All for Acceptance II
By:
Rod
(© 2010 by the author)
The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's
consent. Comments are appreciated at...
Chapter 2
“Paul, do you get division?” asked Kelly as he sat down at his desk in their room.
“Yeah I guess so, why? You having some problems with some problems?’ answered Paul.
“I just don’t get it, third grade is really tough and I don’t want to ask the other guys they think I’m little as it is.”
“No big deal little bro, I’m only a year ahead of you, or at least I should be but I think I can remember enough about it to help you. What gives you a problem?” said Paul.
“Little Bro! Wow, I like being called that, especially by you. I don’t know what my problem is, I just don’t get it. Will you help me?”
“Sure let me pull up a chair and see what you’re doing,” said Paul as he grabbed the chair from the other desk and pulled up next to Kelly.
“The first one is one hundred and sixty-eight divided by six. I don’t know what to do.”
“You wouldn’t have a bunch of pennies around would you?”
“Yeah, how did you guess? I save ‘um. Anytime I find one I pick it up and throw it in a jar when I get back to my room. Then when I get a chance to go somewhere I have my own money to spend. Tony and Phillip, if they are along, will always buy whatever we want within certain limits and so will Mr. Townsend or most of the other adults but it’s nice to be able to buy my own, just a piece of candy or a candy bar, whatever.”
“I figured you probably did, I always did too, except when my mother found out I had them, then she would take them. I kept trying to find new places to hide the jar but she seemed to always found it. I finally gave up. Why should I try to find the coin just to have her take it away? Unless I could find enough to get something before I got home and ate it before I got there she’d just take it anyway,” said Paul with a distant look in his eyes as Kelly could see the pain in his face.
“Here is my jar of coins. I don’t have any problem around here. Nobody would take anything from anyone here. We only have to ask for things and unless we really shouldn’t have ‘um we usually get ‘um.”
“That’s great. It’s nice to in a place like that and not be afraid of someone stealing your stuff.”
“Oh, nobody would steal anything around here. Most of us have had a rough enough time that we remember what it was like to have things constantly taken away and we don’t want that to ever happen again so we sure won’t do that to anyone,” said Kelly as he dumped the coin on his desk. “Now what should I do?”
“Can you count real good?”
“Sure, I’m in third grade not kindergarten!” answered Kelly.
“I thought you could, just wanted to be sure. Count out one hundred and sixty eight pennies,” instructed Paul.
It didn’t take too long before Kelly had a bunch of pennies counted out in front of him.
“Should I put the rest back in the jar?” asked Kelly as he counted the last of the pennies.
“Yep for now, that as good a place as any for them. We don’t want to lose any. We may want something we’d need them for,” replied Paul with a laugh.
“I’d buy something for you anytime, if I had enough money big bro!” declared Kelly with a big smile.
“Thanks little bro. I like to hear you call be big bro too. Now, count out groups of ten pennies each. Then tell me what you have.”
“I’ve got sixteen groups and eight left over.”
“Gee you did a good job that just verified how well you counted them to start with. That’s just what you should have. Now take ten groups and put them just a little away from the other six groups of ten then the last eight all by themselves.”
“Ok, hey the big group is the same as a dollar, one hundred cents. The six are sixty cents and the eight are eight, right?”
“You got it little bro. One hundred is the 1 in the hundred’s position. Sixty is the six in the ten’s position and the 8 is the 8 in the one’s position.”
“That is kind of neat, what do we do next.?”
“Well we want to divide it by six, right?”
“Yeah, so if I started to take groups of ten and put them in six separate groups that would be the first thing, right?” asked Kelly.
“You got it little bro. Take each group of ten and put it aside until you have six groups then start putting another group with each until you can’t do it anymore.”
Kelly started to move the coin. First he had six groups of ten each then he added one more group of ten to four of the groups. He turned to Paul and said, “What do I do now I don’t have anymore from the hundred?”
