UKUS: Last Chance C.3

Alfred slipped into the front seat, hitting the hard foam with a thump. Mr. Kirkland’s car was a black Kia Picanto, a rather small car that usually seated four and the back seats usually collapsed to make more trunk space. He glanced around at the interior and pushed his glasses up his nose, rather interested with how well done the design was. He was still examining every single detail when his teacher got behind the wheel and started the car.

“Like it?” he asked with a small smile adorning his lips. Al nodded vigorously, running his hand over the dashboard.

“I never would have thought a teacher would have a 2014 Kia Picanto!” he looked up and grinned, “This is the UK model! Did you have the steering wheel switched to the opposite side and shipped here? Or did you just go to an English car dealership? But seriously how much did you end up paying for this?!”

“£8,045,” Arthur said simply, chuckling at the teen’s enthusiasm. Alfred tilted his head to the side with an eyebrow raised.

“…pounds? OH!” he sat back in his seat, “That’s like British money, right? Well how much is that in US dollars?” He didn’t know the ratio and certainly wouldn’t be able to convert it in his head.

“Oh about $12,237, give or take a few cents,” the Brit shrugged, “When comparing pounds to American dollars you have a ratio of 1 pound to 1.52 dollars. So you wouldn’t just take the amount of pounds and multiply it by 1.52- ALFRED FOSTER JONES I AM SPEAKING TO YOU!”

The last part was from the Englishman seeing that his student had fallen asleep in the middle of this rather educational opportunity. Taking one hand off the steering wheel he slapped the American upside the head rather hard. “OW!!” Al whined, lifting his head and rubbing the now sore spot, “What the hell was that for you psycho?!”

“At least try to pay attention!” Mr. Kirkland hissed, glaring at the road, “I am trying to teach you something you’ll need to learn in your future! What if you want to go to England but you don’t know how much money will convert to your hotel bill in pounds?”

“Dude,” Alfred yawned and stretched his legs out, “I can just Google it! Not to mention when would I ever want to go to England? Or anywhere in the UK for that matter. It’s full of people who can’t cook besides Gordon Ramses, who now lives here anyway, rain, cold, proper English, Shakespeare and his stuff that literally makes no sense whatsoever, snobby rich people, really awesome accents sure but I can’t copy one if my life depended on it, strict teachers who will cane you for doing a problem wrong, and absolutely nothing interesting!”

Arthur rolled his eyes, “What am I going to do with this boy?” he thought to himself with a heavy sigh. But at the last sentence, a smirk appeared on his face. “Actually there are some attractions you would find interesting,” he looked over, “There’s a whole museum for J.R.R. Tolkien in London.”

That got the teen sitting straight up in his seat with eyes wide. “Seriously? A complete museum? All about J.R.R. Tolkien?! You’re messing with me, right?” he asked, a little suspicious, but the Brit shook his head.

“I’m telling the truth. Oxford has its own Tolkien tour as well. And if you really love his works so much, I think I know what we can do for your social study unit. Do you know where ‘The Lord of the Rings’ and ‘The Hobbit’ was filmed and technically casted?”

Immediately the American nodded. “Yeah! New Zealand! There’s the whole set where they filmed Hobbiton and you can stay there for a vacation and stuff! Sounds awesome doesn’t it?! Dude if I could go there…” he sighed dreamily, “I want to see it so bad!”

“Well you can do a project on New Zealand,” Mr. Kirkland glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, “It’ll be a research project. I’ll give you some freedom of how you want to do and such but we can discuss a grading rubric after the field trip. That sound okay?”

Alfred nodded again, beaming, but then his face twisted into confusion. “Wait…” he crossed his arms, “You’re just trying to distract me now, aren’t you?! You promised you would answer the questions dude, now talk.” Arthur groaned and tapped his forehead on the steering wheel before sitting up.

“Fine! Okay I’ll answer your stupid questions!” he grumbled something to himself that definitely wasn’t very gentleman like, “Now just give me your first question and I’ll try to answer it to the best of my abilities.”

“Why do you teach ‘troubled’ kids?”

“…” this made the Brit sigh and slump in his seat as he continued to drive, “I absolutely hate this question… but I guess I’ll tell you. I was in your position Mr. Jones. I couldn’t stand being in a classroom because it bored me. I would cause some sort of chaos just to get out of there. From my first year of middle school to my junior year of high school I had gone through twenty different schools. That was about three per year if you do the math. But then I ended up in the same spot, a classroom all alone with one last chance. My teacher, his name was Mr. Wang if you wanted to know, had told me that I had to pass his class. I was a little nervous, I really wanted to at least get to my last year of high school before being kicked out and disappointing everyone. But somehow… he managed to convince me to learn things that I already though I knew. He was cheeky, a smartass definitely, and talked to me like he was my mom, but he took the time to learn about me. Now that I think about it…” he gave a small smile, “He did look like a woman. He had this long hair always tied back into a ponytail and when he got mad his voice would rise by ten octaves.”

