by Greg Pincus
When every last crumb of their pie was gone, they sighed contentedly, forgot about tests and homework … then talked and talked and talked.
“So, what about this summer?” Kelly asked as she spread a battered brochure across the table in front of them. Sunlight shone in the Slice’s windows, as though the pie had chased the rain far away, making the brochure shine. “We’re still trying to go to Author’s Camp, right, G? Author’s Camp! How much fun would that be!”
“I don’t know how much fun it would be. I try not to think about it,” Gregory said, though his eyes gave him away.
The truth was, he and Kelly had been waiting for years to be old enough to go to Author’s Camp. And that whole time they’d waited, he had imagined exactly how much fun it would be (at least twice a day in the summer and far more frequently during the school year).
“Did you ask your parents? What did they say?” Kelly asked with a hint of pie on her breath that made Gregory pause for just an extra beat to enjoy it.
“How could they say no?”
Kelly gave him a look he had seen a thousand times before. She might be his best friend, but that look …
Gregory was never sure what Kelly would be when she grew up, was never sure that they’d always be best friends, and was never sure how Kelly managed to take dance lessons, tennis lessons, flute lessons, and still have time to get her homework finished, but he was sure of one thing: When that look flashed on Kelly’s face, he knew that she knew he wasn’t telling her the whole truth.
“You have to ask them. It’s already February, G! You can’t wait much longer.”
“You’re right.” Gregory looked at the brochure again. “Six weeks in the summer with professional writers. Six weeks without my brother or sister.”
“Maybe that’s what you should say to your mom and dad!” Kelly grinned.
“Don’t be silly, Kelly. I’m gonna say, ‘It’s six weeks where I don’t bother you.’ I don’t see how they would say no to that.”
“Maybe you could just tell them you want to go?” Kelly said as she folded the brochure back up. And Gregory knew that he should stop right now because they’d had this conversation before and it never went well after this point. But he was fueled by pie.
“The way I see it, the longer I wait, the better my chances are. After what happened last year, they know I won’t ask unless I’m doing really well in school, right? So if I ask late in the year, they’ll think that I must be doing well, or why would I bother asking?”
“Or, you know, you could just do well in school.”
At that moment, a familiar voice filled the Slice. “Let’s make this a great day! Let’s eat some pie!”
The two friends turned to see Mr. Davis stride to the counter and order a piece of still-fresh-from-the-oven apple pie and a cup of coffee. After ordering, Mr. Davis headed to the nearest table and dropped off an armload of books, a handful of magazines, a pile of homework to be corrected, and his now-unnecessary bright yellow raincoat. He saw his students as he went back for his pie bounty.
“Gregory K., you inspired me to come here today, so I have to thank you.”
“I inspired you, Mr. Davis?” Gregory was confused.
“In class, I thought I heard you moan ‘pie’ a few times. I’m sure I was just imagining it, but … well, here I am!” Mr. Davis got his plate and cup. Gregory decided this was a case where silence truly was golden.
“Fresh apple pie! I can’t thank you enough. I think you should skip the next two weeks of homework,” Mr. Davis said. “Ahhh, I’m kidding.”
“I have witnesses, Mr. Davis!” Gregory said. “Maybe you’re only half kidding?” He hoped Mr. Davis would appreciate the use of a fraction.
“But I’m the teacher, so … no,” Mr. Davis said.
Still standing at the counter, Mr. Davis took a bite of the apple pie. As Gregory had learned from experience, there was no point in saying anything in that moment since nothing would penetrate the bliss. “Mmmmm. Of course, you know I love this. All math teachers love pi! Get it? Pi! Pie!”
“See, Mr. Davis, that’s a joke that involves spelling, but you’re talking, not writing,” Gregory said. “It’s not your best effort. Pie and pi sound exactly the same.”
“But only one of them tastes this good.”
Gregory watched his teacher head back to his table, precious pie and coffee in hand. In a weird way, he knew that Mr. Davis would determine whether he went to Author’s Camp or not. Oh, sure, in the end there was no denying that his grade would be determined by his scores on tests and homework. But it would be Mr. Davis giving the final grade.
A tightness formed in his stomach as Gregory realized how badly he needed to nail this upcoming test to raise his grade. He probably needed to nail every homework assignment the rest of the year too. And he also knew that if he failed the class, his parents would be making all his summer plans … and the only thing he’d be writing would be math equations.
“Ask your parents about camp, G. If you get a yes, I can get one from my mom too,” Kelly interrupted.
Gregory looked Kelly in the eye and nodded. “I’ll talk to my parents at dinner tonight,” he said. “I promise.”
And he meant it, exactly as he said it. He would talk to his parents at dinner … though he wasn’t sure yet just what he’d talk about.
It was Weird Wednesday dinner at the Korenstein-Jaspertons’ house, or at least that’s what the kids called it. Gregory’s mother always cooked a new recipe on Wednesdays, and she never said in advance what it was. All she promised was that it was made entirely from edible ingredients, a point that Kay once disputed.
“I don’t think leather is edible, Mom,” Kay said.
“That’s tongue, Kay, if you really want to know. And I think it’s tasty.”
