Chapter 43: 43 Studying And VR

The next morning, Heather was quite surprised when she stepped out of her mother's car to hang out with Brad and his friends, and she was greeted by Eric on his knees and his hands clasped in front of his face.

“Please, please forgive me! I am so sorry for what happened yesterday after school!” Eric said loudly.

“Wh-what?” Heather looked down at him and saw his pleading face, then looked at Brad and saw his smug face. “What's going on?”

“I guess you haven't been online since last night.” Brad said and waved at Kevin, who handed Heather his cell phone.

“Failed revenge on the kissing bandit?” Heather read in astonishment and then looked at the attached picture. “AHH! No! That... it's fake... it...” She looked down at Eric, who hadn't gotten off his knees and still had the pleading look on his face. “But...” She looked at Brad. “I thought...”

“You kissed him yesterday when you said goodbye to me.” Brad said with a blank expression.

It reminded Heather of Arnold and she had to turn away from it, which everyone took to mean that she felt guilty, when in fact she didn't feel anything about it. The kiss meant nothing to her and it hadn't mattered if she had kissed Brad or not.

“It's already all over the school.” Brad said and Kevin took his phone back.

Heather looked around to see quite a few people looking at their cell phones and then looking right at her. Great. Just great. She thought as she let out a loud sigh and closed her eyes.

“I'm really sorry.” Eric said. “It was my fault for standing so close to Brad.”

Heather opened her eyes and looked into his. After a moment, she understood what he was doing. He was trying to take the blame for her mistake. She knew that wasn't what any normal guy would do, especially since it was completely her fault, and she appreciated the gesture. Now she just had to decide how much of the blame she should dump on him.

Heather gave Brad a quick glance and knew what he wanted her to do. “Yes! It was all your fault! If you weren't trying to be so close to Brad, you wouldn't have gotten in my way!”

Brad grinned and started to turn to the other guys as he saw Heather's hand swing at Eric's face.

“Don't you dare take advantage of me again!” Heather said and her hand against his face made a loud sound, except it had no real force behind it.

Eric put a hand to his face and had a look of surprise, because he had expected it to hurt.

Heather leaned over menacingly and growled at him, then she whispered in a soft voice that didn't match her expression. “Thank you.”

Eric was too stunned to respond, which worked out perfectly. Heather pushed on his shoulder and he fell onto his back. She had been tempted to kick him to make an even better show; but, she wore a skirt today and she couldn't lift her leg like that. Instead, she intentionally stepped over a now prone Eric to give him a nice up-skirt shot, then stood beside Brad and beamed a smile at her boyfriend.

Eric stayed on the ground for a moment to sell the act, then quickly stood up. He made sure to stand on the other side of Kevin, so that he wasn't in the same spot as he was yesterday, and squeezed his cheek to get it to become red, then moved his hand to show it.

“She smacked you good!” One of Brad's friends joked and whacked Eric on the back. “You deserved it, too!”

“Yes, I did.” Eric said and he saw Heather shift her smile to him for a second. His mind went right to her stepping over him, with a skirt on, and his face flushed red. I'm not blushing! I'm not!

Heather saw his reaction to her smile and it made her smile wider. She looked back at Brad so she wouldn't give herself away.

While that had been happening, both Kelly and Arnold had arrived and went into the school together. Neither of them had paid any attention to the parking lot and had missed it. They wouldn't find out until lunch when Two showed them the video.

Kelly sighed at the sight. “She's really changed, hasn't she?”

“Has she?” One asked. “I'm pretty sure she's always acted that way.”

“Yeah.” Two said and took her phone back. “She always thought she was better than the rest of us.”

“Plus, she's the most popular girl in school. You know she thinks she's doing us a favor when she talks to us occasionally.” Three said with a bit of a laugh.

“If she didn't act that way, we would all think there was something wrong!” The new girl at the end of the table said and laughed, too.

“Good looking people can pretty much do what they want and get away with it.” Her boyfriend said, and then all the girls at the table, except for Kelly, looked at Arnold.

“Don't bother.” Kelly said with a smile and gave Arnold a kiss on the cheek. “He doesn't understand the power he has or why he gets people's attention because of it.”

“Wow, really?” One asked. “Arnold, you don't know that you're hot?”

Arnold stopped eating and looked at her. “What?”

“She's trying to say that you're extremely good looking.” Kelly explained.

“Why?” Arnold asked.

“She's paying you a compliment.”

