*****Author's Note: this is actually a chapter that my dughter thought up after the book was done and I was like, "OH man that would have been an awesome chapter!" She turned to me one night and said, "Wouldn't it be funny if they had to tutor Melissa?" And so that is this chapter. It's not that Melissa is particularly stupid, she just has her own idea of how things should be or how they are or how they happened. Also, I took particular liberty with Melissa's description of the World Wars for humorous purposes, please don't take offense**** 

“A’Cadia, Ziva, would you two come help me in the living room for a few minutes?”

Ziva and A’Cadia shot each other a look across the kitchen where they were fetching a tray full of snacks so they could go hide in Craig and Stone’s room. Since the two were off helping Death at one of his concerts, they were going to go play video games in the boy’s room all night.

Ziva gave Storm a wary look as she placed the bowl full of cheese she’d just sliced on the tray. “Uh, what do you need help with?”

“I just need you to move a few things around. It will only take a few minutes. Come along.” She turned and left the kitchen.

A’Cadia groaned, picked up the snack tray, and followed Storm. “We might as well get this over with. Let’s go.”

Ziva grumbled and followed after her. Storm stood just inside the door waiting on them with a wide smile that appeared completely fake to them both. She motioned them into the room. A’Cadia set the tray down on the coffee table. Ziva was about to ask her what was going on, when Logan entered the room, trailed by Skylar, Melissa, Angela, and Stevie.

“There, I found them Storm, what’s going on?” Logan asked her.

Storm sent them all a bright, fake smile as she backed slowly from the room. “Melissa is failing history. In the manila envelope on the coffee table are all of the worksheets that she’s neglected to complete for the year. Your job is to tutor her. As soon as she correctly completes those worksheets, you’ll be free to go!” As soon as she finished speaking, she stepped back and pulled the double pocket doors shut, locking them.

Ziva rushed forward and pounded on the doors. “Storm! Storm this isn’t fair! Let us out!”

“It’s quite fair, Ziva. You owe me for all of your less than exemplarily behavior so far this year. Now, get to work,” Storm called back through the doors before walking off.

Ziva pounded a fist against the door before turning and leaning her back against the door, sliding slowly to the carpet. “This sucks!”

Skylar gave them all a bright smile. “Well, we should just buckle down and get through this! I mean, the sooner we finish the worksheets the sooner we get out. Right?” She picked up the pile of worksheets with a smile and settled back on one of the couches.

Melissa flopped down on the floor flat on her back, arms spread wide, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’ wanna do class work! I hate school!”

A’Cadia rolled her eyes. “Well that much is obvious by your grades!”

“Everyone stop it! Let’s get to work!” Skylar eyed Melissa. “Where’s your history book?”

“Ummm, hold on I’ve got it right here.” Lincoln nosed it toward her and she held it up.

Skylar stared at the decimated book. All that was left was the cover, all the pages in between were missing. “Melissa, where is the rest of the book?”

Melissa held the book by the front and back covers and stared at it for a moment before looking back at Skylar. “You see … I needed the fiber content provided by the paper to make the spaghetti sauce and gelatin globs stick together or they wouldn’t adhere to the ceiling.”

“Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. What ceiling?” Ziva asked as she pulled herself up from the floor by the doors.

“I don’t feel as if it would be in my best interest to answer that question at the moment!” Melissa smiled up at her.

“Oh you had better answer it!”

“MELISSA!” Storm’s voice came through the doors.

“Never mind, I think my question was just answered,” Ziva muttered as she went to sit beside A’Cadia on one of the other couches.

“Yes Storm!” Melissa answered cheerily.

“What did you do to the ceiling in my office?”

“Not a thing! Why do you ask?”

“Because there are disgusting … things dripping from the ceiling!” she screamed through the still locked doors.

Skylar sighed and called out to Storm. “Storm, we’ll never get the history worksheets done if you interrupt us!”

Ziva wasn’t certain how to classify the sound Storm made. It was either a growl or the sound of Storm strangling a small furry animal. Either way it made her glad, she was on the opposite side of the door from Storm.

“Fine, but as soon as you’re done, send Melissa to my office.”

“Right! Well, you do have to let us out, so you can take her yourself!” Skylar told her.