No one asked much about the food on Weird Wednesdays after that, although Gregory had made his mother promise never to serve any other food that might be able to taste him as he tasted it.
Even though there was no talk about the food, that did not mean it was quiet at the table. It was almost never quiet at dinner. Gregory wished it would be, because it was mighty hard to find that perfect time to bring up Author’s Camp when there was constant conversation.
“How’s school?” Gregory’s dad asked.
“Brick,” said his big brother. Mom and Dad laughed.
“You’re just weird,” Gregory said, not far enough under his breath.
“Don’t insult your brother,” said Mom.
It wasn’t clear to Gregory that it was an insult so much as a fact. His brother went by O (with no period) and was often simply called “O K.” He was an eccentric dresser, frequently donning clothing combinations that created such jarring patterns and clashing colors that they could cause dizziness in those who looked too long upon them. He also once collided with a tree because he was reading a book while on his way to the library. On his bike. With training wheels. When he was twelve. Even O proudly described himself as weird … but no one else could, particularly at the dinner table.
“More seriously,” O continued, “I was elected President of the Mathletes and was told that I will be on the main stage at the City Math contest again this year. It was a good day.”
“Fabulous!” their dad exclaimed. City Math was the Super Bowl as far as Dad was concerned. In fact, Gregory was pretty sure one reason they’d never move was that not every place had a citywide math contest … particularly not one that their father had won the very first year it existed.
“More good news,” O continued. “I also determined that the ‘one hundred percent meat’ hamburger at the cafeteria is aptly named but only because they do not state what type of meat it is.”
“Interesting. And Kay?” Dad asked. “How was school?”
“I really find it conducive to learning,” said Kay. Though she was only nine and small for her age at that, Gregory was convinced she’d been born with a giant brain that had been living for years already. “T
oday we talked about all the presidents, and I immediately came up with a mnemonic device to remember them in order: wait a jumping, mixed-up minute and just vacuum here to …”
“No showing off at the table,” Gregory interrupted.
“You’re proof of that,” said O.
“Don’t insult your brother,” Gregory said, again not far enough under his breath.
“Who wants seconds?” Mom asked. And while it was true that there was rarely silence around the dinner table, the call for seconds on Weird Wednesday always created a moment of peace.
“And Gregory,” his father said after the silence was digested, “how did you find school today?”
“Just like every day. I turned left at Main Street, Dad, and there it was.”
“That’s very witty. Less funny is that I was emailing with Mr. Davis, and, well, when you turn left at Main Street every day, do you happen to drop your math homework there?” Dad asked.
“But, Father,” O said with mock shock, “the odds of G losing his homework there every day … well, actually, come to think of it, if we call that a variable n we could say that n is far greater than the percentage chance of G having done his homework every day!”
Like many evenings before this one, Gregory wished he had skipped dinner, but he knew he had no choice: His parents gave each person in the family only three “outs” — nights they could skip the gathering — each month.
In fact, his parents took the family dinner so seriously that his father had actually switched jobs a few years ago when he’d had back-to-back months with nearly a dozen unexcused outs. The new job didn’t seem as fun to Gregory, but his father never missed dinner anymore and was quite happy about it, even on Weird Wednesdays.
Happy parents or not, Gregory decided he had to change the topic of conversation before it focused too long on him.
“Mom, can I have more of the … um … the …” Gregory said enthusiastically.
“Sprouted garbanzo loaf with a wheatgrass glaze,” his mom said as she happily dug a serving spoon into a brown-green mound that, to Gregory’s eyes, looked like it had hair that was swaying in the breeze from the dining room’s single open window.
“Yum. I’d love some more. Where do you come up with these great recipes?”
“Gregory …” his dad said again, and the way he trailed off and looked at him made it clear that Mom and food were not enough to change the subject. Only one thing would do. The truth.
“I spoke with Mr. Davis after school today, Dad,” Gregory said.
“You did?” his father asked.
“You did?” his mother echoed as she dropped a healthy-sized blob of dinner onto his plate with a thud.
“Yes. Really. Is it so hard to believe that I spoke to my teacher?”
O coughed a laugh or laughed a cough, though whichever it was, it simply fueled Gregory on.
“It was a good conversation,” Gregory continued. “We even joked about pi.”
“You joked about 3.1837 with Mr. Davis?” his brother asked.
Gregory looked at his brother’s blank expression and knew this was a trick. His brother always tried to trick him with math, and Gregory had walked right into this one. Yes, it was a trick … but what trick?
The number O said could be wrong, because the truth was, all Gregory could say for sure in that moment was that pi started with a three. But, not terribly long ago, O had humiliated him by saying the right number and making Gregory say “that’s sooooo wrong” because it seemed like that had to be the trick. So … which was it this time?
“You’re a goofball,” said Kay to their big brother. “Pi is 3.14199799.”
“Yeah, really,” said Gregory with a chuckle. “As if.”
Kay, O, and his father burst into laughter. “3.1415926535!” they all said in unison.