“No, why am I good looking?” Arnold asked.

Kelly gave him a kiss on the lips and looked at the girls, and they nodded understanding. “You're handsome and they like you.”

“Oh.” Arnold said and looked at them. “I'm sorry. I can't kiss anyone except Kelly.”

One, Two, and Three caught their breath and the girl on the end blushed a little and looked at her boyfriend. He smiled at her and leaned over the table to give her a kiss.

“Thanks.” She said and gave him a look that said they would be doing a bit more than that later.

The day passed, then the next and the next, and just like that the school week came to an end and Saturday arrived. Kelly had texted Arnold the night before and told him what to wear and when to show up at the house. Annie was still tempted to go with him to introduce herself to Kelly's parents, then decided that it was too soon for their two families to meet and only dropped him off.

“I should warn you not to have too much fun killing virtual monsters all day.” Annie said as she parked at the curb. “I'm actually going to tell you to have as much fun as you want.”

“I don't think Kelly will let me play all day.” Arnold said.

“You might be surprised.” Annie smiled and took him into a hug. “She is training you, after all.”

Arnold nodded and gave his mom a quick kiss. “I'll call when I need a drive home.”

“I won't expect it until tonight.” Annie said and Arnold left the car and went to the front door as his mother sat there to see if she could catch a glimpse of Kelly's parents.

Kelly opened the door and she wore a pair of cargo shorts and a baggy t-shirt, an exact copy of what Arnold wore. “Hi, Arnold! Come on in!” She said loudly and took his hand, then she waved at his mother.

Annie gave her a little wave and was only slightly disappointed, while at the same time she hoped she might see Kelly's parents tonight. She knew that her curiosity was going to get the better of her eventually, so she tried to push the feeling off for as long as possible and drove back home.

“Dad's out of the house and mom's in the backyard doing stuff, so we have the whole house to ourselves.” Kelly said happily and pulled him inside the house and shut the door. “Did you eat before coming over?”

Arnold nodded and she led him through the house to the dining room.

“We can study in here.” Kelly said and pointed to the end of the table, at the opposite end from where her father sat. “I'll be right back with my English notes.”

Arnold took out his own English notes and sat down where Kelly had pointed. He didn't really need to study, since it was an easy subject, and Kelly came back with her things.

“I'm really glad you agreed to help me.” Kelly said and handed him her book. “It's so much easier to study when you have someone else to ask questions.”

Arnold took the book and she sat down. “You want me to ask you questions?”

“In a little while after I've studied some.” Kelly said. “It's a trick that lets me associate the information with being quizzed and it keeps it fresh in my mind.”

“Does that work?” Arnold asked.

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“For me it does.” Kelly said. “Can you help me with it?”

Arnold nodded and skimmed over his own notes as Kelly read hers through almost as quickly. When she nodded to him half an hour later, he flipped through the English book to a random page and asked her a question. She answered and got it right, which made her happy, so Arnold kept going. After another half an hour, Kelly had gotten almost ninety percent of the questions right and they both went over the right answers for the ones she missed.

“I'll remember them now. Thanks, Arnold.” Kelly said and gave him a hug.

“These questions might not be on the exam.” Arnold said.

“It doesn't matter, since it was a test to see how well I could do with random questions.” Kelly said. “I know I've got a great chance to pass now.” She let him go and took the book and her notes. “Do you want me to ask you a few questions?”

“No. The teacher said I already passed.” Arnold said.

“Wh-what?” Kelly blinked her eyes at him.

“She told me that I just have to sign my name and pass the exam in.”

“No! You can't do that!” Kelly gasped. “They can penalize you for not completing it!”

“They can?” Arnold asked.

“Not only that, it'll bring your total average score down.” Kelly said. “Even just one low mark can drop your grade point average a significant amount.”

Arnold frowned. “Why would she tell me that if it hurts my score?”

Kelly had to think about it for a few minutes. “I'm not sure.” She said. “Unless she wants to have a better grade score to average across all of her students...”

“Does one good score make the others look bad?” Arnold asked.

“If you're looking at the grades of everyone she teaches this year.” Kelly said with a nod. “One really good score offsets all the normal and really bad scores and changes where the average lays. If your score is really high, then everyone else will fall to average or even below average.”

“So, she's trying to make herself look better by making me look worse.” Arnold said.

“That's what it looks like.” Kelly said, then after a moment, asked a question. “Have any other teachers asked you to just sign your name on their exams and pass it in blank?”