“That’s Ok now take from the group of sixty. Keep doing the same thing.”
It was only a moment before Kelly had taken two more groups and added them to the six groups. “I don’t have enough to do anymore groups of ten all the way across do I?” observed Kelly questioning Paul.
“That’s right. How many do you have left now?”
“Four groups of ten and eight single pennies.”
“You know how you write your division problem on paper don’t you?”
“Yeah I write the one hundred and sixty-eight then draw a line over it and a line down on the left side of it and put the six to the left of the up and down line.”
“That’s right; now how many groups of ten do you have in each of the six groups?”
“Two in each group,” replied Kelly.
“That’s right now above the six; on top of the line, put a two cause out of sixteen groups of ten when you divided them into six groups you could get two groups of ten in each one of them before you didn’t have enough groups of ten to add anymore. That meant that out of sixteen groups of ten you couldn’t get more than two of each when you divided them by six.”
“Wow this is fun, what next?”
“How many pennies do you have in the six groups?”
“One hundred and twenty.”
“Ok write one hundred and twenty below the one hundred and sixty-eight and subtract it from the one hundred and sixty-eight. How many do you have left?”
“Forty-eight!”
“Is that the same as the number of pennies you have left?”
“Yeah it is, gee that’s neat, now what?” asked Kelly excitedly.
“Well let’s see you have forty eight pennies and you need to put them into the six groups evenly right?”
“Yeah I do. So if I just started to put the same number into each group I could find out how many I’d get right?”
“You got it little bro.”
Kelly began to move the pennies taking a few at a time and putting them with each group.
“Just keep them close but separated enough so you know how many you put with each group.”
“Ok, no problem.”
Within a few minutes Kelly had all the pennies divided.
“I got eight pennies in each group with none left over,” declared Kelly.
“Good now above the eight put an eight because you got six groups of eight from what you had left.”
“What is six times eight?” asked Paul.
“It’s gotta be forty-eight since that is how many pennies I had before I divided them and that’s the number I had written as left when I took away the hundred and twenty. “
“So, one hundred and sixty-eight divided by six is how much?” asked Paul.
“It’s twenty-eight!” exclaimed a very excited Kelly.
“What do you think one hundred sixty-eight divided by twenty eight is?”
“Six, right?”
“It better be or we got some magic pennies,” replied Paul. “Just to prove it why don’t you put the pennies in groups of six and tell me how many groups you have.”
It took a few minutes but soon Kelly was counting the groups. His eyes lit up as he proudly proclaimed that he had twenty-eight groups.
“See it worked didn’t it?” asked Paul.
“What if I hadn’t had exactly the right number? What do you do then, if they won’t all go into the groups without any left?” inquired a puzzled looking Kelly.
“Let’s see what happens if we had three extra pennies what do you think we could do?”
“Well I’d still have six groups of twenty-eight but then there would be three pennies left over. How do you show that?”
“Write out the new problem. Put one hundred and seventy-one, then a line over it and one down on the left side and the six like before. We know that we will still get the two groups of ten so let’s put the two above the seven like we put it above the six before then subtract. What do we have?”
“One hundred and seventy-one minus one hundred and twenty gives us fifty-one.”
“Ok then if we put the eight above the 1 and subtract forty-eight it gives us what?”
“The three,” answered Kelly.
“Right and six can’t go into three can it?”
“No.”
“Has your teacher said anything about decimals yet?
“No. what are they?”
“They are a part of things, less than one like a half or a quarter of something, like when you write dollars and cents. The cents are the part that is to the right of the decimal point. They are a part of a dollar. They are also called fractions but an actual fraction is shown a different way. Like a half is shown as a one with a line under it and a two under the line. If it were shown as a decimal it would be a decimal point followed by a five cause two times that would be the same as a one on the other side of the decimal point. If you had fifty cents you write it as a decimal point followed by a five and then a zero right?”
“Right and if I had a quarter it would be written as a decimal point then a two then a five.”
