Summary: Fred tries to convince Catalina that they should move in together after he gets sick and tired of living at the school, with his father’s demands around the corner.
Rating: PG
Timeline: Good question... Freshman or sophomore year in high school. It’s not important...
Cimmy's Notes: Short, kind of pointless one chapter thingy.
Disclaimer: Disney owns The Mighty Ducks, Roy MacGregor owns Travis, Nish and Sarah from the Screech Owls books, and I own Fred and Catalina.
Another sighing sound came from the corner of the room, where Fred was sitting with his history-book.
“This sucks!”
Charlie turned his head away from his homework. Fred had been sighing and moaning for about an hour now. How he was able to get any work done was hard to tell. If he’d used his energy for studying, instead of complaining, he’d be done by now.
“What now?” Charlie asked. “Having problem again?”
“I hate school,” Fred growled. “I’m not cut out to be in school. I think I better drop out now, and use my time for something important instead.”
“I want to make it clear, that if you drop out, you can’t live here anymore. You can’t be a Duck either. Not that I would miss you that much, if you left, maybe my homework would be done in time.”
Fred moaned again and threw his book into the wall above his bed. Charlie gave him an amused look. Fred was very entertaining when he was trying to do his homework. “I hate this subject.”
“Along with every other subject too,” pointed Charlie out. “Calm down and do something else for a while.”
“What? I haven’t even started with the history-assignment, and I’ve been trying to read it for the last hour or so! It just won’t stick, I’m tired of feeling stupid and I’m really tired of always being the only one who doesn’t understand the lessons and the homework.”
“You’re not stupid, you just have to try harder.”
Oops. That must’ve been the worst thing he could’ve said to Fred right now.
“Try harder?! I’m trying my ass off here! I’ve been trying ever since my first day of school. This sucks. I need to take a brake. I’m dying here. Charlie, if I pass out, please let Catalina know that I hid her Linkin Park CD under the seat of the bus. Don’t ask me why.”
“Got tired of listening to her comparing her life to ‘In the end’ and ‘Forgotten’? I know I have.”
“Anyway, I’m going to Rainbow. Or, even better, I’ll go to the mall and buy Catalina a new CD, something a little less depressing.”
“May I please suggest that you don’t buy her anything too loud? It’s very annoying to hear her hum along with the music. Maybe you could buy her the new Madonna-CD? It’s not depressing, it made me laugh out loud.”
“Nah, she already has it.” Fred kicked the bathroom door, and it closed with a loud bang. “I hate this room. Maybe we could move?”
Fred sounded very energetic again, now when his history-book wasn’t bothering him anymore. He got up, walked over to the stereo and flipped through the CD’s. After a while’s silence, he started to sigh again.
“We could change rooms with Adam and Guy,” he said, mostly to himself. “Or, maybe we could paint our room in another color. We could tear this wooden wainscot down, and paint it... green, or something.”
“Whom are you talking to?” Charlie wanted to know. “Didn’t you say that you were going to the mall?”
“I can’t go alone, can I? I’ll be lonely, and depressed.” Fred sat down on the floor and started to throw paper clips into the trashcan. Charlie tried to concentrate, but when the sounds of the fiftieth paper clip hitting the radiator with a metallic sound, he decided to give up.
“Could you stop?” Fred looked at him with a hurt expression on his face. He picked up another paper clip and threw it right in Charlie’s face. If it was out of boredom, because he was annoyed with Charlie’s comment, or because he was just out of his mind, was hard to tell.
“Fred, seriously. You could’ve hit me in the eye, for God’s sake! I have to kick you out, if you don’t behave.”
Fred moped around, luckily enough it was a silent moping, and Charlie actually finished the first chapter without any disturbance. He wasn’t too surprised, when Fred started to sigh again, after this long silence.
“I’m gonna go find someone to hang out with.”
“Good luck,” Charlie replied. “Everyone is doing their homework. Except from you. Fred, shouldn’t you get started?”
