Nano future character challenge “Ok class, today we’re going to look at adding decimals. It may seem scary at first, but I promise you it’s just like the regular addition you’re all super good at now,” Mr. Mayhew smiled. Georgia tried to feel enthusiastic. Mr. Mayhew was nice. He definitely made maths a lot easier than her last teacher had - sometimes she even felt like she got it - but today she really wasn’t in the mood, and decimals sounded hard, whatever Mr. Mayhew said.
I wish I didn’t have to do this. she thought miserably.
“Ok, let me just write up the first problem on the board, and then we can take a walk through it - hmm,” Mr. Mayhew’s hand closed on empty air. “Did anyone see where I put my pen?” he asked. He was sure he’d put it right there. He always put it right there… The class didn’t volunteer an answer. He would have suspected having a trickster on his hands, but he really couldn’t see how anyone could have got hold of his pen without him noticing - they’d have had to run right up to the board.
“I must have just mislaid it,” he shrugged, crossing to get a spare from his drawer. Only when he opened it, the box was empty, which was strange - he was sure he’d picked up a new one not that long ago.
Georgia felt a little prickle of guilt as she watched Mr. Mayhew. He sent Bobby Price next door to borrow a pen from Miss Makenzie, but Bobby came back empty handed, claiming he’d had the pen when he left Miss Makenzie’s room but he didn’t know what had happened to it since. It looked like something similar happened to Mr. Mayhew, only he didn’t admit it, when he went to the office to collect a whole new box of pens, but came back empty handed and bewildered.
“Ok, class, just read your books quietly until recess, and I’ll try to sort this out.”
It wasn’t the first time something like this had happened. Libby Prior had been showing off her new shoes. She’d made nasty comments about Geogria’s and then splat, Libby had been covered all head to toe in mud. Georgia had tried to talk to her mum about it. Even though Libby was a spoilt brat, Georgia felt bad about what had happened. But her mum had said not to be ridiculous - things like that happened and they were just called coincidences. But coincidence, Georgia thought, was when you wished a big truck would drive through a muddy puddle and splash the smug smile off Libby Prior’s face, and then it did. Coincidences didn’t make mud just appear from nowhere. When she’d asked her mother whether things like that ever happened, things with no explanation, her mother had looked very serious and told her that maybe sometimes they did, but it wasn’t a good idea to go telling about them. Not to anyone. Not even daddy.
When they were dismissed for recess, she hesitated. Mum had said she shouldn’t talk about these things but she had also been told to say sorry when she did something wrong, and Mr. Mayhew was such a nice teacher.
“Georgia,” he smiled, when she approached his desk, “How can I help you?”
“I… um… I need to tell you something. I think I know what happened to your pens.”
“Yes?” he asked, expecting Georgia to call out one of her classmates.
“I… I think I might have done it.”
“You think you might have?” he queried, his tone still even, in spite of this most odd semi-admission from one of his nicer students.
“Well… um… I was thinking ‘I wish I didn’t have to do math today,’” she explained, guilt over having to tell Mr. Mayhew she hadn’t wanted to do his lesson adding to her guilt about the problems she had caused. “And then all the pens were gone. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to mess up your lesson.”
“Georgia, pens are solid objects. You can’t think them out of existence. And, gosh, if they tended to vanish every time someone thought about not wanting to do math - why, they’d be no pens left in the whole wide world. I’m not sure what happened but it’s not your fault. You go and enjoy recess, and everything will be right as rain when you get back.”
“You’re sure?” Georgia asked. She was relieved that Mr. Mayhew wasn’t mad at her but she felt like he only wasn’t because he didn’t believe her, whereas she really was sure that she’d had something to do with it.
“I’m sure. Though let me just check, you don’t have anything against music, do you?”
“No,” she smiled, “I like music.”
“Then, either way, I think we’ll be ok.”
Georgia trudged out to recess, trying to believe Mr. Mayhew. Maybe he was right. It did seem a bit odd to believe that pens could just vanish. Maybe it was just a coincidence...