Peter flipped through the pages of his book. He wanted to find a new challenging math problem. He needed some new entertainment on this rainy day. He looked. He looked again. Finally, at Page 425 he found a good challenging one. It Read:
X=845+57-78 Find the x
After solving it out, he wanted to quiz other people to help with his studying. He quizzed his father, his mother, and his brother. Finally he asked his father if he could visit the witch next door. His father replied with a simple nod.
"Thanks dad", Peter said, practically glowing with excitement. He bounded out the door covering his book with his brown coat to protect it from the rain. He knocked on the door of the luxurious house. The wooden door creaked open but there was nobody behind it. Instead he saw Hazel, sitting on a chair holding a piece of papyrus paper in her hands and weeping onto it.
"What do you want" the Hazel asked. Peter asked, "What's the matter?"
"My mother just left. She just walked out the door and said she wouldn't be back in the while. Those were the last words I heard my Daddy said before he went to the mountains. I know she'll never be back."
"No you don't," Peter said sitting next to the poor girl. "She'll be back real soon I'll bet."
"No she won't", Hazel wept, "I found this note under her bed." She gave Peter the soggy note from all her tears. He looked over it.
The note said:
Dear Hazel,
If you are reading this note then you know too much. I have gone off to the mountains. They want me to attend an important meeting on witchery. I have been drafted to a private society for witches over 56 and seeing how my 56th birthday is in two weeks, I was required to go. I may never see you again, so remember the true importance of the witchcraft I have taught you.
Love you forever,
Mother
"I'm sorry", Peter said. Trying to lighten the subject he asked Hazel, "I came over here to study for my math test coming up. I was wondering if I could quiz you and you could quiz me."
"Math…Quiz?" Hazel gazed at him confused.
"You don't go to school do you?" he asked.
"My mother has homeschooled me my whole life." Hazel replied.
"I suppose witches don't do math and that sort of stuff." Peter said. "Here, I'll help you. Take a wild guess at this problem!" He opened his book to the problem he had solved earlier and pointed to it.
She read the problem. Find the x she thought. Then she pointed to the x and said, "It's right there."
She stood tall and smiled proudly that she had solved her very first math problem. Peter had been giving her an easy one. However Peter started laughing.
"What's so funny?" she asked.
"Find the value of the x not the x itself", laughing between every word. After he calmed down he started to explain the problem to her. "You see, the x is a variable. That means the number that it represents can only be revealed after the rest of the problem is solved." He explained more of the problem and some other problems in his 500 page textbook. She soon discovered that math was fun and that Peter was fun to be around. Soon his mother came over and told Peter it was time for supper.
They visited each other often and soon became the closest of friends and a little more than friends perhaps. One time Peter invited Hazel over to try some of the baked goods his father made. Hazel looked at the disc with brown dots in it. They called it a chocolate chip cookie. It looked like a mumps victim to her. She tasted it. It was much more delicious than she thought it would be. She had soon wolfed it down and wanted another.
"These are so good." Hazel said with cookie crumbs in her mouth."I wish I could be a baker when I grew up."
At that moment, something clicked in Peter's brain. He was going to be a baker when he grew up. And so was Hazel. Well, at least a Baker's Wife.