Diary of a Jersey Misfit (Frerard)

Seven- Extra Help

"Frank, you are so fucking bad at French. Look." Clo bent over Frank's desk and took his pen. "Je m'appelle. We can separate the root words. Je, that's I. M, it's ma or mon, my, and appelle. Name. So what does it say?"

"I my name? Oh! My name?"

"Yes!" Clo handed him his pen back. "Good! Try saying it."

"Um, je m'appelle Frank."

"Your accent can use some work, but that's not something a teacher would be too concerned about. What about this?"

"Mon color prefer est..."

"Mon couleur préféré, and you don't pronounce the T in est. As a general rule, don't pronounce the last letter of a word. Unless it's feminine, then there will be an extra E and you pronounce it."

Frank stared up at her in confusion.

"Okay. You need to take a break. Just...watch some French TV shows or something. I'll make you a list." Clo flopped onto Frank's bed. "Italian is surprisingly easier than I thought."

"It's a romance language," Frank said, wheeling his chair over the end of his bed. "So it's kinda similar to French."

"So French should be easy for you, no?"

"Probably. But Italian is my first language, it's second nature to me. If I think about it too hard I can't speak it."

"English is your second language?"

"Mhm." Frank stretched. "Yours too, right?"

"No, actually, my second language is Spanish. Which I guess should be more reason for me to be good at Italian."

Frank shrugged. "How do you know Spanish? School?"

"My mom speaks it. She came from the Caribbean."

"Oh. Cool. How do you not get them confused? I can barely get English and Italian apart sometimes."

"Trust me, I do." Clo rolled over onto her stomach. "I once turned in an essay in Spanish by mistake. I did not pass."

Frank laughed.

They sat in silence, listening to music from somewhere down the hall, until Frank spoke again. "Hey Clo?"

"Mhm?"

"You said you were bi, right?"

She nodded.

"How come we never talked much about that?"

"About being bi? It's just not something I linger on. I...to be honest, I didn't even mean to tell you. I'm not out."

"Oh."

"My parents, specifically my dad, would definitely lose some reputation if the world found out I was bi."

"But it could also raise it. Let's say your parents accept you. If that news travels, the LGBT community could really help support and endorse...whatever it is you do."

"My father is a fashion designer."

"Exactly. You get what I mean?"

"I get it. I'll try to bring the subject up with them at some point."

"I'm proud of you." Frank smiled.

"No one has ever said that to me." Clo smiled back. "Thank you."

xXx

While he was ecstatic about sitting next to Gerard, Frank was not enjoying science class.

There was a dead frog on the tray in front of him.

"Here, you can record the data," Gerard said, passing Frank a sheet of paper. "I take it you don't want to do any of this."

"I'd rather die."

Gerard smiled and pulled the frog towards him, picking up the scalpel and adjusting the rubber gloves on his hands.

Frank gagged as he started dissecting the frog. He turned away. "Just tell me what you're doing. I can't look."

Gerard giggled. "First observation: the frog seemed to be healthy, probably died of old age. There's no obvious signs of pain."

Frank scribbled that down. "Fuck, there's a diagram."

"I'll do that part. Don't worry."

The science teacher was walking through the rows of tables slowly. She stopped at theirs. "Alright, boys? Frank, how come you aren't helping?"

"I firmly believe you don't want vomit in our frog," Frank replied, which made Gerard giggle. "I'm taking notes."

"Alright. Carry on."

xXx

The week wasn't even half over, and Frank was already over school. But he was looking forward to the weekend.

"What kind of stuff is there to do around here?" Frank asked after everyone had come back with lunch.

"There's a little town a few miles from here," Ray said. "We have to walk, but once they realized that they had a lot of opportunity for attention starved teenagers they started opening stuff up a lot. There's like, a restaurant or two, an ice cream place, I think there's a few stores..."

"It's fun," Ryan confirmed.

xXx

The months seemed to go by in a blur. Frank could hardly focus. He was failing most of his classes and trying to avoid Gerard, because he was usually being tailed by his brother now. Clo had given up trying to teach him French and was just doing his homework for him now. Ray was buried under piles of books whenever Frank saw him.

Frank snapped to when his math teacher slid his test in front of him. There was a big red F at the top. Right. She had asked him to stay after class.

"This is the third test you've failed in a row, Frank," she said. He couldn't remember her name. Maybe it started with a B? "What's going on? Something at home?"

Sure, his mom was starving to pay for his tuition. "Just...new school stress, I think. I'm not one of the rich people here."

His math teacher folded her hands in front of her. "How many maths classes have you failed in your high school career?"

"Um...all of them."

"All of them. You didn't pass a single one."

"No."

"Okay. I think it would be a good idea to set you up with someone in the tutoring program. It's peers helping peers, so you'll be helped by a fellow student."

Frank scowled. "No thanks."

"I don't know quite how things work in America, Frank, but if you fail a class here you get expelled."

"What the fuck?" Frank blurted out before he could stop himself. He covered his mouth. "That's unjust."

"I agree. But unfortunately, it's the way the curriculum works. So if you would like to continue to go to school and go to university, which opens lots of doors for you, you should be trying in your classes. All of your teachers met last night. You're failing every class except French, and the work you're turning in does not match the handwriting from your other work."

Frank sighed. "My friend Clo is doing my French. I didn't want to sign up for a language, but it was required, and I clicked the first one I saw."

"You can also be expelled for plagiarism. But...we also reviewed your record yesterday. Three schools in a year- that's pretty impressive, I must say. We're not going to tell administration because you need a second chance here. I'm going to set you up with the tutoring program. Tomorrow, I'll let you know who'll be helping you out, and you can start working on material with them after school. Does that sound good?"

"I guess," Frank mumbled. He sighed. "Thanks."

"Of course." She stood up and opened the door for Frank. "You're free."

Frank most certainly was not.