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“It’s another lovely day in Fair City,” the narrator narrated, “a gorgeous day to be outside enjoying the sun. Unfortunately, like all high school aged kids, it’s mandatory for our heroine to be indoors for the present.”
Becky rolled her eyes at the unwelcome reminder of how little sunlight there was in Fair City high school, which was desperately lacking in windows.
“Alright guys, this is your final reminder,” Becky’s ninth grade homeroom teacher, Mrs. Manley, said boredly. “The mandatory peer-tutoring aptitude survey is due at the end of the school day today, and they’re running the algorithm tomorrow. Anyone who doesn’t fill it out will face consequences with the dean.”
Becky had already filled out the form at the beginning of the week when it opened. The premise behind it was that it determined which subjects you were strongest in (languages, for her) and which subjects you needed the most help with (probably math or science, for her—though she still had high grades!) and an algorithm matched you with someone who was strong in the subject you needed help with and was struggling with the subject you were strong in. The school was going to dedicate the final half hour of every school day to allowing people to meet with their assigned peer tutors for the next month to see if it improved average test scores.
“It feels kind of strange that we’d face consequences with the dean for not filling out a peer tutoring placement survey in a timely fashion,” Scoops whispered to her. He was the only other person in her homeroom who she knew.
“It’s probably because they’re dedicating part of the school day to the project, so anyone who doesn’t participate is effectively skipping,” Becky reasoned.
“Hm. Fair enough.” Scoops shrugged. “So what do you think your best subject is going to be?”
Becky raised an eyebrow.
“Oh. Right.”
“What about you?”
“Probably also English. Though I’ve also been rocking History class recently. I’m guessing they’ll be pairing me with a math whiz—I’m really not rocking geometry.”
Becky had resigned herself to not being paired with Scoops the second the survey came out. They already met to study together all the time, but their academic interests were too similar for the algorithm to match them. “What about you? What do you think your weakest subject was on the test? I mean, I know you have straight A’s, but there has to be something you’re less good at.”
“Yeah. Science,” Becky sighed. “I know I was placed into AP Physics because it’s the accelerated track, but physics isn’t really my thing.”
“You realize who you’re going to get paired with, right?” Scoops said knowingly.
Becky stared at him blankly. “Who?”
“Seriously?” the narrator asked with amusement. Becky ignored him.
“The only other ninth grader who’s in AP Physics,” Scoops said, like it was obvious.
And in hindsight, it should have been, but maybe Becky had been subconsciously protecting herself by pretending it wasn’t true for as long as she could. “Ugh. You’re right. They’re totally going to pair me with Tobey. Guess I can forget about actually learning anything from these peer-tutoring pairings.”
“Yeah, he’s not really the collaborative type. Probably won’t be much help,” Scoops agreed. “He’ll just keep to himself and draw up schemes for some giant city-destroying robot, and you’ll sit there reading for fun.”
“Probably,” Becky agreed. Well, as long as she could tune out Tobey’s sinister cackling under his breath (which wouldn’t be simple, since getting older was making her super-hearing harder to control), at least thirty minutes of uninterrupted reading time would be enjoyable.
The bell releasing their class and signalling passing time rang at the same time as an alarm on the other side of the city. Becky groaned. Her first class of the day was English, which was her favorite because of the ten minutes of quiet reading time her teacher always gave them at the start of each class. Looked like she’d be missing those few precious moments of serenity. Becky pulled her phone out of her pocket and quickly shot Violet a text: Please tell Mr. Bichler I’ll be late for some reason. She almost put her phone away before adding one more message: Make up an actual reason to tell him. Then she started walking not to class, where she’d like to be going, but in the direction of the single-stall bathroom on the second floor with a conveniently hidden window, her favorite place in the high school for emergency secret transformations.
But just because she had to be secretive didn’t mean she couldn’t whisper her very clever catchphrase: “Word up!”
—
“Ugh!” Becky collapsed back onto her bed. Bob chirped inquisitively. “Results from the algorithm came out.”
“You got Tobey,” the narrator guessed.
“Of course I got Tobey. Scoops is right, he’s the only other ninth grader in the physics class I’m barely passing.”
“Barely getting an A in, you mean,” the narrator said wryly.
“Right. That.”
Bob rolled his eyes and chirped something that made Becky immediately sit up and narrow her eyes. “No, I do not sound like Victoria Best! I just… really prefer to get A’s, and right now, I’m barely pulling off an A- in physics. Part of me hoped peer tutoring would actually be helpful, but I sincerely doubt Tobey will even want to help me. And even if he did, I definitely don’t want his help.”