“Right!” Storm sounded rather cheered by that thought.

Melissa had paled and now looked worried. Skylar was reading over the worksheets.

“Well let’s start with something easy. Okay Melissa? Who’s on the front of your history book?”

Next to her Lincoln sat up and made a small sound. “Shhh Lincoln I’m trying to concentrate!” He looked up at the ceiling and made a sound like “whooooof”!

Skylar looked horrified. “Melissa!”

“What? Lincoln what is your problem!” The dog dropped down to his belly and put his paws over his nose, whimpering. Melissa looked between the book cover and her dog. “OH! Lincoln!” Lincoln rolled over and huffed at her.

Skylar smiled. “Very good! Now, who was the sixteenth president of the United States?”

“I don’t know!” Melissa threw her arms in the air while Lincoln growled at her and walked off in a huff. “What’s his problem?”

A’Cadia snickered. “Oh I’m pretty sure I know.”

“Let’s try something a little simpler then, shall we? Who was the first president?” Skylar asked her.

Melissa jumped up and pointed excitedly at Skylar. “I know this one! I do! It’s um that guy!”

“Right that guy, good answer Melissa,” Ziva told her with a giggle.

“No, seriously I know this one! He was that guy, the one who chopped down the fruit tree! The one in the front of the boat, going across that river! You know all standing with the leg up and everything.” She struck a pose with one leg up, knee bent, and a hand on her hip. “OH I KNOW IT WAS CAPTAIN MORGAN!”

Skylar groaned and put a hand over her face. “NO! It President George Washington! Washington was the first president!Okay forget the presidents for a minute. How about wars, let’s do some wars. How many World Wars were there?”

“Pffft that’s easy! Everyone knows this! Seven!”

 A’Cadia burst out laughing, so hard that she slipped down off the couch nearly hitting her head on the coffee table.

“There’s only two Melissa,” Skylar informed her calmly, ignoring A’Cadia.

Melissa shook her head. “No. There’s seven!”

“No Melissa, I assure you that there are only two! Would you like to see the book?”

“I don’t give a crap about the book! The book is wrong! There’s seven World Wars!” From somewhere in the building came Storm’s voice screaming to Melissa that she owed a dollar for saying the word crap.

Skylar smoothed a hand over the pages of the history book. “Now Melissa, we need to go by what the history book says. And by what common sense and the general population knows to be true,” the last she muttered under breath.

“Well, everyone else is wrong and they’re morons! Okay listen up, while I educate you idiots!”

“Oh this should be highly educational,” Ziva said with a shake of her head. A’Cadia started laughing again.

“Right so the first World War was just us and those Nazi dudes. We kicked their butts. It wasn’t easy but once we discovered that Hitler’s power was in that little mustache of his it was easy to kick his heiny, all we had to do was sneak in one night and shave it off.”

A’Cadia was laughing so hard that she occasionally let out a snort and tears were streaming down her face. Ziva was trying hard to stifle her own laughter for the simple reason that she really wanted to hear this idiocy that Melissa had come up with to explain seven World Wars.

“Okay, number two, was us and those British dudes against the Chinese and the French. The French were easy to beat; I mean come on, the French, fight a war? All they did was get a catapult and fling croissants and pastries at us! The Chinese were a bit harder we had to agree to give up all manufacturing rights for at least a billion years.”

Skylar let out a groan and hit herself in the head with her history book. “Melissa! That isn’t what happened!”

“Shush Skylar I’m nowhere near done! Moving on to World War three, now this one was really short lived because it was us against Poland and we all know they couldn’t fight anyone. I mean their Navy consists of subs with screen doors! So we’ll skip number three and move right on to number four that was with Romania, smaller country but we had the Vampires to deal with and we all know they fight dirty!”

“Melissa, vampires aren’t real! This is so wrong!” Skylar groaned.

“Not anymore they don’t, we kicked their butts in World War four! We waited until daytime and then killed ’em all!” Okay Wolrd War five, that one lasted a while ’cause it was us and the Japanese they were really hard to beat and we ended up having to do some treaty thing. Six was another short one because we had to give the Japanese a beat down because someone decided to break the treaty.”

