'Tutor' by Jay Cool

Image courtesy of Pixabay.com

Blank.

I just couldn't work it out - couldn't fathom it!

You need a challenge! my teacher proclaimed. As top of the class in our last maths assessment, I'm figuring you need a push!

A push?

The only 'push' I was feeling, was a crushing compression on my backed-up-and-blocked-up brain - squashing it (and me) flat.

Blank.

What to do?

Cry.

"Shut up! Stop that noise! You're hurting my ears!"

Cry more.

"Stop! What's that?" he demanded, as usual, avoiding any contact with my evil eye, and zooming straight into the challenge in hand. "You've got a lot of blank spaces there!"

"Tell me something I don't know!" came my retort, which I have to admit was, on hindsight, possibly not the best tone to take with my Home Tutor.

"Easy! That's easy, easy, easy!"

"Easy? How can lots of letters possibly make anything other than lots of words? How the monkeys can they make a number?"

"I don't think that monkeys can do maths, at least not to that level but, for humans - it's easy!"

"But, this is A Level stuff! My teacher's crazy! How can she expect a thirteen-year old to do this crap!"

"Craps do take a long time, if you're constipated - mine take about an hour! But, this is just algebra. Algebra's easy! The answer is 555!"

"What?"

"Five hundred and fifty-five!"

"How the hell do you know that!"

"Hell doesn't really exist - you should know that! But, everyone knows how to do algebra and the answer's five hundred and fifty-five!"

"How?"

"Are you accusing me on lying? I'm not wrong!"

I tried to catch my Tutor's eye, to work out whether he was just having me on. But, his eyes were just blank, deep-dark brown - almost black - and blank. Blank and staring ahead of me and past me, staring into another world.

Mistrusting myself, but trusting him, I filled in the blank:

555

******************************************************************

"You did it!" declared my challenger. "That's got to be worth a positive phone call home. I'll get onto it! Well done!"

Smug, I soaked up the praise; soaked up the praise, and hid the truth. My eight-year old brother had saved my skin again!

Thanks little bruv! Blank eyes. Knowledge on tap. ASD, the psychologists call it.

Genius, I call it!

But, then - with blank brain, blocked up and backed up - what do I know?




Copyright owned by Jay Cool, September 2018