“At least you didn’t miss any physics notes today,” the narrator supplied.
“Yeah, instead I missed my peaceful silent reading time in English class because Lady Redundant Woman got offended and started running around town replacing everyone’s store rewards cards with paper copies.”
“Which is annoying, but arguably the least intrusive thing you could have missed.”
Becky glared at the ceiling. “I’m going to do some silent reading, now, if you don’t mind.” Theoretically, it would be a smarter time to break open her physics homework, but she’d earned at least a fifteen minute break.
—
“Meanwhile, in the backyard shed of Tobey McCallister…”
“Laboratory,” Tobey corrected halfheartedly under his breath. He had been working on schematics for his latest invention, a robotic jetpack that could get him to school every day without having to wait on traffic (and possibly could enable him to get away from being grounded once in a while), but he’d stopped as soon as peer tutoring assignments dropped and his suspicion (and secret hope) had been confirmed: he and Becky Botsford would be spending the last half hour of the school day together every weekday for the next month.
He’d known it was a very strong possibility. They were the only two ninth graders in AP Physics, and Tobey knew very well that while he did not struggle in any of the simplistic subjects they taught at Fair City High School, English was where he put in the least amount of effort (and it was rather annoying that certain punctuation rules were different in American English than in British English, something he just didn’t care enough about to study), and just so happened to be Becky’s favorite subject.
So he’d known it was possible. But he’d tried not to get his hopes up too high.
Now that it was confirmed, he could celebrate.
Internally.
In a very sophisticated manner.
The thing about Becky Botsford was that she had a few too many good traits to be human, except unlike the former unrequited love of his life, WordGirl, she actually was human, which made her significantly more attainable than a flying alien girl. In fact, they bore so many similarities that he almost wanted to revisit his theory that they were the same person—but no, that had been disproven already, more than once.
But she was beautiful, with her voluminous dark hair and rich brown eyes and glossy lips and bad habit of chewing on the eraser of her pencil when working on a particularly tricky math problem. She was fierce, never hesitating to stand up for any of her classmates if someone put them down, even if it was the teacher (and even if the person who needed defending was him… which Tobey was still trying to wrap his mind around). She was confident, always standing her ground in her opinions, answers to questions that contradicted her classmates, and affinity for well-written middle grade fantasy novels.
And she was intelligent.
Not as intelligent as he was, obviously. But there wasn’t a single other person in the school who even came close to being his intellectual rival. She was a well-spoken critical thinker and quick learner with complex concepts. She seemed to have an instinctual understanding of the meaning of every new term they learned in class and a fantastic memory. It was the most attractive trait a person could have.
In middle school, her intelligence led him to view her as a rival. But in the beginning of ninth grade, his assigned seat in math class had been right behind hers, and he’d had an epiphany that she was intelligent and gorgeous, and had been daydreaming about how to win her affections ever since.
It was going about as well as his attempts with WordGirl had.
Worse, actually, because Tobey actually had a way of getting WordGirl’s attention. Any time there was some kind of threat, she’d show up, so all he had to do was create a threat, which he’d gotten very good at doing. Sure, she’d never liked him much because of that, but he at least had a guaranteed method of getting to talk to her. And every now and then, it appeared she might actually enjoy his company, like the time he’d taken her to a library and a museum under the guise of searching for his remote, or the time she’d flown him to an ice cream shop to hang out after they didn’t get invited to Katie’s birthday party. Even that was more progress than he’d managed to make with Becky.
Not only did Becky seem to loathe his guts (understandable—most people did, considering his history of trying to destroy the city, but he had mostly turned himself around!), but there was no way to get her attention for a conversation, even one between enemies. She was always chatting with those friends of hers, Todd and Violet and Rose, and any time there was a class project she quickly partnered with someone who wasn’t him.
So the school mandating that they spend a half hour together every day for the next month was actually the greatest thing that could have happened to Tobey.
He knew from his experience with WordGirl what didn’t work in winning over a smart, beautiful girl (trying to destroy her) and what worked slightly better (taking her to a library and reading books with her). All he had to do now was apply those principles to his peer tutoring sessions with Becky, and hopefully, before the month was over, his crush would be more than requited.
“There’s really no need for an evil cackle at this moment,” the narrator remarked disapprovingly.
Tobey glared at the ceiling. “You know what there also is no need for?”
“What?”
“A narrator. This is a written story.”
“Good thing I don’t take orders from evil fourteen-year-olds.”
“For your information,” Tobey grumbled, “I no longer identify as an evil genius. Just a genius with the proven capacity for destruction.”
“But that’s so much more of a mouthful.”
