Randall explains.

You can become my math tutor!" Randall said in an excited voice. "You'd been talking about doing something to make some money. This way we'll have an excuse to hang together and you'll even get paid for it!"

"Huh?" you said, confused. "What do you mean? You're alot better in math than me." Randall was very smart but never particulary motivated, taking Honors/AP classes but not putting much effort in. You had to work alot harder to keep up with him. The thought of you tutoring Randall was almost funny.

"Silly," he said in an exasperated tone. "'Randall' was good in math but 'Teresa' isn't."

When you didn't immediately respond, he continued. "Look, Teresa is an okay student, mostly B's and some C's. Except in math. Looking at her report cards and homework, I see that she barely passed pre-Algebra in 8th grade and is really struggling now. Dad - that's her dad, I mean - bought some crappy math learning software for the computer but I'm betting it's not helped. So I tell them this week that I found a math tutor - you! And we can hang at school and you can come over here, or me there...."

"Whoah, slow down," you told him. "I get the idea. So you're going to fake being bad at math so that I can become your tutor?"

"Yep, that's it!" he chirped. "I mean, really, all her classes should be a breeze for me anyway, so I'll have to act dumber about most stuff. The hard part will be the social BS and cheerleading. But Mindy - one of 'my' friends - has already spent hours with me going over all that, so I'll get by."

"Uh, okay," you said, getting lost in his rapid-fire chatter. If you didn't know this was Randall, you'd swear you were in fact talking to a young teenage girl rather than your friend.

"Anyway, gotta go," he said, drawing to a close. "I hear the folks and don't want Mom and Dad asking who I'm on the phone with. See ya tomorrow!"

You stared at your phone after Randall hung up. You weren't sure about his plan - or his behavior, for that matter. But you hadn't thought of a better way for the two of you to maintain your relationship, so you might as well give his idea a try.