xp_logs | Artie and Yvette: Study hall

Studying. It is important.

It was study hall. Also known as a good time to be carefully watched while he did a math quiz. None of the other students were taking their various quizes now so Artie had the room to himself, with just Yvette there to supervise. The first few problems were fine. Hard but fine. And then there was question nine. "Which one of the following best represents the graph of f(x) = 3(1 - e^2x)?"

He'd done all the work. He'd even freaking studied. He'd studied a lot. But five minutes later, he was still staring at it, filled with ever-increasing despair. There was only one option. He closed his eyes momentarily and brought up the image of his math text in his mind. He'd read it. He'd studied. He'd looked at every page and they were on chapter three. Artie projected the image of the first page of the chapter onto the floor beside his desk and concentrated, making the pattern of light and dark that the page consisted of sharp enough to read and began to flick through the assigned chapter, trying to figure out how to graph the equation.

Artie had been surprisingly cooperative with study hall today, which meant Yvette had been able to get some study of her own in, reading one of her political science texts. After a while, however, she realised the room was quiet. Too quiet. No huffs of breath or tapping of fingers or the distinctive sound of pencil scratching away at paper. No, Artie was concentrating on something very hard.

And on the floor.

As quietly as Yvette could be, she slipped from her seat, making her way silently towards Artie's desk.

A pair of red toes appeared in the edge of his image. Artie blinked, startled, and fell sideways out of his chair.

Yvette startled a little at Artie's reaction - she hadn't expected him to fall off his chair! - but realised that such a reaction was clearly an indication of guilt for something.

"Are you all right, Artie?" she asked, a little too innocently.

"im fine!" he replied, climbing back into his chair. She'd seen, hadn't she?

"You were concentrating very hard on the floor," she continued. "Did you drop something?"

"I thought I did but I guess I didn't. I'm going to finish my quiz now", Artie said, taking care to include all the punctuation and capital letters for once.

"Very good. I would hate for you to be distracted by anything else." Yvette's mouth quirked just a little. "Especially by flicking through images of your math book."

"You saw that, did you?" Artie asked a little sheepishly.

She nodded, eyes flaring slightly as she tried to keep a straight face. "I did, yes. You know, using your powers to cheat isn't exactly what the training is for, Artie."

"I was just checking my textbook. It's not like that's really cheating."

"It would not be, if this was the open book quiz. But you are expected to remember the lessons," she replied, but still gently. "Were you having trouble with the quiz?"

There was a time for being a wise ass. This was not it. He kept the text small as he replied "I couldn't solve the graph."

"Keep going with the quiz," she told him. "And we will go over the graph and anything else that you are having trouble with after."

So... he wasn't in trouble. That was good. Artie'd take that, even if he still couldn't do his freaking quiz. "Okay."