Free How to Outrun a Crocodile When Your Shoes Are Untied by Jess Keating Page B

sketching all those insects for my robot-bug replicas? You didn’t complain once, even though I know you missed the first showing of one of your movies with Liv, and your hand was cramping up.” He tapped his pencil against the textbook and stared at me.
    â€œWell, yeah. But—” I said.
    â€œNo buts! You’re going to understand math if it’s the last thing I do!” He raised his fist and shook it dramatically. “I mean, hopefully it’s not,” he added in a low voice. “But you know.” He flipped open the textbook to the first chapter. “You’re smart. We’ll get it.”
    Things That Seem Really Complicated but Actually Make Sense Now Because Kevin Is a Homework God
    1. Integers. Integers are just numbers, like normal, except they can also be negative. They are the Debbie Downers of the math world. If you add up a bunch of negatives, you’re going to get something even more negative. This is like starting off with getting bird poop on your shoulder, and then stepping in a puddle of muck while wearing your favorite shoes. You’re getting worse as you go.
    2. Fractions. Believe it or not, fractions are not that difficult. They’re pretty much regular numbers, but they take twice the work to read. Kevin showed me this cool way to multiply them, and now every time I see them, I’m thinking of what three-fourths of a hippo looks like. Who knew?
    3. Surprise fact: I love making histograms and pie charts! I don’t know why Mr. Vince didn’t just tell us they were easy from the start, but Kev says that teachers like making math seem harder than it is. He even made a pie chart for all the ways that I can scare Daz, along with their probability (yes! I even learned probability!) of freaking him out the most. (The biggest slice was hiding his videogames. The second biggest was putting Pink Swimmingo Kool-Aid in the showerhead and turning his hair hot pink. Must remember that one.)
    Things Still Left Rather Complicated
    1. Boys. Although he is a boy, Kevin seems to behave the exact opposite of Zack whenever something girly is mentioned. For example, when I took out my lip gloss, instead of the instant vacant expression and glazed-over eyes that Zack gets, Kevin asked to see it, in order to analyze its components. Then he suggested melting it down to see how viscous it was. I don’t know what that means, but it sounds dangerous. Sometimes I really don’t know what to say about my life.

    I was completely mathed out by the time I got home that night. I made sure to copy Kevin’s notes twice to convince my brain they were important. How could I remember the entire score to Singin’ in the Rain , but not homework notes?
    As I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed, something about what Kevin had said kept niggling away at me. No, not the part about integers, although that would probably be handy for the next test. The part about perspective. Could he be right? Could I be brave like Mom and Grandpa? I mean, I’d managed to talk to Beatrix without anything embarrassing happening, and it’s not like I was in kindergarten anymore where people peed their pants all the time. A lot had changed since then. Geez, back then I’d slept with a stuffed unicorn named Steve. Did I need a new perspective on…myself?
    I changed for bed and stared at the half-finished art project sitting on my desk, a mess of dark, angry lines. Who was I, anyway? I didn’t want to be trapped by those lines.
    â€œWhat do you think, Darwin?” I asked. Darwin tilted his head at me and didn’t answer. “Do you know who you are?” He bobbed his head excitedly, chirping quietly. “What if you’re too afraid to be who you want to be?”
    â€œAna banana!” he screeched.
    I ignored his little dance. Bending down to pick up Ms. Fenton’s question prompts from the floor, I reread the one answer I’d written. It brought me