They paused a moment to wait while A’Cadia caught her breath before Melissa finished up with World War seven.

“Now seven was the most idiotic one of them all, it never should have happened! We fought Australia! I mean come on for what reason would we get into a war with those people? All they do is sit on the beach, surf, eat Vegemite sandwiches, and put shrimp on the barbie! It was the most ridiculous war ever! We beat them before we even landed on the beach!” When she said “barbie” she stretched it out so it sounded like baaaarb-ie.

“This entire thing is ridiculous! There were only two World Wars, Melissa! TWO! You are stupid!” Skylar screamed at her. Suddenly Skylar seemed to realize what it was she’d said, stopped, and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my God! I’m so sorry Melissa! I didn’t mean that!” She turned to Ziva and handed her the history book. “I’m going to go sit in the corner for a little bit, I think I need to give myself a time out!”

Ziva watched as Skylar scurried over to the corner of the room and sat facing the wall. “Rightie then, so Melissa what have you learned about the World Wars?”

Melissa glanced over to where Skylar sat in the far corner. “Don’t talk about them with Skylar?”

“Probably a good idea. How about that there were only two of them?”

“Nope, not giving ya that one.”

“Fine. Whatever. How about this picture. You know what this is?” Ziva held up a picture of the Confederate flag in the history book.

“Heck ya, that’s the cool flag!”

“Oh Lord!” She lowered the book. “Forget it. Who’s General Lee?”

Melissa pointed to one of the dogs. “Also a really cool car on the Dukes of Hazard!

 “No Melissa, not your dogs! Also, not a car! The actual person!”

Melissa scrunched up her face. “There’s an actual person called General Lee?”

“This is torture? Can someone just kill us it would be less painful!” A’Cadia complained.

“How exactly would that be accomplished?” Ziva arched an eyebrow at her.

“Well, at least you and Skylar could die. Lucky you.”

Stevie looked up from his iPad. “I can die too. So can Angela. But I’d like to live thanks for asking.” He went back to whatever it was he was doing on his iPad. Angela was too busy plotting out some sort of dance to pay attention to anything.

Melissa suddenly turned and looked at Logan where he was stretched out on the floor on the far side of the room near the fireplace, a pillow tucked beneath his head, and a red Solo cup near his elbow. “Hey Logan, you know this General Lee dude?”

“Not personally, no. He fought for the Confederate army. I fought for the Union army,” he replied, his eyes shut, arms folded over his chest. It was obvious he didn’t want to participate.

“Oh right, you fought in the Civilized war!” She turned to look back at Ziva. “That took place after all of those World Wars, so Logan wouldn’t know anything ’bout them.”

Ziva heard Skylar make a choking noise over in her timeout corner. “Actually, Melissa the World Wars took place after the Civil War. And I’m pretty sure Logan fought in both of them.”

“Nope, you’re wrong again, Ziva! Why is it I’m the only one who knows this stuff?”

“Says the one who is failing history,” A’Cadia muttered.

Melissa looked over at Logan. “Logan, didn’t the World Wars go before the Civilized War?”

“No they didn’t and it’s called the Civil War.”

“Jeez you fought in it and you don’t even know what it’s called!” she huffed out at him.

Ziva could see why even Skylar had lost her unflappable cool with Melissa. “Fine, forget the Civil War. Who’s Betsy Ross?”

Melissa went to point at her dog and Ziva sent her a look. Melissa seemed to get the idea. “I don’t know!”

Betsy Ross—the dog—lowered her chin and rubbed at her flag bandanna hopefully, before looking back at Melissa.

“She invented bandannas!” Melissa told Ziva.

“No, she didn’t. Try again,” Ziva told her. Betsy woofed and dropped down to the floor.

“Uh, she invented …” Melissa’s eyes glazed and she sat there staring.

“Forget it. How about John Wilkes Booth? No! Not the dog!”

“He invented the restaurant booth?”

A’Cadia groaned. “No. Melissa, how about this … what does John Wilkes Booth the dog spend his days doing? Hmm? Maybe that will help you figure out something about the real guy.”

