The Clueless Girl's Guide to Being a Genius by Janice Repka Page A

Wigglesmith would applaud, and life would be good.
    I opened my eyes just as the stupid baton shifted its path and landed with a whack on her head.

9
    Aphrodite Calls for a Showdown
    T he best way to avoid a news reporter is to climb up a tree and act like a nut. Don’t ask me how I know this. Even if I had done it, I would never admit it. And Bernie, my squirrel friend from Harvard, would not testify against me for all the Tootsie Rolls in town. I will admit I hate being interviewed. Most reporters don’t know enough math to understand my work, so they focus on personal details. They think it’s funny that my mother’s a plumber and make up headlines like PLUMBER’S CHILD HAS GREAT MATH PIPES and UNCLOGGING THE MYSTERY—HOW A PLUMBER’S DAUGHTER DRAINED THE MATH POOL.
    Principal DeGuy waved from the back of the classroom. He was visiting again and had brought a guest—a reporter who was doing a feature story on me. The reporter was himself a graduate of Carnegie Middle School, where he was best remembered as the soloist who sang “Hark the Hairy Angels Sing” at a Christmas concert.
    The reporter was staring at Roland, who was in the front of the classroom making pistachio ice cream. Roland measured out one cup of milk, two teaspoons of sugar, and one tablespoon of imitation pistachio extract into a small freezer bag. Then he took a larger freezer bag, filled it with four cups of ice, and added 1/4 cup of salt. He placed the small bag inside the big bag, sealed it, and danced like a crazed rock star to shake the concoction.
    It was not exactly what I had expected when I announced today would be a “Why Math Matters to Me Day,” but I couldn’t have been more pleased. After Mindy had demonstrated her baton skills for me in the alley, I realized that math affects my students’ everyday lives as much as mine. So I challenged each of them to think about a favorite hobby or interest and do a presentation for the class that showed the mathematics involved (for extra credit, of course). Roland had been my first volunteer.
    â€œMath matters to me because without it I couldn’t make ice cream,” he had said when he began. “Cooking is a very mathematical thing. It uses fractions, ratios, weights, volume, temperature, and time. You multiply a recipe when you’re in a sharing mood and want to make enough for everyone, and you divide when you’re feeling like a pig and want to make just enough for yourself.”
    When Roland stopped shaking, he opened the bag and squirted a mushy helping of hand-shaken pistachio ice cream into his mouth. Then he grabbed his heart as if to suggest the ice cream was so good it could kill him. “In conclusion, math tastes good.”
    The bell rang and the students sprang for the door, but the reporter caught me before I could steal away.
    â€œI’m Stanley Butera,” he said. “Delighted to meet you, Professor Wigglesmith.”
    â€œI hope you enjoyed the class,” I replied, inching toward the exit.
    Principal DeGuy took me by the arm. “Stan covers all the school activities for us.”
    â€œMy favorite is the Great Math Showdown,” the reporter said. “It’s a quiz-type competition for the eighth-grade math classes here at the middle school, sponsored by Right Type Office Supply Store. The winning team gets two hundred dollars. Last year’s team used it to buy new calculators and give their classroom a makeover. Mr. Ripple, your honors math teacher, runs the competition.”
    â€œHow interesting,” I said. And I wasn’t just being polite. It was the most exciting news I’d heard since I began teaching. New calculators would be a well-deserved reward for all the work my students had been doing, and my classroom could certainly use a makeover. But, more important, if my remedial math class entered the Great Math Showdown and won, it would prove my theory that anyone