Free Zinnia's Zaniness by Lauren Baratz-Logsted Page B

in other sections. Marcia?"
    But it turned out Marcia hadn't gotten to that page in Mathematics yet because she'd been too busy focusing on getting through Language Arts all in one go. None of the rest of us had gotten to that page either.
    So we did the sensible thing.
    We read what the page had to say about infinity, some of us reading more quickly than others. We waited for those others to finish.
    "If I understand correctly," Jackie said, " infinity is a word meaning an unlimited extent of time, space, or quantity. So that symbol in relation to numbers is like saying that the number in question is endless. If you could live forever and count forever during that forever life, the number would still be going on."
    "Huh," Zinnia said. "It's still a bit confusing, but somewhat less so than before."
    Zinnia tilted her head to one side, studying the symbol on the page from a new angle. "Huh," she said again. "When you look at it this way, the infinity symbol looks a bit like an eight lying down."
    Seven more heads tilted, plus the heads of the Petes, who'd come in just then to check on us.
    We saw that Zinnia was right. An infinity symbol did look like an eight lying down.
    "I wonder," Zinnia said, "if we could make our own infinity symbol."
    "Could you show us what you have in mind, Zinnia?" Annie said somewhat formally.
    How odd for Annie to speak to one of us like that, we thought. And then we realized what Annie was doing: she was trying to let one of us be in charge of something for a change.
    "Let's clear a big space in the middle of the floor," Zinnia suggested.
    We did that.
    "Now let's arrange ourselves," Zinnia said, "like we're one big eight."
    "Do you want us to be an infinity symbol or one big eight?" Jackie asked.
    Zinnia shrugged. "Both," she said.
    "I'm not seeing this," Rebecca said.
    We ignored Rebecca although we couldn't see it yet either.
    "Annie," Zinnia directed, "lie down on your side and curve your body a little to form one curved end of the eight. Durinda, you hold on to Annie's ankles and curve your hands just slightly. Georgia, you hold on to Durinda's ankles so you can be the line in the center. Jackie, you hold on to Georgia's ankles to continue the line, but curve your legs a bit. Marcia, you grab on to Jackie's curved legs and curve your whole body like Annie's doing to form the other curved end of the eight. Petal, you grab on to Marcia's curved ankles and curve your hands slightly. Rebecca, you hold on to Petal's ankles so you can be the other line in the center, crossing Georgia's line. And now I'll hold on to Rebecca's ankles, and then Annie can grab on to mine when I curve them slightly, like so. There!"
    Well, now that we were all in position...
    "Do you see now?" Zinnia asked excitedly.
    "How can I see anything," Rebecca said, "other than Petal's stinky feet. Petal, did you wash these today?"
    "Well..." Petal said.
    The Petes came over and studied the shape we were in on the floor.
 
    "You know," Pete said after a long moment, "I can see it. The eight of you have joined together to form a single eight."
    "But if I look at you this way," Mrs. Pete said, tilting her head, "you look like an eight lying down, or an infinity symbol."
    " That's what I was getting at!" Zinnia said triumphantly.
    "Since a few people finally get it," Georgia said, "can we stop doing this now?"
    Not waiting for Zinnia's answer, we pulled apart from one another.
    "I'm not being critical," Annie said, "but I am curious, Zinnia: what was that about?"
    "I don't know." Zinnia shrugged. "Impulse?" she asked as much as answered. "I just suddenly felt as though we should do it, see if we could do it. In our world, you never know what might come in handy one day."

ELEVEN
    Being able to turn our eight bodies into one infinity symbol may have felt like a potentially handy thing to know on August 5, but nothing could save us the next day, not when we woke up and realized...
    It was August 6! Our eighth birthday was just two