“He slinks around a lot. And um, he likes to hide behind things and he’s always watching Lincoln and trying to sneak up on him like he wants to off him. OH MY GOD!” She turned to Booth the dog. “BAD DOGGIE! No trying to assassinate Lincoln!”

Ziva gave A’Cadia a high five. “Good job Melissa! Maybe this is how we need to do this. So then, what does Lee Harvey Oswald spend his day doing?”

Melissa scrunched up his nose for a minute before a knowing looking came over her features and she turned on Oswald. “BAD DOGGIE! You cannot assassinate Kennedy!” She looked back at Ziva with a frown. “Why didn’t anyone tell me these things?”

A’Cadia shrugged. “We thought you knew.”

She snorted. “Obviously not!”

“How about Meriwether Lewis and William Clark?”

Melissa burst out laughing, falling over onto her side as Lewis and Clark sat beside her staring down at her. She pointed up at Lewis. “Your first name is Meriwether? Isn’t that a girl’s name? Oh my God dude that is so funny!”

Lewis growled briefly before stalking away, followed by Clark. Melissa sat up and looked at Ziva. She shook her head at Melissa. “You insulted him.”

Melissa called after the two dogs. “I’m sorry! Please come back! Great now half the dogs are mad at me. This is all Storm’s fault!”

“No. It’s your fault because you know nothing about history.”

She glared at Ziva. “Do to!”

“Right Miss. Seven World Wars,” A’Cadia said with a snort.

Skylar came back over and sat down, taking the book back from Ziva. “Who’s Nixon, Melissa and if you point to your dog I’ll have A’Cadia skin you alive.”

“I seriously didn’t know the dogs were named after real people! How was I supposed to know?”

“Well, if you paid attention in class then you’d know!”

Melissa pouted. “I don’t know who Nixon is! Well other than a dog.” Nixon came over and lay next to her, setting his snout on her knee.

“Haven’t you ever heard of the Watergate scandal?” Skylar asked her.

“No, should I have? Did Lenny have something to do with it? Did he like let some water through some sort of gate and ruin something?” She tilted her head to the side and looked way to much like one of the dogs.

Skylar looked over at Ziva. “Do you think Storm would know if we did the worksheets for her?”

“Are you actually suggesting we cheat, Skylar?”

“I … no … maybe a little … ahhh no we shouldn’t! But she’s just not getting it! We’ll be in here for the rest of our lives and I can’t miss college!”

“No of course you can’t.” Ziva rolled her eyes and turned back to Melissa. “Hey where’d she go?”

“Eww, gross what is this stuff?” Melissa was staring down into the cup she’d picked up from beside Logan.

“Melissa! Put that down!” A’Cadia jumped up, went over, and snatched the cup away from her. She slapped her father on the shoulder. “Dad! Wake up will you! Melissa just drank your beer!”

“Why’d she do that?” He shoved himself up and propped his body up on one elbow, taking the cup back from A’Cadia.

“Because, like an idiot, you put it in a cup instead of leaving it in the bottle!”

“I don’t have any left. All I got is that little keg thing that you gave me.”

“Oh right the one we brought back from vacation.”

Melissa groaned, wrapped her arms around her middle, and fell onto her side. “I don’t feel so good!”

Logan stood and stretch. “Right. Time to end this little party; I don’t care if Storm wants us in here or not. I’m done with this.”

Skylar frowned at him. “But Storm said Melissa had to finish the worksheets!”

“I could care less, if the munchkin wants to fail her class that’s up to her.” He crossed to the door and slashed through the lock with his claws.

“Damn. Why didn’t I think of that?” A’Cadia said as they all made a run for it.

Melissa pushed through the crowd. “DIBS ON THE BATHROOM! I don’t know how you can drink that stuff Logan!” she yelled as she raced down the hallway.

“Glad that’s over!” Ziva said with a sigh of relief.

“You know Storm isn’t going to let her get away with not doing those worksheets,” Skylar reminded them.

“Not my problem.” A’Cadia strode off down the hall carrying the tray of snacks she and Ziva had put together earlier.

“Mine either.” Ziva took off after her.

Skylar was left standing there wondering if Stevie could find a way to input the information directly into Melissa’s brain. She let out a sigh and shook her head. That was only wishful thinking.