It's currently the next day and things have finally improved for Kyle and he's managing to feel a lot more awake and alert.
He's currently sitting in Science listening to his teacher explain an assignment they have coming up.
"Now I would like to see a little bit of improvement in some of your grades. You are all very intelligent kids. But some of you need to focus more. Kyle came top of our last assignment with a perfect score of 100%. Let's see if anyone else can reach that level," Mr. Lambert says, singing high praise towards Kyle.
Unbeknownst to Kyle the three kids behind him were glaring at him and giving him a menacing look. These kids often liked to tease him occasionally. They hate all the compliments that Kyle gets.
Casey is waiting outside Kyle's Science classroom. Kyle's classes sometimes ran a bit longer because they always wanted to discuss assignments or were in a big conversation.
Casey checks his watch and groans; he's hungry and wants his lunch and wishes Kyle would hurry up and stop taking so long in his classes. Soon enough, kids finally start walking out of Kyle's classroom.
"Well, well, well. What do we have here?" a girl Casey doesn't know giggles.
She was slightly taller than Casey and appeared quite conceited.
"It's the illiterate Braxton," a guy laughs.
Casey knows this guy and that his name is Zeke Carter; he stands about half a foot taller than Casey.
"Huh?" Casey asks, not knowing what the word illiterate meant.
"Oh, sorry. I know you're not very smart; you know, considering you're in the dumb class. Clarifying, the word you didn't understand was Braxton; that's your last name," Zeke laughs.
"Why don't you nerds just piss off?" Casey huffs: knowing he shouldn't call these kids nerds, especially when his own brother was probably smarter than them all, but he couldn't help himself, he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Ohhh, big words; I mean nerds has five letters, maybe you're not as stupid as everyone makes you out to be, but then again that might have been your word of the day freak," the girl from the start, known as Haley Connors laughs.
Casey drops his head, feeling embarrassed; these guys were jerks.
Why can't they just leave me alone? Casey wonders.
"Ohhh, no comeback! Loser probably doesn't have enough brain cells; he probably used them all coming up with piss off," another guy laughs; he is just the slightest bit shorter than Casey.
"Hey Damien, leave him alone. The poor brain-dead loser probably can't help that he used all his brain cells coming up with this first comeback. He probably missed out on that gene that gives brain cells," Haley laughs.
"Probably doesn't even know what a gene or brain cell is," Zeke laughs.
"How come you're not smart like your brother? Did your brothers care more about raising him than you?" Haley comments
This causes Casey to get angry; what were these kids' issues?
Just then Kyle and Dex come out and Kyle sees his brother being surrounded and intimidated by the kids in his class.
"Casey?" Kyle asks and then notices the look on his brother's face; he looks sad.
Kyle walks over and grabs a hold of his brother's hand and pulls him away and looks back and scowls at the kids. He knows them well, they have always been jealous of him because he beats them in every test, practical and exam.
Kyle hates that they have targeted Casey because of their jealousy, and he was going to make sure it stops, for his little brother did not deserve to be bullied like he was subjected to.
"What was that about?" Kyle asks his brother.
"Nothing," Casey replies mumbling, not really wanting to talk about it.
"Casey, what did those morons say to you? Casey, they're jerks who think they are so much better than everyone else just because they are in the smart class."
"They just called me illiterate, which I don't even know what that means and made fun of me for being dumb," Casey replies and he looks down sadly.
To his surprise Kyle turns around and marches over to the bullies.
"Oi! Never call my brother dumb again; who do you three think you are?" Kyle says as he faces off with Zeke.
"We didn't call him dumb, we called him illiterate," he smirks and gives Kyle a small shove in the chest.
"Shrimp," Zeke adds, taunting Kyle.
Kyle swallows lightly, hating confrontation, but he had to do this for his little brother. These jerks do not get to make Casey feel miserable, especially when Heath was already making home life hard for them both.
"You're all just jealous that I'm smarter than you. I beat you all in every test, every practical, and every exam. If you have a problem with that, talk to me. Do not have a go at my brother!" Kyle hisses, feeling enraged.
The only reason these kids were picking on Casey was to make themselves feel smarter.
"Or what?" Damien Smith asks, grinning as he stands right in front of Kyle.
He is the shortest of the bullies, but Kyle still feels so small compared to him.
"Or I'll tell Miss. Scott. Bullying is against school rules. Maybe if you find that too hard to understand you shouldn't be in the advanced class," Kyle rebukes toward the bullies.
Zeke grabs hold of Kyle's shirt and yanks him close.
Kyle however doesn't back down, despite his nervousness over the confrontation, showing his protectiveness for Casey and continues to glare.
"Is there an issue here boys?" Mr. Macguire asks, as he approaches the boys, interrupting any further disagreements.
Zeke releases his grip on Kyle's shirt and slaps him playfully on the back.