That made Alfred laugh, just thinking about it in his mind. An angry Chinese man yelling at the Brit in a nice suit yet had a ponytail. “So,” he crossed his arms, “You teach people like me because you were me. You know what it’s like to be stuck somewhere you can’t concentrate. You want to learn but the material just doesn’t click because it doesn’t interest you.”

With a smile, Mr. Kirkland nodded. “Yes. I ended up graduating a year early because of Mr. Wang. I want to give other students the chance I had. There aren’t many people like me willing to teach people that can seem like they don’t want to learn and can be proved as a hard student to work with. But unlike other people,” his eyes flashed with some sort of dark grin, “I enjoy a challenge once in a while. It makes things… interesting.”

The American stared at the Brit, eyes wide. There it was, the psycho side. Arthur was not a normal teacher. Yet… it didn’t scare him at all. He liked it. That may sound weird but this different side, it intrigued him. Most teachers were vague, nothing really interesting to them. Yet somehow he got paired up with probably one of the most interesting people he would have ever met. He really did love it so far, who knows what could pop out of that nutjob’s mouth?

“…well,” he started, choosing his words carefully, “I can understand wanting some sort of competition… it makes sense. Anyway, can I ask the next question?”

Mr. Kirkland seemed to snap out of his own little world and looked up. “Oh? Y-yeah! Go right ahead! Maybe this won’t be torture after all…” he added, mumbled more than anything else.

“What’s this?” he asked, holding up a CD. It was obviously punk music but the person on the cover resembled the teacher to close to be a coincidence. “Is this what you were before being a teacher?”

Looking over, Arthur’s eyes widened. “Put that back right this instance!” he yelled, “I don’t want you scratching the disk! That is a collector’s item you git! I SAID PUT IT DOWN NOT PLAY IT!” he screamed when Alfred took it out of the case and popped it into the player.

But it was too late now, the play button had been pressed. Suddenly the speakers blasted a rather terrifying mix of electric guitar, keyboard, and drums. Freaking out, the teacher reached over and turned down the volume in an attempt to mute it. Even so a voice came through the instrumental and Alfred’s jaw dropped, eyes widening. “Dude… that’s you?! You were like a legit punk rocker thingy?! You don’t sound too bad either!”

In haste Mr. Kirkland turned the speakers off, grumbling to himself. “I said not to play it… and yes I was… that’s all I shall say about it. Ask another question before I break your head into pieces for even touching that CD.”

“How sane are you exactly? Like on a scale on 10 being, ‘I’m the sanest person alive’ to 1 being, ‘they should have locked me up long ago’.” This was probably one of Al’s favorite questions, and he knew it would stir up some sort of argument. This guy had to be at least a 6. Or maybe 5. You could never really guess.

“Excuse me?” the Englishman snapped, glaring at him out of the corner of his eye, “I am not insane! How many times do I have to explain this to you?! I am a perfectly rational, well-rounded, normal human being! What ever gave you the idea that I was mentally disturbed in any way?!”

“Well you do have posters of British punk bands covering a wall,” Alfred stretched and put his hands back to rest his head on, “That isn’t the normal decor for a teacher. Not to mention I see you mumbling to yourself when you’re trying to find something. And I don’t mean normal muttering under your breath, I’m talking about full out arguing with something that isn’t there. No offense dude, but I think you need to get your grip back on reality.”

Oh the Englishman’s grip tightened alright, but on the steering wheel instead. His bangs now casted a dangerous shadow on his face, hiding his eyes for once. “We’re here,” he snapped, parking in the space closest to the doors. Alfred blinked a few times, confused what he had done to make his teacher so mad now. Was being insane really such a touchy subject? What was so wrong with asking simple questions? He was the one who promised to answer them! And now they were already at their destination and only three questions were answered. Great.

But without wanting to cause any more trouble, he got out of the car and shut the door with his foot. Arthur got out as well and locked the small vehicle before shoving the keys into the pocket of his grey slacks. “Follow me,” he directed, his voice back to it’s monotonous ringing, “I’ll tell you why we’re here when we get inside.”’

