Free Fractions = Trouble! by Claudia Mills Page B

that Josh half expected the class to break into thunderous applause. The kids whose faces Wilson could see clearly looked impressed.

    Mrs. Porter’s face showed no expression. “How do you plan to go about answering your question, Josh? What will be your procedure ?”
    â€œI think I’ll put my pickle in the oven. I’ll check it at three hundred degrees, then at four hundred degrees, and then at five hundred degrees, and keep going until it explodes.”
    â€œAnd what is your hypothesis ? What is your educated guess about what you think is going to happen?”
    â€œMy hypothesis is that when it explodes it will make a big mess.”
    The class laughed.
    Mrs. Porter smiled, but it was more of a worried smile than a happy smile. “Now,
class, we need to talk about the importance of safety as you work on your science fair projects. Josh, have you talked to your parents yet about your idea?”
    Josh nodded.
    â€œAnd what did they say about it?”
    â€œThey said I should get a different idea.”
    The class laughed again. Mrs. Porter’s smile looked relieved this time. Only Wilson heard Josh whisper, “But I’m not going to.”
    â€œWho else has an idea to share?”
    Hands shot up. One kid wanted to see how long people could go without blinking. Another kid wanted to drop pieces of toast to see if toast really did always land butter-side down. Laura’s friend Becca Landry was going to bake cookies and leave out different ingredients to see which ingredient was the most important. Laura was going to do something complicated with
magnets and batteries. If any other kid had offered that idea, Wilson would have known that the kid’s parents had thought it up. But Laura was as good in science as she was in math. She could be a science tutor as well as a math tutor.
    Math tutor. Wilson had almost forgotten. He slumped down in his chair. He was supposed to have his first tutoring session with Mrs. Tucker after school on Wednesday. Instead of doing cool things like going to Josh’s house to play video games or make a pickle explode, Wilson would be going to some strange lady’s house to spend an hour chatting with her about fractions.
    â€œSo many wonderful ideas!” Mrs. Porter said. “Now get out your math books. It’s time for math.”
    Time for fractions.
    Wilson meant to pay attention during
math. If he could only learn how to do fractions by three o’clock on Wednesday afternoon, he could tell his parents, “Guess what? I can do fractions now!” Then they could call Mrs. Tucker and cancel the appointment. But he kept drawing pictures on his math worksheet instead: pictures of Pip, pictures of Squiggles, pictures of falling toast, pictures of puffed-up pickles ready to pop.
    Maybe he would show the pictures to his parents. They would exchange glances, and then his mother would say, “Wilson is so talented at drawing. I don’t think someone who is going to grow up to be an artist needs to learn how to do fractions, do you, dear?” And his father would agree. After all, Michelangelo had been a very great artist. Wilson had never heard that Michelangelo was good at fractions.

    Mrs. Porter was saying something about numerators and denominators. One of them was the number on top of the little line in a fraction, and one of them was the number on the bottom. Why not just say top and bottom ?
    â€œIf the numerators of two fractions are the same, the fraction with the smaller denominator is the larger fraction,” Mrs. Porter said.
    Wilson drew Pip eating a piece of toast. He drew Squiggles eating a pickle.
    â€œSo which fraction is larger?” Mrs. Porter asked. “One-fifth or one-eighth? Let me hear from some of you quieter students. Wilson?”
    Uh-oh. The answer had something to do with the numerator and the denominator, with the top and the bottom. But which was which?

    Eight was bigger than five.