MilleniumGirl: Hey, I'm finally back! And this time I'm adding a few more people to the story 'cause I feel like it! This is the last chapter (thanks to everyone who's reviewed). And, yeah, I don't own Yu-gi-oh (or Spongebob, or that song called South Side, or McDonalds, or Taboo, or Jeopardy). Anyhoo! ONWARD!
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Last time on To Tutor, or Not to Tutor?:
"Thank you, dear, now tell the class your name!"
"Nikki," she said, gaining her confidence again. "I'm a transfer– you probably already know that."
......
Nikki smiled slightly and then said to Tristan, "Let's have a little contest thing. I just want to see how you compare to others."
.....
"Alrighty, Nikki, let's start this thing, and Tristan, you don' need dat ceramic thingy. You just use your brain power!"
......................................
Nikki was at her house the Sunday before the big test tomorrow. It was practically everything they had learned 3rd semester, and she really had to study to get caught up with the rest of the class. She was flipping through text books when she had a great idea.
"I should invite a friend to study with!" she exclaimed and dug in her purse for her cellphone. Then, she paused. Who should she call? Yugi? Ryou?
Then she got a really good idea. Smiling, she looked up a ton of people's phone numbers in the Domino High Directory. She didn't even know half the people, but the more, the merrier! And besides, she could do that contest she wanted to with Tristan now instead of tomorrow morning! The first name she found was Ryou Bakura's. She dialed and waited.
"Hello, welcome to the Defunct Old People hotline. Our special today is dead cats. This is Senile Sam speaking, and I'd like to eat you," the voice on the other line said. Nikki was about to hang up when she heard Ryou's voice in the background.
"YAMI BAKURA, STOP THAT THIS INSTANT!! GIVE ME THE PHONE, NOW!"
"But, hikari..."
"DON'T YOU "But hikari" ME!!!! WHAT HAVE I TOLD YOU ABOUT MAKING UP NAMES! THAT COULD BE AN IMPORTANT CALL!"
Nikki heard muffling on the other line. She sighed and held the phone a little away from her ear.
"Hello?" Ryou said after a long while.
"Oh, hi, this is Nikki," she said, relieved that "Senile Sam" hadn't gotten control of the phone again.
"Oh, good to hear from you! Sorry about Bakura..." he said brightly.
"Don't worry. Anyway, I wanted to call and see if you wanted to come over to my house and have a little study party. I'm going to invite Tristan, too, so..."
"Can I come?" Bakura said, on one of the other phone lines in their house.
"BAKURA!" Ryou yelled, but Nikki hesitantly said it was O.K. if he came too.
"Are you sure? If you have any food, he'll it all..." Ryou said at a dangerous risk to his health.
"Not before Joey does, you stupid hikari. We'll be over soon, Nikki," Bakura said after he heard her address, and the two hung up.
Then she proceeded to call Joey.
"HELLO?" Somebody screamed into the phone.
"This is Nikki, can I please talk to Joey?" Nikki said politely.
"WHAT?" the voice screamed.
"THIS IS NIKKI," Nikki yelled. There were loud noises coming from the other line. "CAN I TALK TO JOEY?"
"JOEY? AS IN MY BIG BROTHER JOEY?" the voice yelled.
"YEAH," Nikki yelled back.
"OH, I'M HIS LITTLE SISTER SERENITY, NICE TO HEAR FROM YOU, NIKKI!"
"WHAT?"
"NEVER MIND," Serenity yelled. Nikki heard Serenity put the phone down on something. It let out a loud cling and Nikki held the phone away from her ear again as the phone fell on the floor. A pot fell on top of it. Then, she heard the radio playing extremely loudly, only outmatched by the loud choruses of "WHO LIVES IN A PINEAPPLE UNDER THE SEA?!?!?! SPONGEBOB SQUAREPANTS!!!!" from the TV. Nikki made a smart guess that Joey and his little sister lived by themselves. (A/N: I know Serenity really doesn't live with Joey, but she does in this fanfic.)
