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    Numbed!
    Numbed!
    Numbed!
    Ebook75 pages1 hour

    Numbed!

    By David Lubar

    3.5/5

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    About this ebook

    When Logan’s class takes a trip to a math museum, his mischievous friend Benedict is sure it will be a boring day—until he discovers a robot and its creator in an off-limits area. The robot proves feisty, and soon both boys get zapped. They realize only later that they’d left the museum without their math skills. To get back the knowledge they need for school—not to mention buying food at the mall, divvying up dinner at home, and much more—they’ll have to get back to the museum and pass a series of math challenges. Being “numbed” teaches Logan and Benedict just how useful, and even fun, math can be.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLerner Publishing
    Release dateAug 1, 2013
    ISBN9781467733649
    Numbed!
    Author

    David Lubar

    David Lubar created a sensation with his debut novel, Hidden Talents, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults. Thousands of kids and educators across the country have voted Hidden Talents onto over twenty state lists. David is also the author of True Talents, the sequel to Hidden Talents; Flip, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and a VOYA Best Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror selection; many short story collections in the Weenies and Teeny Weenies series; and the Nathan Abercrombie, Accidental Zombie series. Lubar grew up in Morristown, New Jersey, and he has also lived in New Brunswick, Edison and Piscataway, NJ, and Sacramento, CA. Besides writing, he has also worked as a video game programmer and designer. He now lives in Nazareth, Pennsylvania.

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      Book preview

      Numbed! - David Lubar

      4

      CHAPTER

      5 + 4 − 8

      "I wish we could go somewhere interesting," Benedict said as we got off the bus with the rest of our class.

      It won’t be that bad, I said.

      Are you kidding, Logan? It’s math! It’s bad enough we have to do fifty zillion homework problems every day. And now, we get dragged here? He flung his arm in the direction of the Mobius Mathematics Museum. It was shaped like the top half of a planet, with a giant, twisted steel ring circling a dome of colored glass. The ring was just high enough above the ground that people could walk under it and thick enough that I could probably walk inside of it, assuming it was hollow. The dome had craters and spikes scattered across the surface. Huge numbers, symbols, and equations were painted on it in random places in pink, yellow, red, and purple.

      It’s kind of a cool building, I said, trying to get Benedict to calm down before our teacher, Ms. Fractalli, decided to make him stay on the bus. It was only our second month of sixth grade, and she’d already kept him after school twelve times. That’s not even counting all the times he had to miss recess.

      No, Benedict said. The natural history museum is cool. They have all sorts of dead things. I guarantee, this is going to be awful. He jammed his Ravens hat tighter on his head. He always wore it for at least a week after his mom cut his hair.

      Ms. Fractalli turned around and said, Benedict, I expect you to behave. And take off that hat before we go inside. Then she pointed at me and flicked her finger toward herself, like she was tickling the belly of a tall dog. Logan, come here.

      I tapped my chest. Me?

      She double flicked. You.

      Hah—you’re in trouble, Benedict said as he stuffed his hat in his back pocket.

      I ignored him and walked over to our teacher.

      She bent down, lowered her voice, and said, I’m counting on you to see that Benedict behaves.

      Me? This time, I didn’t tap any part of my body.

      You. This time, she didn’t flick any fingers.

      But I can’t make him behave, I said. She might as well have asked me to make the wind stop blowing.

      Sure, you can. You’re his friend. He listens to you. As I said, I’m counting on you. I know you won’t let me down. She turned away before I could figure out how to convince her that whatever Benedict ended up doing, it wouldn’t be my fault.

      I’ll try to keep you out of trouble, Benedict said when I got back over to him. But you’re going to have to stick close.

      Thanks. I’ll do my best.

      Our class streamed beneath the ring and through the front entrance of the museum. There was a big digital counter hanging from the ceiling just past the door. It was the same kind they use at the deli in the supermarket—but with a lot more digits. The numbers clicked forward, going up by two as Benedict and I went in.

      I count! Benedict said, pointing up at the display.

      He ran outside, slid to a halt, and let out a screech like a skidding car in a video game. He spun around and raced back. And I count again, he said.

      He did this twice more, bumping the count higher each time, before I could grab his shoulder and say, Come on, the class is getting ahead of us.

      We caught up with the end of the line as it reached the other side of the lobby. I noticed a video running on a big screen overhead. A man held up a strip of paper. The Mobius strip is easy to make but amazing to explore, he said. He gave the paper a twist and then taped the ends together, making a loop.

      He took a pencil and started to draw a line on the outside. It only has one side, he said.

      Our group moved out of the lobby, so I didn’t see the rest of the video. Ms. Fractalli led us down a hallway toward an area called the Chamber of Fractions.

      Just then, Benedict grabbed my arm and shouted, Look!

      With his other hand, he pointed at a sign hanging from the middle of a thick rope that blocked an opening on the left side of the hallway. I could see a flight of stairs past the opening, heading down to the basement. The sign read:

      RESTRICTED EXPERIMENTAL AREA

      CLOSED TO THE PUBLIC

      ABSOLUTELY NO VISITORS ALLOWED

      Awesome! Benedict said. They wouldn’t put up a sign if it was really a secret. They want people to go there.

      That’s ridiculous. I grabbed Benedict’s shoulder. If they wanted people to go down there, they’d say so on the sign.

      Then everyone would go, he said. "They want people, but only the ones who are smart enough to figure that out. Like us. Let’s

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