"The snow is not letting up," Ax informed us.
"We see," Marco rolled his eyes.
"Do your parents know where you are?" Jake's mom said worryingly. "There's no way you can get home."
"No, they do not."
"Do you want to call them?"
"Yes!" he exclaimed.
"Uh-oh," Cassie whispered to me. "Of course he wants to call his parents."
"Y'know, their cell phone might not get good reception in this weather," Jake interrupted. "Let's go up to my room and see if they're online, okay? Great." Jake grabbed Ax's arm and almost ran up to his bedroom.
"We're going to have to keep all of you in here, won't we," Jake's dad said. "Let's see…Jake and Marco can go in Tom's room, and maybe this new friend. Then the girls can have Jake's…you two," he indicated Cassie's parents, "can use our bed, we'll fold out the couch, which leaves…" My mom and Marco's dad. "I hate logistics…"
"But logistics are easy. Z is the last letter of the alphabet. Just take the reciprocal of a constant plus an exponentially decaying function." Jake had evidently finished explaining to Ax what was going on.
"Dude, can you do my calculus?" Tom asked.
"Yes, I can, but I'm interpreting your question as a request for assistance, not a survey of my capabilities."
"Just…differentiate something."
"The derivative of the sine function is the cosine function for all real values x."
Tom nodded slowly and backed away dramatically. He backed into Sara, who had crashed on the couch.
"Think it's time to go to bed," my mom smiled.
Cassie, Jordan, a dazed Sara, and I clambered into Jake's room. By the time the adults brought up blankets for us we were already asleep.