Then to really seal the deal,
Or just to be contrary,
Some even imaginary.
Explain your thinking using words, numbers, and/or pictures.
Up until now, my mom didn’t really seem sick. It was like something I knew in my head but couldn’t see in real life. Everybody kept saying she had this terrible thing in her leg, so terrible that they had to cut it out, and then cut it out again. But at least Mom seemed pretty much the same, except for the big bandage on the back of her knee.
But now she has to keep her leg up all the time because it can get really, really swollen. Plus, she’s silly one minute and totally out of it the next. It’s like Rational Mom has suddenly been replaced by Irrational Mom.
“It’s the pain medication,” Grandma Beau says, as if this is supposed to explain everything.
I’m trying really hard to be helpful, to remember that “good energy is contagious,” but Mom always calls for Grandma Beau to come help her. I think she doesn’t want to scare me or gross me out.
She has this thing called a surgical drain. It’s like a tiny straw coming right out of her hip that goes into this little plastic pouch. Grandma Beau says the drain is to catch the fluid that doesn’t know where to go. Grandma Beau has to record how much fluid the bag collects every day, in milliliters.
“It’s just until the other lymph nodes realize they have to pick up the slack,” Grandma Beau tells me. “Until her body gets used to missing them.”
I wonder if it’s kind of like how Grandma Beau had to get used to missing Grandpa Beau. I know my Grandpa Beau got sick, and then he died. That happened before I was even born. But I guess I used to think it was something that had always happened. Like it was always that way.
But now I see there was a time when it was actually happening, when everybody was in the middle of it, just like we’re in the middle of this now.
I try to imagine the future, further down the number line. I’ve just graduated from high school, and Mom and I are on the plane to Paris.
“Remember that time you sprained your ankle in soccer?” she says.
“Remember the time the car broke down in that snowstorm?” I say.
“Oh, yeah, and remember that whole cancer thing?” I hear Mom saying as she ruffles my hair only once. “I’m sure glad that’s behind us.”
Then other times my mind starts skating out to this far-off place, and I try not to imagine if I could ever get used to missing Mom.
Today, Mr. Vann pops in the door seven minutes early. Everybody’s already here, probably because the temperature outside has turned downright arctic lately.
“However challenging,” Mr. Vann tells us for about the millionth time, “it is crucial to develop the habits of algebraic thinking.”
But so far, algebraic thinking is a lot easier than it sounds. It’s all about constants that stay the same, and variables that take something’s place. Then the variables keep changing.
Algebraic thinking is Jeannie picking up our vacuum cleaner from the repair shop because Mom is taking a little longer to get back on her feet than expected, and she isn’t cleared to drive yet.
Let Jeannie = Mom.
Algebraic thinking is Grandma Beau waking me up for school and making me breakfast because Mom had a hard night and has just fallen back to sleep an hour before I have to leave for the bus.
Let Grandma Beau = Mom.
Algebraic thinking is Mom giving a few clients to another accountant because it’s still hard for her to sit for more than thirty minutes of elapsed time.
Let Accountant #2 = Mom.
“Remember,” Mr. Vann says as he reaches into his desk drawer and pulls out a stack of sticky notes. “Always do unto the left side as you do unto the right. Let’s see. Chelsea, please come up to the front, and Mika, please join her.”
Chelsea and I walk to the front of the room. I shove my hands into my pockets. Chelsea just stands there, very straight.
Mr. Vann writes an x on a sticky note, pulls it off the stack, and sticks it on Chelsea’s forehead. Then he does the same to me.
“Let’s start with two x equals eight,” Mr. Vann explains. “Now we just need our eight.”
He chooses eight kids to come to the front. Dee Dee’s one of them. She walks slowly as if she’s deep in thought, probably trying to solve some major puzzle of the universe. Today’s T-shirt has a picture of the Milky Way with an arrow pointing to the center. At the end of the arrow, it says: YOU ARE HERE.