The American gave a small nod, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Um I’m sorry if I insulted you…” he rocked awkwardly on his heels, “I really didn’t mean to. I was just… not thinking.”

“Well no surprise there,” Mr. Kirkland smiled, showing he was joking, “And I guess it’s all fine. My mental status is a… touchy subject. You are not the first person who has questioned my sanity. I should be used to it but…” he sighed, “I can’t handle it sometimes. I have a different grasp of reality Mr. Um but that does not make me any less sane than you. Shall we go inside now?”

“Uh yeah!” he followed him tentatively, “…so where are we exactly?”

“This is just a little place two of my friends of mine runs,” the Brit pushed the door open, “So you better be respectful. I won’t hold either of them back from slapping you.” Alfred now looked a little nervous for once, staying behind his teacher in case this friend was going to jump out at him.

The inside was rather… weird to say the least. An indoor racetrack was in one corner, some sort of large metal box was in another, and a snack bar. Definitely not the set up he was expecting. He tilted his head to the side ever so slightly and was about to open his mouth to speak when two heads popped up from behind a counter.

“I told-a you to fix that-a bell you bastard!” the taller one snapped with a rather thick Italian accent. He had dark brown hair with an odd thin curl coming out on the right side of his head. Chestnut eyes glared at the other person next to him.

“I-a thought I did!” the smaller one whined, his accent evident but much more high-pitched, “Maybe-a you messed It up when you-a keep slamming it close-a!” He looked similar to the other but the curl was on the opposite side of his head, his hair was a redder shade of brown, and his complexion was much paler. Not to mention his eyes were closed so who knew what color were they.

“Oh now you’re-a trying to blame it all-a on me-?!”

“EXCUSE ME!” Mr. Kirkland yelled, making all three jump, including Alfred, “If you’re done sorting through your sexual tensions can I please talk with at least one of you before school ends?” The two blinked a few times before finally the small one jumped over the counter and hug attacked the Brit.

“Arthur~! It’s-a been a while!” he nuzzled the Englishman’s chest, “You-a promised to stop by two-a weeks ago!”

“Feliciano I have a big schedule!” he waited for the Italian to let go of him, “And I came today, didn’t I? That should be good enough for now. I could have forgotten about you entirely and then you would never ever know that I was even your friend anymore. Now wouldn’t that be even worse than me being only a measly two weeks late?”

At the very thought itself, Feliciano started to tear up. “Oh-a don’t do that! Please-a don’t do that! I-a am sorry for complaining-a! I just wanted you to come-a more often!” he glanced at the older Italian, “Right Lovino?!”

Lovino huffed and crossed his arms tight over his chest. “Si,” he mumbled, “Things-a do get rather bland without-a you coming by. We don’t-a hear about your stupid mistakes-a often enough.” That made Alfred snort in an attempt to stop himself from full-out laughing. The two turned towards him, as if just realizing he was even in the room.

“…you finally have a fidanzato?!” Feli squealed, clasping his hands together after clapping them a few times, “Congratulations-a Artie~! I never would have guessed-a you would have found-a someone! When are you going-a to ask-”

“Wait!” Alfred raised a hand, “What’s a fidanzato? Is it some sort of food? ‘Cause that’s what it sounds like.” Mr. Kirkland face was now bright red and he coughed into his fist awkwardly.

“Um… Alfred? I hate to break this to you but ah… a fidanzato is the Italian word for b-boyfriend… fiancé to be e-exact…” he scratched the back of his neck as his face turned from red to crimson, “He thinks that me and you are… you know… lovers… sexually active and such… understand now?” It took the American a few moments to finally connect the dots and when he did, his own face turned pink.

“Seriously dude?! No way! I’m just his student! You know… what’s the Italian word for student?”

“Studente…” his teacher mumbled into his ear.

“Yeah that! I’m a studente! No fidie whatever you were calling me! He’s just my teacher and he took me here on some weird fieldtrip thingy-” he turned towards the Brit, “Why are we here anyway?”

“You haven’t figured it out, have you?” he smirked evilly, “Well that just makes this more enjoyable. You see I am not going to let you continue on without a driver’s license. It’s a right of passage for any teen your age and I want you to have that chance. This isn’t a shop Alfred, this is a driver’s ed school. I will help you get your permit at least, I promise you that much. So, are you going to try Mr. Um?”

At the mention of that horrid name, Al groaned. But the wheels in his head turned, he would be able to actually drive. If he could get a car then he would be able to drive Matt to school!

“…deal.”

To Be Continued… Maybe…