Electric Tacos (Wattys 2023)

THREE

Science was weird to Mateo. Everything from the equations to the mixtures, to the effects, to the facts made his head spin. He wanted to understand it, but he lost interest easily.

His mind flit a lot, and his thoughts distracted him from focusing on the pages in front of him.

The harder he tried to, the more tired he became, to the point where he was yawning in class.

"Mateo, can you tell me what pi is?" Mr. Keating asked.

Mateo froze for a second. "... Something you eat?"

Half the class burst out laughing as Mr. Keating shook his head at him, unimpressed. "No, Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. We can use it to measure planets."

"...Well that's a relief," Mateo said back, forgetting he was in class.

Mr. Keating looked over at him. "I'll see you after class."

Mateo nodded and mumbled. "It's not like I have anywhere important to go after."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing." Mateo smiled back, writing down words on his notepad. "Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter..."

After a few moments, he lost interest and started drawing random shapes in his book, one of which looked rather phallic.

Ricky poked him. "Dude."

"Dude, what?" Mateo was zoning out.

"Focus on the class. Focus on pi, not on drawing dicks."

"I'm practicing anatomy."

"You should be drawing heads, for Pi."

Mateo started to doodle a cartoon version of Ricky, with a shaved head, thick eyebrows, and a dopey sad expression, wearing a black t-shirt.

It said 'I cry for Pi' in a speech bubble beside it.

Mateo smirked. "Why do you cry for Pi?"

Ricky shook his head and scoffed. "Pi won't be the only thing crying if you don't do your work. Focus on finding that tasty mathematical snack, and divide the circumference by the diameter."

Mateo scoffed. "You sound lame."

"I'm not lame. I know the radius and circumference of Mercury." Ricky winked. "15,329 km and 2,440 km."

"Why do we need to know this, if we're never visiting it?"

"We need to learn the skills; research skills, mental math, and fact-checking observations, aight? You don't wanna be a bigger dumbass than you already are."

Mateo drew some more. "Yeah, whatever." He looked at Ricky's hooped earring. "How did you get away with wearing that during P.E.?"

"I didn't draw attention to it like you did with your yawning."

"I didn't mean to."

"But you did." Ricky looked at Mateo's sheet and shook his head. "Not tryna be your Dad here, but this is awful. Disgraceful. No es normal."

Mateo put his pencil down. "How's it not normal? I'm struggling and I need help."

"But you're not really trying, and don't really care, so I'm kinda wasting my time aren't I?"

Mateo picked his pen up and looked at the lesson on the board and began copying it down onto his notepad, exactly how it looked.

Ricky was impressed. "Can you try and remember that now?"