Numbed! (3 page)

CHAPTER
1 ÷ 2 × 10

^“
W
ait!” I screamed as the door swung shut. I couldn't figure out what time we'd get out if we were in the room for hours, but I knew my mom would come looking for us way before then. And that would not be good.

I heard a loud clank, like a big bolt had just slid into place. “Hey, wait. Don't lock us in!” I grabbed the door handle and yanked at it.

The door was locked. A hum came from the walls. I felt air rushing back into my head. Glowing bits of light swirled around me. Was that my math skills returning?

“Okay, 2 + 2 = 4,” I whispered. Yeah, I could add.

There was a small screen in the center of the door, with a keypad below it. The screen flickered. Then a message appeared. A familiar voice read the message out loud. I wasn't happy when I realized that it sounded just like the robot.

“Add the numbers from 1 through 99. Enter the total. Hurry—you have two minutes.” The word
hurry
flashed a bunch of times, and then the whole message vanished. A countdown clock replaced it. The display showed 1:59.

Benedict reached for the keypad.

“What are you doing?” I asked. There was no way he already had the answer. If he was a math genius, he'd kept that information a total secret from me his whole life.

“Using the calculator.”

“That's not a calculator,” I said.

“Sure it is. It has keys for the numbers.”

“Yeah. And how are you going to add anything?”

“With …” Benedict didn't say another word. I guess he'd realized there was no plus sign or any other buttons for doing math. Beside the digits from 0 to 9, there was only one other key, with Enter on it.

The timer had counted down to 1:47. “Let's get to work,” I said.

“How?”

I grabbed a couple of pencils from the table and two sheets of paper. I realized, outside of this room, I wouldn't have even been able to figure out how much paper to grab.

“Let's just do what it says and add the numbers.” I started to write out the whole problem, “1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 5,” but I realized that would waste a lot of time. The display was now at 1:28.

“It's better to start with the higher numbers,” Benedict said. “What's 99 + 98? Are you sure that's not a calculator? It would really help to have one.”

I figured it would be easier to add the smaller numbers first. But either way, it still looked impossible to finish the problem before time ran out. The counter was down to 1:05. It didn't matter whether we added from 99 down to 1, or from 1 up to 99. There was no way I could do either of those things quickly enough to beat the timer.

“You start with 99. I'll start with 1,” Benedict said. “We can each do half. Hey—that's actually a good idea.”

“Wait!” As I thought about those two numbers— 1 and 99—I felt a jolt shoot from my brain through my body. I wasn't used to having ideas hit me so hard. Especially not ideas as awesome as this one.

“What?” Benedict asked.

“Just a second. Let me think.”
This might work.

“We're never going to get out of here,” Benedict said. He threw down his pencil. We're going to starve to death. And I don't see a bathroom. Do you see a bathroom? This room doesn't have a toilet!” He ran to the table, snatched up the pencil cup, and dumped out all the pencils. “Mine!”

I ignored him and wrote, “99, 98, 97, 96, 95” on the paper. Under that, I wrote, “1, 2, 3, 4, 5” so the large and small numbers lined up in pairs. I held the paper up for Benedict to see.

“Look.” The pattern jumped right off the page. I felt a chill run through me as I realized my idea would really work.

“Look at what?”

“We can take pairs and add them. See, 99 + 1 = 100. So does 98 + 2. And 97 + 3. Get it? That makes it a lot easier. Every pair adds up to 100. Hundreds are easy to work with. How many pairs are there?”

“Why are you asking me?” Benedict said.

“Good point.” I thought about it for a second, which was about all the time I could spare. The numbers from 1 through 49 matched up with the numbers from 99 down to 51. So there were 49 pairs. If the pairs added up to 100 each of those 49 times, that made a total of 4,900. I realized I also had to add in the 50, which didn't get paired.

As I rushed over to the keypad, I saw that the timer was down to 0:05. In five seconds, we'd be trapped.

“It's 4,950!” I shouted as I punched in the digits.

“You sure?” Benedict asked.

“No.” I pressed Enter.

The lock clicked and whirled. The bolt slid free, and the knob turned.

“I changed my mind,” I said as the door swung open. “I'm sure.”

Dr. Thagoras was waiting for us on the other side. “Let's see, 9 + 3?” he asked.

“That's 12,” I said.

“And 7 – 2?” he asked Benedict.

“It's 3,” Benedict said.

“Whoa!” I shouted. “Did you say ‘3'?”

“Just kidding,” Benedict said. “It's 5.”

I looked at my watch. Altogether, we'd only been in the museum about ten minutes. It was nice to be able to add again. “We'd better get going.” I didn't want to keep my mom waiting.

Benedict and I raced down the hallway. Behind us, Dr. Thagoras called, “Wait a minute. I just realized something.”

“I'm sure it's not important,” I told Benedict as we headed up the stairs.

It's amazing how often I'm wrong.

CHAPTER
1 × 2 × 3

^“
F
eeling better?” Mom asked when Benedict and I got back to the car.

