PAPA PETE ALWAYS SAYS that time flies when you’re having fun. Well, I must have been having a ball, because those two and a half weeks until the math unit test flew by like a rocket in outer space. Between math tutoring in the morning and rehearsals in the afternoon, my days were full. I was so busy, I didn’t even have time to get nervous about the test.
Until Friday, the second Friday in November, to be exact. The day of the unit test on long division. I woke up with a rumbling in my belly. It was like my stomach was talking to me, saying, “Hank Zipzer, can you do it? Can you pull off a B-plus?”
“Of course you can do it,” Frankie said to me on our way to school. “Just stay calm and breathe. Remember, dude. Oxygen is power.”
“And check your work,” Ashley said. “No careless mistakes.”
“Neatness counts,” Emily chimed in. “Don’t be your usual sloppy self.”
Heather and I didn’t meet before school that day for tutoring. She said I knew the material cold, and she didn’t want to make me nervous. So instead, I just hung out in the yard before school, watching the last of the fall leaves float to the ground and listening to my stomach rumble.
Ms. Adolf takes test days pretty seriously. Well, she takes every day pretty seriously, but on test days, she wouldn’t crack a smile if two hundred clowns ran into class throwing whipped-cream pies and making funny faces.
“Hi, Ms. Adolf,” I said as I walked past her desk that morning. I thought maybe if I smiled at her, she’d smile back. “Lovely day for a math test.”
“Speak to me after the test, Henry,” she said. “Then we’ll see if you still think it’s a lovely day.”
Way to give a guy confidence, Ms. A.
Heather waved at me as she came in and took her seat. She flashed me a thumbs-up sign. She had total confidence in me.
I sure hope I live up to it.
The math test wasn’t until after lunch, which left me all day to worry about it. I kept busy, though. Between listening to my stomach rumble and biting my fingernails and yoga-breathing my head off, I had a lot to do.
I stopped by to visit Mr. Rock at lunch, and he told me how well he thought I was doing as the king. He’d been coming to rehearsals for the last week, because he was musical director and played the piano for our songs.
“You’re a natural up there onstage,” he said to me.
“Thanks,” I said. “By the way, does seventy-two divided by six equal twelve?”
“I believe it does,” he said. “Why?”
“No reason,” I answered, as my stomach rumbled and I wandered out.
It was exactly one thirty when Ms. Adolf called an end to our silent reading period and told us to clear our desks.
“Put all your books away,” she said. “Nothing but one sheet of paper and one pencil on your desk. If I find anything else, I will take it away.”
She walked up and down each row, placing one test on each of our desks. When I first looked at the test, I had the same reaction I always have when I see a whole page of math problems. The numbers started to dance on the page, my mind went blank, and I got a little nauseous.
Oh, no you don’t, Hankster. Not this time. Come on, now. Breathe and concentrate. You know this stuff.
Somehow, I managed to calm my mind and look at the test. There they were. Thirty-two nifty little long division problems, smiling up at me. I smiled back at them.
Hi, guys. How you doing? Let’s make friends.
I looked over at Ms. Adolf, who was giving me an icy stare. I guess she had never seen anyone try to make friends with their math problems before. I wiped the smile off my face and got to work.
I didn’t look up for one hour. At exactly two thirty, Ms. Adolf said, “Pencils down.” I had just finished the very last problem.
I put my pencil down, and if I do say so myself, I was feeling pretty good about long division.