How Could This Be Real?

33. Oh, Mindy

A few days later, I went to the media center after school to get books for my research project and saw Mindy there, surrounded by a mountain of papers and tools with her eyes glued to a computer screen.

I looked over her shoulder, "Learning trig?" She started at my voice and turned to me. There were bags under her eyes and it looked like a bird had made a nest in her hair.

"Trying to, I just don't get it though."

I glanced at her notes and the problem she was working on and pointed to one of the formulas. "Try this."

She jotted some things down and her eyes lit up. "I've been stuck on this forever! How did you know how to do it?"

I shrugged, "We learned it a couple weeks ago."

Her mouth gaped open, "What? But I'm a junior! How can you be so far ahead?"

"Are you in a math lab?"

She narrowed her eyes and looked away, "No." I waited and eventually she sighed, "Maybe."

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, everyone learns at different rates."

"But I want to learn faster! I want to get better grades." She surveyed the mess around her, "But I just don't understand this stuff."

"Do you want me to help you?"

She rubbed her eyes and mumbled, "I can manage."

I knew that she really couldn't but I didn't want to push her so I said, "Okay, I'll be here for a while so just holler if you need anything." She nodded so I wandered off into the shelves and dug around for a bit. Not too long after, I felt someone's eyes on me so I turned and saw Mindy standing a few feet away.

She wrung her hands, "You still up for helping? I'm lost." I smiled and followed her back to her station. "What do I do for this one?" she asked.

I shook my head, "You're never going to learn anything if I just tell you the answers."

"Well can you at least tell me where to start?"

I picked up a stack of papers, "We start by organizing all this junk."

She scowled, "How's that going to help?"

"A clean workspace helps you concentrate and we'll be able to pick out what's useful and what's irrelevant."

She scratched her head, "I'm not very good at English either."

"What we do and don't need." She nodded slowly and started searching through the stacks. It didn't take long and when we were done, I laid out a few papers in front of her. "Alright, so which of these do you think we should use?"

"I don't know."

"You didn't even look at them."

"What's the point? You're going to get the same answer."

"I bet you know more than you give yourself credit for."

She seemed doubtful but looked over the equations. "Um, let's see, this one? No, this one. Oh wait, uh, maybe..."

I could tell she was flustered so I said, "Alright, let's go back a few steps." Eventually she started to understand and could almost do them entirely by herself. When we finally finished, she was grinning but looked exhausted.

"Wow, I can't believe I actually get it! Thanks for all the help Angel." She yawned and started to put her things away, but then stopped and facepalmed. "Oh shoot, I just remembered there's a Civics packet due tomorrow too! Ugh, it never ends."