“Are you finished?”

Georgeanne looked down at the scribbled-up page in front of her. She’d used her eraser so many times, the little answer boxes were a dull gray, and she’d ripped several three-corner tears next to the bundles of sticks. “No,” she said, and covered the paper with her hand.

“Let me see what you’ve done.”

Dread weighing her down, she rose from her chair, then made a great show of pushing it in at a precise angle. The soles of her patent leather shoes barely made a sound as she slowly walked to her teacher’s desk. She felt sick to her stomach.

Mrs. Noble took the messy paper from Georgeanne’s hand and studied the math problems. “You’ve done it again,” she said, irritation punctuating her words. Displeasure narrowed her brown eyes and pinched her thin nose. “How many times are you going to write down the wrong answers?”

Georgeanne glanced over her teacher’s shoulder to the social studies table where twenty small igloos had been constructed out of sugar cubes. There should have been twenty-one, but because of her poor penmanship, Georgeanne would have to wait to make her igloo. Maybe tomorrow. “I don’t know,” she whispered.

“I’ve told you at least four times that the answer to the first problem is not seventeen! So why do you keep writing it down?”

“I don’t know.” Over and over she’d counted each stick. There were seven in two bundles and three single twigs on the side. That made seventeen.

“I’ve explained this to you repeatedly. Look at the paper.”

When Georgeanne did as she was told, Mrs. Noble pointed to the first bundle of sticks. “This bundle represents ten,” she barked, and moved her finger over. “This bundle represents ten more, and we have three ones to the side. How many is ten plus ten?”

Georgeanne pictured the numbers in her head. “Twenty.”

“Plus three?”

She paused to count it out silently. “Twenty three.”