The end of a torment.

[T-Fox†]

((Enter Peter McCue, V4 Pre-Game.))

Peter sat in the front row of class, just like always. His laptop was open infront of him, the heavy thing chugging away at something particularly difficult to run. With his continually high marks, teachers tended not to care what he did during class time, except when it came to a test or assignment. Anyone behind him could see his laptop was running Dawn of War: The Dark Crusade at the moment.

This paticular teacher did seem to care, though. "Okay, so we integrate this equasion, leaving us with... What, Mr. McCue?" The utterance of his name by the person he was least paying attention to was not enough to break him from his trance, and he scowled as his Necron Lord was taken out. "Mr. McCue?" His teacher said louder. This was enough though. Calculus had always been one of his strong points, which he decided to show right now. He glanced up at the board. "Which one, number 24?" He indicated to the one on the left. "Yes... If you would pay attention to my lectures, maybe you would know this!" His teacher exclaimed. "Now, if you would so kindly pay attention as I solve this question, and please see me after class." He turned back to the board, as Peter turned his attention to his now Decimated Units. "Fuck..." He muttered, attemtping to grab control of the match back.

[MurderWeasel]

((Everett Taylor continued from A Blank Paper and a Blank Mind))

Everett was sitting in math class, trying desperately to keep up with the teacher. He was pretty good at math, but only because he worked really hard on it. Everett hadn't been born a genius. He wasn't able to breeze through all his classes without studying.

All of this was part of why people like Peter McCue irritated Everett to no end. He was smart; there was no doubt about it. He was young, too. Everett thought he might have skipped a grade somewhere. He wasn't sure, though, since he had never had class with Peter before tenth grade.

Peter was playing games on his laptop, a few rows in front of Everett. It was incredibly distracting. Well, the games weren't distracting: Everett could avoid watching easily enough. What was distracting was knowing that Peter, an obviously intelligent boy who often outperformed Everett in class, was able to play games and pay no attention while Everett was barely managing to keep track of the concepts being presented.

So much wasted potential, Everett thought, followed by, Why is he so smart, and not me? Why do the people with the greatest gifts never use them?

Everett was vaguely satisfied when Peter was called on by the teacher, and proved unable to answer the question presented to him. Maybe that would make him pay some attention.

With a jolt, Everett realized he had completely lost track of the lecture, and had reached the end of his page of notes and simply stopped. Mentally cursing, he flipped the page in his notebook and opened the textbook, trying to pull himself together and make some sense of things.

[T-Fox†]

Peter heard the slap of a textbook behind him, and glanced back. He saw Everett panicing over something, and shrugged. "Probably dropped something..." He thought to himself. In his past, he had never had any real problems with anything, and it tended not to register in his mind that quite a few people had to actually... you know... work for their grades. He turned back to his game. If anyone had ever played, they would see easily that he was pushing back, and paying absolutely no attention to the lecture.

"Alright class, I'm going to be handing back last week's tests, since there are only ten minutes left in class." He began handing back the exams, which went over last week's exam in Minimum and Maximum values. He gave Peter a strange look as he placed his exam on the desk, with a big red "93" on it, along with a few comments on the front page. Peter glanced to it, smiled to himself, and then saved his game, beginning to pack up his laptop.

[MurderWeasel]

Peter resumed his game. Everett was trying to avoid even glancing at him, but it was hard, since Peter was three seats directly in front of him.

The teacher ended the lecture, and Everett let out a sigh of relief. He simply wasn't in the right mental zone today. He couldn't focus. He knew he would have to go over all of the day's material again at home, probably several times.

The teacher passed back their tests. He put Everett's in front of him face down. Everett was worried. The test had been hard. He thought he'd done alright, but that had usually been the case when he'd screwed up majorly. He had an "A" in the class, but only barely. 90.68%, if he remembered correctly. This test could easily have dropped him.

He almost hoped that it had. Being a disappointment struggling to redeem himself academically was easier than trying to maintain a grade. Everett flipped his paper, and saw, to his mingled relief and disappointment, that he had received a 91%. His overall grade would hardly be affected.

Everett couldn't resist sneaking a peak at Peter's paper, fidgeting a little to cover his movement as he glanced around the students between them. He caught a glimpse. It looked like Peter had a 92 or 93.

How the heck does he do it? Everett wondered, Does he know some secret or something?

