Graysen Foxx and the Curse of the Illuminerdy by J. Scott Savage

Author:J. Scott Savage
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shadow Mountain Publishing
Published: 2023-11-20T22:59:41+00:00

Chapter 16

The Cart Ride

There are two kinds of kids in this world: the kind who look at a projector cart and think, “I bet I can ride that down the stairs,” and the kind who don’t have to ask you to sign their cast after they discover just how wrong they were.

Clinging to the edge of the projector cart—hands clenched and feet braced on the bottom shelf—was like riding the world’s bumpiest roller coaster with no safety bars, seat belts, or even seats. Overhead, the ceiling changed from brick to rock supported by thick wooden beams. Once or twice we had to duck to avoid dripping stalactites that looked like something straight out of a Minecraft world.

Grinning wildly, Raven held up a rectangular wooden frame strung with rows of large circular beads. I knew an abacus was a kind of calculator even older than Napier’s Bones, but I’d never used one before.

“Why would you risk your life for that?” I shouted, my teeth rattling as the projector cart bounced over an especially rough section of track like a kid catapulted by the wavy slide at the park.

“This is what the last problem was talking about,” she said. “If the path you wish to lead, choose your course with wire and bead.”

“But why bother?” I asked, pressing my hat low on my head to keep it from blowing off. “We already got out of the math room.”

“Look,” she called, pointing to a math problem painted on the side of the wall as we zipped past. Hooking one arm through the handle of the cart, Raven held the abacus flat in front of her and started moving the beads. “I have to use this to solve the problem.”

I leaned closer to get a better look. “How does it work?”

“Each of the beads are counters,” she said, trying to hold the frame steady as we rattled and jerked. “The wires connected to the top and bottom are called rods, and the wooden bar going across them is called the beam. The four beads below the beam are ones and the two beads above it are fives. To add a number, you slide one bead toward the beam.”

I thought I understood. “So, if you slid three beads up from the bottom, that would be three. And if you moved one down from the top, it would be eight?”

“Right.” Our cart jounced over a bump in the tracks, and she quickly pressed her hand to the beads to keep them from moving. “The first column of beads on the right are ones. The second column is tens. The third is hundreds and on up all the way to the left.”

It looked pretty cool, but I didn’t understand the point of continuing to solve math problems or why we had to do it with an abacus until Klart shouted, “Watch where you’re going!”

I looked up to see the rails split into a Y only a few dozen yards ahead. Each track disappeared into a separate tunnel with a different pattern of circles arranged in rows above it.

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