“So, if our dear Mika is an x,” Mr. Vann says, “and our dear Chelsea is an x, how many of that pack of malcontents is each x entitled to?”
Mr. Vann points to the group of eight. Everybody’s all slouchy and frowny, except for Dee Dee. She’s bouncing from one foot to the other.
“Four!” Dan shouts out.
“Thank you, Dan,” Mr. Vann says. He directs four kids to sit on the floor at my feet, and four kids to sit on the floor at Chelsea’s feet. Dee Dee’s on my team.
“If it’s fair!” Dan shouts next.
I’m not about to raise my hand and remind everyone that math is fair. Math is exact. It’s everything else that’s a big, mixed-up mess.
Part of me wants to call out just like Dan. It’s fair! Let’s agree that it’s fair and the answer is four, and move on to the next easily solved problem. The sticky note on my forehead is starting to itch.
But Mr. Vann closes his eyes for a moment. “Elaboration, please, Dan,” he says finally.
“Well, let’s say Mika is a country and Chelsea is a country, and all those other kids are food or land or whatever. Each country should get four whatevers. But that’s not what usually happens. Mika goes over and bashes Chelsea on the head and takes all her stuff.”
I smile at Chelsea. She might be a little bit of a Goody Two-shoes, but I want her to know that I would never bash her on the head and take all her stuff.
“Maybe that’s why we need math,” Dee Dee says, more to the electrical outlet in the wall than to anyone.
“Or,” Chelsea chimes in, “let’s say Mika is a person and I’m a person.”
“A far stretch of the imagination,” Mr. Vann says with a wink, “but we’ll try.”
Chelsea smiles. “What I mean,” she continues, “is that people should get equal shares of good things and bad things, like two good things and two bad things. But that’s not what actually happens. Sometimes people get extra bad things, and that’s not really fair, either.”
I look over at Chelsea. I have a sneaking suspicion that Dee Dee told her about my mom.
“Ah, yes…inequalities,” Mr. Vann sighs.
Chelsea smiles at me. But I have to look away because my eyes are suddenly full.
* * *
—
Walking home from the bus stop, I see the coolest stones on the side of the road. It looks like the snowplow scooped them up and left them on top of the snowbank just for me. There are six of them, just sitting there, smooth and shiny. I get this picture in my head of what to do with them. (Guess I’ll have to thank Mrs. Poole for that one.) I pick them up and zipper them into the small pocket of my backpack.
When I get home, Grandma Beau is busy fussing in the kitchen. Mom is resting. I go straight to my room.
First things first, I spread some newspaper on the floor. Mom doesn’t care if I do art projects in my room, as long as nothing permanent gets in or on the rug. I grab some tissues out of the box on my desk and make a detour to the bathroom to wet them in the sink. Then I take the stones out of my backpack and clean each one. As they dry, I find my fine-point metallic-gold Sharpie. I give it a few shakes to get it going.
I choose a bluish-gray stone for Mom. It’s heavier than it looks and warm as toast after I hold it in my palm for a little bit. I use my calligraphy stencils to write the word Hop
e on it. On Jeannie’s, I write Joy. Grandma Beau’s says Love. I make another one for Ella that says Friend. I know they’re a little corny, but I really like the way they turn out.
And since I have six of them, I decide to make one for Dee Dee and one for Chelsea, too. I draw a tiny fairy on Chelsea’s. It’s not the head of a pin, but it seems to fit just fine. My How to Draw People book doesn’t cover fairies, so I just wing it. (Pun intended.)
I’m not sure what to write on Dee Dee’s, so I go into my mom’s office and open her laptop. I search for “funny science holiday” and up pops a T-shirt that says HO HO HO, but each HO looks like a box from the periodic table. HO is the symbol for holmium, which apparently is a rare earth element. (Thank you, internet.)
When I’m sure the marker is dry and won’t smudge, I paint over the stones with some clear shellac and sprinkle them with tiny gold glitter. Not too much. Just enough to make them sparkle a little.
