Stacey the Math Whiz Read online

  I thought about quitting Mathletes. But that didn’t make sense. Not before the state championship play-offs. The meets were going to take place on Saturday, Monday, and Tuesday. In a little more than a week, I’d be done. Back to baby-sitting. Back to my life.

  Well, sort of. Less time with Mathletes meant more time for Dad to plan. More shows and dinners and outings. More tension with Mom.

  Hey, ease up, McGill.

  For someone whose life was so full, I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.

  Maybe I just needed a good night’s sleep.

  “Two and two are four …” Claire Pike sang the tune of the “Inchworm” song from the movie Hans Christian Andersen. “Four and four are eight …”

  “Will you stop?” said Margo Pike. “We know already!”

  “I’m practicing for the math fair!” Claire insisted.

  “The math fair is for second grade and up!” Nicky Pike cried.

  “No fair,” said Claire, storming away.

  Claire is the youngest Pike kid. She’s five. Margo, who’s seven, is the next youngest, then Nicky (eight), Vanessa (nine), and the ten-year-old triplets: Byron, Jordan, and Adam.

  Math fever was in the air at Mallory’s house. The Pike kids had really enjoyed the Mathletes meet. Claire had been begging Mal to get my autograph (ahem).

  Already, Margo and Vanessa had signed up for the SES math fair. Nicky was thinking about it. On Sunday, while Mallory was sitting for them all, the girls had decided to start preparing.

  Vanessa was hunched over a sheet of paper at the kitchen table. “Da one da two da three da four da five da six da seven.”

  The triplets were cracking up. “And over here, ladies and gentlemen,” Adam said, “is Vanessa Pike’s fascinating experiment — counting how many times she can say ‘Duh’ in one sentence.”

  “For your information, I’m counting how many beats are in a line of poetry,” Vanessa informed him. “Poems are very mathematical.”

  “Especially yours,” Jordan said. “They multiply like cockroaches.”

  “Malloryyyyy!” Vanessa complained.

  “Guys,” Mallory said, “leave Vanessa alone, especially if you’re not going to enter the fair.”

  “Chickens,” Vanessa taunted.

  Byron grabbed a cereal box from the cupboard and dug both hands in. “I have a great project. If I have two fistfuls of Cap’n Crunch, and I eat one …” He stuffed his mouth. “Rmmmmppffrrorrrsshh.”

  “Eeeww!” Vanessa screamed.

  “Byron, you are such a pig,” Margo said.

  Giggling, the triplets ran away. Vanessa went back to her poetry.

  Next to her, Margo had been busily stacking coins into piles. She picked up a dollar bill and ripped it in half.

  Vanessa’s jaw dropped. “Margo, what are you doing?”

  “I’m showing different ways you can make fifty cents. See, it’s this many pennies —”

  “What Vanessa means,” Mallory said, “is that you’re not supposed to rip a dollar bill.”

  “It’s against the law!” Vanessa said.

  Margo looked horrified. “It is? Am I going to be arrested?”

  “RRRRRRRRRRR …” wailed Jordan like a police siren, from inside the family room.

  “STO-O-O-O-OP!” Margo cried.

  “Margo, you won’t be arrested,” Mallory assured her. “I’ll tape it back together, okay?”

  From the bathroom, Mallory heard Claire squeal with hysterical laughter.

  “Close the door!” Nicky’s voice shouted.

  Then, “Oooooooooh, Nicky, you’re in big trouble!” from Adam.

  Mallory didn’t like the sound of this. She ran inside to see Adam pushing against the bathroom door. “What happened?” she asked.

  “Nicky’s playing with the toilet paper,” Adam explained.

  “Am not playing!” Nicky replied from behind the door.

  “Open up,” Mallory commanded, elbowing Adam away.

  The door creaked slowly open. Nicky was standing in the middle of a huge pile of unrolled toilet paper. His face was red with anger. “You made me lose count, Adam!”

  All the Pike siblings were peering inside, screaming with laughter. “You’re not supposed to pull so hard!” Byron said.

  “This is my math fair project!” Nicky insisted.

  That just made the kids howl even louder. “What’s it called, arithmetoilet?” Vanessa said.

  “Your project is counting toilet paper sheets?” Mallory asked.

