Read Online Number 8 by Anna Fienberg - Free Book Online Page B

communicate was with numbers. And he found he was good at it—he
had
to be, he said. He could add, multiply, entertain with math. He collected a class of kids there; they’d sit around in the dirt and he’d teach them how to add and subtract, play games with numbers. Mainly, the kids wanted to learn how to count the number of days before their release but no one ever told them when this would be. That was the hardest part, he said. Some people had been there for years. You should see him doing long multiplications in his head, or adding strings of three-digit numbers together in a few seconds. He’s worked hard at it, he says, but I think he’s just a natural talent. Any new school he walks into, he’s a math star.
    I’m not like that—I just enjoy making patterns with numbers. I like the way a math problem will always have a solution. Just one neat, tidy answer. No room for ifs and buts and maybes and what will happen? Just a single fact. That’s cool. Something you can rely on. And then if you make up the problem yourself, you can make sure you get an
even
solution. Everything is in its proper place in the world. At least for a while.
    Asim isn’t so crazy about even numbers. He likes all kinds. Odds and evens, they all work for him. You can’t have light without dark, ice cream without spinach, he figures. But he said a great thing about eight. The best I ever heard. He said eight was maybe the source of all life. It is the shape of DNA. The blueprint, the grand plan for living cells to grow. Isn’t that the best?
    Well, we’re sitting in the tree, dreaming about the house we’re going to build when suddenly a bang like gunshot cracks our ears. We both jump. Asim nearly falls off. We stand up shakily, hanging onto a branch and look out across the street. A heavyset boy with spiky hair is running down the road. Badman, with his shirt flying out behind him. He’s shooting glances back as he runs, watching the smoke drifting from a brightly painted mailbox. The door has blown off, hanging crazily by one hinge, like a broken arm. We watch as an old lady comes out and wrings her hands.
    Asim is trembling. Tears spill over his lids.
    I reach out and touch his arm. “It’s okay,” I say. I don’t know what to say, actually. Nothing seems right. When things like this happen I realize how different the two of us really are. On Trenches Road you got used to the sound of explosions. For us, they were harmless. Cars backfiring, kids lighting firecrackers in gutters. I made a kind of gun once by putting a firecracker inside a pen cap with a couple of pebbles on top. When I lit the firecracker, the pebble shot through eight pages of the
Herald
newspaper. I got a lot of respect for that in the neighborhood.
    But for Asim, the sound of gunshot means something else.
    He’s wiping his cheeks. I figure he’s only just realized the tears were there. “Happens when I get a fright,” he murmurs. “Can’t help it.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” I say again. “Just bad old Badman.” I think the only thing to do is change the subject. Get back to something more normal. So I start to talk again about the possum house. The maple tree is probably the better choice, I tell him, because I think we’ll want to keep climbing the mango, and maybe the possums won’t want visitors all the time. Asim nods, and takes a few deep breaths. Mom showed him how to relax his shoulders when he does this, and keep the breath inside for five seconds. I told him to hold it for four or six, if he can. Works for me, I said.
    We’re just starting to climb down when something catches my eye. A blue Mustang, purring slowly up the road. I love the growl of a Mustang, like a lion with its teeth bared. Don’t you want the driver to just gun it, and roar? But the car creeps along, as if it’s looking for something. As it passes under our tree, I read