ON HOLD; It's No Fun Being This Smart | ONC2021

Skip Counting

When Isla got nervous, she skip counted. As they walked through the tall grass, getting further and further away from the school, closer and closer to the empty road, Isla started counting by 13's . Before they got to the road, they got to an old ladder. Isla looked up, her mouth dropped at the height of ladder and the sheer size of the tree. Li climbed high up the ladder, reached out until she nearly fell, grabbed a branch, and revealed a door half as tall as her. Li pushed the door open and crawled in. Bo climbed up the ladder. Before he crawled in, he turned to Isla and said "What are you waiting for? Winter?"

Isla clenched her fists and yelled "I'm waiting to see if it's safe, silly!" She didn't deserve to be mocked. Li and Bo were being reckless.

Li stuck her head out the door. "Come on. It's safe, really."

Isla mumbled "Seven five four plus ten, seven six four plus three, seven six seven." (She added ten and three because 10 + 3 is 13. She called the number by their digits it made it easier to remember.) Then, she took a deep breathe, climbed up the ladder, and crawled in.

Once inside, she stood up. She looked around. Bo had put a chain across the door and was putting multiple padlocks on it. In the middle of the room, Li was pulling papers out of the document bags and setting them up in three piles on a desk. Although the tree was wide at the base, the upper room was barely big enough for the three of them with the desk and two chairs, so Isla didn't know where the teacher would go.

Isla asked "Where's the teacher?"

"Wait, I need to get our papers ready," said Li.

Isla looked over as she grouped the papers. They were filled with math problems, but not the super duper easy ones Mr. Reyes gave as homework. The problems were more like the ones Isla printed on bond papers. Most of the papers went in one of three piles, but Li had put one of them all on its own. The lonely paper had a grid with a number in each square, except the first one. Isla found a pattern to the numbers: the first row and the first column had the regular counting numbers, the second row and column skip counted by two, and so on. Isla smiled. It was a clever little chart.

She pointed to the chart and asked "What's this?"

Li's face lit up. "It's a times table. Look." Li put a right finger on the 9 on the top row and a left finger on the 7 on the left column. She slid the right finger down and the left finger right until they met on a 63. She announced "Nine times seven is sixty-three. It helps me memorize my times tables."

"Memorize?" Isla said, but then she remembered her mom saying it's rude to ask things like that, so Isla said, "Nevermind. That's awesome. Where's the teacher."

At that, Li looked away like she had a secret. Li said, "We'll let you meet her, but don't tell anyone else, okay?"

Isla mumbled "Seven six seven plus ten, seven seven seven plus three, seven eight zero."

Isla turned to Li, "Okay. It'll be our secret, but not from my mom."

Li turned to Bo and nodded. Bo sat on the floor and took off his metal leg, leaving a white sock on his knee. He removed the metal leg's shoe, revealing a secret compartment on the foot. He pressed the secret compartment and its lid rose, revealing a key no more than an inch in length. He handed the key to Li. As Bo put his leg back on, Li squated down and stuck the key upside down in a hole between the floor planks. Li turned the key. Li pulled the key up, dragging a piece of the floor with it to reveal a small, empty room with a hole in the floor. Li let the hole's cover lean on the wall. Bo smiled. Li reminded him to grab his papers. Bo, softly squeeling, grabbed one of the piles of paper from the desk. Then, he lowered himself into the newly revealed room.

Li said "Don't be scared. Just follow Bo. I'll go after you so I can lock the floor."

"Seven eight zero plus ten, seven nine zero plus three, seven nine three," Isla mumbled.

"What?" asked Li.

Isla chuckled and shook her head, as though to say "nothing." Isla crawled into the secret compartment and down the hole of its floor. The hole lead to an identical compartment. Isla kept going, mumbling numbers.

She went through the next floor hole.

Then the next.

Then a slightly smaller one.

Then a slightly bigger one.

At the bottom, Bo was blabbering away at a unicorn.