Secrets

Chapter 4

Mateo's pov:

Class had begun and we were learning Math.

To me, Math is really easy.

"Can anyone tell me what 4+10 is?" Mrs. Brown asked as she looked around.

No one looked at her, they all looked away...

"No one..." she said, desperately.

Everyone continued looking around, not minding her. I noticed this so to make things easier, I about to raise my hand but she called on Min-Jun.

"Minnie, could you tell me what 4+10 is?" Mrs. Brown asked him.

Min-Jun looked at her and the board, surprised. He said, "U-uhm... 410?"

Mrs. Brown sighed and everyone, except me, started laughing.

"So stupid," a boy commented.

A girl added, "I can't believe he just said that."

"I always knew he was dumb," a boy stated.

"Hush everyone! But Minnie, that was incorrect. Can anyone tell me the correct answer?" Mrs. Brown asked as she looked around the classroom.

I raised my hand and she called on me.

"What is it, Mateo?" she questioned.

I replied, "The answer is 14."

She clapped and said, "Correct, next problem."

"Woah, he's so smart," a girl gushed out.

A guy commented, "Show off," then huffed.

I smiled and looked at Minnie. He was already looking at me but once we made eye contact, he blushed and looked away.

I leaned closer to his ear and whispered, "It's okay that you got the question wrong, I'll be here to help you from now on."

Min-Jun's eyes opened wider as he whispered back, "O-okay.. t-thank you," then hid his blushing face in his hands.

I smiled and replied, "No problem."

Mrs. Brown picked up some papers then said, "Class, we're going to move on from Addition and are going to start Subtraction."

She placed a sheet of paper on each desk as she continued saying, "The paper I just passed out will be your assignment for today."

I looked at the paper and noticed there were word problems.

This should be pretty easy but for some reason, everyone groaned and whined seeing a lot of words on a paper.

"What?! We have to do all this?" a kid questioned Mrs. Brown like she'd gone mad.

She laughed and replied, "Oh heavens no. Circle all the even numbers and those will be the problems you do for today."

"Oh, okay," the kid replied as everyone started circling all the even numbers on their paper.

I finished circling all the even numbers but when I glanced at Minnie's paper, he hadn't circled anything.

I tapped his shoulder and whispered to him, "Min-Jun, you gotta start working."

He looked at me while pouting then replied, "I don't know which ones are even or which ones are odd..."

"Oh... well I'll help you out." I stated.

He looked shocked as he asked, "R-really?"

I nodded and began explaining the method I remember, "So basically 1 is odd and 2 is even. 3 is odd and 4 is even. It's just repeating that same pattern over and over again. Can you tell me whether 5 is even or odd?"