The Cinderella Theorem Read Online Free PDF Page B

and Miss
Purple off the table.
    I don’t
know how much more of this “normal” life I can stand.

5
Keys
     
    After
I finished my biology, I settled into the couch to enjoy Sir Isaac Newton and
his first law of motion. Objects in motion were remaining in motion when my
parents finally decided to come home to see if their only daughter had returned
from school safely. They bounded down the stairs, holding hands and smiling.
    “Are
you all packed, Lil?” Mom asked, looking appalled by my biography of Newton. Mom,
being a fiction writer and, apparently, the queen of a fairy tale kingdom, has
an aversion to non-fiction.
    “What
exactly do I pack?” Questions about packing equal stalled time not spent in
magical fairy tale kingdom. “Furthermore, why do I need to pack? It seems to me
that if I need anything I can just zip back through the tub and get it.”
    “Go
pack.” Mom used her rare no-nonsense voice.
    I
took the tonal hint and went upstairs.
    In
my room, I found my jeans from yesterday. Jeans are nearly mathematical all by
themselves. I’ve created an equation regarding how many times you can wear them
before you send them to the hamper. And the degree in which you wear
them plays a part of the equation. For instance,
     
    if x = a wearing of jeans,
    2x = two wearings of jeans,
    but x² = dirty to the second degree,
    a really dirty wearing of jeans.
     
    Math:
Happiness and normality even when you are packing to go on a magical journey
through your bathtub.
    I
stuck my hand in the pocket to clean it out and found the blue marble from The
Box . Lovely. The blue marble equals a reminder of happier days when what I
knew about my father could be contained in one small box. It’s actually kind of
sad, really. But which is sadder: losing The Box of what you know about
your father, or being able to put everything you know about him into a box?
    That
was not a mathematical question at all, so I couldn’t answer it. Without
thinking, I put the marble into the pocket of today’s jeans. (Today’s jeans =
2x.) On to packing.
    Ten
minutes, a pair of pajamas, yesterday’s jeans, two shirts, and an assortment of
toiletries later I returned downstairs to announce that I was packed.
    “Where’s
your bag?” Mom asked, furiously scribbling something onto a post-it note in the
kitchen. Several post-it notes, actually. She had quite a pile going.
    “It’s
in the bathroom.” Where else do you put your bag for a trip to Smythe’s SFL?
    “Fine…”
Mom trailed absent-mindedly.
    “What
are you doing?” I wanted to know what was so important it had to be written
down at that exact moment. We were supposed to be embarking on our first trip
as an entire family.
    My
dad came over, putting his hand on my shoulder. “Unfortunately, Lily,” he
sighed. “Your mother has been seized with an inspiration.”
    “Shall
we sit down then?” I asked, as mom ran to her office, calling, “I’ll only be a
minute!”
    “I
think so,” my father chuckled, as we walked back into the living room. “Once
she ignored me for two whole days.” He smiled. “That was the Battle for the
Magic of Andeer.”
    “I
know what you mean. The week that she wrote the fall of Sir Wend, I only saw
her at supper.”
    “That’s
one of her better villain downfalls, though.”
    “It
is.” We settled into a little silence; then our quiet was broken by Mom
shouting from the office, “I’ve got you now, Tressa! Your plans to marry the
prince are going to fail.”
    “Poor
Tressa.” My father sank back into the couch and sighed.
    I
should have been happy, really. I just had a “moment” of mutual understanding
with my new-found father. Too bad the “moment” came from us waiting for my mom
to come back from a world that exists only in her brain and computer, so that
we can portal through our bathtub to a parallel world inhabited solely by
fictional characters. And the awkward conversation we shared was about my mother’s
fictional worlds, instead