OOOO

Ch 4.

"I'm sorry Sweetie," Mac ignored the comment, because she knew there was definitely something else troubling the girl, "how about a hug to make it bet…"

Carol-Anne pulled away from her as if she'd been burned, with an incredulous look on her face. Mac immediately realized and apologized.

"I'm sorry, I forgot the 'rules'…How about we take this to my office?"

Carol-Anne didn't say anything, but still moved towards Mac's office.

Once the door was shut, before the blinds were even pulled, Carol-Anne was in Mac's arms, huddling close.

"So what happened that made your day so bad?" Mac asked, gently stroking Carol-Anne's hair.

"School is so stupid!" Carol-Anne spat, "I wish I didn't have to go…"

"I know, Sweetie," Mac consoled, adding, "But you have to…Your Mom is going to be so proud of you for keeping your grades up, despite everything that's been going on."

The truth was that Carol-Anne's grades had not been as high as they should have been, but with all that the child was going through, Mac had decided to cut her some leeway and just try to help and encourage her as much as possible. She was a very smart kid, so her lower-than-usual wouldn't do her academic record any harm, anyway.

"And I hate all of the people there!" The girl added, viciously.

"Your friends?" Mac asked, hoping that what she was suspecting wasn't true, "They haven't been saying anything mean, have they?"

"Not exactly," Carol-Anne murmured, "but it's still pretty mean to laugh at someone, isn't it? They all laughed right in my face…and even the teacher laughed too…"

"The teacher laughed at you?" Mac exclaimed, ready to go down to Carol-Anne's school, find the teacher and ream him or her a new one, "Why on earth did he do that?"

"Because I couldn't do the equations on the board," Carol-Anne told her, "I said that I didn't understand it, so I couldn't complete it. But he said that he'd just showed the entire class how it was done, so how could I not know how to complete it. Then I said that I couldn't understand it, because it didn't seem to make sense and then he accused me of not paying attention in class…so I said that maybe if his class wasn't so boring, then maybe people would pay more attention…and then everyone began to laugh…"

Mac sighed.

"Even the teacher?" she asked.

Carol-Anne nodded, murmuring, darkly, "But I still say it was mean of them all to laugh at me…"

"Sweetie," Mac hugged her, "I'm sure that they weren't laughing at you. You're lucky that this teacher…"

"Mr. Griply," Carol-Anne supplied.

"Mr. Griply," Mac continued, "found it amusing as well. He could have given you detention. But I agree that he had no right to accuse you of not paying attention, just because you didn't understand. I think I need to pay this guy a visit, to make sure he knows to treat his students with a bit more patience in future…In the meantime, I think we need to sit down and go through these equations…"

Carol-Anne nodded and fished out her Math book from her bag.

Mac gave her the comfortable chair at her desk and pulled around one of the visitor's chairs and sat down beside her.

"Okay," Mac looked over the page Carol-Anne opened to, "just explain for me a little of what Mr. Griply was saying, in class."

"Okay," Carol-Anne paused, getting her thoughts in order, "He wrote these two equations down on the board. We've been doing equations for a couple of days, but now we're working on 'simultaneous equations.'"

"You're already doing simultaneous equations?" Mac asked, surprised.

"Uh-huh," the girl told her, nonchalantly, "now we're doing simultaneous equations, but I don't know how. The first set we did at the end of class yesterday made sense, but now I can't seem to get them right. And nobody else seems to have any trouble with them."

'I can't remember being that far-on with math, when I was her age,' Mac thought to herself, but remained silent, 'Maybe she's in advanced math…Damn, I wish I could remember something about doing this sort of work…'

"Why don't you start with something you did yesterday and got correct," Mac suggested, "That way I can get a refresher course with this stuff, because it's been a long time since I've had to do anything like this."

"Okay, these are the equations," Carol-Anne nodded and proceeded to go through her train of thought, " 9X – 2Y 37, 4X + 2Y 28. First of all, the –2Y and + 2Y cancel each other out, so we get left with 9X 37 and 4X 28. And then we have to add them together…"

"I think I get this, so far," Mac nodded, although she had been right when she said about having not done this sort of stuff for a long time.

"So we have…13X 65…so if we divide 65 by 13, we solve for X…"

Mac was still following, but warned herself not to let her attention drift, in case she got lost.

"And X 5."

"Is that it, or do we have to do something else?" Mac asked.

"Um, we still need to solve for Y…So we replace X in one equation with the number 5…"

Carol-Anne did so.

"So that means that 20 + 2Y 28. So we take 20 away from 28 and that leaves us with 8. So 2Y 8. So we can solve for Y…X 5 and Y 4."

"Wait a minute," Mac stopped her, something coming back to her, "As I remember, you aren't finished until you check the second equation, too."

"But I already know that my answers are right…" Carol-Anne protested.

"But you have to check your answers, just in case," Mac insisted, "Just to make sure that you haven't gotten it wrong."

Carol-Anne gave a huff and checked her answers using the first equation.

