“Well, technically, one to every half a customer, as we’re working in pairs,” Mr. Vann mutters. “But as fractions won’t be covered until chapter nine…”
Chelsea hurries over to my desk. “I don’t know about you,” she whispers, “but I don’t think we should be starting a new unit right before Thanksgiving.”
“Probably not,” I say. I don’t really care, but I don’t feel much like talking.
“Also,” Chelsea continues, “you can’t define a word with its opposite. You can’t say that real numbers are not imaginary numbers. My mom is going to speak to Principal Mir. My mom’s on the school board, you know. She thinks Mr. Vann actually belongs in an alternative school, not Highbridge Middle.”
“Your mom must have a lot of time on her hands,” I say quietly. I don’t know if I want Chelsea to hear me or not, but she doesn’t seem to. She’s fishing around in her backpack for something.
Chelsea comes up for air and hands me a ruler. “You draw, Mika,” she says. “You’re the artist, after all.”
I spread the strip of paper out on my desk. The ends droop over the sides. I draw a dash in the middle and label it with a big, fat zero. Then I draw a silly face inside it. Chelsea smiles.
“But shouldn’t the zero be over here?” she asks, pointing to the left. “I mean, so we have somewhere to go.”
“We need to leave room for the negative numbers,” I say.
“Oh, right,” Chelsea says. “I guess I don’t like to be negative,” she adds with a little giggle.
“Think like a proton,” I can’t help joking.
* * *
—
On the way home from the bus, I open up my first trimester progress report.
It’s not like you get real grades on your progress report. Each teacher just writes a few sentences to let people know how you’re doing. Some teachers copy and paste the same thing for everybody. Like my language arts comment says: Fifth graders are reading dramas on the theme of early North American life. I’m pretty sure everybody got that one.
For art, it looks like Mrs. Poole copied and pasted: Work: Satisfactory. Effort: Satisfactory. But then she checked the box: Seems distracted at times. I feel a little prick at the back of my eyes. I’ve never gotten a negative comment in art before.
And negative is a bad thing, except, of course, with cancer. With cancer, negative is a good thing. Like when they looked at my mom’s tattooed lymph node more thoroughly, it would have been great if it was negative.
And positive is supposed to a good thing. Like a positive attitude, which my mom is always talking about. “Good energy is contagious” is her new go-to line on that topic. This weekend she scrubbed the house from top to bottom, and then she rearranged the furniture in the living room about twenty times before ending up with it the same way it’s always been.
I look back at my progress report. Mr. Vann has gone outside the lines of the math section. I read: Mika shows exceptional attention, effort, and participation in math. She carefully, thoughtfully, and creatively shares her thinking, using her talent in the visual arts to help communicate complex math concepts. Grade Five Pod Two Math Block C is lucky to have her.
I suddenly get this picture in my mind of a life-size number line that you could actually walk on. And I know that if I plotted Mrs. Poole’s negative comment to the left of zero, and Mr. Vann’s positive comment to the right of zero, Mr. Vann would be much further away, which is a good thing.
When I walk in the door, Mom is sitting at the kitchen table. She looks like she’s been waiting for me. I’m a little surprised that she remembered it was progress report day. But it’s the kind of thing she would have written on the calendar back at the beginning of the school year. She pulls out a chair for me to sit down next to her.
I hand her the envelope. She looks at it for a second, and then sets it down without even taking the progress report out. If I had to comment on her reading, I would also check: Seems distracted at times.
“So, Mika-Mouse,” Mom starts. I suddenly realize we’re not here to look over my progress report. We’re here for another big explanation.
“It looks like it’s going to take a little longer to deal with all this.” She pauses.
I really wish she would define longer. If the whole purpose of measurement is to get a handle on things, exactly how much time are we talking about?
“The good news is they only found a very small something,” she continues. “The next step is that they’ll need to remove a few more lymph nodes, just to make sure.”
Mom has laid out the plan, but I’m still confused. “I thought no news was good news,” I manage.
“Well, it seems there was a delay getting the lab results, what with Veterans Day being a holiday and all.” She says this as if it’s no big deal, like we’re talking about the mail coming late or something.
“Is Jeannie taking you?” I ask. I’m wondering if this appointment means more early-morning-home-alone time for me. Or if it’s an after-school thing, and it means more stuck-in-the-waiting-room-watching-ridiculous-game-shows time.
“Actually,” Mom says, “I’ll have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days. So Grandma Beau is coming. She was coming for Thanksgiving anyway, so…” Her voice trails off.
I get that weird feeling at the back of my neck again, like someone is squeezing it even though no one is. “So it’s an operation,” I say.
“Well, that’s one word for it,” Mom says.
Grandma Beau doesn’t stay overnight very often. First of all, she lives pretty close. Plus, the only place for her to sleep is the futon couch in Mom’s office. Our house is fine for the two of us, but it’s pretty small. “Buy the least expensive house in the nicest neighborhood in the best school district.” That’s one of Mom’s rules of advice for her clients.
