With sessions with Tiffany paired with actually paying attention in English, Emily started making progress extraordinarily quickly. For one thing, she no longer confused protagonists with potatoes. A pop quiz in English on prefixes? She managed to pass it with a C-. Jeopardy-style questions with Tiffany? At least half of them were right, and most of them she managed to spit out quickly. The thing was, she wasn't doing much studying at home. Whenever she was home it was all Halo and Assassin's Creed; as far as she cared, English could go- ahem- do something that her mother wouldn't approve of her saying. After a few sessions, Emily slowly started to slip back. English classes blurred together as she daydreamed about the next episode of Deadlox's Let's Play, homework became unimportant compared to beating the next scene in Lost Souls. A little voice in the back of her head kept whispering to her, telling her that she couldn't afford to fail this marking period if she didn't want to be held back- and she kept saying that she could always make it up later, exams were still a full week away.

A full week became a school week. A school week turned into three days. And the next thing Emily knew, her English exam- the first one she had- was tomorrow.

Tiffany was met by a panicked thirteen-year-old's voice when she answered the phone at five p.m. "TIFFANY EXAMS ARE TOMORROW AND I'M GOING TO FAIL!"

Tiffany rubbed her eyes blearily; a day off, and she had thought she would be able to take a nap. The universe had basically thrown the 'lolnope' meme into her face. "Uh- okay. See me at Hungry Howie's- half hour. Bring study guide and book." The call ended almost immediately, and Tiffany had the sinking feeling that Emily was going to be there much quicker than a half hour. She groaned and rolled our of bed; Emily was a nice kid, she knew that much- and the whole 'tutoring' thing was going pretty well for Tiffany- but sometimes it got a little annoying.

She pulled a sweater on over her T-shirt and stepped into her sneakers, yawning. She wondered if she had time to comb her hair- knowning Emily, probably not. Tiffany shrugged anyways and grabbed her comb, pulling it through her hair a few times, before dropping it on the ground and sprinting out the door. 

She arrived there as Emily was pacing nervously, her hands behind her back. Her head jerked up as the bell sent the usual dull 'ring' through the building. "English, help, study, now," she said shortly.

Emily herself did NOT want to fail. If she did, that would mean ending up with Martin next year. And if there was one thing she had learned from over-exposure to his know-it-all attitude, it was that she did NOT want to share a class with the guy. She felt like she was in a fog bank. Tiffany tried to say something, but her queasiness made it slip from her senses. If she failed- she'd be with Martin. She wouldn't be with any gamers. She'd be thought of as an idiot by her classmates. Normally Emily didn't give two horse butts about what other people thought, but at school, reputation was everything. She ddn't want to be 'that guy'. The one who everybody hated. Even next year's seventh graders would shun her. At that point, they had already made friends. And students rarely, if ever, were held back. She'd be the first in a long time.

Eventually, Tiffany just closed the book and said that that was all they could do. Emily nodded numbly, grabbing the book and walking out. She didn't even hear the bell.

**********

Emily felt like an idiot. The paper seemed to be mocking her.

Mocking her because it was so ridiculously easy!

She had thought that she was going to fail, get held back. But when she actually took each question in individually, sizing it up and examining the multiple choice questions- most of them were simple. Of course, there were always the few that were confusing and she had to guess on, but all in all, it was fairly easy. She grinned to herself when she hit the question 'what is a protagonist', and scribbled out the correct answer on the test, writing the word 'potato' over it. Emily answered all the questions quickly compared to her normal time; she managed to finish the exam right before the bell rang. She leaned back in her chair, sure that she had passed it, as the tone rang to let them to their next hour. Emily eventually stirred, grabbing her reading book, and strolled out of the classroom, feeling like she was walking on air.

"...sure I failed it," she heard a joking voice say. She turned her head to see Rick Weiler chatting with none other than Jacob Robinson. "I mean, Social Studies was easy- but that English exam? No way."