Tobey didn’t deign to respond.
—
Becky’s guess for how her first peer tutoring session with Tobey was going to go was that they’d meet in their assigned classroom, Tobey would either ignore her or say something he thought was witty that insulted her intelligence, and they would descend into a silence and each pretend the other wasn’t there while they took a half hour study hall.
That was not what happened.
“What do you mean you want to go to the library?”
“I mean that this classroom is windowless and dreary. Truly an abysmal place to study. You like books, I like quiet, libraries have books and quiet, and both of us are good enough students that I bet if we asked nicely they’d let us switch locations.”
“I don’t know if this classroom is an abysmal place to study,” Becky said in the room’s defense, mostly to be contrary to Tobey and not having much else about that statement to disagree with. “Abysmal means extremely bad or horrible, and this room has yellow walls, so I’m not sure I’d call it extremely bad. Yellow is a great color. But… it is windowless.” And he wasn’t wrong—she did like books. And quiet, which this classroom was currently not, and it didn’t sound like the other five peer tutor pairs assigned to this classroom were using this time for tutoring.
“It’s windowless and bookless,” Tobey said smugly. “Unless you count our physics textbooks.”
“And the third book of the Princess Triana Next Generation series, which is in my backpack right now.”
“So it can’t hurt to ask, can it?”
Becky sighed. Reluctantly, she had to admit he had a point. “Fine.” Becky walked to the front of the room, where their overseeing teacher was engrossed in reading a magazine. “Mrs. Newman?”
“Yes, Becky?” Mrs. Newman looked up from the magazine reluctantly.
“It’s a little loud in here, so Tobey and I were wondering if we could go study in the library instead.”
Mrs. Newman shrugged. “Fine with me. I just have to write you guys a pass.” She grabbed an index card off the side of her desk and quickly scribbled down their names, the time, and their destination. “Just come check back in with me before dismissal.”
“We will,” Becky promised, saying a short prayer to the narrator, author and whoever else might be listening that she wouldn’t have to run off and battle any villains between now and dismissal.
Becky turned and walked out the door, trusting Tobey to follow her. Of course he would never deign to rush after her, but she took some pleasure in hearing his footsteps hit the floor in quick succession as he walked briskly in an attempt to catch up. “I’m assuming both of our names are on that hall pass,” he said casually once he’d found his way to her side.
“Of course. We’re peer-tutoring partners, after all.” Hopefully, once they got to the library, she’d be able to just settle down with a book and pretend Tobey didn’t exist.
The school library was quiet and did indeed have windows, and while Becky would never admit that Tobey was right about anything, she could privately appreciate that the change of scenery had been a good idea.
They settled into a study booth with passably comfy chairs, and Becky waited for Tobey to say something to the effect of, “I’m a genius who would never condescend to tutor someone in something so trivial as physics homework,” but instead he said, “So, we matched on physics and English, right?”
Oh.
Either he was really excited about the opportunity to exemplify his aptitude for physics in her presence to casually boast the subject he was better than her in, or he actually needed help in his English class and this was a convenient way for him to get it without explicitly admitting he needed it. Either way, it actually appeared Tobey was going to cooperate with the school peer-tutoring rules.
“Um… yes,” Becky confirmed. “What do you want to start with?”
“Well, I already completed the physics homework for this week on Monday, and it was nothing more than a trivial—” Tobey seemed to catch himself in the middle of that sentence. “I mean… do you want to read the next chapter of The Great Gatsby together and identify symbols for the symbolism homework assignment?”
—
“It was really strange,” Becky told her friends later that day, when they met to study together under non-school-enforced circumstances. “Every time he almost said something annoyingly Tobey-ish about how much smarter he is than everyone else, he corrected to something that almost admitted I might be his intellectual equal in specifically the subject the algorithm said I could help with. And yeah, that bar is pretty low, considering everyone knows I’m better in the humanities than he is, but still! It was like he was making an actual effort to be… a normal person.”
“Breaking news,” Scoops said, miming a large headline, “Tobey McCallister III discovers he is the same species as everyone else at his high school.”
“Well technically he and I aren’t the same species,” Becky muttered.
“But Tobey doesn’t know that,” Rose pointed out.
“I wonder if he’s in therapy,” Violet mused in her usual wispy voice. “Maybe his therapist is the one who gave him that list of things to do to win the heart of a girl who likes words.”
“Maybe, but—” Becky cut herself off, her head whipping towards Violet. “Wait, what did you say?!”
“Did I not tell you about the list?” Violet said, tilting her head. “Oh. I must have forgotten.”
“I want to hear about the list,” Rose said, not-so-subtly pulling out a pad of paper.
