Piper Cooks Up a Plan by Erin Soderberg

Author:Erin Soderberg [Soderberg, Erin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2019-06-04T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Later that night, after the dinner dishes had been washed and Piper had shared the results of her cookie experiment with her family (everyone agreed that the batch made with coconut oil was the tastiest and most interesting), she settled in at the dining room table to work on her math. Again.

Finley slid into the seat beside her and began drawing a picture of a scientist in a lab. Piper was happy to see that the scientist looked an awful lot like her! Piper’s parents were both reading in the living room, but Dan was lurking around the dining room table, watching her.

“What?” Piper asked after it was clear Dan wasn’t going anywhere.

“Can I help?” Dan asked quietly. “I’m pretty good at math.”

“I know you are,” Piper said. “We all know you are.”

Dan sighed and rolled his eyes. “Let me help you,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder. Piper could tell he was speaking softly so their parents wouldn’t hear him. Speaking even more quietly, he said, “If Mom and Dad find out about the failed quiz you’re hiding from them, there’s no way they’re going to let you go on The Future of Food.”

Piper gaped at him. “How—” she began. “How do you know about that?”

“I saw it the other night.” He tapped his temple. “I see things. And I’m your brother, and I don’t want you to screw this up for yourself.”

“Ribbit,” Finley bellowed.

Piper considered his offer. Dan was a math genius. He was annoyingly brilliant at every subject. It seemed she was…well, not.

Dan plopped into the seat across from her. He looked her straight in the eye and said, “I’ll make you a deal. I help you come up with strategies for your word problem unit, and in exchange, you bake me and the soccer team cookies every day for a week. And when you win The Future of Food, you buy me a new soccer bag with part of the money you win. Deal?”

Piper laughed. “When I win?” she asked. “I think you mean if I win.”

“Nope,” Dan said. “I mean when.”

Piper appreciated the offer—and her brother’s compliment. She didn’t want to take help, but it seemed like she didn’t have much of a choice. Sometimes, getting a little help was the only way to succeed. “Deal.”

“Here’s the thing you have to remember,” Dan said softly. “You’ve never been bad at math. You’re obviously good with numbers and calculations if you can follow and make up your own recipes. There’s precision in science and cooking, right?” He propped his elbows on the table and fixed Piper with a serious look. Then he went on, “Math is a lot like science—it’s going to take you some time and practice to figure out the formula that works for you. We’ll look at your homework a few different ways. We can break it down, step by step, and see where you’re running into problems. Like an experiment.”

When he put it that way, Piper suddenly felt hopeful. “An

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.