Continued from yesterday:
Sara breezed into her seat and arranged her books. The text had proved some interesting reading. Sara had checked it against her younger self’s work and had seriously considered suing the teachers that had told her that she’d never have to worry about such work.
_Never say ‘never’, hm? I wonder what else of my old works was quashed because of a 'never’?_
“Ms Adrien?"
Sara looked up. "Twenty-eight."
An exasperated glare. "The purpose of this exercise is not in the answers, Ms Adrien, it’s in the learning of the *method*. Please show us your method."
Gah. Walking through it again. _Think of it as educating a class full of study-buddies._
Therefore, her work sprang into two columns. The actual work on the left, and the formulae by which she derived the next step on the right.
"Twenty-eight. QED.” Sara offered the chalk back to the teacher and returned to her seat.
“Who in hell’s Kyewie Dee?” said a jock.
“Q E D, Quod Erat Demonstrandum."
The jock grinned at her. "Geez, it’s sexy when girls speak French[1]."
Sara levelled a withering glare at him. "You’re going to trade sport points for academic ones, aren’t you?"
He grinned, a vacant and bright smile just like a light bulb - which required a vacuum to function. "Yeah. How’d you know?"
"An unlucky guess,” she sighed.
“Your attention *please*,” said the teacher. “We’re going to work though the VanDerrin proof…"
+
Todd shot out of his desk the second the bell rang. So what if they were in trouble for Friday? He got to see *Sara*. They got to have fun and, at last, the entire school was starting to swallow the fact that Sara was one hundred percent female.
She shone for him when she smiled.
"Ready to tilt at windmills, darling?"
"As always,” he grinned. “Yoiks and away, yo."
[1] A side-fling to the Thomas Dolby song, _Pulp Culture_ and the lyric, "Quod erat demonstrandum, baby (ooooh, you speak French!)”
~
The school still found it necessary to teach from the Common Language version, but now the students in the AP classes were free to read the original if they so desired. Alas, all assignments had to refer to the CL translations.
“Are we allowed to critique them?” asked Sara.
Todd snickered behind his hand.
A glare. “No. You will focus on the assignments as they are given."
”…poot,“ muttered Sara.
A junior jock held up his hand. "Does this mean we don’t *gotta* read the original? 'Cause I just bought the Cliff Notes, and… well… nothing in the Cliff Notes looks like the book *I* got."
"Nil carborundum, Sara Louise,” Sara mumbled. “Nil carborundum."
Todd patted her hand. "Ignore the jocks, yo. Everyone else will once they hit thirty."
That brightened her up. "Oh yes. We’re trendsetters in a way."
+
Janine whimpered at her assignment as it was handed back. D minus. One step above an F. Her work had certainly suffered without Sara offhand to correct the grammar.
Had she ever found it tiresome and annoying?
Now she had to focus and work harder or sink into the depths.
Janine sighed at all the red marks all over the page. It had been too much trouble, before, to commit the necessary rules to memory. Now she *had* to.
She had to pass, or face the hassle of summer school.
Janine turned herself away from the window that had usually pre-occupied her for the next in-class work, and tried to remember everything Sara had ever said about good writing.
It was tougher than she thought.
+
Lunch.
Sara almost sighed with relief as the last of their deliveries was handed off to her customers. So far, things were shaping up. All she had to do was grab a quick snack and then suffer the obligations of the Counsellor.
At least Todd would be waiting for her.
"Hey, beautiful,” said a familliar voice - but not a welcome one.
Sara gave Duncan Matthews a sidelong glance, just long enough to ascertain his identity, then flipped her pxt on as subtly as possible. “Salutations, Duncan,” she iced.
“Didn’t you get my note?” he said, all suave charm.
“I got a lot of notes,” said Sara. “Many of them seemed to think I’d put out because of a wardrobe malfunction."
Duncan laughed. "That’s a rather stupid assumption, isn’t it? All I’d like is a little time to get to know you better. Maybe something sort of like a date?"
The man had *no* idea of the kharmic justice about to head his way. "You’d date *me*?"
"Sure thing,” he breezed. “I know you’re sensitive and intelligent… I like that in a woman."
"But what about Jean? Aren’t you going out with her?"
"Jean and I are having a little… intersocial trouble. We thought it was best if we saw other people."
And now for the switch. "Really? So she won’t mind if she sees this recording on her next 'phone call…” {bip} and it was already on its way to Jean’s phone.
Duncan was a picture. Possibly by Heironymous Bosch.
