A Shade of Cool

XIV: The Boat

"Uh!" Noah exclaimed, throwing down his pen.

"Noah, you know this, come on," I sighed, "In what year was the beginning of the Berlin Invasion?" I held up my study cards high attempting to avoid showing any information to Noah, who had cheated the first few times. Tutoring Noah armstrong was like tell a child to play Sudoku, impossible. So far he had gotten next to every question wrong or muddled. Apparently Stalin 'did the thing with the spaceship' and Kennedy 'walked the moon and got shot because he knew about aliens'. It was torture.

Noah buried his face him his hands, thinking hard, "Uh... oh... um! 1948!" He bounced in his seat, beaming wildly as he looked at me for a reaction.

"Correcto!" I laughed, "Open."

He opened his mouth, leaning back and preparing for the Reese's Buttercup Bite. I took one from the packet it and aim before taking a chance and tossing it toward his mouth. He caught it in a second and gave me a thumbs up. "Oh god," I sighed, grinning, "It's just dawned on me that it's gonna take a lot more Bites to get up to do this. Noah, this is a forty-five year war. We still have to cover the Berlin Crisis, Nuclear War, Chernobyl-"

"Jacob, chill, okay?" He placed his hand on my shoulder, "We still got three months till this exam. I'll get it, okay?"

"I know, it's just irritating. I've never met someone so difficult to teach, how the hell do you get grades in class?" I asked.

"Good looks?" Noah shrugged, I broke a smile and shook my head as he pulled a seductive face, winking at me with a finger on his lips, "Sexy, no?"

"No," I snorted and tossed a Bite as his face, he caught it in his mouth and looked back a his notes, flicking through them idly as I helped myself to a bite, "You doing anything after school?" He asked me.

"No, why?" After Marissa departure, things were relatively quiet, however, let's just say Avery wasn't like Marissa. She didn't clean or cook. So instead she resorted to throwing money at me and hoping I'd feed myself, which I did. After living with a neat chaos, it was kind of nice to live in a messy chaos.

"Just wondering if we can continue this at this pond my parents used to take me to when I was little," Noah said, "It's quite scenic."

"Oh," I cocked a brow, "Is this a date?"

Noah pulled a face and bit the end of his pen, "Oh trust me, if it was a date, you'd know about it."

"Okay, well, I'd like that," I smiled, "Thank you."

"Aw, you blushing, Jacky?" Noah poked my side making me twist in my seat.

"Stop!" I laughed loudly getting a quick 'sh' from the old librarian, Ms Oakes, who peered over the shelves at us. We looked at each other and tried to suck in our laughter as we quickly gathered our things and headed out.

We caught the bus home, however it was only a short five minutes before we got off at a stop down a country lane, mud squishing under our feet as we clambered out. It was a stop just outside our town by the local farm and market, a place where only fishermen from the local dock went to buy their food or equipment. I remembered driving by here once when our grandfather stayed for a week. He was a keen fisher who had been fishing since he was a boy. A trait my father tried to carry down to me but me and salty water did not mix. Grimacing at the smell I turned to Noah.

"This is cute..." I gave him a quick look.

He nudged me and laughed, "This isn't it, trust me," He said and held out his hand to me, which I took cautiously. Our hands connected and I allowed him to take by across the tiny, rocky road. There was a tiny little walkway that trailed from the side of the road.