumbling,

"Differences? I'll show you differences."