“I’m too bored. I can’t figure the first question out, and I get a headache just trying. Maybe I have a low learning capacity? Difficult with learning, you know? Maybe I need my own tutor?”
“Maybe you need to stop saying ‘maybe’ all the time? It’s annoying. Actually, you’re annoying, and I think you should go bother someone else now. I think Travis might be done with his assignments by now. He’s probably done with the assignments for the rest of the year.”
“Maybe he’ll tutor me?” Fred said cheerfully. He jumped up on his bed and tried to find his history-book again.
“Yeah, if he’s stupid. He probably learnt his lesson, after you had that science-project together.”
“Hey, we got an A! And I worked my ass off for that. If Catalina hadn’t been cheating, maybe I’d even gotten rid of my academic probation warning. She owes me a big favor, you know. Maybe she can help me with this?”
“Go ask her. Now. Don’t walk, run. And if she turns you down, go ask Travis.”
Fred nodded and jumped down from the bed. He waved his book around. “Try not to be too sad about me leaving, I know I bright up your day.”
“You’re as annoying as Adam and Catalina gets after a ten hour trip in the team-bus. I’m trying to work here, and I’m not about to get on an academic probation too. I like being team-captain.”
Fred smiled cheerfully and went towards the door.
“By the way, when you’re done, maybe we could re-decorate with some tinsel and stuff. It’s almost Christmas, you know.”
Charlie tossed his pencils and books after Fred, when he left.
Nish was lying under his bed, banging his head against the floor. It might have seemed a bit odd, if Travis hadn’t been so used to Nish’s behavior by now.
“How’s the reading going?” he asked, when he heard Nish’s pain filled moaning. “Have you got yourself a concussion yet?”
Nish rolled over and climbed out from underneath the bed. “I can’t read, when you’re being so well-mannered.”
“Well-mannered? Have you been reading a dictionary?”
Nish growled a little and went over to the door. “I’m going to get something to eat. You don’t have any of those candy-bars left, do you?”
“No, but you can have some raisins if you want.” Travis smiled, when he saw Nish’s repulsed face. “I think Catalina have some chips, go ask her.”
Travis would be very content if Nish left. He’d been disturbing Travis all afternoon. How was anyone supposed to be able to work with Nish in the room?
Travis brought his attention back to his books, but got disturbed again when he heard three different sounds right after each other. A door opening, a crashing sound, and Nish’s moaning.
“What the hell? Why did you do that?”
“How the hell should I know that you’re standing on the other side of the door?”
“Ever heard of knocking? I’m trying to work here!”
Well, that was the overstatement of the year.
Nish and Fred kept arguing, while Travis sighed. Was a bit of silence too much to ask for?
“I’m here to talk to Travis. Why are you here?”
“I live here!” Nish shouted. “Why are you here, really?”
“I’m here to talk to Trav,” Fred repeated. “And, Catalina kicked me out.”
“Catalina? Did you see if she had any chips laying around?”
Fred shrugged, but changed his mind and smiled evilly. “Yeah, I think she did. Better hurry, she was eating them herself.” Nish howled, if it was a happy howl or a horrified howl, was hard to tell. Nish hurried out the door, with a whining sound, leaving Fred with a content smile.
“Anyway,” he grinned. “I was hoping that you would help me with my history.”
What was up with people today? Couldn’t they just figure stuff out themselves? No wonder Catalina kicked him out. Travis took a deep breath and turned to face Fred.
“Look, Fred, I’m kind of busy with my own homework right now.”
The upside with trying to help Fred with his homework, instead of trying to help Nish, was that Fred usually listened to his advice. Nish refused to do that, and his demands were that Travis should do his homework and let him copy it later. At least Fred tried his best to learn.
“I don’t mean right now,” Fred exclaimed. “Maybe you could just explain it later, when you have time?”