“You’re learning from the best, Kay K.!” O said, giving his little sister a high five. Gregory sat stone-faced, wondering how he could look so much like his parents, brother, and sister, but still be convinced he was living in the wrong family. The pungent helping of seconds on his plate waved at him in sync with the laughter. He smushed it with his fork, imagining it was O.
“Enough,” Mom said, fighting her own giggles. Gregory’s mom was an accountant, and to her, life was a clear series of formulas and rules. What was going on now didn’t fit any of her formulas, and she used a tone of voice that the whole family recognized as meaning business. The laughter largely stopped, though a chuckle or two escaped.
“Seriously, Gregory, you don’t need to know that many digits of pi right now,” his father said. “When I was in school, I learned it as 3.1416, and I managed to get into college anyway.”
“I really did talk to Mr. Davis, Dad.”
“I’m glad you did. And you’ll talk with him next week too. We all will,” said Dad, pushing his seat back from the table.
“All of us? Yesssssss.” O smiled. He loved talking with Mr. Davis … almost as much as he loved watching his brother squirm.
“Just me, Mom, and Gregory,” Dad corrected. He leaned back, trying to look relaxed. “We set up a meeting to take stock of how you’re doing. Does that sound good, son?”
“Sounds great,” said Gregory, clearly without an exclamation point. He shoved some sprouted loaf in his mouth to punctuate the end of the conversation. The taste of cooling wheatgrass glaze almost inspired him to beg to go to six weeks of Author’s Camp just for the food … but the timing, he knew, was all wrong.
After dinner, Gregory walked down a hallway lined with O’s six trophies for first place in City Math, dozens of framed certificates of merit O had won in national math contests, and the disassembled calculator-in-Lucite cube O had won for being “Fastest Multiplier” in third grade. He walked past three feet of wall space of newspaper photos of Kay winning various talent shows, spelling bees, and other contests (math included).
Although he didn’t like this walk, it was the only way to reach the door that led to his room in the basement. And he liked that, because when he went downstairs, he could shut the door and feel as if he were somewhere else entirely.
Gregory had not chosen the basement room, but was given it because O decided at the last minute that he needed more electrical outlets in his room than the basement offered.
The only remnant of the potential O occupation was that one wall of the room had been painted with chalkboard paint. In his younger years, Gregory had loved that wall, drawing and writing all over it. These days, it was always covered with mathematical equations written in his father’s precise, neat handwriting … with his own scrawled copies of the same underneath. It was, Gregory felt, the very definition of homework, changed once a week and never graded on a curve.
A small desk and a giant bookcase lined the wall opposite the doorway, though it was hard to tell where one piece of furniture ended and the other began since both were overflowing with books. Neatness, it was clear, was not a frequent visitor to the basement.
The non-chalkboard walls of the room were bare except for a giant poster of Albert Einstein, an eighth-birthday gift from his parents. Gregory actually liked the poster, not only because of Einstein’s remarkably goofy hair, but also because it was big enough to cover the old fuse box on the wall.
The poster was held in place by putty at the four corners, and, just as he did almost every evening after dinner, Gregory pulled the bottom of the poster off the wall and lifted Albert aside.
The old fuse box was about eighteen inches wide and almost one foot deep. It no longer had any electrical wires or fuses inside. Instead, there were notebooks and pieces of paper covered with Gregory’s writing. Most of it was poetry, and some of it had been there for years. All of it stayed hidden in the box rather than on the desk, always out of sight from prying eyes.
Gregory pulled out a notebook. He leafed through it, stopping to read a few scribbled passages. He got to a blank page, grabbed a pencil from the fuse box, then sat down on his bed and started writing.
Most nights, Gregory wrote for at least an hour. He wrote short stories, rambling thoughts, lots and lots of attempts at poems, and every now and then, something he was proud enough to call poetry. He’d dog-ear pages to show Kelly, knowing that she’d have pages for him to read too.
Some nights, he’d get the okay to go meet Kelly at the Slice or at the library, and they’d write side by side, passing pages back and forth before hurrying home in time for bed. He loved seeing her react and didn’t even mind when she’d read something and ask, “Where’s that going to take you, Gregory K.?” Some of his best work happened after that question.
Other nights, Gregory would write and revise in his room until he simply couldn’t any longer. In fact, he’d recently switched back to writing with pencils because he kept waking up with an open notebook in his bed and ink stains on his sheets. Tonight, however, he was distracted. He kept looking over at the backpack on the floor by his desk.
Finally, with a sigh of frustration, Gregory placed his notebook in the fuse box, put Einstein back on guard duty, and retrieved his math book from his backpack.
The textbook felt far heavier than it really was … probably, he figured, because the math test was suddenly very, very important. Maybe there was an equation there he could think of for some extra credit? Something to work on later, perhaps. Now he knew he had to focus.
Up through fifth grade, Gregory had always managed to get through math class pretty easily, and he had assumed this year would be no different. And more than that, he’d figured that whatever issues he might have would stay in math class until he was able to overcome them on his own. But now, his parents were coming in … and a big test was looming. And Mr. Davis? Well, he wasn’t the enemy, but he wasn’t going to lie to Gregory’s parents either.