Tortall and Other Lands - A Collection of Tales by Tamora Pierce

Author:Tamora Pierce [Pierce, Tamora]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780375896897
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2011-02-21T11:00:00+00:00

LOST

When Adria reached her father’s deserted storeroom after school, she sat in a dark corner, hid her face against her knees, and cried. The new mathematics instructor had marked her work a failure. Worse, he had sent a note to her father after showing its contents to Adria.

Instructor Hillbrand told me that Adria is brilliant at mathematics, but in my view her past excellence has led her to laziness, Instructor Park had written. I instructed the students to do all of the steps which lead to the solution. She will not give the intermediate steps, only the answer. She will not do all of the work that is required.

Adria blew her nose on her handkerchief. She wasn’t trying to be bad. The stupid in-between steps just wouldn’t stay in her mind, not when the answer was so plain. She had explained that to Instructor Park, but he had only shaken his head. Then he had written the note.

What her parents would say—what her father would say! Her lips trembled and her eyes flooded. Please, gods, don’t let Father be angry, she begged silently. She didn’t know which was worse, waiting for one of her father’s rages or having one break over her head. She hated being a coward.

She wiped her eyes and got to her feet. Regardless of her problem with the new teacher, she knew she would definitely be punished if she didn’t get to her shop chores. She could see an open crate of brass lamps that had to be cleaned for sale. There was the sweeping to do as always, inkwells to be filled in the clerks’ room, brushes to be rinsed off. She would do the lamps first, the inkwells and brushes when the clerks went to supper.

As she set up a table for her polish and rags, she worried the mathematics issue like a bad tooth. Instructor Hillbrand had never cared how she reached her answers. From the time she was very small, she had known the answer to any mathematics problem, long before the other children. She had been the wonder of the district and Father’s darling. Instructor Hillbrand had even spoken of university training when she was older, though Father always said it would cost too much.

Then came Instructor Park, educated at the great university in Carthak. His mathematics for older students involved letters as well as numbers. There were steps toward the solution, and each student must do the steps as well as answer the problem. He would not accept the answer alone.

Adria polished an already shining lamp, crying again. She loved the new mathematics. The idea that letters could take the place of numbers opened a world of possibilities whose limits she could not see. Even after her scolding, she had asked the instructor about the mathematics that lay beyond their current studies. That conversation had not gone well.

“It is clever of you to deduce some of the future applications, Adria,” he had said with a kind smile. “But you overreach.

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