Here is another addition to the  Thursday_Prompt with the prompt this time being smart. When you read this, you may recognize some familiar faces, and it was nice bringing them back for another story. To those who read this, I hope you enjoy it, and if there's any feedback you have for me, let me know! Thank you.

Smart Water
By: Rando Shywoulfe

Miriam was nervous. In a couple of minutes, the cocker spaniel would be taking an important math test that was worth more than half of her grade. She’d been studying for the past week in preparation, but she was still nervous because math was her weakest subject. She flipped through her textbook, willing herself to absorb as much of the information on the pages as she could before the bell rang. Her tail twitched and her foot paw started tapping the floor in nervousness.

As she was studying, she heard someone sit down at the desk next to her. When she looked up, it took everything to stifle the groan that threatened to escape her muzzle. The opossum sitting there gave her a cocky smile as she turned her attention back to her textbook, hoping that would send him the message that she didn’t want to interact with him.

No such luck.

“I see you’re wasting your time burying your muzzle inside of that useless book.” He waved a clawed paw at her in an attempt to appear nonchalant.

She closed her book and turned to face him. “This coming from the guy who’s failed the last three quizzes we’ve had and is barely passing this class. I don’t have time to talk right now,” she held her textbook up, “as you can see.”

She tried to go back to her studying but he snatched her textbook out of her paws and tossed it to the farthest end of her desk. She was starting to get annoyed and was close to losing her cool. “What do you want, Calvin? As you can see, I’m trying to make sure I don’t fail this class, something you should focus on as well.”

The smile that formed on his muzzle told her she was gonna regret asking that. "Because I've got something that will make studying and books obsolete!"

"Oh yeah? What is it? Did you manage to build a time machine to go into the future and steal the answer key? Because I can't think of anything else that would be better than knowing the information.”

He looked around the almost full classroom, and, seeming satisfied that no one was paying attention to them, said in an almost whisper that she could still hear. “Since you’re so invested in your backwards ways, I’m gonna show you something that will make studying a thing of the past!”

“Oh, this oughta be interesting,” she thought as Brian grabbed his backpack, rummaging through the papers and trash that made up the inside of it. He soon found what he was looking for and pulled out a bottle containing some sort of liquid. She couldn’t smell its contents, but she didn’t like the look of it one bit.

“Calvin, I swear on everything in the universe, if there’s alcohol in that bottle, I will report you to the principal.”

Sighing, he regarded her with a look that said what she’d said was dumb. “This isn’t alcohol. This is Smart Water!”

Miriam had to rub her ears to make sure she’d heard that right. “I’m sorry, it’s what?”

He ignored the question and began his salesman pitch. “This water right here is one hundred percent guaranteed to increase your intelligence and make you smarter! Just drink one bottle, and presto! You’re smarter than you were before!”

He leaned back in his chair, waiting for her response, but she was still having a hard time figuring out what he was trying to show her. Seeing her confusion, he let out a loud sigh.”Alright, since you’re some sort of skeptic, I’m gonna be nice and give you a free sample. But when it works, just remember how right I was about it.”

Before she could protest, he tossed the bottle he'd been holding onto her desk, where it rolled until it hit her textbook. Knowing he wouldn’t leave her alone unless she tried it, she picked the bottle up. Before taking a swig of it though, she gave the bottle a closer look. It was a small plastic bottle, the kind you'd find storing those flavored waters. With the dark blue color of the bottle, she couldn't tell what color the liquid inside was, but it did appear lighter compared to the bottle. Twisting the cap off, she brought the bottle to her nose and sniffed. Aside from a faint sugar scent, it smelled like basic water. She looked up at Calvin who was eager for her to use it and from the way he was drumming his claws against his desk, she could tell he was getting impatient for her to try it.

She raised an eyebrow and put the bottle back on the table, making sure to put the cap back on. “Where’d you get this?”

He looked confused at the question but shrugged it off. “This elephant was selling them near the corner a couple of blocks away. He sold me five bottles for only five bucks. Could you believe it? I got this for such a steal!”

Yup, that explained a lot, she thought.

Before she could respond, the teacher walked into class and she turned her attention to the front. Out of the corner of her eye though, she saw Calvin grab the bottle of Smart Water off her desk and take a quick drink from it before twisting the cap back on and throwing it into his backpack. Putting it out of her mind, she focused on the teacher as he passed out their test. Taking a deep breath, she turned her eyes to the paper in front of her and concentrated on solving the equations.

**************

Days later, Miriam was sitting in class when the teacher announced he'd finished grading their tests and would be passing them back now. Terrified at what she’d see, it took all of her effort to not just run to the front of the room and snatch her test from the teacher’s paws. When he placed it on her desk, she grabbed it, and her eyes moved to the top of the page, where a red eighty-five sat. Sighing in relief, she dropped the paper back on the desk and took a moment to calm herself down.

A glance at Calvin told a different story. His face dropped and he appeared to check and double-check the score at the top. Not able to help herself, she turned towards him with a smug smirk. “Well well. From the look on your face, your Smart Water didn’t do the job. That was foolish of you to believe it would work. There was no way some sugar water was going to stimulate your brain cells that much. Nice job wasting your money.”

He turned towards her and she could see him replace the worried expression he'd had with his usual confident one. “Au contraire Miriam, it did work.” He then showed her his exam which had a sixty-four in the same bright red ink that marked her exam. Curious as to what he was getting at, she raised an eyebrow at him. As his tail swayed behind him, he took back his exam, a bright twinkle in his eyes.

“You see, if I hadn’t had that bit of Smart Water, I would’ve gotten a way worse score than this. Therefore I must not have had enough. If I had downed the whole bottle, I would've scored even higher!”

Flabbergasted at what he’d just said, she put her head in her paws in exasperation. She couldn't believe Calvin right now; but as she saw him drinking more of his Smart Water, she realized she could. She knew he would continue to believe it worked even if he'd gotten a negative percentage on the test. She guessed it was just his nature to believe in stuff like that. No Smart Water was required to know the smartest thing to do here was to just let it go. So she turned her focus back to the front and put Calvin out of her mind for the time being.