“Absolutely,” Benedict said.

I held my watch in front of Benedict's face. “Hey, if it takes fifteen minutes to reach your house, what time will we drop you off?”

He gave me the right answer and said, “I wonder how many telephone poles we'll pass on the way. Let's count them. One, two, three …”

I counted along. We got up to 92 when we reached his place. Before he stepped out of the car, he said, “If you bring 12 toy soldiers to school tomorrow, and I bring 15—”

“We'll have 27,” I said.

Mom gave me a strange look. “You shouldn't bring toys to school.”

“We're not. We're just practicing for our math test.” Actually, I was enjoying the ability to do math. When we got home, I thought about studying for the test, but I figured the matheteria had pumped me so full of fresh math skills that I really didn't need to do any more studying. So I went over my social studies lesson instead since I sometimes have a hard time remembering all those facts and dates.

A while later, I heard Dad come home. Then Mom called me for dinner. My nose told me the good news even before I joined my parents and my little sister, Kaylee, at the table. It was takeout night. Dad had picked up chicken wings from Wingy Dingy. As it said on the side of the bucket, this was the
30-piece family pack!

Dad took the tongs, grabbed a wing, and dropped it on his plate. Then he gave one wing to Mom.

That leaves 28
, I thought. I was having fun doing math.

“Now we can divide the rest evenly.” Dad handed me the tongs. “I heard you didn't keep your mother waiting at the mall. Good for you. You can take your share first, Logan.”

I reached toward the wings. Then I froze.

“Go ahead, Logan,” Mom said.

“Sure …” I stared at the bucket. There were 28 wings. I knew that. And there were 4 people at the table. But I had no idea what my share was. I could add and subtract without trouble. If I took a wing, there'd be 27 left in the bucket. If I took 5 wings, there'd be 23. If Mom put hers back with the 28, there'd be 29. But I didn't see how adding and subtracting could help me figure out my share.

“Is there a problem?” Mom asked.

As one part of my brain was telling me I should pretend there was an emergency and make a sudden dash to the bathroom, another part was actually thinking about math. I realized subtraction could actually help me, as long as I got everyone to play along. “We should take turns. That's fairer.” I plucked one wing from the bucket and then passed the tongs to Kaylee.

“Yea!” Kaylee said as she grabbed a wing. “This will be fun.”

We went around the table, taking one wing at a time, until they were all gone. I counted the wings on my plate. I had seven of them. So that was my fair share out of twenty-eight pieces. But I had no idea why. Even worse, I didn't know why I didn't know why, if that makes any sense.

I ate the wings, along with the green beans, mashed potatoes, and salad. Nothing tasted very good. All the food seemed to sit in my stomach like pieces of brick.

As soon as we finished dinner, I ran for the phone and called Benedict.

“We still have a problem,” I said.

“I know. I was trying to study math so I won't wreck the ice cream party. All that multiplying and dividing stuff doesn't make any sense. I really don't understand how fractions work either.”

“I'll bet we're still part numbed.” I thought back to the matheteria. “There was a door on each side of the room. Remember? We went into the Give and Take Room. I guess it was just for addition and subtraction. The other room must be for multiplication and division.”

“We have to go back,” Benedict said.

“They're closed. We'll have to wait until tomorrow.”

“School isn't going to be fun,” he said.

“I have a terrible feeling you're right.”

After I hung up the phone, I took out my math book to see for myself how bad it was. Just like Benedict, all I knew how to do was add and subtract. If I had to take my share of anything tomorrow or figure out a fraction, I'd be in big trouble.

CHAPTER
(18 ÷ 3) + 1

T
he next morning, even before I reached the kitchen, I could tell by the clangs and clatters that Dad was whipping up a batch of pancakes. When I got there, he was beating some eggs in a metal bowl. “Hey, just in time to give me a hand.” He nodded his head toward an empty measuring cup on the counter. “Pour 8 ounces of milk in there for me. Okay?”

“Sure.” I felt a jolt of panic as I grabbed the milk from the fridge. But when I looked at the measuring cup, I realized I didn't need math for this. I just had to fill the cup up to the number 8. The cup could just as easily have been marked with letters of the alphabet or pictures of fruit.

“Great. Thanks,” Dad said.

As I started to walk away, he added, “Now pour half of it into the mixing bowl.”

Half?
I came back and stared at the cup.
What's half of 8?
I had no idea. My only hope was to knock over the cup when I reached for it. That would make a mess, but it would also help keep my secret.

“Hurry up, I need 4 ounces,” Dad said.

I felt the tension run out of my body like spilled milk. I knew 8 – 4 = 4. I'm sure Cypher would have something clever to say about the two fours. I didn't. I poured the milk and scurried upstairs. I figured I'd stay out of sight until it was time to eat. And then I'd keep my mouth stuffed as much as I could, so I wouldn't have to answer any questions.

“Is this enough?”

I turned and saw Kaylee holding out a handful of pennies and nickels. I didn't tense up at the question—I could count the coins. That was no problem now.

“Enough for what?” I asked.

