What followed was a series of emails starting with disbelief. Eventually, Father stepped in. He vouched for Sevs's reading ability. Still unable to convince him, Father invited Mr. Tart to their house to come to talk to Sevs. By this time, Mr. Tart was pretty convinced. It would be rather hair-brained to take a lie this far. Just in case, he called their bluff and stopped by one afternoon.

“Good afternoon, you must be Mr. Tart. Come in.” Father answered the door with a smile. There was an amused air that Father carried about him the entire time he interacted with the teacher via email. This carried over to the personal interaction Sevs noticed.

“Thank you for having me. I don’t make it a habit to make house calls for new students, but it seems there are some things I just need to see for myself.” Mr. Tart stepped inside and shook Father’s hand before waving a greeting to Sevs, who had just appeared at the top of the stairs above the entryway.

“No problem. None at all. Let's go and have a seat where we can talk.”

He, Sevs, and Father went and sat in their library. As he looked around, Mr. Tart saw several books on his list on the shelves.

Ever the polite guest, Mr. Tart had brought a box of bagels as a gift. As he handed Father the box, “I brought this for us.”

Father chuckled, “It is appreciated. I’ll grab some cream cheese spreads and maybe brew some tea. What would you like?”

They quickly had a proper tea party set up. As polite as Mr. Tart was, he was still ornery and quickly started grilling Sevs on the books on the list. He did not begin at the top of the list. Instead, Mr. Tart would pick a book randomly from the list and demand an answer to a question. The first question snapped towards Sevs like a whip, “How much gold did Tom Sawyer find?”

First, it was factual. Simple comprehension questions about the plot or a character. That quickly changed. As Sevs proved that he had actually read the books. He didn’t get every question right. There were things that he had forgotten or just misunderstood. As the questions became more complex, they started having debates about motivation. Sometime after, Mr. Tart seemed satisfied. He relaxed a bit, and Father joined in. A couple of hours of energetic discussion followed. The conversation between three people who loved classic literature clearly got Mr. Tart in a good mood. By the time Mr. Tart left, he was convinced and gave permission to report on the book Sevs wanted to. He shook hands again and wished them well.

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“I’m looking forward to having you in my class this year, Sevs. I expect good things from you.”

This was why when Sevs walked into the class, he was not intimidated by Mr. Tart sitting behind his desk and staring them all down. At the same time, he was slightly apprehensive because he had to turn in a couple essays. Sevs knew he would be held to a higher standard compared to the other students.

***

It wasn’t until lunch that Sevs saw Hank again. The first three classes had passed quickly, math and history were not nearly as interesting, but Sevs would be glad to get them out of the way. After buying lunch, Sevs found Hank sitting at the end of one of the lunch benches and joined him. It wasn’t long before they were joined by a third person. “Hey-ya nerds!”

Lily swung a leg over the bench and sat across from Sevs next to Hank. She had grown into a strikingly pretty young woman. Her long dark hair hung in braids a little past her shoulders. Only an inch taller than Hank but still a bit taller than most girls around. She was built like an athlete and looked like she could be playing any sport, which she could.

They all had tried many sports. Sometimes together and sometimes separate. Only one kept them coming back, and this was what had kept them all friends for the past several years. They had all met in a martial arts class; that had always been their connection. Eventually, they graduated from the kids' BJJ classes to mixed martial arts. Each one of them was in a different division. So they did not have to compete directly, which Sevs was immensely grateful for. They were each very competitive, and that caused enough problems just in practice. It was something that he had learned about himself. He had never thought about how much he cared about winning until spending so much time around Hank and Lily. They must be rubbing off on him.

Their obsession seemed like it made them a bit weird. Around school back before high school, Hank and Lily were not exactly outcasts, but they were on the fringes of the social web. Hank and Lily had gone to middle school together, and maybe half of the school had known them then. That had continued on to high school so far. This friend group didn’t relate perfectly well with all the others; they were a bit more nerdy and reclusive. So they didn’t fit in with the jocks from other sports. They didn’t belong on the other end of the spectrum either. Despite how odd they came across, they didn’t get into any of the trouble things like the anime club would. Mostly due to the fact no one wanted to mess with them.

This stemmed from the reputation that Hank and Lily had deployed. They were fast friends. Lots of rumors went around about them dating though nothing was confirmed. And no one ever bothered them about it. The collective student body remembered what had happened last year. The kids in the know must have passed that info around because it seemed the whole school was aware. With Sevs’s and Hank’s friendship, it seemed that the wariness from the other students extended to cover Sevs as well. For which Sevs was immensely grateful.

Things were still settling socially, and while Sevs was satisfied with their position, he hoped there might be something to do to open their little circle up to a few more people.