My First Tutoring

Maximilian's mom made him say yes. Well, I think she did anyway. Either that or he just said yes, because even I know his mother can't make him do anything. She has, from what I've seen, very rarely succeeded. His father isn't very successful at it either. No one can ever make Maximilian do anything unless he wants to.
There was this boy who used to be in our class but he got held back a year or something like that called Richie Matthews, and he got paired up with Maximilian for a science project. This was back when we had a really stupid teacher who used to choose our partners for group projects for us, because normally Maximilian just pairs up with whichever girls gives him the best deal. So Richie tried to get him actually to do some of the work on the project and Maximilian eventually got so pissed off with him asking all the time that he pushed him down the stairs and Richie had to go to hospital after that. So now no one ever tries to make Maximilian do anything.
Anyway, so he apparently said yes. I was really happy when Madame Devert emailed mom with the news. Her email said that he had said that he was 'really happy to do something helpful like this'. What he actually said was probably more along the lines of 'like, whatever'.
Maximilian was waiting for me in one of our classrooms after school. He looked somewhat pissed off at having to do this, but he generally looked pissed off at most things so it was normal.
"Ok, so, like, fill in these f*****g sheets and tell me when you're, like, done." Maximilian pushed a couple of leafs of paper towards me and returned to texting.
I looked over the sheets. There was nothing understandable on them. It was all in French, something about translating the sentences from French to English. "I don't understand anything..."
He groaned at me and took his feet down from the table. "Urgh, why the f**k not? It's, like, so, f*****g, like, easy. Look, this means, like, 'I don't like cauliflowers but my mom, like, makes them for dinner every, like, Tuesday'. It's, like, really easy to, like do. Why the f**k does everyone think it's so, like, hard?"
I wrote this down quickly on the line provided. "What about this next one?"
"Like, figure it out yourself. I have, like, more important things to, like, f*****g deal with." He called Howard over. "Like, help the b***h with, like, her French homework. She keeps, like, bugging me about it."
"Of course, Maximilian." Howard came over and sat on my other side. "OK, so it's actually very simple. All you have to do is figure what time words are being used. For example, 'chaque' is every, or each and 'toujours' is always. So here, where it says 'chaque vendredi je vais á le musée', you know 'chaque' is each and 'vendredi' is Friday. And you know basic verbs, so take a guess at what the sentence means."
"Um..." I stuttered. French was not my strong point. I was really bad at it, but Howard was actually quite helpful. "Each Friday I go to the...the...the what?"
Howard smiled at me. "The museum. It seems hard but if you think about it, a lot of the words are pretty similar to English."
"Oh, I see." I scribbled this onto the sheet as well. He gave me a thumbs up sign and grinned.
"You see, you're good at this! You just needed some practice. That's all. Do you need any more help?"
I shook my head. "No, thanks."
"OK. Maximilian, can I go?"
"Yeah, yeah, like, whatever. But, like, get me a coke first."
Howard nodded and ran off. He came back a couple of minutes later and gave both Maximilian and me a coke. Then he gave me another smile and left again.
I finished the sheet and handed it back to Maximilian. He took off his sunglasses and handed them to me for a moment so he could look over it. "Yeah, this is, like, fine. Whatever. And, like, stop wearing that, like, shirt. It looks, like, really f*****g weird on you. Like, don't wear it next time."
"OK." My heart skipped a beat. This was great. There was going to be a next time! We would be having more tutoring periods together! I grinned widely. Maximilian scowled at me. "Should I bring anything specific next time?"
"No. Just, like, f*****g come on time. You can come to, like, my place instead. Like, maybe the day after, like, tomorrow. Oh, and, like, Ella will probably be there, so, like, I don't know, either Fred or Howard or Leon will, like, help you cos, I'm gonna, like, be busy."
"Of course, Maximilian. See you tomorrow."
"Like, what are you still doing here?"
I left quickly. I was so happy. Clearly something was bound to happen soon, because Maximilian was noticing my existence for once. My heart was thudding so loudly I wondered if he could hear it from the other room.