“Me too,” Scoops agreed, doing the same.
“Maybe don’t report about post-it notes I saw on Tobey’s desk in the school newspaper,” Violet said with a frown, waiting for their reporter friends to put away their notepads before continuing. “But I was doodling in my class notebook during history and I thought I saw him doing the same thing, so I looked over to see what he was drawing, and it was just a little list titled, How to Win the Heart of a Girl who Likes Words, and the list had things like, take her to a library, read books with her, take her to a museum, buy her ice cream, show occasional empathy (the ability to understand the feelings of others), talk about shared book interests, and a few other things I couldn’t make out on there.”
“That’s got to be because of his crush on WordGirl,” Rose guessed. “I mean, ‘girl who likes words?’ He couldn’t have made it more obvious.”
It was a reasonable conclusion, but… “He’s already done that stuff with WordGirl,” Becky mused under her breath. “I think that’s where he got the items on the list, actually. That’s all the stuff he did with me as WordGirl that made me almost enjoy talking to him.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Tobey bought you ice cream?” Scoops said, pulling out his pad of paper again.
“Twice. Well, once. The other time we bought them separately. And put that pen away!”
“And you went to a museum together?” Violet asked, tilting her head. “And a library? Since when were you going on all these dates with Tobey as WordGirl?”
“Yeah, how come we didn’t know about this?” Scoops asked, crossing his arms.
“They were not dates!” Becky sputtered. “They were just… generic social engagements.”
“Between you and a boy who has a crush on you,” Rose said with a smirk. “Hey, WordGirl, wanna define ‘date’?”
Becky groaned. “You guys are the worst! Look, most of this stuff is back from when we were in fifth grade, and most of it happened when we were supposed to be looking for Tobey’s robot remote back when he used to try to destroy the city periodically.”
“Periodically?” Violet asked, tilting her head. “Is that like, during school periods, or…?”
“Nice sounding-out, but no. Periodically is another way of saying regularly. When I say he used to try to destroy the city periodically, I mean he used to do it every now and then, sort of following a cycle of threatening the city, getting grounded, getting ungrounded, and doing it again,” Becky explained.
“And yet, come to think of it, he hasn’t tried anything like that in over a year,” Scoops said thoughtfully, “which actually might indicate he doesn’t have a crush on WordGirl anymore, since that was his main motivation. And I bet I can write about that in the school newspaper,” he added brightly, vigorously scribbling down notes.
“And now that he doesn’t like her anymore, he’s using his good moments with her as a blueprint for how to behave with a different girl he has a crush on,” Rose said, realization dawning on her face. She grinned wickedly. “Another girl who likes words. Or, as the four of us in this room know, literally just the same girl again.”
“Ew, no! Tobey does not have a crush on me,” Becky denied instinctually, not even bothering to think reasonably about whether Rose had a point.
“Based on what evidence?” Scoops asked, crossing his arms.
“Well, he doesn’t like me, for one. He’s always talking about how much dumber I am than him—”
“Except today,” Violet pointed out.
“Well yeah, but that’s only because he was following the instructions on that—”
“—piece of paper titled How to Win the Heart of a Girl Who Likes Words?” Scoops finished, raising an eyebrow.
Becky paused.
Oh.
“What?” Her brain was breaking. This could not be happening.
“It can’t be that much of a surprise,” Rose said. “I mean, he was always going on and on and on about how beautiful WordGirl was, and you have the same face in and out of costume, so sooner or later he was bound to realize he also thought you were beautiful.”
And when Tobey tried to use his robot game to prove she was WordGirl, before she’d managed to shake off that suspicion, he’d cited her “sparkling smile” and “ruby lips” as justifications. Which certainly made it sound like his infatuation with WordGirl’s appearance stuck around when she was Becky.
But… but… “But if he just stopped liking WordGirl, why would he set his sights on me? I mean… me as a civilian, that is.”
“I think I know what’s going on here,” Scoops said, crossing his arms. “It’s throwing you for a loop that someone would actively decide they like Becky more than WordGirl. Tell me I’m wrong.”
“That’s… not…” Actually, Scoops kind of had a point. “I mean, can you blame me? Pretty much everyone else seems to think WordGirl is way cooler than Becky. And I don’t blame them. Becky can’t fly. Theoretically, that is. And WordGirl is a superhero.”
“I don’t think WordGirl is cooler than Becky,” Violet piped up.
Maybe not, but when she was eleven, she’d thought the concepts of Becky and WordGirl were so irreconcilable that she didn’t know if she could even keep being friends with Becky knowing that she’d kept her identity secret.