Another rule is not to buy stuff that you don’t really need. Grandma Beau, on the other hand, spends a lot of time buying things at estate sales and then reselling them online. Whenever she comes over, she brings her “big box of treasures” for me to help her sort through. Mom calls it her “big box of other people’s garbage.” But I love looking through the jewelry and postcards and figurines. Last time, I found this tiny ceramic moose. It’s standing guard on my desk.
I hear a car pull up and look out the window. It’s Grandma Beau.
“She’s here now?” I say. I feel like I’m watching a movie where I’ve missed the first half hour and I have no idea what’s going on.
“Well, your dad made a few calls, and there happened to be a cancellation, and because it’s a holiday week, they didn’t want to get too far behind in the timeline,” Mom says. I understand all the words she’s saying, but the sentences make absolutely no sense.
Grandma Beau comes in the front door, carrying two suitcases. She drops the bigger one on the floor and hands the smaller one to my mom.
“Everybody needs a decent bag,” Grandma Beau says. Grandma Beau always seems to know when you need something that you don’t even know you need. “We’re just lucky they could squeeze you in tomorrow.”
We’d be even luckier if they didn’t have to squeeze her in at all, I think. But I don’t say it out loud. Instead, I ask, “Where’s your box of treasures?”
Grandma Beau just waves her hands around and shrugs her shoulders. Like maybe she forgot it, or maybe she decided not to bring it, or maybe treasures are for people who don’t have to be at the hospital the next day.
“Let me make sure I’ve got the plan,” Grandma Beau says as she sits down at the table with a sigh. “First, we drop you off.” She nods toward my mom. “We’ll get you settled. Then Mika and I will get some breakfast. At seven-forty, I drop Mika at school. Then I’ll come back to you.” She nods at Mom again. “At two-forty, I pick Mika up from school, and we’ll both come back. Do I have it?”
&nbs
p; Mom nods.
“Why can’t I just stay at the hospital with Grandma Beau?” I ask.
“Absolutely not,” Mom says. “It’s a school day.”
“But it’s the day before a vacation,” I say. “I mean, Dan P.’s already in Cleveland.”
Mom just looks at me confused and asks if I’ve done my homework.
Math Journal Entry #9
Think about some real numbers in real life.
Then express yourself in a mathematical expression!
I used to sing this song when I was little: What comes after one? Two comes after one. What comes after two? Three comes after two. What comes after three? You get the idea. Mom says I used to sing that song for hours.
I don’t know why I liked that song so much back then, but I know why I like it now. It tells you exactly what is coming down the line, and the next thing is always just another friendly, goofy-looking number.
That’s what the picture in my math journal is supposed to be, although I guess I forgot to explain it.
Mr. Vann stops for a long time to peek over my shoulder. I’m waiting for him to point out that my expression isn’t complete. It has numbers but no symbols, no operators.
Instead, he hands me a sticky note worth ten million bonus points.
According to my calculations, I now have 14,500,011 bonus points. Too bad they’re not real.
* * *
—
After Grandma Beau picks me up from school, according to Mom’s plan, we head back to the hospital.
“She’s in recovery and everything went very well,” Grandma Beau tells me. Then she turns her attention to the GPS to follow the directions.
As Grandma Beau drives, I start playing a game in my head. I make up new rules for the trip. Like, if I see at least three red cars before we get to the hospital, everything will be okay. Or if there are more than two dogs between here and the next red light, everything will be fine.
We end up in a different waiting room this time, but it has the same couches and the same stupid game show on the TV. Grandma Beau goes to the vending machines and brings back snacks Mom would never let me get. The colors seem too bright in the gray room—orange chips and red candy and purple soda.
After what feels like a very long stretch of elapsed time, a doctor-looking woman comes in to speak with Grandma Beau. They whisper in a corner. I see Grandma Beau nodding. Then she takes out a little notebook and starts writing things down.
“Well, it’s not the best news,” Grandma Beau says when she finally comes. “But it’s not the worst news. It’s kind of like the best-worst news, or maybe it’s the worst-best news.”
“I don’t get it,” I say.
“They found a tiny something in one node,” Grandma Beau reads from her notes. “And the doctor says that one is better than two. Two is better than three, and three is much better than four. More than four is…” Grandma Beau stops talking.
And once again, everything is completely mixed up. Usually you want bigger numbers, like when you’re a little kid and you can’t wait for your next birthday. When I turned ten last year, I thought double digits was such a big deal.
Or if you buy a lottery ticket, you want the prize to be really huge, with place values all the way to the millions. Not that Mom would ever let me buy a lottery ticket. “Don’t spend real money on unreal chances.” That’s another one of her rules.
But with cancer, big numbers are bad, even big numbers as small as four. There’s nothing in the hundreds place. Nothing in the tens place, even. But a four in the ones place is a big, bad number.
“I still don’t get it,” I say, more to myself than Grandma Beau.
“If they find something in four or more nodes”—Grandma Beau looks down at her little notebook—“it statistically increases the likelihood that the cancer has traveled elsewhere.”
And like we know, travel is not a good thing.
