Disclaimer: Rainbow Rowell created these delightful characters (except Matilda).

A/N: Gosh, I'm really sorry if the first few paragraphs of this chapter sound like an ad for Khan Academy. I swear I don't work for them; I just think Simon would like them. Also, I haven't researched the British school system for this fic, so I'm going by what I've picked up from consuming British media. I'm sorry for the mistakes, and I'll fix them if you point them out, but I decided to be lazy for this story.

I want to try some maths on my own before talking to anyone else about what to do next, so, when I finally call it quits on the literature essay, I immediately Google "how to teach yourself maths," but that's mostly tips about habits and strategies rather than actual content, so next I Google "maths tutorials." This time, after a few ads (I really should take Penny and Baz's advice and get adblock; I just never seem to remember), I see a result labeled "Khan Academy: Free Online Courses, Lessons & Practice." I click on it and wind up at a website offering more knowledge for free than I thought existed outside of Penny and Wikipedia.

I click around for a while on various menus, trying to figure out how to assess myself and determine what I already know and whether learning is easy. I can see that the website operates on the American system, referring to "high school" rather than "secondary school" and offering help with the SAT rather than A-levels or GCSEs. I try to remember what Penny's mentioned about the American system so that I can guess at where I would have left off at the end of primary school. Finally, I find myself on the page for sixth grade maths, which offers to teach me about percentages, negative numbers, variables, and inequalities. Percentages I know (who doesn't?), and I've experienced plenty of variability and inequality in my life (the former thanks to the Humdrum and the latter thanks to Baz), but negative numbers—hmm. I maybe remember them from primary school? I click on "Intro to Negative Numbers" and watch the video. I immediately like the warm, comforting, American voice that narrates the video, and the instruction is clear and easy to follow. I don't remember the material from primary school (not that that's saying much—I remember blessedly little from my pre-Watford life), but it's easy to understand now.

I do the practice problems and watch a few more videos before bed. The next day, I don't have as much homework, so I spend a few hours watching Khan Academy videos, doing practice problems, and learning maths. At some point I realize that I'm getting everything right. I figure that might be because the material is so easy, so I skip ahead to Geometry, but I get the same result, except where Sal Khan mentions algebra, which I've missed entirely. But everything that I am learning just makes sense. It clicks. It feels easy.

Dinner is just Penny and me—Fiona just got back from a vampire-hunting mission and Baz wanted to see her—and I ask Penny to help me draft an email to the head of the maths department at our university. Together, we write,

Dear Professor Wilson,

My name is Simon Snow and I am a student interested in studying maths. The problem is that I attended an unusual secondary school and have not completed much coursework in maths. May I meet with you to discuss how I might catch up so that I could take university maths courses starting next year?

Sincerely,

Simon Snow

"'Unusual'?" I ask Penny.

"Do you have a better idea?" Penny retorts.

"Agatha always said 'religious fundamentalist,'" I reply.

"And you would listen to Agatha over me why?"

I shrug. "Agatha said magic is like a religion."

Penelope huffs. "No it's not. Magic just is."

"I'm pretty sure that's what religious people would say, too, Penny."

Penny and I haggle over terminology for a little longer before sending the email off. Professor Wilson writes me back the next day and tells me to come to his office on Tuesday morning of next week. When I do, he greets me by name and asks how far along I've gotten in maths. I marathoned the Khan Academy pre-algebra and algebra videos over the weekend, so I tell him I've got a solid handle on algebra (which is only maybe true, but I want to seem as prepared as I possibly can) but have only a little bit of experience with geometry.

"You may as well be thirteen," he growls, his tone reminding me of me. Then he goes on a rant that includes terms like "Tory government," "American-style religious exemptions," and "declining standards," before finally turning to me again and saying, "I'll email our education students who aspire to teach maths, and we'll see if anyone is willing to tutor you. You'll have to pay them, though."

I nod. "Of course, sir."

He raises his eyebrows. "'Sir'?"

"I didn't learn maths at my secondary school," I reply, "but I did learn elocution and basic manners."