“By the way, I’m already in a stable relationship, and I don’t appreciate people who are willing to two-time their current partners.”
~
“Hey schnookie,” Sara cooed as she glommed on to Todd.
“Schnookie?”
“You’re allowed to call me things like 'sugarlips’ and that. Besides, I’m in a whimsical mood.”
Todd knew that grin, now. “Uh oh. Who’d you happen to, babe?”
“None other than Duncan Matthews. He tried to sweet-talk me and I auditioned him for _Cheaters: High School Edition_. Jean should be getting the video now.”
There was a distant, outraged shriek.
“Oh yeah. That’s gonna hurt next week,” Todd laughed all the same.
“The point remains that it’s happened to Duncan first, dear.”
Mr Kian was waiting. He took one look at Sara and said, “Red-listed?”
“Red-listed,” both he and Sara chorused.
“Maybe I should go Goth for a day or two and *really* frighten them,” said Sara.
“Let’s not,” suggested Mr Kian. “You’re too cheerful to be a proper Goth.”
“Poot.”
“You do couple counselling?” joked Todd. “We got some issues over watchin’ the other one hurt 'emselves, yo.”
“It’s the school’s half hour,” said Kian. “You can do anything legal you like in my office.”
“Nice qualifiers,” said Sara.
“Let’s just say I know you both.”
“Our reputation precedes us,” Todd mocked an attitude of woe. “O cruel fate…”
“Infamy, infamy… they’ve all got it in for me…[1]”
“*In*side, m'kay?”
+
The whole table jumped when Jean viewed the pxt movie Sara had sent her. Whether this was a side effect of her telekinesis, or because the assembled table-mates leaped in surprise at her howl of fury, no-one would ever know.
“Bad news?” Scott guessed.
“Rrrrrrrrrrgh…” said Jean, and passed him her phone.
He watched. After a minute, he let loose a low whistle.
Kitty took the phone next. “Ow. Like, *harsh*.”
It went around the table.
“Want something to happen to his locker?” offered Kurt. “I have a few skills Onkel Wolf taught me and–”
“*No*,” said Scott. “Everyone knows what happens when we let you do something your Onkel Wolf taught you.”
“Or like, don’t stop you in time,” added Kitty.
Rogue held up a finger. “Tell ya what. I’ll just go raht up to him an’ knee him in the nuts fo’ ya.”
“Hmp,” muttered Kurt. “Nobody ever lets me have any fun…”
“Dude,” said Evan, “not even *Duncan* deserves that much fun.”
“When I find him,” Jean announced, “I’m going to take his pathetic excuse for a mind and squeeze it out of his *ears* until he thinks he’s some kind of macaque.”
“No powers in school, remember?”
“Fine. I’ll get him *outside* of school grounds. And then I’ll punch his freakin’ *face* off! And grind his nuts to *powder*! I’ll tear him into pieces and trample on the bits! And then I’ll get *really* mean!”
“Hi, Duncan,” said Scott. “You’re too late. We’ve seen it. We’ve all seen it.”
“Let’s just say you’re not in friendly territory, right now,” said Rogue. “If I was you, I’d just mosey along.”
“Uh,” said Duncan. “Would anyone believe that was a joke?”
Jean glared pure venom at him. “So you were planning to string along one of my *friends* for a laugh?”
Duncan appeared to realise that there was no earthly way to dig himself *out* of the pit he’d dug himself. “Uhm. Er. Uh. No. Um. You see… it’s kinda like… uh… Chinese April Fools? Me and whatshername planned the whole thing… haha?”
“You can’t even pretend to think that you can lie to me, Duncan Aberline Matthews…”
“Aberline…” Kurt collapsed into laughter.
Jean continued as if the rest of the X-men weren’t there. “First of all, her name is Sara. Secondly, she abhors any male senior that crosses her path.”
“It’s true,” said Scott. “She hates my guts and I barely even know her.”
“Thirdly, the Chinese calendar has remained unaltered for thousands of years, and their new year never changed - like ours - due to secular arrangement. Therefore, there’s no such thing as a Chinese April Fools. Do you want to try shovelling *more* bullshit my way or would you like to tell me the truth, for a change?”
“Dayumn,” said Rogue. “Ah should be recordin’ this fo’ posterity.” She fumbled for her phone.
“Way ahead of you,” said Bobby. He’d been quiet because of his devotion to his pxt screen.
Duncan surrendered. “Okay. I screwed up.”
“No duh,” said Kitty.
“What do I have to do?”
[1] _Carry On Cleo_, apparently. MeMum sez I missed referencing this,
~~