  “No, it’s about estimation,” Nicky replied. “I estimate how many sheets are in the roll. Then I count to see if I was right. I’m going to do the same thing with paper towels and raisins in raisin bran — stuff like that. But now, because of stupid Adam, I have to start all over again!”

  “The toilet paper package tells you how many sheets are in a roll,” Mallory patiently said.

  “Oh,” Nicky replied.

  “Yeah, birdbrain,” Adam said.

  “You didn’t know that, Adam,” Nicky retorted.

  “And what did you plan to do after you finished?” Mallory asked.

  “Roll it back up, I guess,” Nicky said with a shrug.

  Mallory sighed. “Go ahead. Just finish before Mom and Dad come home.”

  Margo and Vanessa returned to the kitchen, and the triplets ran upstairs to their room. Claire was now staring into the bathroom with a solemn expression. “Um, Mallory?” she said, tugging on Mal’s sleeve. “I have to go.”

  Mallory grabbed her hand. “Come on, I’ll take you upstairs.”

  As they raced through the house, Byron’s voice boomed out, “Hey! What happened to all my quarters?”

  “I’ll give them back,” Margo called out.

  “Whaaaaat?” Byron bolted from his room and nearly collided with Mallory and Claire, who were climbing the stairs.

  As Claire sprinted off to the upstairs bathroom, Mallory raced downstairs to break up the war of the coins.

  Oh, well, no one ever said math was easy.

  Rrrring!

  When the phone rang on Friday morning, I was in the middle of a wrestling match. With my hair.

  I was staring in the mirror. Overnight, to my horror, my hair had taken on a life of its own. It was knotted like a den of snakes on one side. On the other, it was levitating upward like a magic carpet.

  I glanced at my clock. It was already five minutes past the usual time I go downstairs for breakfast. Well, I didn’t care. I was not going to be a bad-hair victim.

  I yanked hard with my brush.

  “Yeeow!” I cried.

  “Stacey, it’s your dad!” Mom called from downstairs.

  Arrgh. Leave it to Dad to call at a moment like this.

  Desperate hair calls for desperate measures. Quickly I pulled apart the knots, brushed my hair out, and yanked it back into a ponytail. Then I dived into Mom’s bedroom for the phone.

  “Hi,” I said. “I have to leave.”

  Dad chuckled. “That’s some way to talk to a loving father who just managed to snag two floor seats to the U4Me concert at Madison Square Garden.”

  “AAAAAAAAAAA!” I screamed. I couldn’t help it. It was the first thing that popped into my head.

  U4Me’s stage show is beyond cool. I saw it once in person, but I didn’t really have a chance to appreciate it. The girls I went with were caught with bottles of liquor, and we were all kicked out. (They are ex-friends now.)

  “Stacey, are you all right?” my mom called from the kitchen.

  “Great!” I shouted.

  Dad laughed. “When Samantha told her niece I had tickets, she screamed bloody murder. U4Me is her favorite group, too. So, I take it you want to go?”

  “Do I? How did you get tickets? I heard the concert was sold out.”

  “From the personnel director of a major Manhattan company with a fifty-third-floor office, which just may offer me a job as executive vice president!”

  “You got a job? Congratulations!”
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  “Whoa, not yet. They’re still considering someone else, but my chances are good.”

  “You’ll get it. I know you will.”

  “I’ll tell you more about it after school. I’m picking you up. I figure, if we’re going to a concert tomorrow, that doesn’t leave much time to buy you a new outfit.”

  I laughed. “Dad, you are so cool!”

  “See you at SMS!”

  “ ’Bye.”

  I hung up, grabbed my backpack from my room, and ran downstairs. Too bad I’d combed out my magic carpet hair. I could have climbed on it and flown.

  My mom was dressed and ready for work, sipping coffee and reading the newspaper. I poured myself some cereal and milk and began wolfing it down.

  “Don’t tell me,” Mom said. “Your father got a job.”

  “Not yet.” I gulped down a big glob of Rice Krispies. “Guess what? He’s taking me to a U4Me concert tomorrow.”

  Mom looked puzzled. “Oh. I guess it must be an afternoon concert, then?”

  CLANG! went a gong in my brain.

