“The height of the pyramid is equal to the distance from the point of measurement times the tangent of the angle leading up to the top of the pyramid,” Bobbi said. “You understand that?”
“No.”
“No problem, I’ll show you,” she said, reaching for the papers and putting them on her lap.
I stood near Bobbi and Syed for a while and I heard her explaining to him how he needed to find the distance and the angle and use a table. He asked her if she had the table and she said no, but she knew where to find one. I could see Syed getting more and more interested and the whole thing was good.
So there were the Cruisers. Kambui was taking pictures of the tennis players, LaShonda was doing her sketches, and Bobbi was teaching a kid math on the street. I felt a little left out for the moment but knew I would write something about it.
Later in the day Mom got a call from Dad. I heard him talking to her over the speakerphone.
“Most of these options are never picked up,” he was saying. “So even though there’s real interest in the series it’ll probably never happen.”
I grabbed my pen and wrote her a note: You want to eat out tonight?
Mom nodded yes.
Over the next few months Bobbi met with Syed once a week and tutored him in math. She said he didn’t read well, but he was really good with math concepts. Maybe. Or maybe Bobbi was just so happy to find somebody to deal with in her favorite subject that she saw more in him than he had. He still seemed angry to me.
What I came away with was how much I didn’t know about everything. I hadn’t even heard about Fibonacci, and then I find out that his discoveries are everywhere. I didn’t think my mom would get so upset about Dad getting a part in a movie, or Syed would get so upset when they tried to help him in reading. But just when I figured that out he turns out to be good in math. Go figure.
And how bright is LaShonda with her clothing and her fashions? The girl is, like, on the way to being famous, at least.
Kambui is taking pictures and putting together a portfolio of kids around the city. We’ll publish a lot of them in The Cruiser.
Phat Tony confused the heck out of me. He hadn’t done anything wrong, but he went after the gangster role big-time. In a way the whole thing driving the last few weeks could have been the stickup at the mall, or it could have been Phat Tony wanting people to believe he was a felon. That’s not cool, but I could see where he was coming from when I saw all of the rappers he had written about. What I can’t see is why he would want to be somebody who gets shot up or is even capable of a felony.
Then there is Bobbi. I want to get back with her and ask her why she asked me if I thought she was gifted. If she doesn’t know by now, after being tested and having everybody around her telling her, then what does that mean? And is her teaching Syed some kind of natural pattern, too?
And do I want the answers to all of these questions? Could I have partial answers, maybe just a hint or two and then I could make up my mind if I want to know the rest? That might sound stupid, but I like it.
THE CRUISER
A GRAND DESIGN
By Zander Scott
The homework that a lot of us had involved finding how many times the Fibonacci sequence either occurred in nature or was used by artists, architects, and anybody else who wanted to use the proportions that the Italian math wizard discovered. I found uses all over the place. If you check out the Internet there are lists galore and some claims that look a little wild. I can’t imagine someone who built the pyramids a zillion years ago and someone in Europe or in the High Atlas Mountains all discovering the same proportions and same sequences and being fascinated by them.
I also wonder why these proportions keep cropping up in nature. It’s as if there’s some kind of grand design that suggests itself over and over.
Am I the only one to think it’s just a little spooky?
And, oh, yes, I’m so glad that Bobbi hooked me up with Fibonacci. And I’m so glad that we’re both Cruisers!
Walter Dean Myers is the 2012–2013 National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. He is the critically acclaimed New York Times bestselling author of nearly one hundred books for children and young adults. His extensive body of work includes Sunrise Over Fallujah, Fallen Angels, Somewhere in the Darkness, Slam!, Jazz, and Harlem Summer. Mr. Myers’s many awards include two Newbery Honors, five Coretta Scott King Author Book Awards, and the 2010 Coretta Scott King–Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime Achievement. In addition, he is the winner of the first Michael L. Printz Award. He lives in Jersey City, New Jersey.
Copyright © 2013 by Walter Dean Myers
e-ISBN 978-0-545-53910-4
All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC, SCHOLASTIC PRESS, and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available
First edition, August 2013
Jacket Art Copyright © 2013 by Leo Espinosa
Jacket Design by Elizabeth B. Parisi
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.
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