Nikki waited patiently while Serenity yelled for Joey. Then she heard scuffling as Joey picked the phone up off the floor. He said something, but all Nikki heard was a jumble of "AND FALL ON THE DECK AND FLOP LIKE A FISH!" And "BABY YOU'RE MY SOUTH SIDE! BABY WE CAN GO HIGH!"
"WHAT?" she yelled. She heard some more scuffling and yelling, and then she heard Joey at last.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Joey, this is Nikki."
"Hey, sorry 'bout all dat noise in dere. What'chya call for?"
"I wanted to see if you'd like to come over to my house and study..."
"Yeah, 'course I would! I know where your place is, I passed by it yesterday, so see ya there!" he said, not letting her finish her sentence, and hung up.
Nikki's ears started to ring because of the absence of noise. She shook her head and dialed Tea's number. Why, she wasn't sure, but it might've been out of politeness.
Tea answered, and when Nikki gave her the invitation, she went on for 15 minutes about social events and friendship, and Nikki vaguely caught something about rabbits. But Tea said she could come in the end, and Nikki went on to Kaiba.
"Kaiba."
"Hey, this is Nikki," she said, surprised and the contrast between Tea's bubbly greeting and his gruff one.
"..."
"Um, yeah, I was just wondering if you wanted to come over to my house. To study," she added quickly.
"..."
She waited.
"Yeah, I guess I could do that," he said, and hung up. His lack of phone time was made up by Tea's excessive one.
Nikki called Tristan next.
"Hi?" he said as he answered.
"Hey, Tristan..." Nikki said, but Tristan cut her off.
"How do you know my name? Are you a telemarketer?"
"No, it's Nikki. From school. I was wondering if you wanted to come to my house, and we could help you study."
"Huh?"
"Study for that big test tomorrow? We can play that game I brought up on Friday in the library," she said calmly.
"Oh! Um, where's your house?"
"On 39th."
"39th what?"
"39th street."
"I don't do street names. What big place are you next to?"
"A... big place?"
"Yeah, like a McDonalds, or something."
"Oh... I guess it's kinda close to GoldenMart. It's a white house."
"O.K, great! I'll be right over."
And then Yugi.
"Kame Game Shop, how can I help you?" a voice said.
"Um... sorry, I must have the wrong number..." she said, looking for the directory to check.
Then she heard Yugi.
"Grandpa? Who is it?"
"Oh!" Nikki said. "I didn't know Yugi lived here!"
"Believe in the Heart of the Cards!" Grandpa said, then handed the phone to Yugi. Nikki was reminded of "Senile Sam" for a moment.
"Hello?" Yugi said.
"Hey, it's Nikki! I had no idea you lived at the Game Shop!"
"Yeah, it's pretty cool! Anyway, what did you need?"
"Well, I was wondering if you'd like to come over to my house..." Nikki explained why, and when Yugi agreed and said he'd bring Yami, she gave him the address.
To spare you the boredom of reading through several other calls that all ended up something like this:
Nikki: You'll come? Great! It's on 39th!
Person: Huh?
Nikki: (sweatdrop) Next to GoldenMart. White house.
Person: Oh, thanks!
We'll just say...
HALF HOUR LATER
Nikki was busy answering the door for the next few minutes. She let her friends in with a wave, and they started messing around while she introduced herself to 6 other people.
"Hi!" Azuka, Kodama, Maki, and Kibu all said cheerfully. They were glad they had known where GoldenMart was. No one really had ever suspected there was a 39th street.
"Hi, nice to meet you," Nikki said, and the other people came to greet them. Yugi was immediately pulled into a discussion with Liz (also known as Authoress formally known as Liz) about how to get Grandpas to transmit radio signals.
"Really? What if their hair doesn't contain metal traces?" Liz said after saying hi to Nikki.
"There's this hair gel Yami has that has the metal right in there. You just give some to a Grandpa and it works right away."
"Cool."
Erich (animefreak2000) showed up a few minutes after. He said hi to Nikki and started talking with Azuka until Nikki had everyone sit down. Tristan got to sit in what he had dubbed the "special chair."
