As I thought about that first visit to the principal’s office Mrs Bingsley made an announcement Today we’re starting a new chapter in math Geometry Everyone cheered Including me Shapes are easy breezy We’ll warm up a bit before we start She passed out geoboards Use your rubber bands to make shapes Geoboards were fun I stretched the first rubber band over four pegs and made a trapezoid Then I added an upside-down one on top to make a pentagon Or was it a hexagon An octagon At least I knew it made some type of gon Next I made a car and showed Mrs Bingsley Vanessa whispered that my car looked like it was out of gas So a minute later I shot a rubber band at her 10
When she glared at me I gave her my very most innocent look Oops Sorry A few minutes later Mrs Bingsley passed out colored paper shapes We were supposed to use them to make geometric designs on construction paper Rebecca asked me to work with her We made a garden of flowers and used so many shapes that I felt dizzy We made round flowers star flowers and rectangular trees with circle tops Then Rebecca said we needed hexagon octagon septagon and decagon flowers I didn’t know which were which but Rebecca made them look beautiful Then she did something amazing She gathered up little squares folded them zippity zip and made tulips Out of squares She called it origami I tried to make origami flowers but they looked like crumply weeds 11
When everyone saw our picture they oohed and ahhed over Rebecca’s origami flowers No one mentioned my trees My shoulders drooped I felt like one of my crumply weeds Mrs Bingsley drew triangles on the board Who knows this shape She called on my cousin Crockett It’s a right triangle Wrong Crockett I said It’s a plain triangle Actually said Mrs Bingsley Crockett’s correct Mrs Bingsley drew more triangles She used words like obtuse acute and equal somethings There were so many triangles I felt tricked At lunch I traded my mom’s perfectly cut triangle-shaped tuna and pickle sandwich for Matthew’s Fluffer Nutter peanut butter one I didn’t care if Mom saw me 12
I hate triangles I announced Geometry’s stupid Geometry’s cool said Miss Priss A-Poo is easier Geometry’s fun said Crockett Geometry than multiplication said Johnny Mazzaratti My stomach did a flip-flop belly drop If geometry was so easy breezy then why was I so bent out of shape 13
