Max Counts to a Million by Jeremy Williams

Author:Jeremy Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Nosy Crow
Published: 2022-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

I wondered if Mum knew how big a million is.

I mean, she probably didn’t think that it was a one with four zeros, like I did. (And in fact, I still think a million should be that. Don’t think I’ve forgotten, Dictionary People – you’ll be hearing from me later.) But she might not have known just how big it was or how long it would take. But it’s too late now. I had PERMISSION. I was going to count to a million.

Before I got too excited, the next day Mum reminded me that she had said yes without talking to Dad about it. He might still disagree, and we also needed to decide how I could count to a million. It might not be all in one go, which was of course what I wanted to do. We all talked about it at breakfast time with Dad on the video call. Dad thought it was a great idea and I should definitely do it, but I had to see it as a long-term project. It could fit in around my home-school – maybe lessons in the morning and counting in the afternoon.

This was not the plan.

“You’ve been counting for five days,” said Dad. “And your total is?”

“Seventy-four thousand,” I reported.

Dad started doing some maths on a bit of hotel paper. “So, seventy-four thousand in five days is fourteen thousand or so a day. If we divide a million by that we can see how long it’s going to take you. And that would be…”

Some maths went on. I won’t put it in. I don’t want my book to be quite as educational as that.

“Right,” said Dad eventually. “You want the answer?”

I nodded.

“At this speed it will take you sixty-two days. You’ll still be counting in two months.”

“OK,” I said.

“And that’s all you’d be doing. No time for TV or friends. That’s two months of just counting, every day.”

“OK.”

“That’s it? OK?”

“Yep.”

“You might be back at school long before two months is up,” pointed out Mum. “And then you’d have to count in your spare time anyway.”

“All the more reason to get ahead while I can,” I replied.

“I’m not sure your teachers will agree,” said Dad, which was a reasonable thing to say.

“We don’t need to tell them,” I replied, which was also a reasonable thing to say.

And so Monday came, and I was still counting – for now. That’s all Mum and Dad could agree to, at the end of the discussion. “For now” was good enough for me.

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