One On One

by Don Aker

  “Not me,” Lisa said. “He means you.”

  Jared’s mouth opened, closed, then opened again. “Me?” he finally managed to ask.

  Mr. Keaton wore a smile similar to the one Jared had seen on Steve’s face earlier that morning. “Yes, Jared. You.” He held up Jared’s quiz. “The only mistake you made was forgetting to write your final answer in a sentence. Everything else was correct.”

  His face burning, Jared pulled himself to his feet and walked the few steps to the teacher’s desk. He took his paper and stared at it for a moment in disbelief.

  The teacher patted him on the back. “Fantastic work, Jared. Keep it up, okay?”

  Someone in the class said “Go, Jared!” and a couple of other students whistled raucously. Jared looked up to see broad smiles on almost everyone’s faces, including Ellie’s.

  Only three people weren’t smiling.

  Kyle Wethers and Pete Johnson.

  And Rafe Wells.

  “This is terrific!” Steve exclaimed as he looked at Jared’s quiz. The two boys were sitting in the school cafeteria, their chicken casserole untouched in the face of Jared’s staggering accomplishment. “And second highest, too! Your mom is gonna freak.”

  Jared grinned. “I know. I can’t wait to see her face when I show it to her.”

  “But what’s best,” said Steve, “is the pressure’s off. No more worryin’ about Keaton’s academic probation. You’re a Cougar for keeps!”

  “Looks like it, don’t it?” Jared agreed. “Mr. Keaton said this quiz will really help bring up my math mark, and just in time, with report cards coming out soon.” He took the paper from his friend, folded it neatly, and slid it into his back pocket. “C’mon, let’s go shoot some hoops. I’m too excited to eat.”

  Steve pushed his tray back and got up. “Just as well,” he said, shaking his head at the food on his plate. “The Chicken Supreme has definitely seen better days. Like last Tuesday, maybe?”

  Jared chuckled. The two friends picked up their trays and made their way toward the large aluminum rack on the other side of the cafeteria. After sorting their recy-clables and depositing their trays, they headed down the hallway toward the basketball courts.

  “Of course,” Steve said as they pushed through the double doors into the bright sunshine, “every silver lining has a cloud.”

  Jared scanned the courts to see which of the two games in progress they could join. “Whaddya mean?” he asked.

  Steve looked at him. “Don’t you remember?”

  “Remember what?”

  “You said that once you found out you didn’t make the team, you could quit the tutoring.”

  Jared stopped short.

  Steve was obviously enjoying the moment. “And since you did make the team, it kinda looks like you and Ellie Brejovic will be spendin’ a lot ‘a time together.”

  Groaning, Jared shook his head.

  “Just think,” Steve teased. “This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.” He stretched out the word “beautiful,” emphasizing each syllable.

  Jared groaned again. Getting picked for the Cougars and scoring second highest on a math quiz suddenly didn’t seem quite so terrific after all.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Well, if it isn’t the conquering hero!” Jared’s mother exclaimed as she met him at the door and wrapped her arms around him. In the kitchen behind her, Cal barked as if he understood exactly what all the commotion was about.

  “Aw, Mom!” Jared peeled his mother off him and shot a worried glance toward the unfamiliar car in the driveway. He hadn’t noticed anyone inside when he’d run past it, anxious to share his news with his mother, but maybe he hadn’t looked closely enough.

  But his mother was determined. She hugged him again and pulled him into the kitchen, showering him with kisses. Even Cal got a few slobbery licks in when his mom finally pulled away.

  Jared was mystified. “How’d you find out?”

  “I told her.”

  Jared turned to see Mr. Keaton standing in the doorway to the living room. He was holding a steaming mug of coffee and, somehow, he looked different than he usually did. It took Jared a moment to realize the teacher’s tie was missing. On anyone else, the difference wouldn’t have been noticeable, but on Mr. Keaton, who always wore perfectly coordinating tie, dress shirt, and slacks, it was almost like catching the man in his pyjamas. Jared gaped at him.