"No sir; we're all good," Zeke replies and Damien nods in agreement.
However, Mr. Macguire wasn't convinced that nothing was going on.
"Kyle?" he asks, expecting a different answer from Kyle.
"Everything is great sir; nothing to worry about. We are just playing around," Kyle replies with a nod of his head.
Mr. Macguire decides not to push further and walks away, going into the staff room.
Kyle turns back to Zeke and Damien.
"Stay away from my brother! He is, and always will be: ten times better than any of you will ever be," Kyle says glaring at the bullies once more before he walks away in the direction of his friends.
Behind him, the bullies are glaring at him furiously.
Kyle reaches his friends and sits beside his brother.
Casey looks at Kyle and smiles lightly at him.
"You didn't have to do that Kyle," Casey says sadly.
Kyle returns the smile.
"Yeah, I did. You're my little brother and no one messes with my little brother and gets away with it. I know I'm not the best when it comes to confrontation, but they have to know that they are not allowed to pick on you just because they can. They need to know that you are ten times the man they will ever be. I want you to remember that as well Muscles, " Kyle replies as he nudges his brother in the shoulder.
"Thanks Einstein; you're a great big brother."
Casey smiles as he reaches over and swings his arm around his older brother's shoulder.
"Awww, aren't you two adorable?" Romeo playfully teases as he chucks grapes at the two brothers.
All six of the friends laugh and proceed to have their lunch.
It's after school now and Kyle and Casey are sitting at the table and Casey is testing Kyle on his French vocab words.
Casey holds up a card that says 'vivre'.
Kyle thinks for a bit and then says, "to live."
"Correct, nice one bro," Casey smiles; he likes helping Kyle out whenever he can because Kyle was always helping him.
The next card that Casey holds up says 'un surveillant'
"Supervisor," Kyle replies quickly; this is one that he knows off by heart.
"Yep," Casey replies with a smile as he takes seven barbeque pringles and shoves them all in his mouth.
"Gross Case," Kyle says and screws up his face slightly disgusted.
"A boy's got to eat," Casey says with his mouth full of pringles.
"But a boy can eat politely," Kyle replies and shrugs as he picks up one of his sour cream and onion Pringles and takes a small bite out of it.
"But that's boring, and plus this gives a lot of flavour," Casey explains as he shoves another eight Pringles in his mouth.
"You're disgusting," Kyle says, smiling slightly at his younger brother.
"You love me," Casey jokes, smiling at his older brother.
"Yeah, I guess I have to," Kyle replies, only for Casey to reach over and lightly slap Kyle over the head.
"Dork," he says affectionately, and this causes Kyle to smile.
"Okay, ask the next one," Kyle says.
Casey holds up a card that says 'condamné'.
"That's condemned," Kyle says, as he grabs another Pringle and breaks it in half before placing one half in his mouth.
"Yep, now how about this one?" Casey asks as he holds up the next one which says 'pleurer'.
"That's cry," Kyle answers as he puts the other half of the Pringle in his mouth.
"Correct!" Casey answers and shoves another pile of Pringles in his mouth all at once causing Kyle to roll his eyes; his brother was such a pig.
Casey continues to quiz Kyle on all his vocabulary words in which Kyle continues to get them all right, but he's still writing them out fifty times each to let it sink in better.
Brax comes over to the table and ruffles Kyle's hair.
"Get a few wrong Kiddo?" he asks.
Kyle doesn't answer as he's so focused on his studies but Casey answers for him.
"Nope, he got them all right, but he's worried he'll forget so he's writing them all out fifty times, and there's thirty-five words! That's like..." Casey says as he pulls out his phone to use the calculator, but he doesn't get the chance as Kyle answers for him.
"One thousand seven hundred and fifty," Kyle says, not even looking up from his bit of paper.
Brax bites his lip. He knows his brother has a system when it comes to his learning, but he worries he overloads himself.
Casey looks at his Pringles cylinder and sees that it's empty, so he reaches over to grab Kyle's, but Brax slaps his hand.
"Hey! What was that for?" Casey protests with a scowl.
Brax raises his brow at the youngest.
"Need you ask?"
"But Brax! He's got heaps left!" Casey protests.
"Yes, but they are his. He'll eat them when he wants to and beside you have had enough. I won't allow you to live on potato chips," Brax states.
"Now come on, help me put the washing away and give Ky some space," Brax continues.
Casey huffs and picks up his pile of clothes.
"You don't have to be so mean," he grumbles.
Brax however hears Casey's comment and is quick to call him out on it.
"What was that?" Brax asks.
"Nothing," Casey mumbles and walks towards his room to put the clothes away.
Brax grunts and walks over to Kyle and ruffles his hair lightly.
"Don't overdo it, Kiddo."
"I won't," Kyle replies.
Brax takes his hand off Kyle's head, picks up his washing and goes to his bedroom to put it away.