CHAPTER EIGHT: IT’S ALL PRETEND
The Math teacher Prof. Snape, my class teacher Prof. McGonagall and I were in the office. The office had air-conditioning, and it felt great.
Prof. Snape smoothed his shoulder-length hair, opened my Math exercise book and said to Prof. McGonagall, “I cannot stand this kind of student.”
Prof. McGonagall said quietly, “I know you’re a Mathematics Master. I can’t really do anything. He’s born slow; you can’t blame him for that.”
Prof. Snape looked at me and asked me in his cold tone, “Have you heard and understood anything that I have been teaching, Weasley?”
I shook my head and said, “I heard, but I don’t understand.”
Of all the classes, I understood Math class the least, ‘coz I couldn’t find a single word I could write in my book. There were loads of numbers, but they were all jumping here and there and never followed in line like 1, 2 and 3.
Math class definitely is the most boring.
Prof. Snape pushed his hair back and said, “I refuse to believe that I cannot teach him. The great educator Watson once said, ‘I can teach any child’. I believe I can.”
So he told me to come to his office every recess to give me a little tuition. Harry Scarface patted my shoulder and said, “Work hard, Ron.”
I took my textbook, my exercise book and my pencil case and walked all the way to the office. Prof. Snape just finished eating his lunch. He cleaned his mouth and told me to recite the timetable.
I’ve forgotten all of them.
Prof. Snape gave me a small board and told me to memorize it everyday. He thought for a while and said, “Actually, you can use a calculator. Can you use one, Weasley?”
I shook my head.
“I shall teach you next time.”
Then he opened the textbook, wrote some numbers on a paper and said to me, “For now, I’ll teach you about division.”
He drew a huge circle, then drew a few lines on the circle and told me, “Imagine that this circle is a huge biscuit, or an orange, and cut them into eight pieces. Try counting them.”
I counted the pieces and he was right; there are eight pieces. Prof. Snape is really smart.
“If you eat off a piece, it’s called ‘an eighth’. One out of eight. Get it? Repeat after me, an eighth.”
So I said, “An eighth.”
Later, Prof. Snape told me to eat off two-eighth, three-eighth…of course, this is all pretend.
“This is called division, understand?”
I quickly nodded.
Prof. Snape then drew another circle, and, like cutting a cake, he drew two lines.
“Now it’s cut into four pieces. If you eat off one piece, what do you call it?”
I thought very, very hard and stared very, very long at the circle on that paper. Prof. Snape must’ve waited a long time for he finally said, “It’s called ‘a quarter’.”
Then he asked me to eat off two-quarter, three-quarter…again, of course, this is all pretend.
I spent that whole afternoon pretending to eat biscuits.
When the bell rang, Prof. Snape said, “Very well, we shall continue tomorrow.”
So I went back to class.
Once I got home, I followed exactly how Prof. Snape drew his circles. Somehow it made me feel smart. I went over to the fridge and took out an orange and cut them into pieces. Then I ate off a piece, but I forgot what it was called. I ate the second piece, the third piece…and in the end I’ve ate up everything.
When Ginny asked me what I was doing, I said, “I’m practicing Math. Go away. Don’t bother me.”
Why is it that we have to pretend eating biscuits in Math class? I just don’t get it.
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