  The Mathletes meet. I’d been so excited I hadn’t even thought of it.

  “Oh my lord!” I exclaimed. “It can’t conflict. Can it?”

  Mom flipped through the entertainment section. “Let’s see, the meet’s at seven, and the concert …”

  She opened the paper to a full-page U4Me ad. At the bottom, in large print, it read 8:00 P.M.

  My mathematical mind clicked into gear. “Well, if we start right on time, and twelve problems have a three-minute time limit, and the Mathmania problems are answered in an average of two minutes, then we’ll be done by —”

  Mom was shaking her head. “Forget it, Stacey. The meet is in Hartford. The concert’s in New York. That’s a two-and-a-half-hour drive. You can’t possibly go to the concert. Besides, you’ve seen U4Me.”

  “But they have a new CD! And this may be the last big event Dad can take me to before he has a new job.”

  Mom sighed. “You said he doesn’t have it yet. And even if he gets a job, it’s not as if he’ll drop off the face of the earth.”

  I looked at the clock and realized I was out of time. “Got to go, Mom.”

  I breakfasted, brushed, and bolted.

  At the corner of Elm and Burnt Hill, Claudia and Mary Anne were looking at their watches and waiting.

  “Oversleeping or bad hair day?” asked Claudia as I approached.

  “Hair,” I replied.

  Claudia grinned at Mary Anne. “I win.”

  I ignored the comment. I was too eager to tell them about my concert dilemma.

  When I did, Claudia nearly jumped out of her shoes. “Definitely go to the meet. Give me the ticket.”

  “Uh-uh, no way,” I said. “Sorry, Claudia.”

  “Um, don’t you have the state finals?” Mary Anne asked. “As in, all of Connecticut? Do you really want to miss it for a concert?”

  “But it’s a best-of-three series,” I reminded them. “We can still take it if we lose the first game.”

  “True,” Claudia conceded. “Besides, you have Bea the Genius on your team. They are pretty strong without you, Stace. No offense.”

  “That’s not the point, really,” Mary Anne said. “I mean, it’s a team. Like the BSC. We all show up to meetings. We don’t disappear for any old reason.”

  “That’s because Kristy would kill us,” Claudia remarked.

  “It’s not any old reason,” I argued. “This is the concert of a lifetime.”

  Mary Anne shrugged. “I guess.”

  “My dad went through a lot of trouble to do this,” I went on. “And as soon as he has a new job, forget it. I’ll never see him.”

  “Stacey’s right,” Claudia said. “What’s more important, family or math?”

  Mary Anne couldn’t argue with that.

  I had made up my mind.

  * * *

  At lunchtime I heard someone listening to a U4Me CD on a Sony Discman. During English class my teacher caught Grace Blume reading the autobiography of Skyllo, the band’s lead singer.

  I took these as signs I was making the right decision.

  I did not, however, mention my decision to any of my teammates. I had to tell Ms. Hartley first. And I didn’t have the chance to see her until after school.

  My teeth were chattering when I walked into her classroom.

  Family or math …

  Family or math …

  I kept repeating Claudia’s words to myself.

  Ms. Hartley broke into a huge smile when she saw me. “Heyyy, it’s the math champ of Connecticut! I have something I need to show you.”

  As she rooted around in her desk, I blurted out, “Ms. Hartley, I have some bad news.”

  Ms. Hartley glanced up from her desk, holding a computer printout. Her smile had vanished. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine. It’s just that — well, you see —” Say it, McGill! my brain commanded. “I won’t be able to make the meet tomorrow.”

  There. Done. It was off my chest.

  Ms. Hartley looked at me blankly, as if I’d just recited something in Icelandic.

  “It’s — it’s because — well, it’s a family thing,” I stammered. “With my dad.”

  “Oh. I see.” Ms. Hartley nodded grimly. “Well, I — I hope everything works out. This is a disappointment. We’ll certainly miss you.”

  “But I’ll be able to make the other two meets,” I added. “Or one. I mean, if we win the first and we only need one to win two. I wouldn’t miss those … or that.”

  Ugh. I needed to stop while I was ahead.

  “I understand, Stacey,” Ms. Hartley said. “Really. Sorry if I seem preoccupied. It’s just that Bea has come down with strep throat. She’s contagious for twenty-four hours, so she won’t be at the meet, either.”

