by Greg Pincus
While the Slice’s apple pie was worthy of being served on Mount Olympus, Gregory loved the way the tart, tangy, concentrated smell of the boysenberry pie made every one of his taste buds stand up and beg.
“Why do you think Mr. Davis wants to help you?” Kelly asked.
“Because I know the pie-cooking schedule here. Thank goodness he still hasn’t heard you’re moving!”
“I’m serious.”
“Maybe he wants to foster my love of math?”
Kelly grabbed the plate with the boysenberry pie and yanked it toward her. “You don’t love math, G,” she said. Gregory reached for the plate, but Kelly stabbed at him with her fork. “You love writing.”
“Well, maybe I’ll find a new love by the time I get through with City Math.”
Kelly looked at Gregory with shock. “You’re entering City Math?”
“I am. I just told my parents this afternoon.” Gregory reached out and nabbed a bite of pie. Kelly didn’t try to stop him. “And you should’ve seen ’em, Kelly! I don’t think they’ve ever been prouder.”
“Yeah. I bet they were thrilled.” Kelly pushed back from the table sharply, swung off the tall chair, and walked away.
Gregory watched his best friend disappear into the back of the Slice, and he couldn’t figure out what he’d said or done, though he was sure it was his fault somehow. Maybe she was jealous of the family’s history in City Math? But that didn’t seem like Kelly. Maybe it’s the move, Gregory thought.
Or maybe it’s just that Kelly didn’t know that he was doing City Math for a shot at spending the summer writing with her. Of course, she didn’t know that because he’d already told her he was going to Author’s Camp. Details. It’s always about details, he thought.
In truth, only one thing made sense to him right now on this very confusing day: boysenberry pie. So he grabbed the plate Kelly had left behind and scarfed the rest of the piece of pie down. It was delicious and simple and just right. And then it was gone … and Gregory knew his troubles were really just beginning.
“What is all this?” Gregory asked as he sat down to breakfast … or tried to. His chair and placemat were covered with trophies and notebooks and wire models of what looked to him a lot like staircases, and there was no room for him to put down his steaming bowl of oatmeal.
“It’s some of my City Math stuff,” O said. “I thought it would inspire you.”
“You think too much.”
“See those top seven notebooks and the multidimensional graph?” O asked. Gregory nodded, assuming that the staircases must be multidimensional something or others. “That’s about half of what I did last year for my project.”
“Wow. Thanks for the reminder of your geekiness, but it really wasn’t necessary,” Gregory said as he slid his chair closer to Kay so he could sit down and eat.
“You think you can just say you’re entering City Math and everything will be fine? Dad will shred you like you’ve never been shredded if you don’t deliver. Don’t you get it?” O shook his head. “You’d rather fail math. Trust me.”
“How would you know? You’ve never failed anything.”
“And you’ve never been me,” O said as he put on a four-foot-long knit cap, wrapped it around his neck a bunch of times, grabbed his orange, gold, and chartreuse backpack, and headed off to school in clothes covered with permanent chalk stains.
After O was gone, Kay looked up from drawing designs in her oatmeal. “It’s impossible for you ever to have been O, even though you have been O.K. sometimes.”
“That clears everything up, Kay. Thanks so much.” Gregory focused on his food.
“Don’t mention it.” Kay laughed. “Hey, you know? I’d’ve said ‘Don’t mention it’ if you asked me about you and City Math too. Isn’t that funny?”
Little sisters should be against the law, Gregory decided. For that matter, so should big brothers … although then he’d be against the law in terms of Kay, although she’d be against the law too, and it would depend which law came first. Rather than think that through and develop a headache, Gregory wolfed down the rest of his breakfast, grabbed his backpack, and set off on his morning walk to school.
Kelly wasn’t waiting on her porch as he expected, so Gregory headed to Lee Elementary alone. The early morning sun reflected off every window and dew-covered blade of grass as Gregory walked by.
