Figure It Out, Henri Weldon

Fluorescent lights really, really sounded like bees, Henrietta decided, shifting in her seat. She’d never noticed them at her old school, but the lights at Alterra Junior/Senior High School made… a buzzy, rattly noise that no one else seemed to notice. Not the test teacher. Not the few other students spread out, staring at screens. Just Henrietta. The noise had been mostly okay during the reading portion of the test-Henri could read in a hurricane and not miss a word-but math… well, math was different.
Henrietta gnawed her bottom lip and squinted at the screen. Answer, answer, she needed to choose an answer… Sighing, she clicked (c), the answer closest to hers, then caught her pencil as it rolled off the table from her scratch paper. She scrubbed her hands against her denim shorts and glanced at the clock again. Had the hour hand moved forward toward the six? Did she have five more minutes or fifteen? Why didn’t this school have digital clocks like everyone else?

Henrietta rubbed her face and breathed out a silent sigh as she faced the next question. Okay. She knew this one. She did. It just… was making her brain stop, somehow.

A pair of jeans costing $39.50 is on sale for 25 percent off. Of the following, which amount is closest to the sale price?

When Henri had cut the tags from the jeans Mom had bought her from O.N. downtown, they had only been twelve dollars. So, probably, nice jeans didn’t cost $14.50.
Henri looked at the problem again. Percents were easy-all of them added up to a hundred. Usually. Mostly. Sometimes. Was she supposed to multiply first and then divide? Or … move the decimal over and then multiply? One place over was 10 percent- so that was $3.59-no, wait. Henrietta rubbed her eraser over the scratch paper hard enough to make a hole in it. Ugh.
Other people, she knew, could solve these problems in their heads, but no, Henrietta always had to do all the work-the multiplication and the adding and the carrying, and she had to count on her fingers and use scratch paper too, just in case. Math took forever because she was just never sure of where she stood with it. Math was like standing on the beach, near the waterline, as the waves snuck the sand out from beneath her feet. She always had to start over. Henri could almost hear her brother, Jordan, complaining, “Man, Henrietta, why you gotta always do everything the hard way?”
Because. It was the only way her brain even sometimes worked to get the right answer.
“Ten minutes,” the test lady said.
Ten minutes!? Henrietta quickly clicked an answer, then rubbed her chest, suddenly out of breath. She had too many questions left.
“Please keep your eyes on your own work.”

Henrietta jumped. The test lady was right behind her and gave her a pinched smile. Henrietta sighed, turning back to her computer. She wasn’t trying to copy anyone, but she knew she didn’t always look at her own screen-or her own paper. Mrs. Zablah, her old math teacher at the Vista School, had said that Henrietta looked up as if the answers were going to fall out of the sky.
Henrietta very much wished they would.
She’d known this test was going to be hard-math in regular life was hard enough. She swapped numbers in addresses, phone numbers, and zip codes. She couldn’t always remember when she baked, if 1/2 or 1/4 was larger-which sometimes led to some nasty cookies. And it had taken her until last summer to finally memorize all of her times tables to twelve. “Just focus,” Mom was always saying. “Buckle down and work.” If only Mom could see her now, Henrietta thought. Her whole body was working so hard she was sweating.
Hurriedly, Henri clicked the arrow to the next page. The test lady had said she could get partial credit for getting parts of problems right-so if Henri could get the first steps of a longer problem right, she might still get some credit. She’d do a few from the second page-that would work.

There are 18 boys and 20 girls on the school’s student council. If a student council member is selected at random to speak at the next assembly, what is the probability…

Nope. She couldn’t deal with random.

Jayson puts $300 in a savings account that earns 3 percent interest…

Oh no, more percentages. Henrietta’s eyes skittered across the screen to the next question.

Hindy’s Garage charges $30 for brakes and $25 per hour of service.. If T is the total cost…

Henrietta shook her head. Problems with letters took too
long.
Henrietta clicked the arrow for another page, then another. There was nothing left that she could do quickly. She had to do something-Henri gulped and then, as fast as she could, chose a letter for each of the problems left: (a), (b), (d), (c). School started next week, and she needed to have the best score she could. She clicked another random set of answers: (b), (a), (b), (d). She would have to take Math Essentials with a Mrs. Eden or something, she already knew that, but if she just did more problems, maybe she
could prove- “Time,” the test lady sang out cheerfully as the screen went gray and the test disappeared.
Henrietta swallowed, feeling her stomach heave. Math fail. Again.
Henri’s shoulders slumped as she picked up her bag and walked to the door, the low buzz of the fluorescent lights a chorus of disappointment echoing after her.