CHAPTER 5 – part 1:

"Hehehe yeah right", Pacey said as he laughed a little and looked at the floor. When Mitch didn't respond anymore he turned his head back up and looked at him with a questioning look on his face. But he still didn't get an answer. "You were joking, right?", he finally asked.

"No, why should I?"

"Well I don't know", Pacey said as he shrugged, just the thought of you tutoring me well, I don't know. But you were not joking?"

"No, I wasn't."

"Okay so in your spare time you're gonna spend all those extra hours with me? To teach me something I could not be taught all those years at school because, and I quote my beloved family here, I am too stupid for it?"

"Yes", Mitch answered as he laid his hands on the boy's shoulders and looked him in the eyes. "And we are going to work hard, both of us; to get you back in the year were you belong alright? Starting with my first rule: you will not call yourself stupid ever again. No matter what your parents might say to you."

Pacey gave Mitch a cheesy smile and nodded to his new tutor. "Yes mister Leery", he said overly polite.

"Good, now go upstairs and enjoy some quality time with Dawson's vids, well talk again tomorrow."

Pacey nodded again, turned around and walked away. In the door opening he stopped and slowly turned until he looked at Dawson's father again.

"Yes?", Mitch asked when he saw the boy tried to say something but heard nothing coming out of his mouth.

"Thanks mister Leery."

"You're welcome Pacey", Mitch said with a reassuring smile. "No go and have some fun. From tomorrow on you'll be doing nothing but working your butt off."

Pacey grinned and turned around, quickly jumping on the steps of the stairway to Dawson's room.

Meanwhile upstairs

When Pacey left the room Dawson took his seat at the work desk again and pulled the book closer once more. He began to read but before he could even finish a sentence a hand laid a piece of paper over the text he was reading.

"Don't", he said annoyed as he took the piece of paper and wanted to put it aside. But suddenly his eye caught what was on it and his mouth fell open. He read it over and over and finally realised this had to be the right answer. Which meant they could finally go on with their work. Dawson nearly jumped a hole in the air when he saw it and he hugged Joey. "You're a genius", he said with a huge smile all over his face.

"No no no", Joey started as she pulled free from his grip and stood up. "I didn't…"

"Don't be humble Joey you're a genius, you know it. And you just fixed our problem so we can finally go on with the more important stuff of our project."

Again Joey made a move to say she didn't solve it all. She might not like Pacey as her best friend or anything like that but she was honest and not the kind of person to take credit of other people's work. However Dawson kept interrupting her and motioned her to sit down again. "C'mon lets get this over with", he said as he turned the page of the book.