The Mathematician

Chapter 1

Pete POV
And then I heard the sound of reality come back to me when he spoke.

"Pete ? Pete? Are you okay? Pete ?"

I opened my eyes and saw the whole class staring at me with Mr Reeve blankly looking at me with a marker in his hand.

I could see it in their eyes, they were shocked, they hate me because I'm different.

They were all whispering so it was hard to understand what they were saying because it's all incoherent.

However I did manage to pick out the words "Freak" and "Maths nerd" from Barry in the year above.

I took my books and stormed out of my chair.

"Excuse me" I said before walking out the classroom. Everyone laughing while I hid my face in embarrassment.

Over the course of the next 10 minutes I'd managed to make it down the stairs, out the building, behind a bush, onto the cold grass and started crying.

I buried my face in my knees and soaked my trousers with tears.

Suddenly I heard footsteps thud against the grass in front of me, familiar footsteps.

"Come on son" The figure said. Yup , that deep but sharp voice, it was Mr Parsons my old Physics teacher.

He touched my shoulder then took my hand in his.

*Present Day*

I woke up gasping for air once again, this is the third time I've done this in a week, I need to see a doctor or something.

I was looking around the room to try and find my maths books when I realised once again it was just a dream.

I create a face of confusion before I see a face popping through the side of the door.

"Mr Parsons ?" I call out.

"No idiot it's me, you know ? Your daughter ?" Of course, blimey, how could I forget my daughter? My own loving daughter?

I'm just kidding of course, she hates my guts. I don't feel that this point in the diary is the right time for me to explain why so for now let's just say it's  because of something that happened in the past.

"Oh, h-hi" I say to her. Oh God I must look like such an idiot right now, I hate embarrassing myself for Christ's sake.

"If you're gonna moan in your sleep you could at least do it quietly, anyway, it's 4 in the morning so I'm going back to bed, but of course you know that don't you ? You love maths , night"

I wish I could make things right with her, I truly do. I love her but she would never forgive me for what happened.

I better get some sleep, I've gotta get up and teach kids in 4 hours.

*5 hours later*

"-so if both the numerator and denominator have a common factor or letter or whatever, you eliminate both of them because they cancel each other out, leaving us with just 1 and 2, 2 divided by 1 is just 2 so the answer is 2"

I look away from the board to see the entire class leaning forward into their desks with their hands on their cheeks and their eyes closed. Yep, as always they were obviously bored.

However there was one boy smiling as if he understood it, yeah of course. Jake.

Jake was 15 Years old and just like me, he loved maths and science and always understood the second I explained it.

He raised his hand at me. "Yes Jake ?" I ask.

"Does that mean that another way of remembering it is because 1 goes into 2 twice ?" He's asks. A good question, and of course he's correct. I nod my head quickly and he smiles once again.

"Freak" I hear someone call out and quickly turn my head.

"Maths nerd" someone else says. That triggers me back into my dream. Barry bullying me every day for being smarter than him.

The worst part is that I know there's nothing I can do, because yeah I can put him in detention or get him excluded, but he's a teenager, no matter what you do with a bully or teenager, they never listen.

This kid will probably be teased in some way or another for the rest of his school life as long as he remains clever. He will take that pain but most likely become successful.

The people like Barry and this kid will just end up nowhere, and I hope they do to be honest. The first lesson of school is that you always have to try your best and concentrate. If you don't concentrate, you won't become successful, it's as simple as that, I know, I can relate to Jake.

I just sigh at him. Then the alarm at my computer goes off making me jump which means it's time for break. Thank God, no more teaching for 15 minutes.

After class Jake stays behind to ask me a maths question which I just laugh at and of course answer. He's so smart, I respect people like him.

*5 hours later*

Well I guess it's time to head home to Helen, hopefully she'll be in a better mood than she was earlier. Hopefully. But first just let me check on the kid.

I head down the stairs to where that bully from earlier hangs out with his mates. I see a large group of them sitting on the tennis court wall just laughing.

One of them notices me and stops laughing . "Hey Brent" the guy says. Oh yeah Brent that's the guys name. He looks at me sharply just like the teacher did in the dream.

"Oh hi sir" he says. "Hi Brent, just forgot to tell you today, you forgot your pencil case in maths, you left it on your desk" I say, I don't really want to say this in a nice manner because I hate this kid, but still, manners maketh man I guess"

He chuckles. "Oh did I ? How silly of me" he laughs again. Why is he being nice ? Probably showing off to his mates I assume, trying to make it seem like he's not as vile as he really is.

"Do you wanna come down and get it ?" I ask. "Yeah, thanks" he says.

On our way out of the tennis court I hear one of his mates say something.

"Prick"

Prick ? Ah I thought so, his mates arent nice, they're just like him, which means he was probably just acting nice to take the piss.

I pretend that I didn't hear anything and just carry on walking with Brent.

We get to a corner where I stop us.

"Mr Laurence ?" He's questions.

I take a deep breath and bring my fist right up to his face. I give him a quick slam and he immediately drops to the ground holding his nose in pain.

I see red drop from the bottom of his nose as he screams in agony. I smile.

"Don't ever go near Jake again" I warn

*2 hours later*

I'm sitting at my table when I receive a text from an unknown number, I look confused before I realised what it said.

'Hey Mr Laurence, it's June, Jakes mother, we spoke on the phone earlier,  is it done ? If so can we keep  this between ourselves ?"