Disclaimer: I do not own Full House or any of its characters.

Chapter Eight

*Nicky's School Problems & Alex's Betrayal*

"Now Nicky, I know you can apply yourself and do better than this aptitude test shows," the teacher said, "Nobody else in the class made that bad of a grade."

"Please, Larry sits next to me and he made a 14," Nicky said. He could feel the anger building up inside of him. He hated people thinking he was smart just because his brother was the smartest person in the class.

"But your brother made a 97," the teacher pointed out.

"Yeah, well, we've all learned that he's smarter than me by now," Nicky said huffily, "Now, can I go out to recess? I know I should apply myself and I could be as smart as my brother. But quite frankly, I do try my hardest and I wouldn't want to be as smart as Alex anyways."

"Fine, go," the teacher said, "Maybe its just because you're having a hard time accepting your father's death, but I am going to call your mom and sat up a conference to talk to her."

"Okay," Nicky shrugged, before standing up and running out the door.

***

"No, you know that stupid aptitude test we did yesterday?" Alex asked his group of friends. They all nodded their heads. They had all made an A on it and though Alex had made the highest grade they thought the test had been easy and they had all done well on it, "Well, my brother made a 12 on it. I heard him telling my cousin Michelle."

"A 12?" Brandon asked in dismay, "That's got to be the worst grade in the class."

"You're brother is sure an idiot," Lexy said, "I don't see how the two of you can be related."

Just then Nicky came out of the school and looked ready to play a game of tackle football with the rest of his buddies.

Nicky and Alex hung out with completely different crowds. Nicky hung out with the jocks and the musicians, the ones that wanted to be in a rock band anyways while Alex hung out with the science club and the other musicians, the ones that were in the school band and didn't play drums. Nicky played the drums in the school band and was very talented, but was often overshadowed by Alex's playing of the clarinet. Nicky just couldn't win with Alex. Nicky was best in football in their grade, but Alex was better at basketball and baseball, he just didn't play.

"Hey Nicky, I heard you were an idiot," a boy behind Alex's group called to Nicky, who was just about to hike the ball, "I heard you can't even get above a 15 on a stupid aptitude test."

Nicky turned around and stared at the direction from where Lenny, the boy who had spoken, was sitting. He then looked and saw Alex sitting there looking very guilty. The one thing about Lenny was, besides being a sixth grader, the biggest person in school, and the biggest bully in school, you couldn't call him stupid because he was the smartest sixth grader.

"Shut up Lenny," Nicky growled, sending both Lenny and his brother a death look.

"Oh, and I suppose an idiot like you is going to make me?" Lenny asked, roaring with laughter. Most of the surrounding students, including Alex, joined in the laughter. Only three people playing football with Nicky were brave enough to stick by Nicky and not laugh with Lenny.

Alex felt bad about betraying his brother like that. But he had found it rather amusing that his brother had done so bad on a test that he himself had done great on. Alex looked worriedly at his brother, wondering what he was going to do, but his brother just smirked.

"Lenny, I wouldn't waste my time fighting you," Nicky said cruelly. Nicky didn't really want to provoke the sixth grader, but he couldn't stand being called dumb by anybody. But especially not by his brother, who he was sure had been the one that told his group of friends, that would've found it to be very amusing.

"Because you know you can't win, besides you don't have your dad here to protect you from me if you do decide to fight anymore," Lenny said, harsher than anybody had ever heard Lenny speak. Nicky didn't even think through what he was doing when he ran over to Lenny and swung his arm and punched him square in the jaw.

Before he knew it Lenny had tackled him and started hitting him. He swung back at Lenny, he didn't want this bully to get away with making fun of his dead dad. Nobody could make fun of his dad. Then Lenny was suddenly pulled off of him as the principal and two teachers glared at the two of them.

***

"Nicky, I can't believe you got in a fight!" his mom chastised as she drove him and Alex home from school that day, "You better be glad you didn't get suspended from school and only got detention for two weeks."

"Well, at least I gave him a black eye and a bloody nose," Nicky muttered, looking out the window. It had been clear that Nicky had miraculously won the fight when the two boys had been separated and he'd come out of the fight with only a bloody lip.

"Nicky!" Becky said, "Look, I don't know what's wrong with you, I get a call from your teacher today who said you made a 12 on an aptitude test and five minutes later I get a call from the principal telling me you've been in a fight. Now, look I know you miss your dad, I miss him too, but you've got to pull yourself together."

"Mom, the aptitude test was to see how much we knew, obviously I don't know much, there's nothing I could do about that. Its not like you can study for one of those," Nicky argued with his mom as she pulled into the drive at the Tanner house.

"And the fight?" his mom asked angrily, looking at him in disgust.

"I don't know, why don't you ask Alex?" he angrily said, before getting out of the car, slamming the door and walking into the house.

"What's that supposed to mean?" his mom asked Alex. Alex shrugged. And for the second time in only a few hours, he had betrayed his brother. And he felt bad about it.