"For Christ's sake. It's the twenty-first century! You need maths and science, not elocution and deportment! I have half a mind to ring your headmaster."

"He died my final year, sir."

Professor Wilson's expression softens a bit at that. "Oh. Well. On your way, Mr Snow. Expect an email soon."

I see myself out, and, sure enough, I get an email from Professor Wilson the next day, saying that a maths education student named Matilda Smith (email address provided) would be happy to tutor me for an appropriate fee. I email Matilda and explain my progress—I'm midway through geometry by this point, to the detriment of my homework for my actual classes; it just feels so good to be getting something right for once.

I like Matilda as soon as I meet her. She has frizzy brown hair and big glasses, and she shakes my hand when I arrive at our first tutoring session the next week.

"You say you haven't done maths since primary school," she says, "but I find that hard to believe. Was your curriculum just bad?"

I shake my head. "No, my secondary school honestly didn't have maths courses. It was kind of . . . religious fundamentalist. Our classes were really not Normal."

Matilda's eyes get huge behind her glasses. "What did you take?"

Baz could dodge this question without looking like he was hiding anything, but I'm not that smooth. "I'd rather not talk about it," I say. "I'm glad I escaped and get to go to a Normal university." That's what Agatha would say, I'm sure. "Anyway, is it relevant? I thought we were here so you could teach me maths."

Matilda sits back. "We are. So how much maths have you done, really?"

"I remember about through fractions and decimals from primary school," I reply. "I've been watching a bunch of online tutorial videos in the last couple weeks, so I've been trying to learn algebra and geometry, but I haven't studied them formally. I've been getting a lot of practice problems right, but I don't know how much that means."

"Well, lucky for you, I've been studying the secondary school maths curriculum and designing lesson plans this term, so I might actually have some idea of what to do with you. I've assembled a placement test to try to get a sense of what you know and what you still need to work on. Take it and we'll go from there."

Matilda takes a folder out of her rucksack and then removes several pieces of paper stapled together, which she hands to me. I take out a pencil from my rucksack and start working. The first problem reads, "2x + 3 = 7. Find x." That's easy—subtract 3 from each side to get 2x = 4, and then divide by 2 to get x = 2. Simple.

By the fifth algebra problem, I'm on a roll. I feel unstoppable. I'm barely even having to think. I feel kind of like a conduit, like maths is just flowing through me. It's almost like my magic, except I don't think I'm sucking mathematical power out of Yorkshire to do it.

I slow down when I get to the geometry section—I'm still a little fuzzy on angles and polygon congruence, although area and volume problems are a breeze. Then I reach a section that keeps referring to "sin," "cos," and "tan." I'm pretty sure this "sin" isn't talking about what Baz and I get up to in my bedroom, and I don't think this "tan" refers to anyone's skin colour, but beyond that I'm pretty lost. I look ahead in the packet and see a bunch of fractions that all seem to be of the form d/dx, and I don't know what to make of that.

I hand the packet to Matilda and tell her that I'm done. She looks up from her own maths textbook—she must have started doing homework while I was taking her test; I was too engrossed to tell. She looks over my work and then up at me. "Well," she says, "if this is really where you are, you weren't kidding. You seem to have algebra down, and you know some geometry, but you're still not all the way there yet, and you didn't touch any of the trigonometry or calculus problems, so I guess we'll start with geometry and go from there."

"Should I keep watching the video tutorials?" I ask.

"If that's really how you learned algebra, they're clearly effective," she replies. "Go ahead, but email me 24 hours before we meet and tell me what you've covered."

"They're American—does that matter?"

"It might a little bit; we don't study other countries' curricula. Maths is pretty universal, though."

I smile. "I like that about maths."

Matilda smiles back. "Me too."

By the end of the month, I've finished geometry. Another month and I've mastered trigonometry. I'm possibly failing my literature course, but I don't care. Maths just feels so good, so right, in a way words never have.

Toward the end of the term, Matilda suggests that I sit for an O-level in maths. She says I can take one by arrangement via the maths department at our university. "We're not done," she tells me. "You need to pass the A-level before taking university maths courses. But you've made so much progress, Simon. I think you could be really good at this."

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