  “Sorry, Jared,” the teacher said. “I was so pleased with your performance on the quiz that I wanted to tell your mother in person.” He noticed Jared looking at the coffee mug in his hand and flushed. “Ah…your mother…she offered…”

  Jared’s mother ushered them both into the living room. “Please, Mr. Keaton—”

  “Call me Ron,” the teacher said, and Jared saw him flush again. Ron? This was just too weird.

  “Please,” Jared’s mother continued, and this time Jared saw her face grow pink, “sit down.” Turning to Jared, she said, “Where is it?”

  “Where’s what?” Jared felt as if he’d suddenly stepped into a bizarre parallel universe—although all the faces were the same, the people wearing them were somehow different, somehow not the same people he’d seen earlier that day. Mr. Keaton in their living room? Without a tie? Drinking coffee?

  “The quiz!” said his mother, settling herself on the sofa, across from the armchair where the teacher sat. She still wore her nurse’s uniform, so Jared knew she hadn’t been home long. Mr. Keaton—Jared couldn’t possibly think of him as Ron—must have been waiting for her in the driveway. “I’d like to see it.”

  Jared reached into his pocket and pulled out the carefully folded paper, smoothed it out, and passed it to his mother.

  She looked at it, then at him, then at the paper, then back at him as if she, too, found herself in that same bizarre universe and was now trying to recognize the person in front of her. “Oh, honey, this is amazing,” she said, and Jared thought he could detect the beginnings of tears in her eyes.

  “Aww, Mom,” he repeated, suddenly desperate to change the subject. “So you heard about the other thing, too, huh?” he asked.

  From across the room, Mr. Keaton cleared his throat, and Jared saw the teacher shake his head. “I thought you should tell her that news yourself,” he said.

  “Tell me what?” his mother asked, then her eyes widened. “The team list,” she said softly. “It went up today, didn’t it?” Her eyes widened even further. “Well?”

  Jared beamed. “I made the cut! You’re lookin’ at a Cornwallis Cougar!”

  Jared’s mother leaped off the sofa and wrapped her arms around her son once more. “Jared! That’s terrific! I’m so proud of you!”

  This time, Jared gave in and let her hug him. It wasn’t every day he got to be both a math marvel and a Cougar. No matter how weird this new universe was, he was pretty sure even in it, the odds of that happening again were next to impossible.

  Mr. Keaton cleared his throat again. “Look, I should be going,” he said as he stood up, being careful not to spill his coffee. Jared and his mother followed him into the kitchen.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see such improvement in your math, Jared,” the teacher said, setting the coffee mug on the counter. “I know Ellie’s excellent one-on-one tutoring had a lot to do with it, but that alone wouldn’t have done you much good if you hadn’t put in the time and effort. You keep it up, okay? I’m looking forward to watching you play as a Cougar, but you need to keep working hard to make sure that continues to happen. Right?”

  Jared nodded. “Right.”

  “It was nice to…ah…see you again, Ms. St. George,” said Mr. Keaton.

  “Please. Call me Terri.”

  “Terri.” He said the word tentatively, held out his hand and shook hers. Jared noticed that he didn’t release it right away, just kept holding her hand and looking at her. If possible, the teacher’s face was even redder than before. He seemed about to say something when there was a kn
ock on the door. Mr. Keaton started, stepping back as he finally let go.

  Jared’s mother went to the door and opened it. “Ellie!” she said, and beckoned the girl into the kitchen. Ellie stopped and smiled shyly when she saw the teacher. “Mr. Keaton dropped by to tell me what a great job Jared did on his math quiz. He says you deserve a lot of the credit.”

  Ellie flushed and looked down at her hands. “Thanks,” she mumbled, “but Jared really worked hard during our sessions.”

  Jared’s eyes widened at her comment. He hadn’t felt like he’d worked hard. In fact, it felt like just the opposite—he’d complained constantly while she’d coaxed him to look at other examples, try different strategies, and make up his own problems. He thought he’d been a major pain in the butt. Yet here she was saying how hard he’d worked. “Nah,” he said, “you really helped me understand it. When I was doin’ the quiz yesterday, I thought about what you did with the noodles, and then the problem just sort of opened up in my head.” Suddenly, he was aware of his mother and Mr. Keaton looking at him. “She did this thing with a box of Kraft Dinner,” he told them. “It really helped me understand what perimeter and area and volume are.”

