Us At Midday

When The Math Ain't Mathing

It was a warm noonday during break, the chatter of the students coming loose from the morning cold began rattling in my mind. I was always the impatient sort but that day, I had the most painful headache and a stack of math homework.

"I don't even wanna know how you managed to have this much and not get into some sort of trouble." Soleil was picking at some of the leaflets that I attempted, covered in pressed confectionery crumbs and coffee stains. "And how did you get these wrong? Miss went over it twice."

I had no excuse and no clever comeback so I just shrugged, pushing the paste-it sheets to make room for my hot pink calculator (a hand-me-down from my eldest sister), my pen and pencil and my near empty math book.

"Lemme have at this mess, tshh." He slid next to me in my old inked desk.

My admin teacher, other than adored Soleil, left the class open every break - knowing that if anyone had the nerve to steal any of her stationery, her children (as she'd liked to call us) would immediately rat the culprits out. That, and the fact that she was no dummy, she carried her purse anywhere she went on in that place.

The walls of most of the classrooms were yellow - unless teachers used money out of their own pockets to switch it up - and the miniscule differences were the graffiti on the walls and the the dried clumps of toilet paper on the ceiling (what really interested me was how they got graffiti up there too ...)

"- are you even listening to me right now?" His voice interrupted my daydreaming, and also made me realise that I was staring up at the ceiling. I rested my head on my contorted wrist.
"Absolutely, Sol ... but can you explain that thing you were saying again?" I batted my eyelashes.

He rolled his eyes. "I was explaining the basics of exponential law." Oh my word, someone throw a brick at my head. It would've hurt so much less.

He noticed that. "Wanna start with financial maths instead?"

...

"Okay, so lemme get this straight: if 2 plus 2 equals 4 ..." I paused, "And 5 plus 5 equals 10 -"

"Just get to the point, Ris." Rude.
Understandably, Soleil was running out of patience with me and my meme references but really ...

"- Then what the hell is this?" I point at the section on differential calculus. I had to finish the joke, for my own sanity.

"Dude, you're literally almost done." He sighed, taking his glasses off and wiping them with its special handkerchief. He looked different without it: his eyes were smaller and it was like I was looking at an entire other person. I never got used to it, and I could not figure out if that was a good thing or not.

"Can't I pay you to finish it for me?" I leaned back into my seat. People here assumed I was rich and that I came from money, but really, I was penniless and flying by the seat of my pants. Me individually, that is. My dad was an engineer and my mum was the secretary of our rival school but I was more humbled by those two facts than proud of it.
Not with Soleil though.

"Boy, don't you dare start with me. Have you no pride?" His eyes were narrowed. I suppose I tried.

"Calm down, I was messing with you." I sighed internally. Outwardly? I gave him my most charming grin, turning the next page. I wondered what you'd be like if you had no morals sometimes.

By the end of the 8th period, yes, we eventually finished my messy math pile.

Sidenote: I still managed to failed the year of the subject, but, you know, at least he tried to teach me math from grade 1-12.