Munmun(52)

“Warner, how would you feel about having an afterschool and weekend mathtooter,” said Hue one night.

“Like a specialist, one of the top mathminds at Wet Almanac, a mysterious genius tobehonest,” added Kitty.

“I guess for sure, do you think that would really help though, isn’t my problem more just having a toosmall for math brain,” I asked.

“Do not ever allow yourself to think that for a second, infact rightnow go erase that thought with a lobotomy,” cried Kitty.

“This mathtooter is not who I think it is, is it,” Daisy wanted to know.

Everyone was nervously quiet.

“Who does Daisy think it is,” wondered Tony.

Daisy said, “Is it by any chance a guy who drove into a,” at that point she was drowned out however by Hue and Dawn and Kitty yelling, OKAY DAISY THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH, Tony was yelling it also without knowing why.

The guy was a junior named Markfive, one of the top mathstudents at Wet Almanac High, mysterious genius I guess in the sense of, it is a mystery how this kid could possibly be a genius at math. Because he was also a doofy drugster who kept crashing pricey cars into trees and houses and eventually the highwaycops couldn’t ignore it anymore, we need to find a way to punish this kid, obviously though not mess up his life toobad.

Fortunately there’s a great solution, Markfive’s mom is a steady donor to Hue Campain, therefore Markfive here’s your punishment, communityservice of tootering math to a middlepoor. Markfive meet scrappy little Warner, Warner feast your eyes on this handsome bushyhead slacker with his velvet hoods and slinky jeans.

How did he get his name, obviously he was the fifth son of a bigrich pharmalord named ofcourse Mark. Mark lived with his many staffers in the seaside bigburb of Balustrade, riding around on tanks and barges the way the biggest have to.

But Markfive and mom of Markfive weren’t bigs because their muns weren’t joined to his, mom wasn’t Mark’s wife, just a rando babymama. Therefore Mark didn’t grow up twelvescale in the giantville, instead twoandahalfscale back here in Wet Almanac, rattling around your basic twobedroom cliffside, every month their munflow quietly plumping with childsupport from Mark.

Turnedout that for mom of Markfive it was no great sadness not to be huge. She liked her nothuge life actually, glossyskinned middlerich woman basically just wining and dining as a job, fat and happy, sometimes dabbling in the opposite politics of her babydaddy to infuriate him.

Markfive somehow did have glorious math skills, teaching skills notsomuch. At the beginning I think his main focus was, maybe this roughandtough excon can get me some intresting drugs.

“Oh chill, look at you,” he yelled the first time he saw me, “you’re yoked as heck, so in your classes do you guys just lift weights and smoke weeds all day.”

“Weights forsure, weeds for me not really so much, but the other kids, whoknows, maybe we got a couple burnouts in there,” I said.

“Lol though, that would be me, puffing everyhour nodoubt, getting every kind of ripped, haha lol so are you in a gang like selling drugs or anything,” he asked.

“Nope,” I said.

“But wait, you were in jail though right,” he said.

“Yup,” I said.

“In jail don’t they beat the crap out of you if you’re not in a gang,” he said.

“Yeah, I got beat up a lot,” I said, “so anyway, area of a triangle, what’s that all about, like any random triangle.”

“One half basstimes height, so does Daisy ever talk about me, I mean probably not, nevermind, don’t tell her I asked you that,” he said.

“Sure thing,” I said. “Instead of Daisy maybe we could talk a little more about these mysterious basstimes.”

“Hey, look,” said Markfive. “Okay. Sorry, but first, before we get into it, hey. I just need to know. Are you going to ask me about my freaking dad.”

“Nope,” I said.

“My dad’s a tenbillionair,” said Markfive. “So, you know. Sickteenscale. Like basically a hundredfeet tall.”

“Prettybig,” I agreed.

“It’s just because everyone is always asking me, whoa, your dad is a tenbillionair, ohmygod, that must be so crazy, what’s it like having a bigrich dad, and, I gotta be honest, I just completely hate talking about him,” said Markfive.

“Goodnews, bigrich dads are not on the test,” I said, and he laughed way too hard, and then he did teach me some stuff about triangles, atleast until his focusmeds wore off and he had to start playing phonegames.

Most tootseshes went like that. Save some time learning secret math tactics, lose some time learning about random things Markfive likes and hates. Overall we were probably even, I guess atleast each of us had a new friend.

I called the Dockseye church every few nights to check in with Mom, it was too far to visit, three hours on the bus each way. In the doublecar it would be a fourtyminute drive, but I felt bad about asking for a ride.

Our convos always left me feeling funny, she was for sure happy me and Prayer were in school but mostly just wanted to scold me about not visiting church.

“Mom, this family doesn’t go to church, plus I don’t have time anyway, I’m studying twenfourseven,” I pleaded.

“Well that’s just crazy, you’re telling me you don’t have time for the Lord King God when He made all kinds of time for you, specifically to swoop down and save your life and give you all kinds of blessings it soundslike,” Mom piped up in her littlevoice, “your big red butt better be in a church this sondaymorning and ofcourse drag your sister nomatterwhat, if she falls back into that space cult it’s going to break my sad old heart.”