“Maybe Tobey decided he thinks it’s cooler to be good with words because you read a lot than to have supernatural word powers,” Scoops remarked. Rose elbowed him. “Ow, what was that—? Oh. I mean, he probably thinks you’re… smart.”
“I do still have powers when I’m not in costume, Scoops,” Becky remarked wryly. “I don’t know. I still think it would be crazy for Tobey to stop liking WordGirl and start liking me. Becky, that is.” Having a secret identity was going to drive her insane one day.
“I don’t think it would be crazy,” Scoops said. “I mean, you’re smart and pretty. Seems like his type, based on our knowledge of his past crushes.”
“Should you be calling another girl smart and pretty in front of your girlfriend?” Rose asked dryly.
“He’s only stating the facts,” Violet said, unbothered. “She is smart and pretty. And also, she’s WordGirl. I think if we’re using his past crushes as an example of his type, Becky, you’re the most likely person at our high school for him to like. I mean, no one else is going to be able to fly, but other girls might have dark hair and an affinity for words and, in your case, actually be WordGirl.”
They all had really good points. Rationally, Becky knew they were probably right. But her brain still rejected it. “It doesn’t make sense.”
“Objectively, it does,” the narrator cut in.
They ignored him. “Okay, so Tobey has a… crush on me,” Becky forced herself to say.
“How is that hard to say?” Scoops asked obliviously, ignoring Rose this time when she elbowed him. “You’ve known he had a crush on you before.”
“Scoops, you are literally the one who figured out why it felt different for her to realize he had a crush on Becky than on WordGirl,” Rose hissed.
“Oh. Right.”
“If Tobey has a crush on me, what am I supposed to do about that?” Becky wondered.
“Get to know him and decide if you like him back?” Rose suggested. Becky balked at the concept, but she just shrugged. “What? You’re smart, he’s smart, you like nerdy stuff, he likes nerdy stuff… the worst thing about him before was that he self-identified as a city villain, but he doesn’t do any of that anymore, and the worst thing about him recently is his superiority complex, which he seems to actively be trying to drop when he’s around you. I mean, you have to respect the effort.”
“There is no chance I’d ever agree to date Tobey McCallister,” Becky said, crossing her arms.
“Careful what vows you make,” the narrator said knowingly.
Her eyes widened. “Wait, have you been reading ahead? Wait, what?!”
“You heard the narrator,” Scoops said triumphantly. “It happens! You go out with Tobey! Again, since apparently you went out with him in fifth grade too.”
“Those weren’t dates!” Becky insisted.
“I still don’t understand why I can’t hear this narrator guy you guys are always referencing,” Violet said with a frown.
“That’s because you can see something else that we can’t see,” Becky explained. “The fourth wall.”
“You definitely went on dates with Tobey back in fifth grade,” Scoops said. “You said so yourself.”
“That is definitely not what I said!”
“This isn’t going anywhere, so I’m going to change scenes for now,” the narrator said. “You kids keep arguing. The next day, during Fair City High School peer-tutoring sessions…”
—
Tobey was surprisingly bearable again.
And when he was being uncharacteristically bearable, Becky had to secretly admit that he was almost cute.
“I have to hand it to you, Becky,” Tobey said, “you’re not a terrible teacher. Definitely not as terrible as Mr. Bichler. This might be the best paragraph response I’ve ever written.”
“That almost sounded like a compliment,” Becky remarked.
“Perhaps it was meant to be.”
Interesting. “Well, since we’re being civil, thanks for the help with my physics homework,” Becky said. “I usually never get it done this quickly. It’ll be nice having this evening to myself.”
“Oh, you should not have said that,” the narrator said, a wince evident in his disembodied voice.
Right. Figured. Well, whatever villain decided to show up later and ruin her evening, at least they wouldn’t be interrupting her study time, and she’d be able to actually go to sleep when she got back, something she was recently severely lacking.
“Well, there’s only five minutes til the bell rings, but this has been very… productive, so…” Tobey coughed. “Would you want to maybe… continue studying after we aren’t technically required to by the school? Maybe at the public library? We could take a study break and read, or…”
That was actually probably the best possible way for someone to ask Becky out on a date, and Becky realized with a start that he was probably the only boy who would ever ask her out on that date.
So despite her resolution to under absolutely no circumstances give Tobey a chance, she found herself saying, “Sure. That sounds like it would be fun.” And surprisingly, it did. She was volunteering to spend more time with Tobey on purpose and it didn’t sound completely miserable.
She hated telling Scoops and Rose that they were right and she was wrong about something… so maybe she’d tell Violet instead and let her break the news.