  Mr. Keaton laughed. “Ellie,” he said, “you’ll have to share your Kraft Dinner secret with me sometime.”

  Ellie looked up and smiled, a real ear-to-ear smile that showed teeth and dimples and, for the first time, Jared didn’t see the third-row weirdo everyone made fun of.

  CHAPTER 13

  “So, one way to find patterns in a number sequence,” Ellie explained during their session two days later, “is to subtract each pair of numbers and see if their differences are the same.” She wrote some numbers on scrap paper lying on the kitchen table. “Or, if they’re not the same, maybe their differences are connected in some way. Like these.” She showed Jared the figures she’d written—1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 16, 22, and 29—and explained that although their differences weren’t the same, the differences did follow a pattern. “So what would the next number in the sequence be?” she asked.

  Jared looked at the list of numbers and said, “Thirty-seven?”

  Ellie nodded. “How do you know?”

  Jared raised his shoulders. “I just know,” he said.

  Ellie shook her head. “It’s not enough to just know. You need to be able to explain how you know.”

  Jared pushed his chair back from the table. “Why? What’s so important about number patterns anyway?” He picked up the list of number sequences that Mr. Keaton had given them as part of their homework, then scowled at the paper and shoved it aside. “This is stupid.”

  Ellie sighed and put her pencil down. “I don’t think number patterns by themselves are all that important, either. But being able to recognize patterns is.”

  “Why?”

  Ellie thought for a moment. “I think because it can help make you a better problem solver.”

  Jared wasn’t convinced. “How?”

  Ellie didn’t say anything for another moment, then her eyes brightened. “Think of a basketball game. Let’s say you noticed that every time a player on the opposite team got the ball, he always positioned himself in the same spot before he made a shot. What would you do?”

  Jared didn’t even pause. “I’d get there ahead of him and block him before he could take the shot.”

  Ellie smiled. “Right. You recognized a pattern and—”

  “—and came up with a way to stop him,” Jared finished, smiling.

  “Right. It’s the same with math problems. Say you notice a pattern in a problem—maybe you realize it’s a lot like a problem you solved before. You can use the same strategy that worked the last time to solve the new problem. That way you save time. You don’t keep repeating the same mistakes you made before.”

  Jared nodded slowly. “Okay.”

  “So how’d you get thirty-seven?” Ellie asked.

  He grinned sheepishly. “Just a guess.”

  Ellie raised her eyebrows. “Well, it was a lucky one. The next number is thirty-seven. But can you tell me why?”

  Jared reached for the paper and jotted down the differences between several pairs of numbers. “I don’t get it,” he said, scratching his head. “Oh, wait, I made a mistake.” He erased a number, replaced it with another, and stared again at the list he’d made. Then his eyes widened. “I think I see it now,” he said. “Each time the number got bigger, it was by one more than the last time. So I added eight to the last number to get thirty-seven. I’d have to add nine to thirty-seven to get the number after that.”

  “That’s right,” said Ellie, clearly pleased.

  “And the rest of the homework is the same sorta thing?”

  She nodded. “Pretty much. Don’t be surprised, though, if you find one or two that don’t really seem to follow a pattern. Mr. Keaton put a couple of tough ones in there to challenge us. You just have to think about what’s happening to the numbers in the list. Ask yourself, “Are they getting bigger or smaller?’ and ‘Do they get bigger or smaller in the same way?’ It sometimes helps to think of each one as a puzzle. That’s what I do, anyway.” She glanced at her watch. “Time’s up.”

  Jared looked at the clock and was surprised to see they’d been sitting at the kitchen table for over an hour. He got up and helped Ellie collect her things. As usual, she had lots of books in her bag, and not just on math. One had pictures of fish on the cover.

  “Why do you carry so much stuff around?” Jared asked.

  Ellie reddened. “You never know when you’ll need something,” she said.