“You catch on quick little bro.”
“But what about the division problem what do we do now?”
“Well there are two things we can do. If your teacher has not told you about decimal points then you could just put an ‘r’ after the twenty-eight to mean remainder then write the three since after dividing one hundred and seventy-one by six there is three left over or if you add zero to something are you adding anything to it?”
“If you add zero to anything you ain’t adding any thing, so no, it shouldn’t do anything.”
“Ok then add a decimal point to the right of the eight and put a zero next to that. Now that fifty-one you had becomes five hundred and ten right? Then the three you had left becomes thirty doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, it does, but now what?”
“First put a decimal point above the one you put under the line. That way you have twenty-eight with a decimal point afterwards.”
“Ok then what?”
“Count out thirty pennies.”
“Got ‘em.”
“Put them into six groups. How many do you have in each?”
“Five in each group. So you put a five above the zero and when you subtract again you have nothing left.”
“Right on little bro. You got it!”
“So one hundred and seventy-one divided by six is twenty-eight point five.”
“You, little bro are smarter than you think! Why don’t you try to work on the other three problems by yourself and see what you get. I’ll check them over after you are done and be sure you got them right. Ok?”
“Sure, this is fun when you ‘splain it like you do!” replied Kelly.
Little did either boy know that their entire session had been attentively listened to by James Townsend. James wanted to be sure there wouldn’t be a problem between the boys and didn’t think there would be. He was rather surprised when Paul had begun his tutorial of his new little brother. James had started a recorder early on and had captured everything said as soon as Kelly had stated he had the pennies and had gone to retrieve them. First thing tomorrow morning before the counselor met with Paul to start his placement testing, James would allow the counselor to hear what had transpired.
“Hey little bro, every problem is correct; you didn’t make a mistake on any of them. I noticed you put all the pennies away before you finished the problems, what gives?”
“The way you ‘splained things I could see what you were talking about in my mind I didn’t need the pennies in front of me to be able to see them and know what to do. We did do multiplin’ before we started division [comma] so it made since after you showed me what you did,” answered Kelly with a smile from ear to ear.
“Great going little bro, let me give you a hug.”
After a great hug, the boys decided they should get ready for bed. It would be a long day tomorrow. Paul knew he had to go through some tests and Kelly couldn’t wait to show his teacher how well he could do the division.
“Good night little bro!”
“Sleep tight big bro, I love you!”
Sleep took over quickly. Paul hadn’t felt so safe and wanted for so long. He couldn’t remember when he had felt so good when he had laid down to go to sleep. Maybe this place would really be Ok. He sure hoped so.
Kelly had experienced such a day. The other guys had really tired him out with the play in the snow but to have a new room mate, a big brother, his prayers were answered, he couldn’t be any happier. He wondered how with all his excitement he could possibly go to sleep, but he was so relaxed and relieved that the sandman quickly whisked him off to dreamland.
Morning came all too swiftly and as the sun shone across their room they both awoke refreshed and ready to meet a new day. The usual morning problems made them quickly jump from their beds and, without a thought, almost knocked each other over as they raced for the bathroom.
Modesty didn’t exist as the two shared a toilet dueling with each other as they emptied their bladders, crossing their streams as they stood side by side with their briefs around their ankles.
Laughing at each other, Kelly and Paul grabbed their toothbrushes and toothpaste as they stood side by side in front of the mirror and brushed their teeth. A quick run to their bedroom and jumping into some clothes allowed them to join the rest of the boys rushing to the dining room for breakfast.
Bill Murphy had met with James Townsend earlier in the morning as was their custom when a new arrival needed to be tested for placement. James had played the recording for Bill and he had listened intently without comment until it ended.
“What do you make of that Bill?” asked James.
“How old is this new boy?”
“He’s nine years old; we don’t know just how long he was in school or how long it has been since he was there. I’m waiting for the rest of the paperwork to see what else I can find out about him and his history.”
