My Homework Ate My Homework by Patrick Jennings Read Free Book Online Page A

don’t know
why
I should to do it. Don’t most normal people use a calculator for problems like this? Who even subtracts numbers like this in real life?
    “I put in a hundred ninety-one thousand,three hundred and forty-nine kernels of popcorn into the popper. A hundred and forty-four thousand, six hundred and seventy-two popped. How many didn’t?”
    Wouldn’t a person just say, “a
lot
of popcorn”? Or even “a ton of popcorn”? How much is a hundred ninety-one thousand, three hundred and forty-nine kernels anyway? Did I eat that many?
    This is all Mr. O.’s fault. He’s so detail-oriented. I bet he counts every kernel as he fills his popper.
    I take out Wain’s homework notebook and start copying. I can’t simply copy the problems though. I have to make it look like I did them. So, technically, I’m not cheating. I’m acting. I write down random numbers, then pretend I made a mistake and erase them, then write new random numbers, and pretend they weren’t right and erase them, too. I do this till I’ve made a nice gray smudge. That’s what my actual work looks like: smudgy. I also doodle a lot, so I draw stars, some with five points, some with six, some with more, but the minimum is five. Less than five isn’t a star. It’s a square. Or a diamond.
    I’m trying to make a star with four points when my mother asks, “What are you doing?”
    I scream a bloodcurdling scream, my favorite kind. I don’t like them as much, though, when they’re real.
    “Stop sneaking up on me like that!” I yell, clutching my heart. “You almost killed me!”
    “What are you doing?” she asks again. She sounds suspicious.
    Oh, right—Wain’s homework is on the kitchen table in front of me next to mine. I stand up, blocking the evidence with my body.
    “What do you think?” I ask, pretending to be outraged as I reach back and try to slide Wain’s notebook under my textbook. “My math. Didn’t you say I had to?”
    She scrunches her face up like she doesn’t believe me.
    “Okay,” I say, slouching like I’m about to come clean. “You caught me. I was
doodling
.”
    “You’re copying Wain’s homework.”
    “
What?
How dare you? I’m insulted! I mean really!”
    She reaches around me and snatches Wain’snotebook, then she holds it up in my face so I can see the name
WAIN WEXLER
written on the front.
    I’m ready for this. “You think I’m copying his work? I’m not copying it. I’m
consulting
it. It’s something we do in Mr. O.’s class. When we need help, we
consult
another student who understands it. In my case, that’s usually Wain.”
    “Wain’s not here, Zaritza,” Mother says, and turns to leave—with Wain’s notebook! My ticket to the auditions!
    “Where are you going with that? Wain entrusted that notebook to me, not you.”
    She stops and slowly turns around. Mother can be a drama queen herself sometimes. You can’t live with my father and me without it rubbing off.
    “Do your homework, Zee. Your
own
homework.”
    “But I was consulting—”
    “You will come home directly from school tomorrow and work on it. You will do nothing in your free time except math until you have caught up. That means no movies. No Wain. No drama. Do you understand?”
    “But—”
    “
Do you understand?
”
    I plop down onto my chair as if all my bones have turned to jelly. I’m a jellyfish in a chair. “Yes.”
    “And you are
never
to copy the work of another student. It is wrong and you know it. If I ever catch you doing it again, I will take away all your theater privileges. That means no plays, no acting classes—”
    “What?” I shriek.
    “—for the rest of the school year.
And
you and I will need to sit down with your teacher and have a conversation. You could get suspended, you know—”
    “Okay, okay! I get it! Will you stop yelling?”
    I hate it when she gets so mad. It’s like homework. It makes it hard to breathe.
    She plops down onto the chair next to me, closes her eyes, brings