The answer that came to him was depressing in its simplicity: Peter was simply better at math than he was.

[T-Fox†]

Peter slipped his Exam into his laptop, and shut the lid, sliding it into his backpack, and noticed Everett glancing at his test. He turned over his shoulder and smiled at him. "So, Everett, how did you do?" He glanced down to make sure he had the right zipper on his backpack, and closed it. The rest of the class had began making idle conversation, so the room was beginning to become fairly loud. He didn't mean to rub anything in at all, nor was he intending to be mean to him.

[MurderWeasel]

Peter turned around, and asked Everett how he'd done on the test. The class had devolved into chaos, so Everett, deciding not to fight it, stood up and walked up to Peter's desk, bringing his test with him. He almost tripped over a backpack on the way. Everett hated the math room; the aisles were slightly too narrow for someone of his width.

"I did alright, I guess," he said to Peter, "How about you?"

Everett was grateful to Peter for asking. It made him feel better about peaking at the boy's test, and it also showed that, on some level, Peter really did care about the class. That made Everett feel much better about the boy.

[T-Fox†]

"I did better than I expected to, I almost forgot to study for this exam." Peter did care about this class, he wanted to be a Game Designer, and knew that Math was important. The reason he was doing so well in this class was because he had already done Calculus 1 - Average, and passed with Flying Colors. The things that they had covered in that class were nothing to him, and even though he payed no attention in classes, and spent almost no time on his assignments, he did study the two nights before each exam.

[MurderWeasel]

Everett was relieved to learn that Peter had, in fact, studied for the exam.

"So," Everett said, pulling his test out, "Did you get problem 23?"

He gestured to a problem on his test marked throughout in red. Everett was quickly reassessing Peter. Now, instead of an annoyance, he seemed potentially useful.

"I couldn't understand how to start it. I think that's where I went wrong, and then things just got worse.

"Oh, by the way, I'm sorry you got called when you weren't ready."

That statement felt good. Everett was truly sorry, though more that he had been happy about Peter getting caught than that he actually had been.

[T-Fox†]

"Yeah, I got problem 23. I can show you how..." He is cut off by the bell ringing. "Hey, meet me later at some point, I can show you how some of this stuff is done. Well, I guess I'll see you later Everett." He trodded up to the front of the room, waiting to hear what the teacher had to say to him.

[MurderWeasel]

"Sure," Everett said. It was a little embarrassing, agreeing to meet someone else for tutoring. Usually he was the tutor. Still, he could certainly use help.

"Hey, good luck with everything," he said, gesturing towards the front of the class, "I'll see you later."

Everett walked out of the room, pleased, for once, to have been wrong about something.

((Everett Taylor continued in What Goes Up...))

[T-Fox†]

Peter stood in the front of the room, as he watched the other 20 or so students file out of the room. He turned his attention to the teacher, with a quizzical look on his face. The teacher sighed, and resumed looking over the last few remaining assignments, marking down in his grade book which students had done the assignment. "Peter, sit down in your normal seat." Peter did as he was told to, sitting down in the seat, contemplating wether or not he should pull out his laptop.

It seemed to take another full class period to the bored boy, but in reality, it only took his teacher 10 minutes to finish his work. He looked up at Peter and clasped his hands. "Peter, this is AP Calculus. You have to pay attention in my class, otherwise, you won't pass." He shook his head. Peter glanced over from the clock. "But I am passing Mr. Raman. I don't need to pay attention."

Mr. Raman just sighed at this comment. "Look Peter, I'm not giving you an option. Either you pay attention to my lectures, or I will have you suspended for insubordination." Peter almost visibly twitched at that word. It implied a teacher abusing their power, saying "You're in trouble cause I say you are!" He found it pointless, and irritating. "Mr. Raman, what does it even matter if I do pay attention, isn't it the grade that I get that matters?"

This "argument" went back and forth for a good 10 minutes, well into the next class period, before the teacher reached into his desk and pulled out a stack of blank referrals. "Either you stop now and just listen, or you will be reprimanded. Take your pick Peter." He sighed, shaking his head, standing and walking out of the room with his backpack. "I'll pay attention.." He made a mental note to speak to someone about Mr. Raman's 'bullshit' in class.

((Peter McCue Continued In The Halls of "Fashion"))