“For six pencils at the school store,” she said. “That's how many colors they have. Six. They cost 12 cents each.”

Oh, no …
The panic started to come back. I couldn't tell my little sister I didn't know the answer.
Think!
One pencil costs 12 cents. She wants six pencils.

“Do you really need more than one?” As I asked her that, I realized I didn't need to multiply. Just like I'd managed to divide the wings by subtracting over and over, I could add the cost of one pencil at a time, until I'd counted up the price of six of them.

“You can count to six, right?” I asked Kaylee.

“I can count to nine million zillion,” she said.

“Great. I'll count the money for each pencil,” I told her. “You count how many pencils.”

That's how we figured it out. One pencil cost 12 cents. The second one added another 12 cents. That was 24. The third added 12, again, making 36.

“You need 72 cents,” I told her. “And you have 85 cents. So do you have enough?” I knew the answer, but I thought it would be good for her to think about that part.

“Yeah! Thank you, Logan. You're so smart.”

Wow—adding was like multiplying, except a whole lot slower. That was sort of like what Dr. Thagoras had told us—you could write any number just using slashes, or zeroes and ones, but it would be a lot longer.

I got through breakfast without any more math problems and then grabbed my backpack and headed for school. Benedict met up with me on the way.

“Last night was terrible,” he said. “Who knew you needed so much math to play video games? Then I tried to play Scrabble with my dad. I was doing great until I played on a triple-word-score square.”

“Class is going to be terrible if Ms. Fractalli wants us to work on multiplication,” I said.

“We don't have math until the end of the day,” Benedict said. “I've got it all figured out. You'll have to break your leg right before then. But at least you won't miss lunch. I'll help you to the nurse's office. And then we can go to the museum right after school.”

“On my broken leg?” I asked. “Are you planning to carry me?”

“Good point,” Benedict said. “Make it an arm.”

“I'm not breaking an arm or a leg,” I said.

“Finger?” he asked.

“No way.”

“Fingernail?”

“No! Stop it. I'm not breaking anything. We'll get through this, somehow. It's not like you've never been in trouble. Come on, I want to get to class before Ms. Fractalli does.”

I had a reason for that. When I reached my desk, I sat down and watched Ms. Fractalli come in. After she put her purse in the locker, she started to put her key on her desk, but then she went to the whiteboard and picked up a marker. She left the key on the tray. After she wrote a reminder about the test, she put the marker down right on top of the key. That was good. The more times I found her key for her, the better chance I had she'd take it easy on me if I ever got into big trouble.

Benedict was right that we didn't have our math lesson until the end of the day. But we were both wrong if we thought there'd be no math until then. I never realized how much math we did in school. Here are just some of the things we had to figure out
before
it was time for our actual math lesson:

In social studies, we had to figure out how many weeks Columbus's first voyage lasted. Luckily, I could do that.

For our science lesson, we watched a film about how they calculate the number of calories in different foods. It involved a lot of multiplying and dividing. Luckily, we didn't have to do the math ourselves.

We practiced the long jump in gym class. Each of us jumped three times. Our teacher, Mr. James, told us the average length of our jumps. Luckily, he did the math.

For lunch, they had tacos in the cafeteria. I wanted to buy three. Luckily, I'd already learned I could add things instead of multiplying. Even more luckily, I didn't want twenty.

In art, we had to divide a circle into eight equal sections before we colored it. Luckily, I was able to watch the other kids at my table and do what they did, even though I didn't understand how I ended up with the right number of sections.

In music, we learned about 3/4 time. Luckily, Ms. Fourier likes to talk so much that she didn't have us do anything. Even so, my head was starting to hurt.

And then, unluckily, it was time for math. Ms. Fractalli grabbed a marker—but not the one that hid her key—and wrote a multiplication problem on the board: 127 × 12 = ?

“All right, class, who wants to solve the problem?”

Hands shot up around me so fast that I figured it had to be an easy problem. But all I could do was stare at the numbers. If I had to, I could add 127 to itself until I had 12 of them. But there's no way I could do that in front of the class. I looked around the room. Only two hands weren't up and waving—mine and Benedict's.

Maybe it was better to lose myself in a sea of raised hands than stand out as someone who didn't want to go to the board. I lifted my hand but made sure not to wave it around.

Ms. Fractalli looked at me.
Pick someone else,
I thought.
Please pick someone else.

She looked past me. I relaxed. She spoke. “Benedict.”

“Me?” he wailed from his seat two rows behind me.

“You.” She held out the marker.

He shot me a terrified look as he walked up the aisle. It was bad enough he couldn't do the problem. It was terrible he'd fail in front of the whole class. He'd be reminded of it for the rest of the year.

Benedict was almost next to me now. He'd done something amazingly brave last year to save me from a dreadful punishment. It was my turn to save him. I could only think of one thing to do. It was risky, and it would definitely get me in trouble. But he was my best friend. There was no question in my mind. I'd do it.

I let out a loud yawn, stretched my shoulders back, and stuck my foot out as he went past.