The sparkling lights reminded him of the time he and Kelly had spotted a particularly bright reflection and discovered an old, forgotten parking meter on its side, almost fully concealed by shrubbery. Filled with dreams of riches, they’d spent weeks studying the meter and gathering tools to open it up to reveal what they were sure was a big gob of money inside.
He could still remember the huge thrill he’d felt when they popped open the meter’s vault and the letdown when they found only two nickels inside, right next to a big stamped warning saying all money was city property. Scared of serving jail time if they were found with the nickels, the two had hurried to the police station to turn in the ill-gotten ten cents.
As he continued alone on his way to school, Gregory realized that each building, each corner, every tree, and every person he passed made him think of Kelly and something they’d said or done together.
The memories were happy, but the thought of Kelly leaving was so unsettling to Gregory that he actually started reciting times tables in his head to clear his mind.
While Kelly seemed a little out of sorts early on, morning classes soon returned to normal. Kelly calved him in English but couldn’t keep him from getting another “bonus” assignment. Alex spent art class trying to show him how to draw cartoony cats before finally giving up to focus on his own work. And Gregory actually felt good in science when he got laughs for his theory that the earth’s crust was made of crushed Oreos, not igneous rock, and it was topped with the biggest mud pie ever.
At lunch, Gregory and Kelly sat at their favorite table, as far from the serving lines as possible. Besides being the quietest spot in the cafeteria, the angle of the air-conditioning vents kept the smell of the daily meal from reaching the table, at least until Alex plopped his tray down and joined them.
“Dude,” Alex said. “Kelly told me your news. Killer.” Alex’s gangly arms and legs seemed to move in twenty-two different directions as he took his seat.
“Thank you, Alex,” Gregory said. “I’m glad someone outside of my family finally likes it.”
“Come on, G! What’s not to like! Author’s Camp!!!! That totally rocks.” Alex poured a huge amount of ketchup on his plate, smothering the food.
“Right. Camp. Totally rocking.” Gregory nodded in agreement while keeping his eyes away from Kelly.
“So can I read it?” Alex asked.
“Read what?” Gregory asked blankly.
“G, you know we have to submit something we’re working on when we apply to camp,” Kelly said. She crunched a carrot as her eyes moved from her lunch to her friend, but Gregory didn’t meet her gaze.
“Dude! You gotta let me see it. Unless —” Alex pulled a fowl nugget out of his ketchup and contemplated it. “Well, unless your stuff’s no good.”
“What? It’s great,” Gregory quickly answered. “And you can read it … later. When I’m ready.”
Kelly breathed a sigh of relief. “For a second there, I wasn’t sure you were working on your sample.”
“The sample is nothing I’m worried about,” Gregory replied, which was true since he’d never actually read that part of the application, and hadn’t even thought about getting anything ready. “Of course, it might take a while since I’m gonna be so busy with City Math, ya know …”
“Dude. City Math???? Whoa, dude.” Alex took a deep breath and dialed down his energy level. “Gregory K., let me know if you need help. I know you and math and …”
“Me and math are cool. In fact, I’m going to work with Mr. Davis after school today so we can … you know … do some math stuff … and … like … get my projec
t all teed up so I can kick it out of the City Math park!” Gregory stopped, hoping he’d said enough … or at least said something.
“That is the worst metaphor ever,” Alex said, using a ketchup-slathered nugget to jab the air for emphasis. “I’m gonna tell Mrs. Harris. Dude.”
Compared to all his other problems, Gregory did not think the metaphor was a big issue. Instead, math ranked number one, and he was still stressed about it when he arrived at Mr. Davis’s room after school. In fact, he felt even more nervous than he had for the parent-teacher conference the day before.
Mr. Davis was sitting at his desk grading work sheets and was clearly in possession of that sense that all teachers have when a student tries to sneak in quietly.
“Come on over, Gregory. Pull up a chair,” Mr. Davis said without looking up.
