2 views
Maths Land
Tariq opened his eyes and looked at his alarm clock. The time was 7:15. He had fallen asleep at 22:05. He noticed things like that. Everyone in Maths Land noticed things like that.
Breakfast consisted of half a grapefruit each for his mum, his dad and his sister. He hated grapefruit. Mum had bought them yesterday at a 20% discount. She had also had twelve apples in one bag and fourteen oranges in another and spent some minutes checking that they weighed the same.
Tariq walked to school following streets which led in suspiciously predictable directions. The streets were all straight. He looked at the street names as he passed - North Street, Hill Street, Station Street. That one led to the station. The streets all had incredibly simplistic, predictable names, describing where they were or what they passed.
At 8:15 he knocked on the door of his friend John. John’s mother was a shockingly stereotypical woman who stayed at home all day apparently baking and shopping for baking ingredients and sharing her baking with friends.
Today was February the 29th. It was Tariq’s least favourite day of the entire year, as John would constantly remind him of how unusual the day was.
Tariq’s stride was 10% shorter than John’s but frankly he didn’t care. John was fat, white, wore glasses and had a bewildering range of dumb hobbies, like folding pieces of paper or collecting prime numbers. Tariq should have hated him, but somehow didn’t.
The trouble started at the school gate, standing at exactly 45 degrees to the line of the fence.
“Where is your partner?” asked Mr. Green the teacher who wore a brown tie and drove a white car. He played tennis all the time with Mr. White and Mr. Brown when not teaching.
“John is my partner” answered Tariq.
“But where is the girl?” asked Mr. Green.
“She left last week, remember? Her father had saved £1500 per year for 10 years to afford a house somewhere or other. They moved, having compared the price of different moving agencies.”
...
Breakfast consisted of half a grapefruit each for his mum, his dad and his sister. He hated grapefruit. Mum had bought them yesterday at a 20% discount. She had also had twelve apples in one bag and fourteen oranges in another and spent some minutes checking that they weighed the same.
Tariq walked to school following streets which led in suspiciously predictable directions. The streets were all straight. He looked at the street names as he passed - North Street, Hill Street, Station Street. That one led to the station. The streets all had incredibly simplistic, predictable names, describing where they were or what they passed.
At 8:15 he knocked on the door of his friend John. John’s mother was a shockingly stereotypical woman who stayed at home all day apparently baking and shopping for baking ingredients and sharing her baking with friends.
Today was February the 29th. It was Tariq’s least favourite day of the entire year, as John would constantly remind him of how unusual the day was.
Tariq’s stride was 10% shorter than John’s but frankly he didn’t care. John was fat, white, wore glasses and had a bewildering range of dumb hobbies, like folding pieces of paper or collecting prime numbers. Tariq should have hated him, but somehow didn’t.
The trouble started at the school gate, standing at exactly 45 degrees to the line of the fence.
“Where is your partner?” asked Mr. Green the teacher who wore a brown tie and drove a white car. He played tennis all the time with Mr. White and Mr. Brown when not teaching.
“John is my partner” answered Tariq.
“But where is the girl?” asked Mr. Green.
“She left last week, remember? Her father had saved £1500 per year for 10 years to afford a house somewhere or other. They moved, having compared the price of different moving agencies.”
...
