Numbed! by David Lubar

CHAPTER
5 + 4 − 8
    â€œ I wish we could go somewhere interesting,” Benedict said as we got off the bus with the rest of our class.
    â€œIt won’t be that bad,” I said.
    â€œAre you kidding, Logan? It’s math! It’s bad enough we have to do fifty zillion homework problems every day. And now, we get dragged here?” He flung his arm in the direction of the Mobius Mathematics Museum. It was shaped like the top half of a planet, with a giant, twisted steel ring circling a dome of colored glass. The ring was just high enough above the ground that people could walk under it and thick enough that I could probably walk inside of it, assuming it was hollow. The dome had craters and spikes scattered across the surface. Huge numbers, symbols, and equations were painted on it in random places in pink, yellow, red, and purple.
    â€œIt’s kind of a cool building,” I said, trying to get Benedict to calm down before our teacher, Ms. Fractalli, decided to make him stay on the bus. It was only our second month of sixth grade, and she’d already kept him after school twelve times. That’s not even counting all the times he had to miss recess.
    â€œNo,” Benedict said. “The natural history museum is cool. They have all sorts of dead things. I guarantee, this is going to be awful.” He jammed his Ravens hat tighter on his head. He always wore it for at least a week after his mom cut his hair.
    Ms. Fractalli turned around and said, “Benedict, I expect you to behave. And take off that hat before we go inside.” Then she pointed at me and flicked her finger toward herself, like she was tickling the belly of a tall dog. “Logan, come here.”
    I tapped my chest. “Me?”
    She double flicked. “You.”
    â€œHah—you’re in trouble,” Benedict said as he stuffed his hat in his back pocket.
    I ignored him and walked over to our teacher.
    She bent down, lowered her voice, and said, “I’m counting on you to see that Benedict behaves.”
    â€œMe?” This time, I didn’t tap any part of my body.
    â€œYou.” This time, she didn’t flick any fingers.
    â€œBut I can’t make him behave,” I said. She might as well have asked me to make the wind stop blowing.
    â€œSure, you can. You’re his friend. He listens to you. As I said, I’m counting on you. I know you won’t let me down.” She turned away before I could figure out how to convince her that whatever Benedict ended up doing, it wouldn’t be my fault.
    â€œI’ll try to keep you out of trouble,” Benedict said when I got back over to him. “But you’re going to have to stick close.”
    â€œThanks. I’ll do my best.”
    Our class streamed beneath the ring and through the front entrance of the museum. There was a big digital counter hanging from the ceiling just past the door. It was the same kind they use at the deli in the supermarket—but with a lot more digits. The numbers clicked forward, going up by two as Benedict and I went in.
    â€œI count!” Benedict said, pointing up at the display.
    He ran outside, slid to a halt, and let out a screech like a skidding car in a video game. He spun around and raced back. “And I count again,” he said.
    He did this twice more, bumping the count higher each time, before I could grab his shoulder and say, “Come on, the class is getting ahead of us.”
    We caught up with the end of the line as it reached the other side of the lobby. I noticed a video running on a big screen overhead. A man held up a strip of paper. “The Mobius strip is easy to make but amazing to explore,” he said. He gave the paper a twist and then taped the ends together, making a loop.
    He took a pencil and started to draw a line on the outside. “It only has one side,” he said.
    Our group moved out of the lobby, so I didn’t see the rest of the