the summer i was ten

[deepest_magic]

Bella is ten. School has let out; she spends one week at the beach with Renée, celebrating, and then from there Renée drives her up to Forks, and drops her off, with many hugs. Charlie picks her up, with some hugs, although not as many; it's not his way. Bella settles in for the summer. It is, if nothing else, cooler up here.

Comments

[neverbeatme]

"I'm not sure that's what I meant," she says thoughtfully.

[deepest_magic]

Bella tilts her head.

[neverbeatme]

Elizabeth shakes hers.

"'Too honest' was mostly a joke. What I figured out about you is something else, but I don't know how to explain it. Just that there's skills you need to get elected to something, and you could learn them but you wouldn't be a natural, and it wouldn't suit you as much as other stuff."

[deepest_magic]

"How come you want to be a mathematician?" asks Bella.

[neverbeatme]

"Because I'd be really good at it."

[deepest_magic]

"What do mathematicians even do? My math teacher says it gets more interesting than adding fractions and finding least common denominators but he didn't explain how."

[neverbeatme]

"It gets way more interesting than that," laughs Elizabeth. "Mathematicians mostly go around proving things, and proofs are really fun. To me. They are not really fun to most people or there would be way more mathematicians around."

[deepest_magic]

"What kind of things do you prove?"

[neverbeatme]

"Um... think of it this way," she says. "Math is really just a pretty small set of pretty simple rules called axioms. All the interesting stuff like calculus and linear algebra, somebody had to figure out how to do, just based on those small simple rules. Mathematicians look at the rules, and everything that everybody else has already figured out about how they work, and they figure out new stuff from there. It's kind of like science, but with pure logic instead of the physical world."

[deepest_magic]

Bella thinks about this. "Huh," she says. "That sounds interesting. I don't know about fun, but if you think it's fun you should do it."

[neverbeatme]

"It is really fun!"

[deepest_magic]

"Okay then," says Bella. "Math for you, something to be figured out later for me."

[neverbeatme]

"Sounds like a plan."

[deepest_magic]

"Yes. An incomplete but totally good plan."

[neverbeatme]

"Hey, never underestimate the importance of the 'figure out what the heck you're doing' step," she says.

[deepest_magic]

"I never do," says Bella.

[neverbeatme]

"Good! It is vitally important and nobody ever gets anywhere by skipping it."

[deepest_magic]

"You mean the movies lied to me?" giggles Bella.

[neverbeatme]

"That is their job."

[deepest_magic]

"Professional liar movies," snickers Bella.

[neverbeatme]

"It's true," she says solemnly. "Ask anybody. If they don't know what you're talking about, you know the movies are doing a really good job."

[deepest_magic]

Bella bursts into helpless laughter.

[neverbeatme]

Elizabeth giggles.

[deepest_magic]

"I like you," Bella declares when she's simmered down some. "Do you want to keep me when you grow up?"

[neverbeatme]

"I think I might!"