“For a nine year old I’d like to know where he picked up not only set theory, but I wonder what his IQ is to be able to be able to weave such a comprehensive presentation to a younger child in such a way that it sounds like child’s play, but sets the stage for more advanced theory and study. I can only begin to guess what he will show with the battery of tests I have for him.”
“Bill, don’t push things too fast. I know you and how fast you can grab on to an idea and run with it, but he is only nine and has had a pretty rough time of it. Go slowly with him; don’t scare him at this early stage. If he can handle beyond his age fine; we can work him towards it gradually. Take a few days to get him through the tests. I have a feeling after Kelly meets with Scott O’Shannon today for his math lesson, Scott would like to have Paul sit down with at least him, if not the entire class. I just don’t know if we should let him yet. Do some of the psychological tests first to determine his IQ and maturity. Tomorrow start in with the tests to determine grade level. I have a feeling he will surprise all of us with his abilities.”
“You don’t believe in dishing out challenges, do you?” asked Bill with a tinge of sarcasm in his voice along with an overwhelming portion of excitement. This was exactly the type of student Bill always hoped for.
“Like I said, just don’t scare the kid!” stated James emphatically.
“Don’t worry I won’t. I will just have a difficult time waiting for breakfast to be over so we can start.”
“You know it isn’t unusual for staff to be seated with our charges at meals. Perhaps you could have Tony introduce you and once the two of you have had breakfast together, you could begin the testing,” suggested James.
“Not a bad idea. I really didn’t grab much before I left this morning, anyway I was in too big of a hurry to get here after the comments during your call.”
“Tony, could you introduce me to our newest resident?” asked Bill.
“Phillip is eating with him and Kelly this morning. Phillip wanted to welcome him since he wasn’t here yesterday when Paul arrived. He had some session he went to most of the day yesterday,” replied Tony.
“Phillip, is every meal as good as the ones I’ve had so far? I can’t believe all the stuff available this morning. Even chocolate chip waffles! They are great but the warm cherry filling to go over them and then whip cream, wow! How come nobody around here is fat? I can’t see how they can stay so slim with this kind of food!” exclaimed Paul as he stuffed one bite after another of the waffles into his mouth.
“Don’t worry. We always have enough activities going on that everybody gets plenty of exercise. I don’t think you’ve had a chance to visit the gym or pool yet. You’ll see where all those calories go,” advised Phillip.
“A pool? I didn’t see one outside. Where is it?” asked Paul.
“It’s inside, big bro! You think here in the Twin Cities we’d get much use of it if it were outside. With it inside we can use it the year round. Wait till you see it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one any bigger,” said Kelly as he could barely speak through his laughter.
“Phillip, would you introduce me to our new resident?” asked Bill as he stepped next to the table.
“Certainly, Bill this is Paul Stevenson, Paul this is Bill Murphy, one of the staff. Truthfully, he is our counselor and helps determine what level of school everyone should be at. I think the two of you are expected to become acquainted this morning. Don’t worry, this isn’t the Murphy of Murphy’s Law, this guy is pretty good and nothing will go wrong,” replied Phillip.
“Glad to meet you Paul. May I join you for breakfast?” asked Bill.
“I don’t know why not, but with the assortment over there I think you’d better fix your own plate. I wouldn’t have the foggiest idea what you’d want, so I won’t offer to fix it for you, besides these waffles are to die for and I wouldn’t want to leave them till they are all gone from my plate,” said Paul without hesitation.
“Thank you for the thought, but I wouldn’t dream of asking you to fix a plate for me. I do, however, appreciate the thought. Around here we all do for ourselves unless we are unable to do so. I’ll be right back.”
“I hope I didn’t say the wrong thing just then, did I?” inquired Paul as he looked at Kelly and Phillip.
“Not at all. A staff member would never ask you to do something like that,” said Phillip.
“Paul, how long has it been since you attended school regularly?” asked Bill.
