Reid Garwin

Pogue stared at the sheets of homework spread before him. Then looked, eyebrows up, at his younger friend. "Man. You totally suck at math."

"Mind your language, son." Richard's voice drifted in, making Reid snort quietly and Pogue scrunch up his face.

"Yes, dad." He lowered his voice. "It's not even that you don't get what has to be done, you know. You just... kinda don't manage to do the elementary stuff."

"Like adding and subtracting and multiplying...?"

"Yeah."

"Well, it's not my strongest thing! It's math!"

Pogue rolled his eyes, and Reid sighed. "Look... can you help? I mean, my chances on the test on Monday are--" lower voice, eyes towards the open door, "-- screwed up, but I could at least get the homework right? Please?"

The older boy sighed. At least this time Reid hadn't come asking for him to do his homework, just make sure it was correct. He'd done the work and everything.

"Fine. Now..."

***

Monday morning, first class, Reid was rubbing his eyes, not looking forward to the day, when Pogue passed him and dropped a package on the table before him. The younger boy frowned and shot his friend a look, but only got a smirk back.

Inside? Was a calculator wristwatch. Black. And a note, This should help with the arithmetic. Use it.

Reid actually turned back and glared, this was way too close to cheating for him to have thought of it.

On the other hand, years later he hadn't even considered the idea of replacing the watch with another.