Notes: Thanks to Mari and Sammy for being your always awesome selves. You're the best, ladies! Thanks to SuperSammy for reminding me I was going to make this a series and for suggesting the ending.
Readers and REAL McRollers - Thank you for your amazing support! It is always appreciated.
Hope you enjoy!
Homework Time: Elizabeth (A McRoll in the REAL World Story)
"Yay! It's Grandma!" Angie squealed excitedly when she saw Elizabeth waiting outside her car in the pickup line. She ran toward her grandmother at full tilt with DJ following after he said goodbye to a couple of friends.
"Well, hello to you, too, angel," Elizabeth said with a laugh as Angie barrelled into her for a hug. "I always love an enthusiastic greeting, but what brought this on?"
"I have math homework," Angie said, stressing the word.
"I told her Mommy could do it, but she really wanted you to help her," DJ explained.
Angie nodded seriously. " 'Cause you always help DJ with his math 'cause you're the best at it."
Elizabeth smiled. "Well, I'm flattered." She wrapped an arm around DJ and kissed the top of his head. "Hello, sweetheart, how was your day?"
"It was great! We started A.T. and for our first project we're going to design our own waterpark!"
"Wow! That sounds very exciting."
"Yeah, we have a budget and have to do research and everything."
"That sounds like quite the project," Elizabeth said. "I can't wait to see what you come up with. And of course I'll be happy to help you just like I'm happy to help Angie with her homework while you're at practice."
Angie beamed. "Can we do it as soon as we get to your house, Grandma?"
Elizabeth gasped with faux-shock. "Even before we have snack?"
Angie blanched, clearly conflicted. She looked at her brother for help.
He smiled. "Snack first, then homework," he said. "You need the energy so you can think your best, right, Grandma?"
"Right, honey. And I have the perfect brainfood at home, so what do you say we get going?"
Angie threw both hands in the air. "Let's go!"
After a snack of apple slices and celery sticks with peanut butter, DJ left with Joseph for baseball practice.
"Now, Grandma?" Angie asked eagerly once the dishes had been put away.
"Certainly, angel." Elizabeth grinned. "I wish my Tutor Time kids were this excited about math homework."
"Math is great!"
Elizabeth beamed. "I agree. Math is great."
Grandma Ang chuckled, shaking her head at the two of them. "While you two math fans are working, I'm going to go close my eyes and stretch out for a bit."
Angie looked over at her, face falling just a little. She still enjoyed joining her namesake for a little nap together from time to time.
Ang smiled softly and reached over to pat her hand. "You come in when you're done, sweetheart."
Angie relaxed and nodded happily.
Elizabeth came around the table to help her mother up. "Do you want help getting settled, Mom?" she asked gently.
"No, no, I'll be fine," Ang said. She winked at Angie. "That math homework isn't going to do itself, you know."
Angie looked momentarily stricken at the idea that her homework could already be done before realizing her great-grandmother was teasing and smiled back. She waved. "Have a good snooze, Grandma Ang. I'll see you soon."
Ang blew her a kiss. "Thank you, angel. See you soon."
Once Ang had disappeared into her bedroom, Elizabeth and Angie arranged themselves back at the table with Angie's special homework folder and her pencil case.
"Now let's see this math homework," Elizabeth said.
"It has fruit on it!" Angie announced, pulling the single sheet of paper from the To Do side of her folder.
"So it does. What kinds of fruit do you see?"
"Strawberries and apples and bananas," Angie replied. "We count them and put the number in the box." She pointed to a row of large numbers outlined in squares at the bottom of the paper. "We have to cut the numbers and glue them or tape them," she said, remembering her teacher's instructions.
"Well, that sounds like step one," Elizabeth said. "Do you have your scissors?"
Angie nodded and took them out of her pencil case. She picked up her paper and took her time cutting along the dotted lines around each number.
"Good job, honey," Elizabeth said. "I like how you're concentrating."
Angie smiled up at her. "Mr. S says I'm good at concentrating … most of the time."
Elizabeth chuckled. "You are … most of the time."
Angie finished cutting all the squares out and she and Elizabeth arranged them on the side of her paper so she could see them all.
"Can you tell me what all those numbers are?" Elizabeth asked, though she knew the five-year-old would have no trouble identifying the single digit numbers.
