No one cares || Dnf

9. Quiz

Nick POV

The next day Clay came to school and looked much better than the last few days. He came into the classroom, sat down and waved at me. I smiled when I saw that he had found a way to stop those bad feelings he had or whatever that exactly was.
But then George entered the room. He was on the way to his seat, but when he looked over at Clay, he stopped for a moment. They both looked each other in the eyes, but only a few seconds later Clay broke the eye contact first and looked down, then George continued walking and sat down.

After a while I saw George slightly turning around to Clay, but just a little bit, like turning to the side and his head looked back slightly more. He said something, but I couldn't understand it. Clay avoided eye contact and looked at random spots in the room and always back down on the table. Then he shook his head, made this angrily annoyed face and said something short. That's when George turned back.

"Alright class!", the teacher came into the room, "today we will play a little game."
A game?
"I will divide you into teams of three who will then compete against each other. It's a simple quiz on a subject that you should have learned last year." It was the subject of biology, so probably a biology subject. Then he pulled out a piece of paper where single words were written on. They could've been names, but I don't know.

"Team one Alyssa, Jacob and Emily. Come here." He pointed at the right corner of the table collection, probably to show where they should sit. The three walked over there and she continued calling names. My name was not among them, but I heard Will in one team and also Colin in another one. So, 2 of our friends were already taken to teams. I was just hoping to get into a team with Clay.
Then the teacher said: "Next team would be....Carson,....Clay and...." I was praying for my name to be called. "...George." Ouh.

I could see Clay was absolutely not okay with this decision. The teacher pointed over to a place in the room and Clay slowly stood up, followed by George. Then after 1 other team got called, he finally said my name. I got in a team with 2 persons that I didn't know, but that didn't really matter, because they were both very smart and good at biology. I wasn't. Swag.

George POV

I got in a team with Clay. I would have found it horrible in the past, but now I honestly had no problem with it at all. Everything has changed and I was glad that Clay had apparently started to get bored of bullying me. And also he was good at school, so it was actually quite convenient to be on a team with him. He, me and this guy named Carson that I didn't know sat down around 2 tables with 3 chairs and waited for all the teams to get called.

"Alright, I'm gonna ask you a question and then you can discuss the answer with your teammates", the teacher explained. I looked at Clay and Carson. Carson smiled at me exited and raised his thumb. Clay just kept avoiding me. I mean, I didn't have a problem with that. He stopped bullying me, that's everything I wanted. I still didn't know the reason for that, but I really did not care. He stopped, that's enough and I was thankful for it.

"First question!", the teacher yelled out of nowhere. "How many species of turtles are there?"
Turtles? I don't remember any shit of that subject.
"340", Clay leaned in and whispered.
"Oh, okay", I said surprised. Well, actually I wasn't surprised, but it came so unexpected.

The teacher gave us 30 seconds to discuss, well we were finished in 3 seconds, but...yeah. "Alright, what are your answers?" he went through each group and they were telling him what they thought. Some also said 340 but not much of them. I think the others just guessed.

When it was our turn, Carson told the teacher the "340" answer. In total 4 groups had 340 now. And it was right. We got one point.
"Next question", the teacher continued, "How does their sense of sight compare to ours?"
Clay leaned in again and wanted to say something, but got cut off by Carson. "They see worse, obviously!", he screamed way too loud. I think everyone in the room could hear that.
Clay grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him towards him.

"No idiot, that's wrong", he whispered angrily. " They can differentiate colors better than humans."
"Ouh...", Carson said. He sounded really afraid. I think Clay didn't want to scare him because he immediately let go of him, leaned back and said quietly "As with all reptiles, their eyes have four different color receptors. This enables them to perceive parts of the near infrared and ultraviolet radiation."
Ouh gosh, I didn't know that to some extent. How the fuck did he do that?!

And again, our answer was right, or rather Clay's answer.
"How big is the largest turtle in the world?" came next.
"The tortoise. With a shell length of up to 2.50 meters and a weight of 900 kilograms", Clay said. Carson and I looked at each other in astonish.
"How are you so smart?", Carson finally asked.
"I just pay attention in class and memorize as much as possible. We learned all that. It's not that difficult", he said.

He didn't clash with his knowledge. Clay wasn't arrogant or boastful because he was so smart. For him it was a matter of course. I don't think he really thought he was better than everyone else.
In any case, this is how the next 3 questions went. Clay would know the answer right away, whisper it to us and then tell the teacher. Carson and I didn't have to do anything. Let alone have we even known anything about it.

"How old can turtle get?", the teacher eventually asked.
I read this. I READ THIS! I knew this one!
"They can get 200 years old!", I immediately said. Clay looked at me expressionless.
"Yes, that's right George", he said, "However, the European tortoise can only live up to 70 years."
Then I looked pissed at him. I finally knew something, but of course he knew more and had to share this with us.

When the teacher went around and asked us for our answers, Clay wanted to answer for us again, but I cut him off and told the teacher the thing I knew about the 200 years and also added the fact about the Tortoise that Clay had mentioned. The teacher praised me for the correct answer, then said that the tortoise shouldn't have been necessary, but it gave us a plus point.

I was so happy that I was praised by a teacher and even got a plus point. With Clay's knowledge, but anyways.
But when I looked over to Clay, my heartbeat suddenly stopped. His eyebrows were raised and he had tilted his head a little to one side. Did I fuck up? Then he slowly nodded at me and looked back to the front. I had broken into a sweat while he was looking at me like that. Now I took a deep breath and made myself believe that Clay wasn't pissed off that I had said his answer.

"New topic", the teacher announced.

_______________________________________________

~1.271 words~