June 2023 Flash Lit 6: Four by Four

“I’m sure I’m not Ada,” she said, “for her hair goes in such long ringlets, and mine doesn’t go in ringlets at all; and I’m sure I can’t be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a very little! Besides, she’s she, and I’m I, and—oh dear, how puzzling it all is! I’ll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is—oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at that rate!  Alice in Wonderland, Chapter 2

 

 

Ally looked up despairingly from the smudges on her worksheet.  Mrs. Kim was busy at her desk, looking for her glasses, which were perched on top of her smooth black hair.  The blackboard was also smooth, but not as black as Mrs. Kim’s hair.  It also had a grid of numbers, white against its surface.  The grid was supposed to be helpful, but Ally didn’t understand it.

 

Annabelle, in the seat in front of Ally, hunched over her paper, twirling a curl around one finger as she spiraled her pencil down the row of problems.  Ally knew better than to ask her for help.  Annabelle knew lots of things, but couldn’t explain how she knew them.  She was like Google, spitting out answer after answer.

 

Next to her, Maya was drawing boxes on her worksheet.  She drew the fancy kind, squares offset from each other and connected at the corners so that the cubes shifted toward or away as Ally looked at them.  Maya didn’t care if Mrs. Kim got angry that she hadn’t even tried to multiply four by four.

 

Ally’s eyes filled with tears.  She hated disappointing Mrs. Kim.

 

“Ally?” Mr. Charles the student teacher asked.  “Do you want me to explain?”

 

The relief that filled Ally’s belly as Mr. Charles kept speaking spread out from there.  He seemed to conjure fours out of the air, spin them, grow them, arrange them.  In the space after his voice ceased, Ally understood.

 

“Sixteen!” she cried.

 

Her blue eyes caught his brown ones, smiles multiplying.