  I felt as if someone had just conked me over the head with a baseball bat.

  “Oh, no,” I murmured. “Well, maybe I can ask —”

  “You have to do what you have to do,” Ms. Hartley said, forcing a smile. “We’ll be fine. We still have seven strong players.”

  A picture flashed through my mind. The entire SMS Mathletes team, sitting dejectedly in the middle of a huge stadium. Balloons and confetti filling the air. One side of the bleachers screaming. The other side sobbing, as a deep voice blares out, “Stoneybrook … zero!”

  And where was I in this picture? Miles away, bouncing along to U4Me. A traitor to my team. Like Nero, fiddling while Rome burned.

  Was I nuts?

  I had to change my plans before it was too late.

  “Ms. Hartley —” I began.

  “Oh, I never showed you this!” she interrupted, handing me the computer printout. “The individual scoring totals of every Mathlete in the state — and look who’s tied for number one!”

  The sheet contained a long list of names and numbers in tiny print. But the top one jumped out at me:

  MCGILL, A.

  Yes, that’s me. (The A stands for my full name, Anastasia.) Just below my name, it said SINGH, G., with the same score.

  “Apparently, George Singh is a real hotshot in Eastbury,” Ms. Hartley explained. “You’ll meet him in the finals. Newspaper articles have been written about him. So you can be quite proud of yourself.”

  Proud? I was flabbergasted! Me, little unknown Stacey, number one in the state?

  No, tied for number one. Which meant I could become number one.

  That is, unless I skipped a meet for a concert.

  Boy, did I feel like a doofus.

  “Ms. Hartley,” I tried again, “you know, I may be able to —”

  “Excuse me?” a voice piped up. “Stacey?”

  I turned to see one of the teacher’s aides, Ms. Kolinsky, in the doorway.

  “I was told you might be here,” she continued. “Your dad is here. He was wondering if —”

  “There she is!” said Dad, walking into the room.

  I swallowed my words.
r />   Great. This was just what I needed. A big scene with Dad. He’d mention the concert, and Ms. Hartley would know the reason I’d turned my back on my teammates.

  Ms. Hartley stood up and extended her hand. “Mr. McGill, may I be the first to congratulate you on your daughter’s great success!”

  The two of them could not stop oohing and ahhing about my score. As we walked toward the front lobby, all I could manage were a few smiles and thank yous.

  With a quick good-bye, Ms. Hartley ducked into the office. Dad and I headed outside.

  “So, where will it be?” Dad asked. “Steven E? Bellair’s? Zingy’s? You name it! Oh, I know what you’re going to say. Don’t worry. I called Mom and she said it was okay. And I promise to drive you back in time for your Baby-sitters Club meeting. So, you name the store.”

  I thought about protesting, but I couldn’t. Dad would be heartbroken.

  Boy, had I blown it. I was stuck.

  I should have been thrilled. I was about to buy a new outfit. I was going to see my favorite rock group of all time. All out of the generosity of my dad. I tried to feel cheery.

  “Zingy’s, I guess,” I muttered.

  “Don’t sound so happy,” Dad said with a teasing smile.

  I smiled back. I was absolutely miserable.

  “IIIII ammm zee famoose Madammm Math!” intoned Haley Braddock, from behind a black veil. “My asseestant, the Duke of Digits, shall make words appear magically from nommmmbairs!”

  Haley’s younger brother, Matt, fished some magnetic letters out of a hat and put them on the Johanssens’ refrigerator:

  “Moomba lazoooomba!” Haley chanted.

  Matt turned around the numbers so they looked like this:

  “Moomba lazoooomba?” Charlotte Johanssen burst out giggling. She was wearing a veil made of taped-together tissues, and they fell off her head. “This is dumb.”

  “No, it’s great,” Haley insisted. “Everyone else at the math fair will be doing boring stuff. You know, like ‘Remainders and me.’ ‘Fun with times tables.’ But when people see our poster — Madam Math and Countess Countsworthy — they’ll say, ‘That’s original!’ ”

  Matt glared at her and began communicating in sign language. (He’s profoundly deaf, which means he hears absolutely no sound.)