A/N: Here's the next chapter of this story. Been recovering from cubital tunnel, bad writer's block and college, all of which have me suffering in dire straits and writing lots of essays, I've been super busy, too busy to focus on writing, which has driven me insane. So, today, since the writing itch bit me, I'll indulge you all with this before returning to my SI fics, my PH fics, my FOZ fics, and my DC fics. Those are my main focus at the moment. I hope you'll all stick around and prepare for a PMD update. That's the next thing coming to your dinner plates.
A math pun-filled chapter awaits. I don't even like math, but I figured, why not try math-based puns since I've used the shit out of word puns. Time to subtract time, multiply my efforts and add these words up to get the solution! Plus every single day there's math kids in this computer lab puzzling over equations. Listening to it last night gave me the ideas for this chapter.
Chapter 42 Cornelius, beset by a Number of Miscalculations and Predicaments
Cornelius was not in the best of moods at the moment. So many things had happened, and so many other things as well, that he had forgotten to count them all, which was hilarious as Cornelius was notoriously bad at counting, and bad at counting all the counts in the castle, which pissed them off. Of course, they wanted to be accounted for and the number of times he had failed to notice their presence had led to them grabbing a clock and setting it down in front of him so that that way, he would be able to read the time and become more "timely", and, they hoped, become a better expert at math.
However, this failed, because Cornelius did not understand that you were supposed to silently read a clock. Instead, he told the time out loud, which irritated them so much they told him to shut up. They asked him to tell the difference between a fraction and a decimal, at which he blurted out loud that he didn't want the decimal to become a religious convert. A dictionary was brought before him and he was asked to comprehend the division of differences in the words, subtract the stupid answers he had given, add good responses and above all else, make sure to get plenty of women interested in him and multiply the numbers of the Briticist Royal Family, because the more, the better. Naturally, Cornelius thought they were mean, that their mode of doing things was terrible, and above all else, carrying the math books was hurting his median nerve so much and giving him carpal tunnel!
"Why are you all so acutely obtuse?" He shouted at Clover, Cassius Claypot, Carl, Odious, and Souvenir, who jumped in horror, knocking over their plates of food and spilling them to the floor.
"Because, Cornelius," Souvenir said, picking her stuff off the floor, stacking it onto her plate (and for some reason, counting how much was there), "some of us rulers have got to know how to measure our portions while we eat. I think that your habit of-what was it again-acting all odd about everything, is bad for the numbers. They'll think even and odd are the exact same thing."
Why was everyone talking like this? It was terrifying. His brain tried to come up with answers to the solution, but failed.
He glanced at Odious, hoping he would say something less weird.
"I think, to a certain degree, she is right, and quite acute, too-sorry, I was obtuse there, I suppose I'll have to get my face angled. The thing is, we can circle you until you're blue in the face, but you really need to learn to love math, Cornelius. Math just wants you to appreciate it. Stop being so negative about math and start being positive. Did you know the answers are positively delightful? When you have the sum, the root comes easily!"
What was going on.
"What about words? Words are so much better than numbers!" Cornelius shouted.
At this, Clover slammed her mirror on the table, smashing it. "Look at this, I divided it!"
"We're going on a tangent here." Cassius said, "What's more important is in handling Cheerio and her spreading of healthy cereal and making kids count calories. That's bad for us, it means less bucks, and less money. The outlier here is that the statistics say that soon, no kids will ever be interested in either mathematics or in eating healthy food! That's bad for us!"
"But, seriously," Cornelius said, "Don't you guys realize you're saying the same words you used to give the Numbers their new existences as tools of oppression? Shouldn't that be considered prejudiced?"
Cassius scoffed. "Of course it's not prejudiced to call them Elevens. It just means we think they're the Eleventh most important country in the world. And we love numbers, so why shouldn't we equally apply that quotient to everyone? That's not accounting for taste, but really, I think numbers for names of people sound so much better than stale old words like Japanese and Chinese."
Everyone but Cornelius agreed.
"You're insane. Numbers aren't labels for people. What kind of place is this?" He cried, having a heel face turn for no reason, other than that he'd tripped and fallen flat on his face with his shoe turned over wrong.
"This is the kind of place where the solution is the answer. The answer is, we're giving you math problems day and night and making you eat them."
The cake in front of him was filled with numbers written all over it. In red paint, was written, "Happy Solution Day, Cornelius!"
Cornelius screamed as the cake was added up and subtracted, until it was so divided there were only square portions of it.
The cake had a huge formula written on it.
"Answer the formula." Everyone said in a creepy voice.
"Answer it."
He started to scratch the cake open.
Inside was another formula.
"Answer it."
And another formula.
"Answer it."
And then he woke up, disappointed that the author employed such a cheap scheme to advance the plot along.
"Screw numbers, they're so annoying." He muttered, glaring at the open math book.
The door opened and Clover came in.
"I just wanted to say, the forecast is calculating-"
"OH DEAR GOD, NO! NO MORE MATH! MAKE IT STOP!" He shrieked.
"What? I was just saying that the weather is going to be pretty odd today. Rain and snow and stuff. Nothing about math. Stop reading so much into it."
As Clover closed the door, she turned to the other siblings.
"It worked. He calculated that it was all a dream. But it worked. He won't complain about math anymore."
"I guess that solution was reached!" Someone else said.
"Indeed." Clover agreed, watching her watch closely before donning a clock costume. "Now all we do is help him tell time next."
Jerboa sat outside, listening to the commotion and shook his head.
"I told them math was terrible. But they didn't listen. You never escape it."
A giant number 1 came storming across the street, followed by a number two.
"Oh crap, I awoke the weirdness alarm again."
He pulled the lever.
The two numbers collapsed, revealing them to be merely parade floats.
"That's much better. I thought there was going to be something worse-"
His door shook and suddenly a rabid calculator was there, smacking a ruler in its hands, and dragging him out.
"IT'S MATH TIME, BITCH! TIME TO MEASURE OR GET ROOTED OUT! WHAT'S 900,000 DIVIDED BY INFINITY?"
"I DON'T KNOW!" HE CRIED.
"THEN PREPARE TO BE SOLVED!"
Jerboa, too, had had a math nightmare.
It turned out that all of them had gotten really high and had bad dreams.
After all, after so many feet on the ground, high up, that altitude will make people think of math.