Emily smiled to herself at the thought that she, at least, had thought it was easy. "Come on, you can't have done that bad," Jacob told him, giving him a friendly punch on the shoulder. Emily decided to be as impulsive as she possibly could and stepped in between the two.

"Yeah, even I think I passed." She thought for a second. "Remember, that's 'think'."

Jacob laughed a little, and Rick gave her a half smile. "Oh, 'sup Em? I thought you'd be long gone by now."

"To what?" Emily scoffed. "Science? Please. Gaming logic beats real world problems any day." She was desperately hoping that maybe Jacob would notice her gaming prowess.

To her surprise, it was Rick who spoke up. "Logic? When has logic ever been included in video games?"

Jacob opened his mouth to say something, but Emily cut him off.

"Minecraft, obviously. Most logical game in existence."

They both laughed, a little louder than last time, and Emily grinned. "So, you're a gamer?" Jacob asked.

"Yup."

"Minecraft?"

"And pokemon, Halo, Black Ops, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed, and all those random side games nobody cares about."

Rick looked somewhat impressed. "YouTube?"

Emily shrugged. "Don't have a channel, but I watch Pewds and a few others."

Jacob nodded. Emily felt her heart leap to her mouth as she realized that this would be the moment he either accepted her into his gaming 'club', or decided that she just wasn't good enough. "Well, I've been looking for somebody new to record with. What do you say to a little Gmod?"

Emily tried to stay calm. Finally, somebody to play with! "Yeah, sure," she said, shrugging. "What's your Skype?"

"I use Raidcall," Jacob said, looking a little let down. Rick elbowed him.

"I've been telling you to get Skype for a while now, why don't you just do it?"

Emily spoke up, trying to get herself back into the gaming program. "It's free and downloads pretty quick."

Jacob thought about it for a moment, during which the warning bell rang. Rick bit his lip. "I'm going to be tardy-" Jacob turned away to pick his binder up off the floor.

"When I get it, search for RabidSquirrelz," he said quickly, running off to his next class. 

Rick readjusted his binder. "Uh, yeah- if you ever want to play with me, then just do a search for Orange_Ninja."

Emily nodded, barely daring to believe that this was happening. "'Kay, I'm thisisnotagoodusername123."

Rick laughed shortly before starting to head to his next class. "Best. User name. Ever!" he called over his shoulder. Emily grinned to herself just as he disappeared around a corner- and the tardy bell rang.

Emily's expression fell as the realization of the real world hit her. She was tardy for math. Sighing, she readjusted her stuff and turned around, trying to get to class before too much time passed.

**********

"And I'll be handing out your exam results," Ms. Bennett said. "When I call your name, please come to the front to see your scores."

Emily shifted nervously in her chair as Jerome once again headed to the front before her. Here was the moment of truth. Jerome accepted the paper and sat down at his desk again, skimming the results, and then- "Emily."

Emily stood up, amazed that she managed to walk normally, and took the paper. She turned around numbly, stepping past the other students, and sat back down, unfolding it. She had to have passed. She had to have!

English was the first exam. Emily felt her eyes slide across the page to the score-

A B-.

Emily sat there, numbly relieved. Not only had she passed, it was one of the highest grades she had received in a long time. She barely paid attention as she went down the rest of the page; Science had been simple, Social Studies was pretty easy- and then she hit the unforgivable test.

Written next to Math, in red ink instead of black, was an E.

Emily stared. Not again. Math? The fog started to clear from her head.

She still needed to pass English this semester. And now she was adding Math onto it.

"Here we go again..." she sighed, folding the paper up and stuffing it in her pocket. She thought dully of the math book in her locker, taking over her game time, slowly but surely consuming every fiber of her being into a vortex of numbers...

This next marking period wasn't going to be that fun.

Although, Emily reflected as the tone rang to dismiss them, she always had Tiffany. And at least she knew the difference between a protagonist and a potato.