“Two.” Arnold said and his frown returned.

“Well, there's one way to change what they want.” Kelly said with a smile. “Get a perfect mark.”

“But... they said...”

“Hurting your grades helps everyone else, which means they aren't looking after your best interests.” Kelly said. “So, look after them yourself... oh, and I think you need to visit the vice-principal again. She's going to want to know which teachers told you to throw their exams.”

“Okay.” Arnold said and looked at the book in her hands. “Ask me some questions.”

Kelly gave him a quick kiss. “That's my Arnold!”

For half an hour Kelly asked him as many random questions she could come up with and he got them all right. She hugged him, kissed him, and congratulated him on doing so well.

“They aren't going to make you out to be only average!” Kelly said and kissed him again. “You're going to show them what you can really do!”

“That makes you happy?” Arnold asked.

“Ecstatic!” Kelly said. “We should pack up before mom comes in to tell us to move for lunch.” She said and they gathered their things up and carried them to her bedroom. Arnold put his notes back into his backpack and put it on her bed.

“Now we can do some fun stuff.” Kelly said and sat Arnold down on the chair. “We have to take a break for lunch in a little while, so I'm only showing you a quick crafting demo.”

“A what?” Arnold asked.

“I'll explain it while you play.” Kelly said and set everything up. She handed him the controllers and then put the headset on him. “Okay, here we go.”

Arnold was amazed when an entire workshop appeared around him.

“There's not a lot to do in the demo, since it only lets you make one thing of each type.”

“Type of what?”

“Everything.” Kelly said with a chuckle. “Try the blacksmith forge first.”

Arnold turned that way and moved over to the forge, then a popup appeared and asked him if he wanted to make a knife, a sword, a shield, piece of armor, or an accessory. He chose a knife and then followed the directions. He had a piece of metal heated, hammered, and sharpened into a knife five minutes later. He chose a sword next and it took a lot more work to heat and hammer it into the proper shape, according to the instructions, then he quenched it and sharpened it.

“They are all just variations of the same thing, except the shape you hammer them into is different.” Kelly said. “There are a few other things you can craft in different games and you can even just do crafting sometimes.” She smiled. “I think you'll like the tannery behind you a lot better than everything else.”

Arnold turned around and his mouth dropped open. “K-Kelly, this...”

“Yes, Arnold. Some games will actually let you kill, skin, and dissect their insides. Games like Fortune's Favour are so detailed that they use nearly all the parts of an animal to make things, like weapons, armor and potions.”

Arnold walked over to the tannery and received a popup that asked him if he wanted to skin a rabbit for its pelt. He chose yes without even looking at the other greyed out options and spent the next half an hour skinning the rabbit and treating the pelt, over and over.

“KELLY! LUNCH!” Her mother yelled.

Arnold stopped what he was doing without being asked. Since it was a demo, there was no save option, so he ended the game and Kelly took the headset and controllers from him. When she turned back around to take him to the dining room, Arnold put his arms around her and looked into her eyes.

“Thank you.” Arnold said in a slightly deeper voice than he normally spoke.

Kelly's heart went pitter-patter at his intense stare, then he kissed her. She melted into his arms and lost herself to the kiss, mainly because he chose to kiss her, and that seemed to be a weak spot for her. Arnold broke the kiss on his own, for the first time, and Kelly couldn't quite get her mouth to work properly to ask him why he stopped.

“Kelly, I said lunch was ready.” Her mother said from just outside the room and both Kelly and Arnold turned to look at her.

“We're coming, mom.” Kelly managed to say, then she and Arnold followed her mother through the house and to the dining room. “Dad's still out?”

Her mother nodded. “He's off helping one of the guys at work move some furniture.”

Kelly chuckled and sat down. “They always ask him to help with stuff like that.”

“Well, he always agrees, so why wouldn't they ask him?” Her mother responded and put a plate of food in front of Kelly and then Arnold. “Eat up. I know you've got some more... playing to do.”

“Arnold was just...” Kelly stopped talking and looked at her mother. “We do have more playing to do.” She said instead. “A lot more.”

Her mother had a hard expression for a moment, then she sighed. “Kelly...”

“Yes, mother?” Kelly asked.

“Your attitude is becoming annoying.” Her mother said, because Kelly hadn't called her 'mom' like she usually did.

“Now you know what it's like.” Kelly said. “Arnold, I think we should eat in my room.”

Arnold nodded and picked up both plates of food, then followed her to her bedroom.

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