“I managed to go most days through the end of the last school year. I would get out in the morning when no one else was up and get myself off to school. I loved being there, there wasn’t anyone to yell at me or hit me. I would try to go to the library afterwards since it wasn’t far away, but I couldn’t always stay too long or I’d really get in trouble, ‘specially after the last boyfriend my mother had. He found out that I liked to go there and would come and get me. He wanted me to be around so he could send me out with other friends of his. I didn’t want to go, but didn’t have a choice. I didn’t have anyplace else to go to once he found out I was trying to hide out at the library.”
“What did you do while you were at the library Paul?” asked Bill.
“I’d read. If I had a problem with something there was always someone around who would help me and answer any question I had. As time went on it got easier and easier for me to understand what I was reading.”
“Was there any special subject you liked most?”
“Not really, everything was interesting and neat as far as I was concerned. The subject didn’t matter. If a question came up in school I would try to find out more about it. Otherwise I’d just bounce around between subjects. There were a number of high school guys who acted like big brothers and let me study with them, specially when there were a few times when I could explain something to them about what they were studying and they couldn’t understand it at first.”
“You were helping high school students with their work?”
“Sure. It was usually pretty simple it you thought about it. As I read deeper into some of the information I had been studying, it was natural to just keep going. As soon as I would understand something, there would be another question and I would have to find the answer to that. One thing would lead to another and pretty soon I was reading books on all types of subjects from all departments of the library. I even got to the point where the librarians would let me use the adult section if I asked them to pick out the books that would explain the answers to my questions. Some of the high school jocks said they wished their younger brothers could understand things and explain them the way I did. They were just happy when they could understand what I was explaining to them. There were several of the guys who took me for pizza or subs when they were so happy they had gotten good enough grades to stay on the teams they were on after I had helped them understand the material they had to know for their classes. It didn’t bother them that I was like a little kid next to them. They just said I seemed to understand it and when I explained it to them like a little kid would, they could understand it too.”
“Where there any particular subjects you helped them with?” asked an astonished Bill.
“Nothing in particular, I helped them with math, chemistry, physics, biology, history, English, literature and even some foreign languages. Didn’t matter to me, it was fun to have to study some of the books so I could help them. As I helped them with the foreign languages it made English even easier for me. As I explained some of the things to them it made English easier for them too. It was really neat, that is until that day when my mother’s boyfriend followed me from school and found out where I was. From then on he’d meet me at school and make me go with him. If I did get to the library, he’d walk in and make me go with him.”
“Didn’t any of your high school friends try to help you?” asked Bill.
“They wanted to, but Ricky, my mother’s boyfriend, told me that if one of them every tried anything or I refused to come with him, he’d see to that the guy would end up in the hospital. I didn’t want anything to happen to anyone, so I went with him and asked the guys not to do anything. I knew he’d mess them up for sure. I saw a guy that tried to argue with him one time. Next thing I knew, the guy was on crutches and looked like he had been run over by a Mack truck.”
“If you’re finished with breakfast, Paul, why don’t we go to my office where we can continue our conversation and look at a few tests? They shouldn’t be too difficult for you, I don’t believe.”
“Sure, why not, need to do it anyway. Little bro, be good and have fun in classes. I’ll see you at lunch I hope, unless Mr. Murphy keeps me all day and doesn’t let me out to eat.”
“Don’t worry, Paul, if Bill doesn’t bring you to lunch when the time comes, Kelly, Tony and I will rescue you from his clutches!” replied Phillip with a laugh.
“Have fun, big bro, I love you!” said Kelly, as he headed off for class after passing his dishes to Phillip.
Phillip gathered all the dishes at the table and took them to the dish room. Even he didn’t shirk the responsibilities given to all of the boys. Actually he rather enjoyed being just another one of the guys, even though he often had duties none of the other boys besides Tony realized.
To be continued...
A special thanks to Jesse Mercer for editing.
Posted: 11/12/10