Chapter 1: Chapter 1: The Missing Egg [1]

1.

Andre Xavier sits in his afternoon math class, falling asleep on folded arms. Something hits his neck. A crumpled piece of paper. He opens it.

I think you’re cute, can I get your number? :)

He looks at the desk across from him. Zoey Wilde. He sighs, clicks the red on his multi-coloured pen, and writes NO. Then he balls the paper and tosses it back to her. Andre heard Zoey was into him from one of her friends a couple months ago, but never in a million years would he expect something like this. How romantic.

Zoey looks disappointed, but she chuckles and turns to Mora Whittaker.

She’s the one he fancies. She’s the only person that doesn’t seem like a complete fake. But Mora's already dating Mark Stephenson; he doesn’t like Andre very much.

‘Did you reject her, Xavier?’ Mark is big for a fourteen-year-old, six feet, and his voice is deeper than most of the other boys in their year, deeper than some of the seniors even. He’s sitting on the other side of Mora. ‘Why?’

‘Why do you care?’ Andre’s voice is flat.

‘You're not exactly qualified to pick and choose.’

Zoey looks back at him. ‘It’s alright, seriously.’

‘I’m only asking, Zoe,’ says Mark.

Andre runs a hand through his afro and straightens his school tie. He likes to look tidy. ‘Zoey, you're pretty, but I'm not really looking for a relationship. Not now, at least. I'm flattered though.’ Short and sweet.

Zoey nods impassively. Yet somehow Andre can tell she's upset. Poor girl.

The door to the classroom opens and everyone quiets down. Mr Bronson steps through, wearing the golden whistle he won last year at a basketball competition. Coach of the year. Who woulda thunk it? And who woulda thunk a basketball coach could teach math? Not PE, not geography. Math.

‘Books out, everyone,’ Mr Bronson yells.

There’s a clamour of bags being zipped open and pencil cases being rummaged through, but Andre still manages to hear Mark’s voice:

‘There's better dudes out there than that freak.’ It’s quiet, barely audible. Not loud enough for Mr Bronson to hear, that’s for sure.

‘Today we’re going to be learning differential equations,’ Mr Bronson says.

Some groans.

Differential equations are simple. There’s not much to them outside of substitution. Then it’s just a matter of rearranging.

He did these before his dad got a new job as a district manager for a security company and his family was forced to move from Michigan to Wisconsin. Differential equations weren’t on the syllabus of his elementary school, but he watched multiple videos online on how to solve them. It was a good way to pass the time during the summer. Just lately, he's been getting into quantum mechanics. The God Equation is an interesting book so far. Before that, he read Richard Feynman, and before that Schrödinger, because the cat in the box was a fascinating spectacle in the world of theoretical physics. His parents thought it wasn't the healthiest thing for a kid to be doing in his free time, especially when he should have been out socialising, but Andre wasn't interested in anything like that.

He still isn't. He wants to hold conversations about his interests, but no other student is into this theoretical stuff. Not anyone he knows, anyway. 

Mr Bronson spends fifteen minutes showing the class how to do differential equations. Then he tells everyone to do eight questions from the book.

Andre solves each of them within five minutes. He sits in his seat, staring out the window at the Milwaukee River. Rain splashes against the window, slithering messily. It’s normally much sunnier, even in the winter, but the sun’s been hiding for the past three days, and there’s not a single dot of blue in the sky. Perhaps a storm is on its way. He taps his pen on his copybook.

Mr Bronson calls on him. ‘Andre.’

‘Yes sir?’

‘Don’t feel like doing the work?’

‘I’ve done ’em already,’ he says.

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Mr Bronson scratches his beard. ‘I get you're good at math, but I’ve never met a student who could do that many differential equations that quick.’

Andre shrugs. ‘You haven’t met me then.’ 

Mr Bronson gets up from his desk and walks over to Andre. He picks up his copybook, fixes his glasses, and looks through the answers. He starts to say something but stops himself. He puts the copy down, grabs Andre’s math book, and flips to the back where the solutions are. ‘You don't show any working out. Why?’ 

Andre props his chin in the palm of his hand. ‘Don't need to.’ He doesn’t use the back of the book; a lot of the math he’s been doing over the months has been really simple, which bothers him.

I thought this class was for gifted students. But that can’t be true, not while Mark Stephenson’s here. That guy’s as thick as two bricks.

He must have got in through Mr Bronson. Mark’s often the top-scorer, but for someone who stands taller than almost every other student in his basketball team, that’s not really surprising.

Mr Bronson shakes his head. ‘You just took these from the back. It doesn’t show how to get the solutions either.’

‘I did them in my head.’

Mr Bronson smiles disbelievingly. ‘You did differential equations in your head?’

Andre nods. ‘Ask me any question from the book. I'll prove it.’

‘Listen.’ Mr Bronson shuts the book and drops it on Andre’s desk. ‘If you’ve done these answers already, move on to the next eight, and so on. You're good at math, but as far as I'm aware you're just taking the answers from the back. At least show how you got the answers. You'll get marks even if you don't reach the right solution but the examiner can see that you had the right idea.’

‘I’m telling you.’ Andre opens the math book and turns to the page with the differential equations, then skips to the next page. ‘I can do these in my head. They're not that complicated.’ He hands Mr Bronson the book.

‘That’s impossible,’ a girl says. Hailey Winters. She often takes this math stuff too seriously, but it makes sense considering she wants to be a mathematician. She told Mr Bronson about it at the start of the year. Andre told Mr Bronson he wanted to be a problem-solver, but as far as everyone was concerned, that wasn’t a real job.

‘Quiet down, Hailey.’ Mr Bronson flips through some of the pages. 

Andre taps his pen on his copy, waiting patiently. 

‘Okay, I’ll call your bluff, Andre. Mostly because I'm intrigued. Question 17: x²y + xy² = 3x. Using implicit differentiation, rewrite this expression. Now, we haven’t tackled implicit differentiation yet, but since—’

‘x² + 2xyy’ = 3 - 2xy - y².’ Andre leans back on his seat. ‘Anything else?’

Mr Bronson stares at him with disbelief. He flips to the solutions page and, after a moment, says, ‘You memorised these.’

‘Memorising every single answer from the book would be harder than just learning how to do them. I don’t know why you don’t think it’s possible. Differential equations aren’t that difficult.’ Although Andre’s fully aware that most people wouldn’t be able to differentiate in their heads, he’s sure he’s not the first teenager – never mind person – to do it. 

Silence.

‘You have too much time on your hands, Xavier,’ Mark says.

A small bit of laughter from the class.

Andre scoffs. ‘What’s eight times nine, Mark?’

Mark thinks for a moment – Andre can tell by his face – but Mr Bronson steps in before he has a chance to answer. ‘Quiet. Both of you.’ He hands the book to Andre and begins walking back to his desk. ‘Look, I appreciate you studying the entire syllabus before today’s class, but you can't sit there and do nothing. If you already know the answer to every question in this section, move on to the next. Read the examples. I don't care. Just do something other than sit and stare out the window.’

‘I told you, I didn’t study—’

Mr Bronson sits and makes a cut-off motion with his hand. ‘Just keep quiet!’

Andre rolls his eyes. The questions aren’t even that difficult. That’s not my fault.

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