"Joey," Erich whispered. "Where's Serenity?"
"At home, I hope," Joey said. "She said dat she didn't wanna crash the study party."
"Oh, is that what we're doing?"
Yugi silenced everyone. Nikki thanked him, but Tea stood up and started talking about the common bond they had until Kaiba "accidentally" pushed the "special chair" over into Tea. Everyone started talking again until Liz said she'd pour radioactive hair gel on them if they didn't shut up.
Then Nikki showed them her game. She had made her own version of Jeopardy, which was applauded. After she had Kaiba hook up a laptop to a projector so the categories could show up on the wall, she started with the first question.
"Now, all of these are things we've been learning in school, just for the record. O.K., first question. Wha... WHY DOES THAT DOORBELL KEEP RINGING?"
Everyone raised their hand and started mumbling answers. Only after Joey shouted, "BECAUSE IT DOES!" did they figure out that that wasn't a question. Nikki marched to the door and...
"Hi!" MilleniumGirl said. "This sounded like so much fun, that I thought I'd come!"
"But...aren't you writing this?"
"Shhhh!" I... I mean, she... said, and went over and said hi to everyone. Then she sat between Erich and Kaiba.
"Erm... anyway," Nikki said. "The category is Social Studies. For 100 points: What is the capital of Iran?"
Kaiba raised his hand, followed by MG (A/N: Hahahaha), Tea, Yugi, Yami, Ryou, Azuka, Liz...
Nikki waited a few seconds to see if Tristan knew. Then she looked up.
"Um... who raised their hand first?"
"Kaiba did!" MG said. (A/N: I should know. Hahahahaha...)
Nikki sighed. "I believe you, but... this is too hard with so many people. Let's make teams."
"Excellent idea! I'm captain of my team, and I pick Yami!" Tea said.
"Um, I wasn't going to do it like that, but..."
10 MINUTES LATER "Alright then. Team One... excuse me, Team Mexi-Fries, is Joey, Tristan, Duke, Bakura, and Kaiba."
"Great..." Kaiba mumbled. "I couldn't be on any other team..."
"Team Friendship is Tea, Yugi, Yami, and Ryou. Team Fanfiction is Liz, Azuka and her other selves, Erich, and MG," Nikki said. "I've provided you all with those little buzzers I took out of Taboo boxes. Let's start over again."
"How come Team Mexi-fries has one more person?" Erich said.
"Because I make up for the lack of Tristan," Kaiba said with no expression.
A few people appreciated his humor, a few others realized that he wasn't joking, and the rest snapped at him for being mean.
"Main export of Kuwait," Nikki mumbled after they had been quieted for the fifth time by Yugi.
Team Fanfiction's buzzer sounded first.
"Oil," MG said (A/N: Hahaha), and the rest of the team gave her a high five after Nikki announced her correct.
The game continued on for an hour. They were at the final question, a Daily Double for Team Mexi-Fries, who were in the lead thanks to Kaiba. Team Friendship was bringing up the rear.
"And here's the final question. What is a permutation? Write it down, please. You have 30 seconds," Nikki said.
They let Tristan do the Jeopardy theme music. Then, Nikki told them time was up.
"Let's see your answers," she said, walking to Team Mexi-Fries. "They have written: A thorough change in character or condition, the act or process of changing the order of a set of objects, or an ordered arrangement of a set of objects. Noun. Also: permutational. And that is correct!" Team Mexi- Fries errupted into hoots and shouting. Nikki leaned over to Kaiba and whispered, "You wrote all that, right?" He nodded.
"Well, anyway, let's see what Team Friendship has! They put: The process of getting your hair permed. No, sorry," Nikki said, trying to hold back laughter. "And Team Fanfiction put: A math thing that has something to do with 4P3, and that means 4x3x2, and it's really really easy but boring to learn about. Um... well... that's kind of right... Even if I give it to you, you won't win, sorry. The winner is TEAM MEXI-FRIES!!!"