  “The whole ‘be prepared’ thing, huh?” said Jared.

  “There are worse things than being prepared,” she said, and Jared caught a defensive note in her voice.

  “I didn’t mean it was bad,” he said. “I just wondered what you had in there.”

  Ellie looked at him for a long moment, as if trying to make up her mind about something.

  “Jeez,” Jared said, “forget I asked. I don’t care what you’ve got in your stupid bag, anyway.”

  A shadow seemed to flicker over Ellie’s face. “No, I’m sure you don’t,” she mumbled, hoisting the bag to her shoulder. She left without saying goodbye.

  Jared stood looking out the window as she walked down the street, wondering how she could have gone from tutor to totally weird in seconds. Girls. Did anyone understand them?

  He cleared the scrap paper off the table and took it to the wastebasket they used for dry trash. Lying on top of the trash was an envelope from a greeting card. That was strange. Bills and junk mail seemed to pour into their house by the bagful, but it was unusual for him or his mother to get something personal. The only family they had was his uncle, and Christmas was too far away for them to be hearing from him now. And both his and his mother’s birthdays were in the spring.

  Jared picked up the envelope and turned it over. Addressed to his mother, it had obviously been written by a man, the lettering heavy and square.

  He thought about the last man who had sent his mother a greeting card, a blind date someone at work had fixed her up with during the summer. Jared had forgotten his name, but it didn’t matter—he and his mom only ever referred to him as “DVD Guy.” Part of the reason was that he repaired electronics at one of the big box home entertainment stores in the industrial park. The rest had to do with what happened the day after their date.

  On their one and only evening out, Jared’s mother happened to mention that her DVD sometimes skipped when it played rented movies. The following morning, the guy showed up at their door with two DVD players that he’d taken from the repair department where he worked. “Their owners didn’t return to claim them,” he said non-chalantly. “May as well go to someone who needs ‘em.” When Jared’s mother—speechless until that point—commented that the machines probably belonged to the store now, he shrugged and said, “Who cares? I take stuff from there all the time. No one says anything.” She had abruptly told him to take his DVD players and lea
ve, and Jared still remembered how upset she’d been the rest of that day. “The guy probably steals clothes off corpses!” she had ranted.

  The next day, a card arrived with an apology and a coupon for thirty percent off her next electronics repair service. She immediately threw both in the trash. And vowed never to go on another blind date.

  Jared looked at the envelope in his hand. The postmark was smudged and the return address had been torn off. More weirdness. Why would his mother…

  Jared shook his head and let the envelope fall back into the wastebasket. Females, it seemed, were just like math—impossible to figure out.

  CHAPTER 14

  “Get open!” Jared called as he dribbled the ball at half-court, his feet moving constantly as he dodged from side to side just out of reach of Mark Kowalski, the shirt who was guarding him. Jared scanned the bodies moving in and out of the key, shirts and skins weaving tangled patterns under the basket, then saw Steve break free of the group. Jared stepped back and Mark dove forward, reaching for the ball, just as Jared passed the ball over Mark’s head to Steve, who caught it, spun, and leaped toward the basket. Although Steve was shorter than most of the Cougars, his legs were coiled springs that propelled him high above the others, allowing him to slam the ball down through the hoop.

  A cheer rose from the handful of students watching the practice from the bleachers lining the gymnasium. Coach Jamieson blew his whistle and, as if choreographed, the players dropped their arms simultaneously and moved as one to the centre of the gym, sitting in a circle around the coach.

  “Nice work out there, Lewis. You, too, St. George.” He nodded toward Mark. “Strong guarding, Kowalski. You never let up, kept on him right to the end. But he got the ball by you. Where’d you go wrong?”

  Mark shook his head. “I dunno. I had my eye on the ball the whole time.”

  Jamieson nodded. “That’s the problem. You were focused on the ball. You weren’t watching his eyes. Players lie with their bodies, fake a pass with their arms, move their legs to make you think they’re going left when they’re really going right. But eyes tell us everything. St. George told you exactly what he was going to do before he did it. You just weren’t watching.”