Math Journal Entry #11
Choose a variable, any variable. What could the value of your variable be?
Explain your thinking using words, numbers, and/or pictures.
“Are we going camping? Because I see somebody’s got their sleeping bags this morning,” Grandma Beau says way too cheerfully on Saturday. Ever since the operation, Mom has had trouble sleeping at night. She gets these dark circles under her eyes. Grandma Beau calls them her “sleeping bags.”
Mom gives her a weak smile. I try to imagine us going camping again, but it seems like a pretty impossible thing right now.
At least Mom was able to get rid of the surgical drain. I guess her other lymph nodes eventually realized they had to pick up the slack.
She didn’t bother to put that appointment on the fridge. I just noticed that before school one day, she still had the drain, and then after school, she didn’t. But the scar from the operation bothers her, so she just wears a nightgown all the time, even when it’s not the weekend.
Grandma Beau sets a waffle down on the table. I can see that she’s added extra-healthy stuff to the batter, blueberries and tiny seeds that look like ants. Mom pushes the plate away an inch. Then Grandma Beau pours her a glass of something thick and vanilla-smelling.
“So what have we got up for today?” Grandma Beau asks.
Since Thanksgiving, Grandma Beau has practically moved in, except for every once in a while when she goes back to her house to pick up her mail. Mom half-heartedly tells her to go home, that we’re fine. But Grandma Beau says she was planning on coming for Christmas anyway, so she might as well just stay on.
“I think we could use some groceries.” Grandma Beau opens the fridge. It looks totally full to me.
“Mika, you want to come with? It might be good to break out a bit. We could hit a few tag sales while we’re at it. Get a head start on all that holiday shopping.”
“That’s okay,” I say. I take my waffle over to the couch and start looking for the remote.
“Okay, then,” Grandma Beau calls. “Guess it’s just me.”
I hear Grandma Beau gathering her keys and mumbling a list to herself. After she leaves, Mom goes back into her room and shuts the door.
I used to think it would be so cool to stay home alone, but now it feels like I’m alone a lot of the time, even when Mom is here.
* * *
—
A few days later, I come home from school to the sound of Jeannie singing and the smell of popcorn. She has the radio tuned to the station that plays holiday songs twenty-four hours a day, starting back in like October.
“Where’s my mom?” I ask, dropping my backpack. “Where’s Grandma Beau?”
“Out,” Jeannie says. “But you and I are officially the decorating committee.” She points to a small potted pine tree sitting in the middle of the living room.
Usually Mom and I drive to a farm in Verbank, where we pick out our Christmas tree and they cut it down for us. There’s a barn with hot cocoa and candy canes, and they give rides out to the fields on their tractor.
Jeannie sets a big bowl of popcorn on the table and hands me a large needle threaded with dental floss. “We are making popcorn garlands,” she says way too excitedly.
I should probably be doing my homework, but instead, I sit down next to Jeannie and start stringing. Jeannie sings along to the radio. She must know the words to every holiday song ever written, even that super-fast one about the sleigh bells jing-jing-jingling. Like I said, Jeannie is good at filling in the empty spaces.
“This is not as easy as YouTube said it would be,” Jeannie says after poking her finger for the twentieth time. “I feel like I’m rehearsing for Sleeping Beauty. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
“I don’t think that’s Sleeping Beauty,” I say.
“I’ll get you, my little pretty,” Jeannie cackles, pointing her needle at me.
“Also not Sleeping Beauty,” I say.
With a little practice, Jeannie and I get better at stringing the popcorn. After a while, we actually have a string for which the most appropriate unit of measure would be feet, and not just inches.
I hear Mom and Grandma Beau pull up outside. Grandma Beau walks in first, carrying a stack of boxes in her arms.
“I found them online for a song,” she says. “But we had to go pick them up. They’re traditional English Christmas crackers. When you pull them open, you get a joke and a paper hat and a silly prize. Isn’t that fun?”
Grandma Beau drops the boxes on the table right on top of Jeannie’s popcorn string.
