Disclaimer: Refer to last chapter.
Tuesday, September 3rd, 1985
I am very excited to go to school this morning. I make sure to bring my purple outer space lunch box this time so I won't go hungry and so I can return Ludwig's favor from yesterday.
Cousin Daisy is on the bus when I get on, and she wants me to sit next to her. I ask if I can sit somewhere else. She says, looks like little Lavvie's got a boyfriend! I get all hot-feeling and she asks me who the lucky boy is. I say that I just want to sit with friends, that's all.
Ludwig is sitting in the back where Daisy can't see. I sit next to him and play with his hair. His hair smells like McDonald's and candy. Yummy. I suck on it and he gets irritated and pulls it back.
When we get to class, Teacher is having us learn numbers. Daisy is always complaining about how hard math is, but it doesn't seem so hard to me. I already know how to count to one hundred, and I tell her that it's boring to count over one hundred because numbers are repetitive. Ludwig raises his hand and counts by saying some number-point some other number times ten to the power of some other number. He says that one hundred is ten to the power of two, one thousand is ten to the power of three, and one million is ten to the power of six.
I am amazed. But the teacher tells him to be quiet and has the other kids who don't know their numbers count. Ludwig complains that he already knows how to do calculus, whatever that is.
During recess, Ludwig takes some sidewalk chalk and, instead of drawing hopscotch squares, draws some funny looking symbols. He draws x's and y's and some funny-looking mark that looks like the s on a violin. I stare at him and I am amazed, but he looks like he's annoyed at me.
I ask, can you teach me how to do math with the alphabet? He says no. I ask him, why won't you teach me? He says, it's not that I won't it's that I can't. There's a difference.
He sits back under the tree to read his book. He is almost finished with it. I ask if I can borrow it when he's done. He says that it wouldn't understand it.
I get frustrated. I tell him that I'm sick of my cousin Daisy always telling me that I can't understand stuff. He snaps at me, saying, I am not your cousin Daisy. I am a university graduate and I've yet to learn all that is in this book, so it would certainly be too difficult four your cousin Daisy to understand, let alone you.
I begin to cry. He then says, however, I do have some books that are at your level and would probably, in time, take you beyond that level.
He opens his backpack and takes out some books on science and numbers that are at a sixth-grade level. I say thank you and kiss him on the cheek.
During lunch I offer him some of my carrot sticks with peanut butter, my apple juice box, my grapes, and my peanut butter sandwich crackers. He turns up his nose and says that it's hardly a good tradeoff for what he gave me yesterday. I tell him that my mom wants to make sure that I eat healthy. He says that growing children need more calories than this.
He accepts the crackers and the peanut butter but not the carrots. I can't eat the carrots now because the taste really yucky without the peanut butter. He asks what's for dessert. Let me guess – applesauce?
I tell him that I had to put the applesauce in the refrigerator because it got warm when I left my lunchbox out at home all day so I took a candy bar for dessert.
He turns up his nose at the Hershey's label. He says that I can keep it, they're not nearly as good as Milka. I agree. Milka is really yummy and special tasting. But I eat the Hershey's anyway.
Later on Ludwig is making kids cry by beating them at checkers and throwing a fit when they break the rules. I ask if I can play with him and he beats me but he says that I played a much better game than the other kids. He asks me if I want to learn how to play chess and I say yes.
He gets frustrated trying to teach me and tells me that I should probably stick to tic tac toe. I get mad and insist on playing. He says that you only need to kill the king, you don't need to kill all of the other pieces. He goes easy on me so that I can beat him.
At the end of the day he tells me good luck with the books he gave me. He says that I can keep them.
I think that maybe Ludwig likes me too!