Chapter 6: The Assignment

With a population of about 10,000, Wilmot was small, but not tiny. However since Matthew was born and raised in Seattle, Downtown looked nothing like his ideas of a downtown. The biggest difference was the general height, or lack thereof. Otherwise it was fairly normal. There were shops and restaurants, a few office buildings, and a 'fitness center' which was basically a YMAC, though Matthew was pleased, and not at all surprised, to learn it also had a hockey rink and subsequent team.

In order to "more thoroughly explore the town" Matthew and his mother went for lunch at a small café just outside downtown. It was tucked snuggly between a tea shop and a second hand store. Matthew smiled as he sipped his hot cocoa. Sunday was spent around the neighborhood, visiting the local park and lake, someplace Matthew found very calming, despite the cold.

While Matthew was not dreading Monday, he was nervous, never before had people at a school been so nice to him, and so open. He was afraid it was just a ruse and when he went back, things would be like they were before he left the States. Though really he had nothing to fear, his new life was different. There was still some time before class officially started when Lovino sat, or rather collapsed, into the chair on his left, the last in the row.

"Good morning," Matthew greeted friendly,

"What's good about it?" the Italian replied grumpily, he was definitely not a morning person, and the fact that Feliciano had been up half the night giggling about who knows what did not help either. Lovino told Matthew about this and kept ranting about this was in fact not a 'good morning' and that something gave him the suspicion that the day was just going to go downhill. His rant was cut short when Mr. Nelson stood before the class and called them to attention,

"Alright my little victims," he began, not unusually, "today we're going to start a project, so you all will get partners" excited babble instantly broke out but stopped just as suddenly when Mr. Nelson continued, "Due to certain . . . issues, that resulted last time I let you pick partners," he glared at several students, "you will be assigned partners." Cue collective groan. "Now in this hat are the names of half the students in class, the other half will be called up one at a time to pick a name from the hat. He or she will be your partner, if you really want to switch with someone, come talk to me, and I may or may not approve the switch. Any questions?" from seemingly nowhere a cricket chirped "Alright then. First," he held up a sheet of paper and read, "Mikkel" a tall blonde boy with spiked hair, tall, but shorter than Lars', stood and sauntered to the front of the classroom, reached into the Mickey-Mouse-eared hat, clearly form Disney land, and pulled out a small slip of paper. He handed the slip to Mr. Nelson who read aloud, "Katyusha." Both students frowned slightly, as Mikkel went back to his seat.

This pattern went on for a bit until Lovino made a small noise of indignation. "What is it?" Matthew asked curiously.

"It's rigged." Lovino replied, scandalized, "All the kids on the list are troublemakers, while all the 'good' kids are in the hat. That sneaky bastard!" They were not the only ones talking but the kept their voices lower than they usually would. Then from the front of the class they heard Mr. Nelson say, "Matthew." Looking up they saw a boy with white hair and maroon eyes looking around the classroom. Matthew recognized him as one of the kids at his bus stop. The haughty boy was looking around the room until he caught Matthew's eye and grinned, before plopping down in his seat. The blonde looked at Lovino, who wore a pitying expression.

"Who's he?" Matthew asked casually.

"The most conceded annoying jerk ever." Lovino answered grumpily, "Gilbert." When Lovino was called up he ended up paired with Angela, a dark haired girl with bronze skin, slightly blemished by teenage acne.

"As to the project itself;" Mr. Nelson stated, "I want each pair to choose a battle of the Seven Years' war and do a project on it. The format is up to you. It can be a poster, a PowerPoint, or a short skit or video. No two pairs should do the same battle. Capeesh?" various forms of agreement were issued by the class, and the rest of the period was spent reviewing what they had already learned about the Seven Years' War.

When the bell rang it was impossible to keep the class quiet, so very few teachers even bothered trying. Mr. Nelson was not one of these few. "Are you excited to work with Angela?" Matthew asked as he was packing up his stuff, "What's she like?" Lovino shrugged,

"I guess she's ok." He muttered, "A bit like Feli- if he had a brain."

"And what's Gilbert like?" Matthew asked, remembering the description he had received earlier.

"Well, He has a huge ego, and always calls himself 'awesome', plus he's really creepy and calls his dick his 'five meters', he's also a slacker and never pays attention in class."

"So you really don't like him, huh?"

"Not one bit." Good God, Matthew thought, what have I gotten into?

The rest of the day went as expected. In art they were looking at bark patterns and how wind and other weather affected them. Mr. Ginderfew told them that every art piece should tell a story, and that the best art had hidden meaning and secret things known only by the artist and the select few they tell. Such a thing, he said, could be that the clothing someone's wearing was a favorite outfit of someone close to the artist, or that all the trees only grow in cold climates. 1

Matthew's sketchbook was slowly being filled with fanciful scenes and flowering trees. Lunch was filled with unusual comments and playful bickering. Matthew was learning a lot about his new friends, as he now felt comfortable calling them. He even let his snarky side come out to play. Very few people had seen this side of him before, not even Alfred knew how witty was.

Math wasn't particularly hard for Matthew, but he still didn't like the class. There weren't many people who did like the class, and they were few and far between, honestly who liked all those numbers and symbols that seemed completely arbitrary. The only good thing about math, as far as Matthew was concerned, was that there was only one right answer, usually at least. Matthew hated teachers that said "There are no wrong answers." And then as soon as you used that to make a well-reasoned argument against the point they were trying to make, you were suddenly exactly what you couldn't be – wrong!2

The dirty yellow bus screeched to a stop on the icy road, the doors opening to allow Matthew Ludwig and Gilbert off. Gilbert and Ludwig seemed to be bickering about a bird, but Matthew didn't pay them much attention, instead he just mad the short walk home in contemplative silence, thinking about the ton of homework he had. The bright orange door of his house swung open easily, granting Matthew access to the warmth of his home.

It was half past six when Matthew finally finished his homework and he could smell something cooking from his room. Upon entering the kitchen the teenager found his mother preparing dinner, and found himself automatically going to set the table. It took him a bit longer than it might have, seeing that he wasn't yet quite familiar with the kitchen layout, but before long the table was set.

It was shortly after they sat down to enjoy the meal when Michelle asked the question every mother and father have asked since schools were first made mandatory, "How was school today?"

"Fine" Matthew replied, upholding the scared tradition of question and answer.3

AN: I'm sorry this is so short and took me so long! Thank you all sosososososososo much for being so loyal to this, it means so much to me. I have no idea when the next chapter will be up because my family is going on vacation and then I start high school, wish me luck!

Super special thanks to fanfics4ever for helping me with the story. Angela is her OC Portugal.

Do you guys want a Spamano side plot? Please R+R.

Footnotes:

1: Do I seem tree obsessed? I absolutely love drawing trees and have no idea why, I think that Mr. Ginderfew (not a real person) shares these quirks and will be my way to vent my strange thoughts.

2: This is my sister's pet peeve. That's why she loves math. We went to the same K-8 school and one of the teachers treats everyone like second graders, she says she's super open and that everyone should use their rights and I respect your opinion, no matter what it is, but if you disagree with her than you're automatically wrong, and its like what the heck?

3: This is the sacred tradition of all school kids. We must keep it strong through the generations! I think parents have an instinctual need to ask this question even though the already k ow what the answer will most likely be.

Again thank you to all my followers, I will try to update again, but I don't know how long it will take.