"9x5 - 2x4 37…45-837…Yeah, that's right…"

"Good," Mac approved, explaining, "you need to make sure that you check your answers with both equations, before you move onto the next question, so that you don't end up with the wrong answer like what happened today…So, show me what you were doing today and we'll see if we can figure out where you're going wrong…"

Carol-Anne again began to talk Mac through the problem, going over each of the steps required, until she again hit the brick wall she had encountered during class that day.

"I end up with X 0 and Y 4 for the first equation, but that doesn't make sense for the second equation…"

Mac pondered while she tried to assess just where Carol-Anne was going wrong.

This was how Harm found them, when he knocked on Mac's door to ask her opinion about a case.

"Anything I can help with?" he asked, interested, as he approached Mac's desk where they were sitting.

"How good are you with simultaneous equations?" Mac asked, a perplexed expression on her face, "It's been too long since I've done anything like this…"

"Algebra?" Harm asked, "It's the bane of Mattie's existence. I still help her out a little…Are you doing simultaneous equations already, Carol-Anne? What, are you taking advanced math?"

Carol-Anne just nodded, morosely, so Harm jumped into the algebra with both feet.

"Okay," he read through the set of equations and started to follow Carol-Anne's working-out, "Yes…that makes sense…okay, I think that is correct…Up until here…"

He pointed out where Carol-Anne had gone wrong, "Negative numbers can be very troublesome, because when you need to subtract a negative number, you can't…"

Mac looked at Harm disbelievingly, now completely lost.

"Seriously," Harm insisted, "You cannot subtract negative 2. In this case, you would add 2. 'subtract –2' would mean '+ 2'."

"Of course!" the girl grinned, with relief.

Something obviously clicked in Carol-Anne's head,

"Mr. Griply did say that! Now I remember! Instead of subtracting a negative number, you add it! Thanks, Harm!"

"So, try and continue with the equations, now," Harm encouraged.

Carol-Anne did so, solving for both X and Y, then checking her answers with both equations.

"Does that make sense, now?" Mac asked, to which Carol-Anne nodded and proceeded into the next problem in her workbook with gusto.

"Thanks," Mac turned her attention back to Harm, who waved it off.

"Mattie and I spent many a night working through stuff like that. Eventually, we turned to a mathematics help-site on the internet. Mattie still uses it, occasionally," he explained then noted, "Carol-Anne seems to be into pretty advanced math."

"It would help if she liked it, though," Mac smiled.

Harm laughed.

"It would have certainly helped me!" he agreed.

Since Carol-Anne was now settled into her homework, Harm and Mac took the time in going over the problems they were encountering with their own work.

OOOO

The next evening, Mac managed to schedule an appointment with Carol-Anne's Mathematics teacher, Mr. Griply (or as Carol-Anne liked to refer to him as; 'Mr. Gripe-ly.') Mac had to admit, the man seemed to be quite old-school and knew nothing about what had been going on in Carol-Anne's home-life. After explaining Carol-Anne's situation, she managed to get the man to agree to exercise some patience with students like Carol-Anne and to be discrete about what Mac had disclosed to him. Whether it was because he could at least empathize with Carol-Anne's ordeal or because Mac was still in her Marine Colonel's uniform, she wasn't sure. Maybe it was a little of both.

Afterwards, she and Carol-Anne dropped by Harm's apartment with a pizza, to thank him for his help. At least, that is what Mac told Carol-Anne. She'd had an inkling that Harm had been about to ask her for her company the other week, when they'd had the meeting with Mrs. Bailey's doctors.

"Hey there!" Harm smiled, pleasantly surprised.

"We're not catching you at a bad time, are we?" Mac asked, unsurely.

"Not at all," Harm shook his head, "I'm always glad to see you two!"

Carol-Anne giggled quietly as she looked knowingly at Mac. As young as she was, she'd noticed the undercurrents that ran between the two of them.

"We brought a pizza and some garlic bread, if you haven't already eaten," Mac asked, "Carol-Anne wanted to thank you again for your help with her homework, yesterday. We might still be struggling through it, if it weren't for you. Isn't that right, Carol-Anne?"

Carol-Anne resisted the urge to roll her eyes, not because she wasn't grateful for Harm's help, but because the pizza hadn't been her idea, but Mac's. And now Mac was trying to convince both her and Harm (and perhaps herself) that it had originally Carol-Anne's idea! The woman was deluded! It was all so cute!

"Is Jen around?" Mac asked, "Would she like some pizza too?"

Carol-Anne was about to open her mouth to object, but Harm explained that Jen was out with friends that night.

'Good,' Carol-Anne thought to herself, 'Jen's a lovely person, but I think that I'll be enough of a third wheel in this 'date' as it is.'

Now she just had to find a way to make herself scarce so that Harm and Mac could spend some time alone.

They all tucked into dinner then put on a DVD and partway through it, Carol-Anne feigned falling asleep. Harm carried her through to the bedroom so that she could get some sleep. Harm and Mac didn't bother to check on her again for a couple of hours, until it was time to go home, so Carol-Anne assumed that the evening must have gone well. When Mac came to rouse her, she was both patient and happy-looking, so that pleased Carol-Anne and the two of them passed the journey home pleasantly, before turning in for the night.

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