As he moved a chair to the desk, Gregory tried to imagine what might be in store for him. He saw huge piles of work sheets on the desktop, and some of the visible sheets looked a lot like ones he had very recently gotten as homework. He recognized one in particular, because he’d just seen it that morning on the floor of his room, sticking out from under the carpet. Would he have to do all of them? He could feel his stomach knotting up.
He saw textbooks too, with page corners folded and yellow stickies marking … something hard, no doubt. And, of course, he saw the huge mound of pink erasers Mr. Davis was famous for tossing to kids the moment they mentioned that they might not be able to get some concept right the first time around. Gregory had a pile of erasers at home. O had never gotten one.
As he sat by Mr. Davis’s desk, waiting for him to be done, the room felt like it was growing warmer and warmer. It was getting harder to breathe in the heat. Finally, just as Gregory thought he couldn’t take it anymore, Mr. Davis graded the last work sheet and put it away. “Let’s make it a great day. Let’s talk about math.”
“Oooooookay,” Gregory said, unsure what else to do.
“Gregory Korenstein-Jasperton, I’m going to let you in on a really badly kept secret.” Mr. Davis paused and then looked his pupil straight in the pupils. “You don’t actually love math.”
“No kidding,” Gregory said. The start of the conversation felt like a cooling breeze, somehow. The stress was still there, but the room was returning to normal.
“I see it in how you act, how you work, how you respond, how your eyes glaze over when the math lovers’ sparkle, and how your body language differs when you sit in here or sit at the Slice. Maybe you’re fooling others, Gregory. I don’t know. But now I’ll tell you another secret. An important secret.”
“What’s the secret, Mr. Davis?”
“I don’t care! It’s fine!” Mr. Davis slapped his hand on the desk for emphasis. “You don’t have to love math!”
Again, Gregory was sure this was a trick, so he remained silent. Mr. Davis continued. “What I do care about, though, is making sure you learn what’s necessary to pass my class.” Mr. Davis absentmindedly riffled through the imposing pile of blank work sheets. “You have brainpower, my friend, so I know we can make this work.”
“Math is really hard for me.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Gregory said, as if that explained it. He shifted on the hard wood chair, its legs squeaking on the floor with each fidget.
“Because you can’t understand it? Because you don’t care? Because you don’t love it? Because you tune out? Because you’d rather be dipped in honey and fed to bears? Because doesn’t help me by itself,” Mr. Davis said without a trace of anger or frustration.
“Because … can I be honest, Mr. Davis?”
“Always.”
“Because why does it matter if I can figure out the volume of the school? Why does it matter that addition is the same forward and backward? Why does it matter if I can figure out how long it would take to paint a house if my brother can paint it in three days and I can paint it in two, but now we are gonna do it together? First of all, of course it’s faster with two. Second of all, that’s just never gonna happen. I mean really — you know O! It’s not gonna happen. And third of all, we can just do it and see how long it takes, right?”
“Those are great questions,” Mr. Davis said with a smile. “In fact, those are the questions of someone who is actually willing to think about math.”
“If you say so,” Gregory replied.
“I do. And I’m the teacher, so you know I am absolutely, positively right.” Mr. Davis went back to leafing through the piles of work sheets on his desk. “Still, we have a lot of work to do to get you where you need to be. That is, if you really want to get a B and miss Math Is Magic Camp.”
“Oh, I really want to get a B, Mr. Davis. I need to.”
“Then let’s do some math!” Mr. Davis grabbed the thick pile of work sheets in his hands. Gregory didn’t know whether to flee or make up an allergy to paper right there on the spot. But as he debated, Mr. Davis opened a desk drawer and dropped the work sheets inside. Now Gregory noticed something else on the desk … something that looked a lot like one of those composition notebooks he’d had in English class for the last few years.
Mr. Davis grabbed the notebook and a pen. He handed them both to Gregory.
“This,” Mr. Davis said, “is your make-up work and your future homework.”
“What is?” Gregory looked at the notebook. The words Math Journal were written across the top in Mr. Davis’s handwriting. Though he’d never seen Mr. Davis write words in anything other than chalk, he still could tell. “A journal?”
