Maths land
At home, Dad had come home early having worked 25% faster than usual. He was struggling to conform to the expected norm of throwing balls towards little sister Samina in perfect parabolas at the rate of one per minute. She wasn’t interested anyway. She was only 46 months old, and by this time of the day nobody could be bothered to work out how many years that was. She was more interested in the toys shaped suspiciously like regular solids, as if anyone cared. She kicked a dodecahedron towards Dad, but it collided with the parabolic path of the ball he was throwing towards her and ricocheted onto Tariq’s head. He would have a pentagonal bruise in the morning.
After a square meal consisting of meat slices, waffles and weirdly shaped vegetables (square) served on square plates, Tariq spent exactly 2 hours on his homework (5 minutes for English and 1 hr 55 on maths) before watching TV for 4% of the day and going to bed at precisely 10pm.
Something snapped inside Tariq that night. Maybe it was the pentagonal bruise forming on his head. Maybe it was the new girl, or the fact that he had just had enough of it all.
The next day he deliberately ran to John’s house so that he arrived ten minutes early. John didn’t answer the door. Tariq peered through the letter box and a horrifying sight met his eyes. There was nothing there. No hallway, no curtains, just blackness.
Tariq wondered what this meant. He could see the hall light through the window above the front door. Was the letter box covered over for some reason? He tried pushing the door, and it swung open - not locked. Blackness. Tariq was really unnerved now, but something made him press on. His feet made no sound on the floor. Only the rectangle of the doorway behind him made any sense, beyond which the normal world stretched. But the further he strode into the house, the smaller the rectangle behind him became.
There was an alarm, like from a clock. The reality of John’s house jumped into existence around Tariq. He was in the kitchen.
“Oh hello, Tariq,” called John’s mum. “I’ve just been baking. I’m going to give you three buns.”
“Why?” he asked.
“It’s what we always do, dear!”
“But why? I mean, have you asked me if I like buns?”
“I have been baking!”
“No, you haven’t. You didn’t even exist ten minutes ago; the place was just blackness!”
There was a sound like the chiming of a small gong, and John’s mum froze. The blackness returned. Then the light returned, but Tariq seemed to be in a completely different place. In front of him stood – if that is the right word – something like an octopus with a jellylike body. Another octopus stood behind. There was no sign of the house. There was just a diffuse green glow.
“You have discovered that you are in Maths Land,” the creature said completely normal English.
“I know – what do you mean? Who – where – “
“Don’t be alarmed,” said the second creature, in a voice identical to the first. “We placed you here as a precautionary measure. After the collision we thought you would be at home in a temporary micro-universe made just for you based on the cultural literature that you had with you at the time.”
“Collision?” Then Tariq remembered the automated shuttle, the catching up with maths homework on the way to the Vesta Academy from his home on Ceres, the crash. Some “cultural literature” - a maths text book.
“You were hurt and are currently lying unconscious in our sick bay but we should have you returned to your ship within four or five solar cycles. Meanwhile, please enjoy your return to the virtual environment of Maths Land.
John’s house appeared again, John’s mother still proffering her stupid buns.
He had at least another four years of this to go.
Tariq hated maths.