Joey, Tristan, Bakura, and Duke exploded into cheering. Kaiba rolled his eyes and made his way to the door before MG ran up and hugged him.
"Yay Team Mexi-Fries! Woohoo!" Nikki said, clapping. Then she turned to Tristan. "Did you learn anything? I hope you did, because you'll do really well on the test tomorrow!"
He snapped his fingers. "Yeah, I did figure something out!"
"What's that?"
"The doorbell rang because MG pressed the button outside!" he said with a large grin.
Everyone stared at him. Maybe he did need that ceramic wad after all.
..........
The next day was the test. Nikki zipped through it with ease; she recognized everything she needed to know from studying last night. She hoped that Tristan had stopped working out the doorbell problem and focusing more on what the Mexi-Fries had learned last night.
Yugi was the same way. He had been assigned to tutor Tristan in the first place, and he hoped he had done an acceptable job. He kept glancing at Tristan from the other side of the room, hoping he was paying attention to the test...
Kaiba had finished 30 minutes early and was reading. He watched Yugi turn his head several times to watch Tristan, who was poking holes in his eraser. He laughed to himself. Tristan was going to fail...
Mrs. Grocher waited for everyone to finish, then collected the student's tests. They read silently, switched classes for two periods, then came back to their homeroom.
It was the moment of truth. Yugi hardly noticed the 96 on his paper when he got it back. He was waiting for Tristan's. Kaiba stuck a 102 percent inside his desk and watched the look of apprehension on Yugi's face. Nikki smiled at her perfect grade, then joined the group of friend's around Tristan's desk. Mrs. Grocher handed back his paper.
Tristan took the paper. He looked at it for a second, then whooped.
"WOOOYAH! I got a better grade then I've ever gotten before!" he said happily.
"Really? What?" Yugi said, leaning over Tristan's paper.
"NEGATIVE 3 PERCENT?!?!?!?!"
"Yep! Isn't it great? I usually get negative 10!"
"How can you get a negative...?" Kaiba said, confused.
"Really? Better then before?" Nikki said with a fake smile. But then she realized something! He had improved; that was the whole point! Who cares if he failed miserably!
"I still don't get it..." Kaiba said, taking his paper. He brushed around the words –3% until something came off. The negative sign did!
"Knew it," Kaiba said, then walked away. They watched him leave in silence.
"Kaiba just improved my grade by 6 percent," Tristan said.
"Tristan? Did you just say what I think you said?" Nikki said looking wide- eyed at Tristan.
"He just did math! Smart people math!" Yami said, awestruck.
"I did?" Tristan said. They all congratulated him on his grade and told him they had fun working with him. Yugi was glad to see his mind was in the right place. Joey was happy Tristan didn't get a better grade then he did. Nikki was glad she could help. Tea was ecstatic about the fun they had had as a friendship circle. Bakura thought Tristan was a loser, and Ryou was happy that Tristan could ignore his yami so well. They all left the room chatting happily, but Tristan remained alone at his desk.
"I just guessed on the 6 percent thing," he said to himself, shrugged, and walked out the door singing, "Doorbell rings 'cause you press it, yeah yeah yeah, the doorbell rings 'cause you pre-ess that button..."
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MG: The end!! Yay! It was fun; thanks again to all my reviewers!!! I know this was a long chapter, but it was worth it!
Nosy Yu-gi-oh fanfic inspector: I see this story had significant Tea and Tristan bashing. I disapprove of the bashing of any character. I will be removing this story from the archive, and you are under arrest for unlawful conduct...
MG: YOU CAN'T TAKE ME ALIVE!!! (throws sporks at Nosy Inspector)
Nosy Inspector: YOU ARE ALSO ON A SUGAR HIGH! UNLAWFUL! UNLAWFUL!
MG: PLEASE REVIEW MY STORY!
Nosy Inspector: I WILL ARREST YOU ALL IF YOU DO!! UNLAWFUL! UNLAWFUL! (trips on paper and gets electrocuted by projector and laptop)
MG: (whistling Tristan's Doorbell Song)