the enthusiasm of someone answering the midnight knock on the door that had to be the Security Police. As far as he was concerned, their jails and cellars held no terrors worse than the problems at the end of each chapter.
He groaned when he got a look at these. Theyâd driven him crazy in middle school. Here they were again, harder and more complicated than ever. Train A leaves so much time and so many kilometers behind Train B. It travels so many kilometers an hour
faster than Train B, though. At what time will it catch up? Or sometimes, how far will each train go before A catches B?
They werenât always trains. Sometimes they were planes or cars or ships. But they were trains in the first question.
And, because they were trains, Gianfrancoâs panic dissolved like morning mist under the sun. This was a problem right out of Rails across Europe . There, it involved squares on the board and dice rolls instead of kilometers and hours, but so what? He figured those things out while he was playing. Why couldnât he do it for schoolwork?
Because itâs no fun when itâs schoolwork , he thought. How could it not be fun, though, if it had to do with trains? He tried the problem and got an answer that seemed reasonable. On to the next.
The next problem had to do with cars. When Gianfranco first looked at it, it made no more sense than Annaritaâs Russianâless, because everybody picked up a little Russian, like it or not. Then he pretended the cars were trains. All of a sudden, it didnât seem so hard. He got to work. Again, the answer he came up with seemed reasonable.
There was a difference, though, between being reasonable and being right. He took the problems to his father, who was smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper. âCan you check these for me?â he asked.
âI donât know. What are you doing?â his father asked. Gianfranco explained. His father sucked in smoke. The coal on the cigarette glowed red. People said you were healthier if you quit smoking, but nobody ever told you how. His father shook his head and spread his hands. âSorry, ragazzo . I remember going down the drain on these myself. Maybe youâre right, maybe
youâre wrong, maybe youâre crazy. I canât tell you one way or the other. I wish I could.â
âIâll find out in class tomorrow.â Gianfranco didnât look forward to that. But he still thought he had a chance of being right, and that didnât happen every day in algebra. âLet me go back and do some more.â
âSure, go ahead. Pick up as much of that stuff as you canâit wonât hurt you,â his father said indulgently. âBut you can do all right without it, too. Look at me.â He stubbed out the cigarette, then thumped his chest with his right fist.
âThanks anyway, Papa.â Gianfranco retreated in a hurry. He didnât want to spend the rest of his life going to an office and doing nothing the way his old man did. Yes, his father had a medium-fancy title. Heâd got it not because he was especially smart but because he never made enemies. But it still amounted to not very much. Heâd said himself that they could train a monkey to do his job.
So what do you want to do, then? Gianfranco asked himself. He knew the answerâhe wanted to run a railroad. How did you go about learning to do that? Figuring out when trains would come in probably was part of it.
Gianfranco muttered to himself, pretending airplanes were trainsâvery fast trains. His trouble was, he didnât just want to run a railroad that had already been operating for 250 years. He wanted to start one and build it up from scratch, the way he did in the board game. How could you do that when it wasnât the nineteenth century any more?
He sighed. You couldnât. He was no big brain like Annarita, but he could see as much. What did that leave him? Two things occurred to
He groaned when he got a look at these. Theyâd driven him crazy in middle school. Here they were again, harder and more complicated than ever. Train A leaves so much time and so many kilometers behind Train B. It travels so many kilometers an hour
faster than Train B, though. At what time will it catch up? Or sometimes, how far will each train go before A catches B?
They werenât always trains. Sometimes they were planes or cars or ships. But they were trains in the first question.
And, because they were trains, Gianfrancoâs panic dissolved like morning mist under the sun. This was a problem right out of Rails across Europe . There, it involved squares on the board and dice rolls instead of kilometers and hours, but so what? He figured those things out while he was playing. Why couldnât he do it for schoolwork?
Because itâs no fun when itâs schoolwork , he thought. How could it not be fun, though, if it had to do with trains? He tried the problem and got an answer that seemed reasonable. On to the next.
The next problem had to do with cars. When Gianfranco first looked at it, it made no more sense than Annaritaâs Russianâless, because everybody picked up a little Russian, like it or not. Then he pretended the cars were trains. All of a sudden, it didnât seem so hard. He got to work. Again, the answer he came up with seemed reasonable.
There was a difference, though, between being reasonable and being right. He took the problems to his father, who was smoking a cigarette and reading the newspaper. âCan you check these for me?â he asked.
âI donât know. What are you doing?â his father asked. Gianfranco explained. His father sucked in smoke. The coal on the cigarette glowed red. People said you were healthier if you quit smoking, but nobody ever told you how. His father shook his head and spread his hands. âSorry, ragazzo . I remember going down the drain on these myself. Maybe youâre right, maybe
youâre wrong, maybe youâre crazy. I canât tell you one way or the other. I wish I could.â
âIâll find out in class tomorrow.â Gianfranco didnât look forward to that. But he still thought he had a chance of being right, and that didnât happen every day in algebra. âLet me go back and do some more.â
âSure, go ahead. Pick up as much of that stuff as you canâit wonât hurt you,â his father said indulgently. âBut you can do all right without it, too. Look at me.â He stubbed out the cigarette, then thumped his chest with his right fist.
âThanks anyway, Papa.â Gianfranco retreated in a hurry. He didnât want to spend the rest of his life going to an office and doing nothing the way his old man did. Yes, his father had a medium-fancy title. Heâd got it not because he was especially smart but because he never made enemies. But it still amounted to not very much. Heâd said himself that they could train a monkey to do his job.
So what do you want to do, then? Gianfranco asked himself. He knew the answerâhe wanted to run a railroad. How did you go about learning to do that? Figuring out when trains would come in probably was part of it.
Gianfranco muttered to himself, pretending airplanes were trainsâvery fast trains. His trouble was, he didnât just want to run a railroad that had already been operating for 250 years. He wanted to start one and build it up from scratch, the way he did in the board game. How could you do that when it wasnât the nineteenth century any more?
He sighed. You couldnât. He was no big brain like Annarita, but he could see as much. What did that leave him? Two things occurred to
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