"Eight, six, nine, seven, five," Angie replied, pointing to each.
"Excellent. You know what we could do, you could practice writing your numbers and then gluing the square on top. What do you think?"
"Okay!" She searched for her favorite pencil, a sparkly blue one, in her case.
"Let's look at the first problem," Elizabeth said, tapping the upper corner of the paper. "There are strawberries and bananas. Let's count them all."
"Wait! I have to write my name. DJ said that's the most important part."
Elizabeth chuckled. "Of course." She waited for Angie to print her name on the line at the top of the paper. "Good job. Now, we count."
"One, two, three, four, five," Angie said, touching each piece of fruit as she counted. "Five! That's this one." She pointed to the five square she'd cut out.
"Very good. Can you write it in the box?"
Angie nodded. She bent over the paper, pencil in hand, glanced at the five square again and copied it into the box.
"Good job! Now what do you say we make it a little more of a challenge for you?" She flipped over the remaining squares so Angie could no longer see them.
Angie smiled broadly, loving the idea of a challenge.
"How many pieces of fruit are in the next problem?" Elizabeth asked.
Angie counted eight apples and bananas. She paused, pencil in hand, and Elizabeth knew she was visualizing the number in her head. After a moment she wrote an eight in the box.
"Wonderful, Angie!" Elizabeth wrapped her in a quick hug.
Beaming, Angie made quick work of the other three problems, then got out her glue stick and glued the paper squares into place.
"We did it!" she announced happily.
"We sure did," Elizabeth said. "I have one more idea for a challenge. What do you say?"
Angie didn't hesitate, the glint of a challenge in her eyes. "Let's do it!"
"And there are two strawberries and three bananas and all together that's five," Angie explained to her parents, DJ, Joseph, and Grandma Ang excitedly, showing them her homework paper.
"Hey, that's addition!" DJ said, eyes widened. "Angie! You're adding!"
She beamed and nodded. "Two strawberries … plus," she glanced at her grandmother for confirmation she'd used the correct word and received an encouraging nod in reply before continuing, "three bananas … is five fruits!"
"Honey, that's great!" Catherine said, hugging her as Steve smiled proudly.
"I know they'll get to that soon enough, but I couldn't resist," Elizabeth said. "The worksheet just lent itself so perfectly to decomposing an addition problem and Angie's always up for a challenge."
"Spoken like a true math professor," Joseph said with a grin.
"And we did some adding of things not on your paper, didn't we?" Elizabeth prompted, nodding at Angie.
"We added our pets!" Angie said. She smiled over at Smokey who was sitting on the floor next to Joseph and held up two fingers on both hands. "Two dogs plus two cats is four pets!"
DJ cheered. "Yay, Angie!"
Steve tried to frown, though his lip quirked. "I don't think that's right," he said, folding his arms. "You're forgetting someone very important."
"Scout?" DJ suggested.
"Scout is important, though that's not who I was thinking of."
"Midnight?" Angie asked.
"Not Midnight," Steve replied, now clearly fighting a smile. "Someone who might not technically be a pet, but might as well be a member of the family."
Catherine chuckled, shaking her head, while DJ clapped a hand over his mouth, giggling.
Angie's eyes suddenly lit with realization. "Felix!"
"Felix," Steve confirmed.
"How could we forget Felix?" Ang said with a grin.
Steve flashed her an answering grin and looked back at Angie. "So two dogs, two cats, and one goat equals …"
Angie repeated the problem to herself, looking down at her fingers and frowning a little. Elizabeth added one of her own fingers beside Angie's right hand, and the five-year-old smiled.
"Five!" she announced, to cheers from her family. She threw her arms around her grandmother. "Thanks, Grandma! You are the very very best at math."
Elizabeth smiled, touching her forehead briefly to Angie's. "It was my pleasure, angel. My absolute pleasure."
Hope you enjoyed!
Find all our stories (in chronological order!) on our website: marirealmcroll dot wixsite dot com backslash real-mcroll
Or in the McRoll in the REAL World community here on fanfiction dot net
Find us on Tumblr: mcrollintherealworld dot tumblr dot com
You can still join our mailing list by emailing us realmcroll at yahoo dot com with Add me, please! in the subject line.
And find Mari on Twitter at Mari21763 and add #REALMcRoller