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A/N: New first chapter, with slightly different character interaction. My first attempt at doing single viewpoint first person. I'm still probably going to end up doing a little third person, but very very little. Wish me luck.
Thanks to my superb beta ski bird for helping me fix this up.
But here I am, in the library, attempting to teach my “second sister” how to solve word problems dealing with percentage proportions. She had apparently never heard of “Is over of equals percent over hundred”.
“We have 15 over 20 equals x over 100, right? Simplify 15/20 down to 3/4. Now what's 3/4 of 100?” I said, barely keeping from letting out a frustrated groan. I didn't even want to try to teach her the “correct way”, which was also the long, tedious way.
Tina answered, “75.” I mentally applauded her. It had taken her five minutes to understand that problem; I had the answer within thirty seconds of reading it.
“So your answer is 75, and you can write x equals 75 right under the proportion we set up.”
“Mr. Willows doesn't care about the work?”
My math teacher offered me 25 extra credit points if I could get Tina Mason's math average to an 85 by the end of the semester. Everybody knows I'd do anything for extra credit, although they do also say I don't need it. The only reason Tina even agreed to this is so she could stay captain of the basketball team.
“He doesn't say anything when I turn it in like this. On to the next problem.” This next problem asked for the volume of a sphere.
“Do you know the formula for these?” I asked.
“Volume equals πr2h...” she said, uncertain.
“No, Tina. Volume of a sphere equals 4πr3 / 3” My fingers slipped under the rectangular frames of my glasses to rub my eyes. It's not that Tina was bad at computation; it was that she couldn't remember formulas or comprehend word problems if her life depended on it.
“Corin, how do you remember all these?” she whined. I guessed it was a rhetorical question because she was too busy plugging in numbers on her Casio fx-300MS calculator to even listen to the answer I might have given.
My real sister, Victoria, was sitting with us. Victoria, my twin, decided to start on our English homework while waiting for Tina and me to finish our tutoring session.
“Corin, is this right?” she questioned, holding up one of those cursed diagrams for me to examine.
I looked at the sentence, dissecting and diagramming it in my mind, then at Victoria's paper. “It looks right to me, Vic.” Even though I hated analyzing stories and poems to find the symbolism in them, I could write satisfactory essays with proper grammar, so I did have a decent grade in English, and Victoria trusted me with grammar homework.
After Tina and I finished, she left with Victoria. I went to the soccer field, where the Ultimate Frisbee team practiced.
Today was one of those rare days the coach decided to make us scrimmage with a football, supposedly to help us adapt to different Frisbees in case we ever had to.
The coach numbered us off to pick teams. The other team threw off first, and I picked it up, throwing it to one of the jersey players, my team. He caught it and threw it to Miguel Martinez, my best friend. Miguel and I raced it up the field, running only a few feet ahead of each other. Our speed was unmatched on the team; after all, both of us were sprinters on the track team.
After tossing it to me, Miguel ran ahead into the end zone. I threw it straight into his hands, earning the first point of the game. Half of practice went like this, until Coach decided to put Miguel on the opposite team and add ten points to their score. My team won, but just barely.
I went into the locker room to change into clothes not drenched in sweat. I stuffed my clothes in my gym locker, picked up my backpack, and headed over to the door to wait for Miguel. Miguel was a brother to me as much as Tina was a sister.
Victoria and Tina opened the door as soon as they heard the garage door opening. My parents had given both Miguel and Tina the security code, seeing as they were at our house almost as much as we were. Tina lived in the house behind us while Miguel lived in the house next to us. Obviously, we had all been in the same school district since elementary.
Miguel bowed slightly before the girls and said one of his Casanova lines, this one tailored to the girls' love of Greek mythology. “I am flattered to be in the presence of women who must be related to Venus' daughter-in-law.” A small smile threatened to show up on his face, letting everybody know he was teasing.
Miguel and I finished up our English homework: sentence diagrams. I knew how to do them, but Miguel was faster. I swear he can just look at a sentence and tell you the function of each part. I reciprocated by helping Miguel with Chem homework, with which I was finished before he was even halfway done.
After dinner- rice, mashed potatoes and salad- Miguel and Tina left to go to their own homes.
Victoria took my sentence diagrams and checked hers against them. I asked her, “Why don't you just ask Miguel for his? Lord knows they're miles better than mine.”
She blushed and muttered incoherently. I shook my head, went to my bedroom, and dropped dead on my bed. Like Oscar Wilde said, girls needed to be loved and not understood.