“A math journal. I want you to write about math. Where you see math. How you see math. Questions about math. You’ll turn it in every morning and get it back from me at the end of the day. I will ask you questions or just leave you comments.” Mr. Davis said this as if it were something he did all the time, but it seemed wildly new to his slack-jawed student.
“Let me get this straight,” Gregory said. “You want me to write for my math homework?”
“Absolutely!” Mr. Davis’s enthusiasm reminded Gregory of the way his mother acted for twenty-two minutes after she’d had her coffee. But Mr. Davis had staying power. “Writing about math should be a blast!”
“Okay, then. I got it. So, uh, can I go?” Gregory asked.
“Only if you promise me you’ll start tonight,” Mr. Davis said, as if that were an obstacle. Gregory nodded and hopped up from his seat. He didn’t need Kelly around to tell him that he’d scored here. Nope. He knew.
He got to the door and then, even though he realized later that his calf had started to hurt at that very moment, he turned back to his teacher. “Mr. Davis? About City Math …”
“Yes. I can’t wait to see your project. I’ll give you extra credit, you know.”
“Yeah, I know. And I thought that, like, you could maybe … you know … design the project with me or …”
“That’s not the way it works, Gregory,” Mr. Davis said simply. “You must’ve have had your project in mind when you applied, right? You had to write it on the application….”
“I did! And it’s really good. But …” Gregory trailed off.
“Great! I can’t help you design it, but if you have some specific math questions, bring them to me and I’ll see if I can work with you. And good luck!” Mr. Davis found another pile of work sheets and started grading them. Gregory didn’t leave, hoping that by staying there something wonderful would happen. Mr. Davis’s student-sense must have tingled.
“I’m proud of you. I know City Math’s a family tradition, and everyone’s so excited you’re doing it.” Mr. Davis returned to the work at hand.
Gregory could think of two people who weren’t excited — him and Kelly, ironically the two people whose future plans depended on City Math success — but he figured Mr. Davis didn’t need to hear that. He wondered if he should tell Mr. Davis about what he wanted to do this summer … about how important math class suddenly was to him.
But for now, Gregory decided, no one could
know, because if one person did, then it was possible that everyone would, and that would defeat his plan. So he decided to focus on something much more manageable. For the first time in his life, he decided to focus on his math homework.
“A math journal?” Kelly asked, her voice ringing out above the din in the Slice. “What in the world is that?”
“I write about math. In a journal.”
“Write what about math?”
“Anything.”
Gregory nibbled at a quickly disappearing piece of chocolate chess pie, always making sure to get a bit of the Oreo crust along with the creamy, dark chocolate filling. The chocolate chess pie was a rarity at the Slice, but it was always a happy day when it came up in the rotation. He pushed his journal across to Kelly. “Here’s my first day’s homework.”
Kelly grabbed the journal and read from it. “It’s funny that you would have me write about math, Mr. Davis. Just last week I had a nightmare that I walked into English class, and Mrs. Harris said, ‘Good morning, students. Today we’re going to learn about the commutative property.’”
Kelly laughed. “Come on, G! Where’s that going to take you? Anyway, that’s not writing about math.”
“Yes it is! What could be mathier than the commutative property?”
“And mathier’s not English.” Kelly scooped up the last bite of the pie. Gregory used his fingers to snare crust crumbs.
“But this is a math journal. That won’t matter.” Gregory said it with certainty, though in truth he wasn’t sure what would matter.
“Whatever. I think it’s great that you’re writing,” Kelly said. “Cuz, like, you’re a writer.”
“I think it’s great that I’m doing math,” Gregory replied. “Cuz now I’m a math-er.”
“Uh-huh,” Kelly said, and although it was only two syllables, neither of them more than sounds, she said it in such a way that Gregory knew she not only didn’t believe him, but also knew that he didn’t believe himself either. “So if you had to give up City Math or writing, which would it be?”
Gregory laughed. “I wish I could give up City Math, Kelly. It’s just not that simple.”