Another good thing about Fred. He didn’t demand that everything should be done right away. He actually appreciated the help he got. Nish was just a spoiled baby sometimes. Maybe it was because Nish and Travis had known each other for a very long time that Nish behaved like Travis should be there for him, whenever he needed it.
“What do you have problem with?” Travis asked. Sometimes he felt sorry for Fred, because most of the times when he needed help, he wasn’t understanding anything at all of their assignments. Nish was just too lazy to figure them out by himself.
“It’s that whole war, I just don’t get why they had to start fighting in the first place,” Fred sighed. “I’ve tried to read it, but I just can’t seem to get it into my head. It won’t stick.”
Travis gave him the answers to the first question. If it had been Nish who’d been asking, he wouldn’t have given it to him. But he knew that Fred was struggling hard with school, and he needed all the help he could get. But when he finally learnt some of the questions and answers, it stayed with him. If he learned it, he would remember it. It just took longer for him to learn stuff then it took for the others.
“Thanks, Trav,” Fred said, sounding grateful. “I’ll get it back to you, when I’ve read it through.”
Travis watched him skim the paper through. He couldn’t really understand why Fred was having so much trouble with school. He was smart, and knew the answers to a lot of questions, he just didn’t seem to progress everything like he should.
Fred had told him about his dad always treating him like he was stupid or something. He had heard from his dad that he wasn’t smart enough to make it on his own, without any help from his dad. Travis figured that Fred had bad self-confidence because of that. Maybe that was the reason that he couldn’t learn things, because he was sure that he couldn’t.
“If you want any help, just tell me, okay?”
Fred nodded. “I think I get this first one now. Maybe I should write it down before I forget it. Have a pen?”
Travis liked helping Fred for three different reasons. First of all, he showed some gratitude. After helping Nish, that was like a miracle. Second of all, Fred tried to his best to understand what he was being told. Last, but certainly not least, he could be in a room studying quietly. That wasn’t something that Nish was able to do.
“Why did Catalina throw you out?”
“Something about me bugging the hell out of her. Maybe I’m not tutoring-material?”
Travis smiled. Catalina and Fred trying to study together usually resulted in either fights, kissing or actual studying. Catalina could be good at explaining stuff for Fred so he understood it, but they could also get on each other’s nerves. This time seemed to have resulted in Fred annoying Catalina, until she kicked him out.
“Hey, maybe I should get back to my room. Charlie might be bored out of his skull by now. He kicked me out too, you know.”
“Trouble concentrating?” Travis smiled. “You probably should leave them alone some more. I think they need it.”
Was roommates’s obligation to make their other roommates crazy? Fred usually didn’t bother him at all. Nish did, though. According to Charlie, Fred could be a real pain in the ass, when it came to doing homework. Couldn’t Fred work without having someone to explain the homework for him? That was probably it, since Fred always had to get help from someone when he was studying.
“Can I stay here then? Maybe I can hide here, until Nish discovers that I lied to him about the chips.” Fred stretched out on Travis’s bed. “Why is there gum in the ceiling?”
“Nish uses my bed to spit gum from. I get even madder when he misses, and the gum gets stuck on my cover.”
“That’s disgusting,” Fred winced. “Can’t you tell him not to?”
“It’s okay, I usually scrape them down every month and places them under his mattress. He haven’t found out yet. I just wait for the day when he does. Hopefully it won’t be today, I need some peace and quiet.”
Fred laughed. “Maybe I should do that too, when Charlie starts with his disgusting habits.”
Maybe? Fred had one of his ‘maybe’-days, Travis could tell. Those days were filled with sentences beginning with the word ‘maybe’.
“Maybe I should call Catalina and see if Nish’s driving her crazy? Maybe she wants to apologize to me?”
“Maybe you should get started with next question,” Travis suggested. “I can help you get started.”
“Thanks, Trav. God, I hate school. This sucks.”
That was a typical Nish-comment.