Chapter 86

Saturday, I hustled over to the Math section of the Hard Sciences building, found the instructors mailbox and dropped my answer sheet in the box. Mine was not the only paper that day.

I was the only one who had written my answer immediately after class a week ago. I didn’t need two more days and two more whiteboards to confuse the situation. The answer was and could ONLY be...

The building fell down. The math ended up with a negative number ... negative numbers mean a mistake ... and mistakes fall down ... collapse in a pile of rubble ... electrocute the contractor ... or produce cataclysmic or catastrophic results ... poison gas, nuclear reaction, twisting bridges or crashing aircraft.

And I was right.

A simple transposition and two large construction cranes collapsed on a road in downtown Moscow ... Russia ... at the same time.

Monday morning the class assembled. The professor was absent. A teaching fellow stood in his place and confessed that the math was wrong and apologized. He, the assistant, was responsible for the mistake.

“Tyche,” he pronounced Tyche, Ti ... sh. “Miss Flintkote, would you come forward and present the correct math.”

I went forward and wrote my name on the board. TYCHE. Like NIKE but a T instead of an N.

Well ... that was embarrassing... 16 years old ... killed one instructor and caught another one in error. My rant about double checking, cross checking and “being sure” was ill received.

“Never take a supervisors word as gospel. A friend was electrocuted because the super said he’d sent a man to disconnect the power to an abandoned transfer station ... the station had been abandoned for 35 years... ‘The only town that line went went to has been a ghost town since before 1920, of course the power was off. How could it NOT be?’ The man never checked. He assumed.

“Thank you, Miss Flintkote.”

“Not going to attempt my name?”

“No.”

“Chicken.”

At the Union...

“How did you know? You didn’t even discuss it with any of us.”

“A look at the Math Monday I could SEE the result in my head ... All fall down ... go boom...” I said that like I was three.

“You didn’t look at the board Friday.”

“If the premise is wrong ... no matter of argument will change the result.”

They stopped talking ... just took to pouting. I ate my Danish, sipped my coffee, gathered my junk and headed off to Auntie Mom’s class.

Four o’clock rolled around, I collected Alice and Two. We walked our bikes to the 18 bus. Murray was not waiting at the gate. Nope ... Murray was an orange smudge in the road. Someone had swerved and killed my cat!

I’m having a bad day ... week ... month. Well ... Shit! I cried.

Then I checked the internet.

Austin has a pile of Animal Shelters ... with pictures of the additions and residents.

“Animal Shelter.” Any number of names ... you choose.

“My cat I’ve had for 10 years was run over. What do you have?”

“An assortment. You should come see. Bring a parent.”

“Bengal?”

“Nope”

I heard that a lot. But I kept calling.

Finally ... on a wild hair ... I called Austin Wild Animal Rescue.

“Austin Wild Animal Rescue.”

“My cat of ten years, a Bengal named Murray was run over.”

“How do you know?”

“Tire tracks.”

“I see.” “Murray ... interesting name...”

“His choice.” I asked, “What do you have?”

“Mostly wild and injured ... but...”

My radar lit up on the but.

“Yes?” I said, anticipating something weird.

“Ever heard of a Savanna.”

“The Serengeti ... the Great American Desert ... the plains of Argentina ... Chile ... the Russian Steppes? Like that?”

“Nope ... the cat ... Savanna ... although you did better than the last 40 or so people that called.”

“You have one?”

“Fleeing from the Animal Control almost 10 months ago. Jumped the cat pen fence and lived. Hates cats ... loves people ... as long as they fit the proper mold. Nobody did.”

“Mind if I try?”

“Come ahead on if you’ve a mind to.”

“Where...?”

“Sorta behind the Greater Ulit Missionary Baptist Church on MLK.”

“I know where that is,” I said.

“Church there?”

“Bus three days a week ... college student.”

“See you soon.”