“No matter,” Grandma Beau says, closing her notebook. “We’ve only got the one to worry about.”
I don’t point out that this node is in addition to the sentinel node. To express it as a mathematical expression:
1 + 1 = 2.
But I guess two isn’t that bad. It’s not as bad as three, which isn’t as bad as four. It’s just not as good as one. And none of them are what I really wished for, which was just plain zero.
* * *
—
We spend Thanksgiving Day with my mom in the hospital. Mostly, we watch the parade on TV. Jeannie brings us fancy turkey sandwiches overflowing with avocado and sprouts and stuff.
Grandma Beau’s phone keeps dinging and pinging with different messages, probably about her latest round of treasures. At one point, her phone actually rings. She looks at the screen and hands it to me.
“Your father,” she says.
“Welcome to holidays in the hospital,” Dad says with a little chuckle. I don’t know if that’s supposed to be funny. It’s hard to hear him because of all the background noise. He’s obviously at work. “How are you, Mika?” he asks.
I want to say, “How do you think I am? It’s Thanksgiving and I’m sitting in a plastic chair eating stale potato chips.” But all I say is, “I’m okay.”
“How’s your mom?” he asks next.
I don’t really have an answer to that question, either. I assume he knows she’s in a hospital bed with her leg propped up and a bunch of tubes going everywhere.
“They say she can go home tomorrow,” I tell him.
“That’s fantastic,” Dad says way too enthusiastically. Then I hear some kind of intercom in the background. “Listen, Mika, sorry, but I’ve got to go. Happy Thanksgiving, honey.”
“Happy—” I start, but he’s already hung up.
* * *
—
When we get home on Friday, Grandma Beau sets Mom up on the couch with a blanket and a stack of pillows under her leg. I bring in my sleeping bag and put it on the floor in front of the TV. Grandma Beau pops some popcorn. It’s cozy.
We watch a movie about aliens who dress up like human teenagers so they can go to high school. They look normal, but they don’t know how to act, so they do ridiculous things, like eat the straws in the cafeteria. It’s a terrible movie. But at least nobody in it gets sick.
The weird thing is I keep forgetting why I’m sitting on the floor eating popcorn. It’s nice having Grandma Beau here and vegging out in front of the TV with no school and no homework. I keep thinking that we should do this for Thanksgiving every year. This should become our new tradition.
Then I turn around and see my mom on the couch and remember.
* * *
—
“Have we forgotten everything we learned before Turkey Day?” Mr. Vann asks on Monday. “Is all that tryptophan still making you sleepy? I ask you again, dear thinkers, what makes a number rational?”
Nobody knows the answer. Then suddenly, Mr. Vann seems to remember that we didn’t get to rational numbers before the break. “Oh, right,” he mumbles.
He writes on the board: Rational numbers are not irrational numbers.
Chelsea catches my eye and gives me a knowing look. Then she mouths, “You can’t define a word with its opposite.”
I’m waiting for Dan to come up with some joke about irrational numbers being totally nutso, but he’s absent again. At this rate, he’s probably going to miss the whole unit.
“The number three is a rational number,” Mr. Vann begins. “Sixty-seven thousandths is a rational number. Pi is not a rational number. The square root of ninety-nine is not a rational number. Have we got it?”
Chelsea raises her hand. “I’m confused,” she says.
I’m confused, too. Usually I don’t mind hanging in there and trying to figure out Mr. Vann’s riddles, but today, I’m tired. I j
ust want someone to give us the answer. I flip to the end of the textbook to see if there’s a glossary.
“Agreed.” Mr. Vann nods to Chelsea. But instead of explaining, he continues with his list of examples. “The square root of two is irrational. That’s not to say the square root of two is crazy.” Mr. Vann chuckles at his own joke. “But rather, the square root of two cannot be expressed as a ratio of two integers.”
“What’s an integer again?” a girl named Lola calls from the back.
“Hmm,” says Mr. Vann. “Probably should have led with that.”
“And what’s a square root?” Miles asks.
“Ratio?” Chelsea pleads.
“I see,” Mr. Vann says. “It seems that we are going about this all out of order. But as order of operations won’t be covered until chapter fourteen…”
Mr. Vann wanders around the room like he’s not sure what to do next. When he gets to my desk, he leans down and says, “Mika, might I borrow your most recent math journal creation? It’s your call. No pressure. Feel free to say no.”
“Um, sure,” I say.
I hand my math journal to Mr. Vann. He brings it up to the document projector and finds the right page. My dancing numbers pop up on the board in full color.
“Yay, Mika!” Chelsea whispers, and she does a few mini claps in front of her face.
“So cool,” Dee Dee says. She gives me a thumbs-up.
“These, dear thinkers, are our integers.” Mr. Vann points to each of the numbers in the line. “They are real, and they are rational.”
Then Mr. Vann points to the space between my dancing two and dancing three. “Everything between them is also real. But alas, not all of it can be rational.”
Math Journal Entry #10
Plot a number line,
So fabulous and fine,
Some rational, some real,
Solving for M Page 5