“Hey,” Jeannie says. “Respect the decorating committee.”
Mom walks in next. She seems different, lighter somehow. Then I realize what’s changed. Her hair is really, really short.
“You cut your hair!” Jeannie squeals. “Pixie time! It’s so cute!”
My mom has had long hair ever since I can remember. That’s been a constant. And for a second I feel like Mom with short hair is this big symbol. A reminder that anything can change. Everything’s variable.
“We even bought some makeup to cover up those sleeping bags,” Grandma Beau says in a fake whisper.
“It looks nice,” I say. But on the inside, I’m wondering if my mom’s hair is just the first part of her to disappear.
Math Journal Entry #12
Karina is 11. Her mother is 38. (Remember them?)
Devise an algebraic expression that shows the relationship between their ages. Why is your expression “good for a lifetime”?
Explain your thinking using words, numbers, and/or pictures.
Mr. Vann says that as soon as we take our seats, we can explore the latest math journal consideration. And as soon as we do that, we can start our holiday party.
Chelsea brought in a big platter of fancy cupcakes that I’m sure she made from scratch. Each one has a mini candy cane sticking out from the top. I just brought a bag of chips.
On the way to my desk, I pass by Chelsea’s. I reach into my backpack and take out the stone I made for her. I set it down on her desk.
“Happy holidays,” I say.
“Awww!” Chelsea says. “Did you draw that? I love it. Thanks, Mika.”
Then I head to Dee Dee’s desk and give her the HO-HO-HO holmium stone.
She looks down at it carefully. “That’s pretty brilliant,” she says. She tucks it in the front pocket of her jeans and gives it a pat.
Mr. Vann reaches into his desk drawer and takes out a big bottle of cranberry juice and a package of paper cups. And even though everybody just had lunch, we can’t wait for the party to start.
It’s dark and gray outside, and school has that puffy feeling of the last day before a vacation, like all the rules are off. Plus, I can’t help thinking that the day before vacation might end up being better than the vacation itself.
Usuall
y Mom and I go away for a few days over winter break, like to a museum or to see Jeannie in a show somewhere. But this year, I have a picture in my mind of a blank road stretching out in front of me. It looks all blurry and frozen and empty.
“Someone please give me an expression!” Mr. Vann shouts. “Chelsea’s cupcakes are beckoning.”
“A stitch in time saves nine!” a kid named Khalil calls out. Then he gives a little grin. “Sorry, but your request wasn’t very specific.”
“Touché!” Mr. Vann yells. “Somebody please give me an algebraic expression at least somewhat tangentially related to our math journal meditation.”
He runs to the back of the room and takes one of Chelsea’s cupcakes off the party table. He starts peeling back the silver liner.
“The mom is always twenty-seven years older,” a girl named Maya explains very quickly. “So you can do Mom minus twenty-seven equals Karina, or Karina plus twenty-seven equals Mom. Then you can plug in any number. If Mom is thirty, Karina is three. If Karina is thirty, Mom is fifty-seven. If Karina’s ninety-nine, her mom is…” She takes a minute to do the addition in her head.
“Dead!” Dan shouts from the back of the room. “If Karina is ninety-nine, then her mom is so dead.”
Everyone is cracking up and heading to the party table. And even though I’m laughing and eating, too, I can’t help thinking about the hardest algebraic expression of all. If Karina’s mom is gone, who takes her place?
* * *
—
“It looks a little overwhelmed,” Jeannie says when she sees our tiny tree fully decorated. I hung the popcorn garlands on it. I also brought up the ornaments from the holiday box in the basement and hung them. Every single one.
Jeannie shrugs. “Overwhelmed might be appropriate.”
“We’ll do our presents tonight,” Mom says. “Just the girls.” But this time the girls are me and Mom and Grandma Beau and Jeannie. “Because tomorrow,” Mom says excitedly, “there will be presents from Santa.” She claps her hands.
Solving for M Page 6
